Editor • NYT Writer • Celeb Interviewer
CHRIS AZZOPARDI
Editorial Director + Journalist
I've been published in Vanity Fair, GQ, Billboard, New York Magazine and The New York Times, where I am a regular film and culture contributor. My one-on-one interviews have ranged from cultural luminaries like Beyoncé and Chappell Roan to influential politicians such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Currently, I am editorial director and celebrity interviewer for Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate, the LGBTQ+ wire service. I am very proud of one of our most recent covers, which features original artwork by a 15-year-old trans kid.
My 2014 interview with Sinéad O'Connor is among a select group of interviews featured in "Sinéad O'Connor: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations," a collection published by Penguin Random House.
In 2021, I was hired to do the question-writing and prep work for the producers of the Paris and Kathy Hilton interview featured on Netflix's "Go Ask Your Mother."
At the end of 2023, I interviewed Cher for this exclusive, coordinated by Cher's longtime publicist Liz Rosenberg (Madonna, Stevie Nicks). In a followup after the interview, Rosenberg emailed me and wrote, "Really that was one of my favorite Cher interviews. You were both perfection."
Also, RuPaul reads me.
To discover more about my work, click here. And for freelance and other work-related inquiries, please reach out to me here.
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REVIEWS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 2024
Finding and securing a sense of belonging is at the heart of “High Tide.” This poignant film, written and directed by Marco Calvani, highlights the life that Lourenço (Marco Pigossi) strives to protect as a gay Brazilian in the United States.
Newly dumped by his boyfriend, Lourenço is suddenly alone for the summer, working under the table in Provincetown, Mass., on a tourist visa. In this gay haven, he is far away from his religious mother, whom he isn’t out to. (On a video call, she questions whether he has a photo of Jesus in his bedroom.)
The cinematographer, Oscar Ignacio Jimeñez, shoots Provincetown — a “beautiful bubble,” as Lourenço calls it — as if it is wrapping its cleansing shores and cozy cottages around Lourenço, who makes ends meet by cleaning houses.
August 2024
While sex drives “Sebastian,” the movie is stuck in foreplay mode. It follows Max (Ruaridh Mollica), a freelance writer, on a journey toward empowerment. Sex is the impetus for the book Max believes, at just 25, he’s getting too old to write. And so, for literary inspiration, he has more sex himself. Older men enjoy his company. And what’s a coming-of-age tale without an orgy?
Then he ponders a question: Should this be a novel or a memoir? This central dilemma, probed by the writer-director Mikko Makela, comes down to authenticity, as Max grapples with his relationship to his sexuality while navigating a double life as an escort (who goes by Sebastian) in London. Mollica effectively captures Max’s wariness, as if he bears the weight of generations of sexual shame. As a sketch of a person, you may understand him if you’ve been him.
June 2024
Illness shows no regard for even the most revered figures in pop music.
In “I Am: Celine Dion,” a documentary about the global songstress on Amazon Prime Video, it quickly becomes clear that Dion can’t even move her body, let alone deliver a soaring ballad with the full force that, from her teenage years on, roused millions. The film, by the director Irene Taylor, records the singer’s agonizing reality as she battles the rare neurological condition called stiff person syndrome.
In an Instagram post in December 2022, Dion tearfully revealed her diagnosis to her fans, but the documentary had already been in production by then. Taylor opens the film with relaxed scenes of Dion at her home in Las Vegas with her children and staff. Then the part that’s painful to watch: The singer is heard moaning as she has a seizure on the floor. Learning early on that she had always wanted to sing “all my life” intensifies the tragedy of watching Dion, now 56, struggle to continue to live that dream. Dion’s voice made her a star; this film is keen on making her a person.
r a star; this film is keen on making her a person.
