The Profiler

It seems as though Rachel Syme has interviewed all the grandes dames of New York and Los Angeles. She drank cosmopolitans with Carol Burnett, accompanied Sarah Jessica Parker to the ballet, shopped at Rachel Comey with Parker Posey, gabbed with Patti LuPone over Skype, and gabbed with Barbra Streisand on a landline. At a time when the glossy magazine profile seems hopelessly compromised, Syme uses her deep knowledge of musicals, fashion, and old Hollywood to add substance to what could be breezy brushes with fame and fortune. And she loves a good yarn. Our conversation is full of behind-the-scenes stories, which show how the interview can transform a mere celebrity into an idol.Merve Emre: Most of the people in our audience are college students. How did you get from where they are to where you are today?Rachel Syme: I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I always wanted to get to New York. I went to Stanford in California and didn’t have designs on being a writer, I just knew that I wanted to do something in New York with publishing. I was a big reader, and I wrote, but I didn’t really know that journalism was something I could do. I came to New York in the mid-2000s and did the Col...