Marriage Story star Adam Driver really doesn’t like the sound of his own voice, as the actor reportedly walked out of a recent interview after a clip of his performance from the movie was played. To help promote the Netflix Original, Driver had been scheduled to speak about the movie on the National Public Radio talk show Fresh Air with host Michael Gross. According to a new report, a clip of Driver singing “Being Alive” from the movie was played at some point during the interview, at which point Driver left after “expressing displeasure at the idea of listening to a clip of himself.”
Fresh Air executive producer Danny Miller has since confirmed that Driver abruptly left in the middle of the interview after a clip from Marriage Story was played back for the show’s listeners to hear. “We don’t really understand why he left,” Miller is quoted as saying by The Daily Beast, though I would personally surmise that listening to himself sing was probably even harder for Driver than simply hearing himself reciting lines. Miller adds: “We were looking forward to the interview-Terry thinks he’s a terrific actor, he was a great guest when he was on Fresh Air in 2015-so we were disappointed that we didn’t have a new interview to share with our listeners about Marriage Story.”
The Fresh Air staff were also aware of Driver’s preference to never listen to his own performances, as the subject had been spoken about during the actor’s aforementioned interview with the NPR show back in 2015. On the show at the time, Driver refused to listen to an audio clip of himself, to which Gross directly asked him why. In response, Driver explained, “I’ve watched myself or listened to myself before, then always hate it. And then wish I could change it, but you can’t. And I think I have, like, a tendency to try to make things better or drive myself and the other people around me crazy with the things I wanted to change or I wish I could change.”
Rather than release segments of the unfinished interview, NPR shelved the episode entirely, instead playing a rerun of a previous interview with late night legend Conan O’Brien. For what it’s worth, the decision does not appear to be personal, as Driver’s fear of hearing himself has been likened to a “phobia.” His uneasiness with listening to his own performances has also been rather well-documented, and Driver has also previously regaled how watching himself act in Star Wars: The Force Awakens made him feel nauseated and recalled himself hiding in a greenroom during a BlacKkKlansman screening.
Driver himself won’t be watching, but the rest of us can check him out in the new movie Marriage Story which is now streaming on Netflix. The actor will also be back on the big screen as Kylo Ren when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premieres in theaters on Dec. 20. He can also be seen starring alongside Marion Cotillard in the upcoming musical Annette from director Leos Carax and writers Ron and Russell Mael. This news comes to us from The Daily Beast.
