SHE CAME TO NEW YORK TO SAVE MTV AND BECAME HER GENERTION'S SMARTEST, COOLEST, AND MOST-TALKED-ABOUT TALK SHOW HOST IN THE PROCESSS
Alexa Chung, the recent London expat and Brooklyn resident whose MTV show It’s On with Alexa Chung took over the coveted TRL spot this summer, is a busy lady. An average day goes something like this: up at 6:40 a.m., she gets dressed and heads over the Williamsburg Bridge to the MTV offices. Once there, she’s briefed, goes through the day’s scripts, gets her hair and makeup done, and reviews her audio cues. Next, she’s on set, where she greets the day’s special guests, pumps up the crowd, and does her show. The audience goes nuts, the show ends, there are meetings about the next day’s schedule, then a security guard walks her to her car for the ride home. It was there, in the backseat, that she finally found time to do an interview. Here, the new darling of daytime talk discusses her hit show, grumpy guests, and her new life on this side of the pond. Derek Blasberg
Dress Dolce & Gabbana
DEREK BLASBERG How was your show today?
ALEXA CHUNG Great! I had Jason Bateman on, and he’s amazing.
DB Do you meet your guests before the show?
AC Yeah, just before, but it’s very quick.
DB You know, Oprah doesn’t meet her guests beforehand.
AC What? Why not?
DB Because she wants the initial reaction to be seen on TV and shared with her public.
AC That’s ’cause she’s optimistic, and she’s banking on everyone loving Oprah. I’m worried my guests won’t like me, so I have to get the awkwardness out of the way in the beginning.
DB Oh, come on, are you really worried?
AC I’m just trying to suss them out so I know if I’m going to have to work hard for the interview, if they’re going to be chatty or not.
DB Without naming names, have you met someone during this pregame and thought, Well, this is going to be awful?
AC Hmmm, there have been some shitty Disney stars on the show. But they’re never horrible; they’re always really nice. Oh, I just thought of one: Christopher Mintz-Plasse was a bit of a nob. He was the real geek in Superbad, not Michael Cera. But most people are all right, and they talk. To be honest, it’s usually the publicists who are the dickheads. They get paid to do the dirty work. [To the driver] Hey, can you drive a bit slower?
DB You don’t like to go fast. You’re wearing a seat belt too.
AC I wear it always, even in yellow taxis. They can drive like real wankers in this town. I get scared.
DB Right, so apart from the transportation, how is New York treating you? Do you like living in Williamsburg?
AC It’s really nice, but I think my apartment is too shiny. I just found out that [the actor] Ian Somerhalder used to live in it. And the other day when I was in the laundry room, I heard that Michael Douglas’s son is looking to move into the building.
DB So what does all that mean?
AC It means I’m paying too much money to live in Williamsburg!
DB Is it a posh apartment then? Do you have a doorman?
AC Yeah, there’s a doorman.
Top, skirt, belt Chanel
Jacket Chung’s own
DB Oh, for some reason I thought you were roughing it in hard-core Brooklyn. Like, I thought you lived in a tenement.
AC No, it’s not. It’s shiny!
DB You hate shiny. That’s one of my first memories of you: you were carrying a new Louis Vuitton bag and you hated how new it looked, so you kept slamming it against buildings and kicking it. Why do you hate shiny things so much?
AC I guess I like things to look more authentic. Or maybe I just like that haggard look. I grew up in a cottage, so I like things to look like the plaster is falling off.
DB Do you think it’s easier or harder to make friends now that you have a TV show?
AC I don’t really have any friends in America.
DB Ouch!
AC Well, I have some friends. But I’m working all the time, and, also, I just think that I’m a good judge of character.
DB And there isn’t anyone good to meet in this town?
AC I just don’t tolerate douche bags. You get them in England too, those people who just sort of hang out and hold coats or something. But there’s more of them here. It’s like they make jobs as friends, like your best friend is your stylist now.
DB What do you miss most about the homeland?
AC Life is a bit less professional in England, and it seems like everyone is on a bit of a jolly. Here you have people—and this can be a good thing—who take their job very seriously, even if they’re doing something awful.
DB Will you go back to England when this MTV gig is done?
AC I don’t know. I went to a wedding last weekend [in England] and when I got back here I was quite relieved to be home in New York. Whoa, I guess that’s the first time I actually said that and meant it: “Home in New York.”
Photography Sharif Hamza
Styling Catherine Newell-Hanson
Makeup Tamah Krinsky (See Management)
Hair Rebecca Plymate (See Management)
Photo assistant Kaita Takemura
Stylist assistant Ryan Jordan
Retouching Silhouette
Special thanks Pier 59 Studios, NYC
