Lady Gaga, Mike Tyson, Paris Hilton, Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Helena Bonham Carter. Those are a handful of the celebrities interviewed by Simon Hattenstone, a feature reporter for the Guardian. Many people dream of meeting someone famous, for Hattenstone, it’s part of the job. Though some interviews have gone better than others.

“I did an interview with Lou Reed. He was a monster, I thought he was going to hit me,” Hattenstone said. “Then there was Leonardo DiCaprio who walked out on me.”

What could he have said to upset the actor so? In retrospect, Hattenstone said he had it coming.

“I said to him ‘Leo, Can I be really honest with you?’ and he said ‘Yeah, of course, that’s why we’re here.’ Which was rubbish, the last thing he wanted to do was tell me anything,” Hattenstone said. “And I say ‘Well, you know your first films were absolutely brilliant…can you agree that the last ones have been a bag of shite?’”

Hattenstone never dreamed of becoming a journalist. Growing up working class, he never really dreamed of having much of a career at all.

“If you ask many of the people here, they would tell you they knew what they wanted to do and knew they were going to be journalists. But if I told that to you, I’d be lying,” Hattenstone said.

He graduated college with a degree in English, then a degree in education. In college, he worked on the student paper. He never considered journalism untill he began teaching and realized how much he hated being an instructor. After a series of stints at other papers, Hattenstone became a free lance writer at the Guardian. It took him many years to get a permanent position of Sub Editor. From there he got a position as film editor in the arts section. Then he moved to doing the Monday Interview, which was “just what it sounded like. A 2000 word interview in the Monday paper.”

Now, he is features writer for the Saturday Magazine, a supplemental piece that comes with the Saturday edition. In he interviews celebrities and politicians, though he really prefers doing investigative journalism.

“One of the things I’m really pleased with that I did a bit ago was a piece about a woman who had been sexually attacked and reported it to the police. And her family–she lived in a very white part of Britain and she was mixed race–had had trouble with the police before. They reported the attack and then about two weeks later, she realized that  the mood had changed and they weren’t investigating the attack on her, they were investigating her as a suspect.”

Crime and Punishment seems to be of particular interest to Hatterstone. He has interviewed people serving life sentences. In 2009, he did an interview with Amanda Knox’s mother. He and Knox, an American girl in Italy charged with  murdering her roommate and is being held in prison,  have become unlikely pen pals.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever use that…there’s kind of a moral dilemma. There are many papers that would take these letters and splash them all over the front page; ‘Amanda Knox Writes To Our Reporter,’ but I think that would just be a betrayal of trust,” Hattenstone said. “I do support her, I don’t think she did it.

The piece Hattenstone is most proud of deals with a “miscarriage of Justice.” In 1993, two black teenagers, Duwayne Brooks and Stephen Lawrence were waiting at a bus stop when  assailants attacked Lawrence, stabbing him and leaving him to bleed to death. This hate crime led to a trial, but the charges were dropped due to lack of police evidence. This led to an Inquiry Report which found the police to be “institutionally racist,” and that they had not investigated the murder to the best of their abilities. Meanwhile Duwayne Brooks was the target of much anger.

“Stephen’s mom hated him because he was still alive…the lawyers hated him because they thought he had lost them the case when it was brought to private prosecution. And the police hated him because,” Hattenstone said. “The police got a vendetta against him and they started charging him with all these trumped up things.”

Ten years after the murder, Hattenstone interviewed Brooks, letting him tell his side of the story and share his troubles. Hattenstone followed Brooks for the worst year of his life; Brooks was charged with attempted rape, lost his job, and had to leave London. Hattenstone documented the man’s struggles. This article, this opportunity for him to share his story, changed the down and out man’s life.

“It changed Duwayne’s life for the better. People started leaving him alone. We wrote a book together, I ghost wrote it for him. He said later that he feels much lighter, less defensive, doesn’t always have to tell people the story because it’s out there. That’s the piece I’m most pleased with,” Hattenstone said. In recent years, Brooks has gone into politics.

To get good stories, one must do strong interviews. In Hattenstone’s opinion, a reporter must never shy away from the hard questions, no matter if they are interviewing a celebrity or a prisoner. If a reporter wants a strong story, “you have to make people trust you.” if the interviewee likes the interviewer, they are more likely to give them straight answers to difficult questions.

“Whether you are dealing with a miscarriage of justice or someone who has committed a horrible crime, you have to ask them hard questions like ‘did you commit the crime?’ ‘why did you commit the crime?’ … and if you are interviewing someone famous, you have to ask ‘well, why did you cheat on that?’ or ‘why was this film rubbish?’ In a way, they’re all hard questions, just different kinds of questions,” Hattenstone explains.

Another Hattenstone tip for reporters: be bold.

“What I think the most important thing to do is be really, really nosy and ask questions directly. I don’t like interviews where they won’t ask the person they’re interviewing nosy questions like ‘are you gay?’ or ‘did you do this?’ or ‘are you a bastard?’ and then suggest it in the article,” Hattenstone said. “What I try to do in an interview is ask them directly. So even if they get really pissed off with you or chuck you our or whatever, then they aren’t shocked by the article because they had been asked.”

So what is a typical day like for a feature reporter at a leading newspaper? Not as glamorous as one may imagine.

“I try to go to [staff] conferences, find out what’s happening…I spend a lot of time transcribing interviews which takes forever. I get a lot of the writing done at home, late at night,” Hattenstone said. “In ways it’s flexible, but in other ways it’s inflexible. I can pick up my kids from school, but then there will be times when I have to say ‘Sorry guys, I have to go to America for four days tomorrow.’ Which is exciting, but not as glamorous as it sounds.”

As for the future of journalism, Hattenstone finds it “hard to be positive.” This is a “tricky time” for journalists and publications all over the world. With newspapers being downsized and digitalized, and salaries being deflated, journalism in the future will not be what we currently have.

“I think there will always be demand. I think the idea that anyone can do journalism is crap because you need skill,” Hattenstone said “Anyone can observe something or film something, but that does not make a good story or film. But it can provide [fodder] for [journalists] and that’s great.”

Despite the difficulties that come with the job, Hattenstone loves working at the Guardian and enjoys what he does. “It’s a great job. There’s nothing else I’d rather do,” Hattenstone said.

So what can an aspiring reporter do to become a strong journalist (and consequentially, make themselves marketable)?

“Be passionate, be nosy, be interested in people. Never forget that it’s about communicating. A lot of journalists think it’s about imaginative words and being a fabulous writer.And yes, it’s great if you can be an amazing writer, but a lot of it is being inquisitive,” Hatterstone advised. “As journalists, you are part entertaining people and part informing people. It doesn’t have to be entertaining and informing about show biz, it’s just as valid informing about miscarriages of justice. the important thing is to care about what you are writing.”