GIVE ME THE BIGGEST FUCKING HEART IN THE ROOM: Shop talk with Jones

Thanks to our buddy Erik Hahmann (@ehahmann) for this Q and A with the lovely and talented Chris Jones.

You've written a number of profiles in your career, perhaps most famously Roger Ebert. Is there a specific challenge that you face with them?

For me, if there's a problem, that problem is almost always falling in love. There are exceptions, of course. I've profiled people I've loathed, and I've profiled people I ended up feeling pretty ambivalent about, which is probably a bad sign when you're writing a profile. Ambivalence isn't a great hook.

But there are subjects for whom I felt love and still do, and I don't use that word lightly. Roger is a good example of that. I was already a great…