Kim Masters is host of KCRW’s “The Business” and editor-at-large of The Hollywood Reporter. Before moderating a panel on whether we’re living in the golden age of television, she visited the green room to express her admiration for Stephen Colbert, Elizabeth Bennet, and Matt Damon-and to offer some sound advice from her mother on what not to do when you’re cut off on the road.
Q. Where can we find you at 8:00 on a typical Friday night?
A. Being a couch potato. I have two jobs, both of which are pretty demanding. And I’m lazy.
Q. What’s the last thing you saw or heard on TV that made you laugh?
A. Stephen Colbert. His material about the Super PACs and his decision to run in South Carolina as Herman Cain. [Laughs.] I can’t even talk about it without laughing-it’s just genius.
Q. Whom do you talk to on the phone most often?
A. I spend an incredible amount of time on the phone with studio executives, producers, agents … And my daughter.
Q. What surprises you most about your life right now?
A. Given that journalism has been so challenged by the digital revolution, I’m surprised to have two really good jobs, not just one. A little greedy of me, maybe. I never thought I would be a radio person. And I’m even surprised that I eventually got married and had a family. Pretty much everything about my life at this time surprises me every day.
Q. How do you react when someone cuts you off on the road?
A. With or without my daughter in the car? I have been known to extend a digit. But I try to bear in mind my mother’s frequent warnings that the person in the other car has a gun and will kill me.
Q. Who’s been your favorite interview subject?
A. I don’t interview actors that often, and when I do interview actors, it’s often something I would just as soon not have done because it spoils the performance. But Matt Damon is actually a person, a smart person. And Werner Herzog was amazing and fun.
Q. What did you have for breakfast today?
A. That’s the question I ask guests on the show. A bowl of cereal.
Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?
A. Take a long break from regular work and finish a book I started writing. But I don’t have that nerve.
Q. What fictional character do you identify with most?
A. At the risk of sounding maybe very unoriginal, I think I have to say Elizabeth Bennet. I’m sorry, but I’ve been a Jane Austen fan since I was in college, and nothing has changed my mind.
Q. What do you proselytize for?
A. There are things I would love to proselytize for, but as a working journalist I’m supposed to keep my opinions to myself.
Q. What’s on your nightstand right now?
A. A large Advil bottle. My Kindle Fire, which I read but feel guilty about because I know it’s bad for bookstores. Probably an emery board.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.