Author John Green on the real reason Cara Delevingne's interview was so damn awkward.

Author John Green defends Cara Delevingne's awkward interview in a searing essay.

Earlier this week, an interview with Cara Delevingne about her new film Paper Towns was all over the internet. There's no doubt that the interview was very awkward. The interviewer called her by the wrong name and suggested that she needed a nap. It was… not great.

But author John Green, who wrote the novel on which the film was based, has written an essay defending Cara – and gave an excellent insight into the ridiculous world of promoting films.

One of the most infuriating things for Delevingne (and Green) was how often she was asked whether she had read the book on which her film was based. Green says:

"I am friends with Cara and the author of the book in question. I spent more than a month with her on tour in Europe and the U.S., and I watched as again and again, she was asked this question. Cara has read the book (multiple times), but the question is annoying — not least because her male costar, Nat Wolff, was almost always asked when he'd read the book, while Cara was almost always asked if she'd read it."

Green says that when it comes to judging these interviews, context is everything. The context for promoting Paper Towns was that they were constantly asked the same questions, including questions that fundamentally misunderstood the point of the film:

"I was lucky to share most of my interviews with Nat, one of my closest and most trusted friends, and to learn from him how to deal with uncomfortable questions. (For instance, when asked is X a good kisser, or if X is a better kisser than Y, Nat gently explains that he doesn't answer questions about kissing because the women he works with should be talked about for their performances in the film not for their kissing.) But I never really got good at junketry. I just sort of gave up.

"Like, there's a line in the beginning of the novel: 'Everyone gets a miracle.' The male narrator of the story believes his miracle is Margo Roth Spiegelman, the character Cara plays in the movie. Later in the book, the boy realises that Margo is not a miracle, that she is just a person, and that his imagining her as a miracle has been terribly hurtful to them both. But still, I was asked over a hundred times, 'Who's your miracle?" At first, I tried to fight it, tried to argue that we must see people as people, that we must learn to imagine them complexly instead of idealizing them, and that the romantic male gaze is limiting and destructive to women. That's the whole point of the story to me."

But Green says that Delevingne didn't come up with a scripted answer for the same boring questions. She answered honestly every time.

"Cara, however, refuses to stick to the script. She refuses to indulge lazy questions and refuses to turn herself into an automaton to get through long days of junketry. I don’t find that behaviour entitled or haughty. I find it admirable. Cara Delevingne doesn't exist to feed your narrative or your news feed — and that's precisely why she’s so f**king interesting."

So there you have it: On Green's reading, an incredibly awkward interview happened not because Delevingne was giving up, but because she was paying attention and not taking any sh*t.

And that's an approach we can all get behind…

Cara Delevingne has responded to the very awkward interview where the morning TV anchors got her name wrong and then called her out for not being excited to talk to them.

After Cara pulled the plug on the cringe-worthy chat, the Good Day Sacramento anchors proceeded to blast her for "being in a mood" while failing to apologise or admit that they had all stuffed up.

Then one of the anchors, Marianne McClary, threw more shade at Cara with a tweet about actor Sir Ian McKellan, who she called "a true class act", implying that Cara was anything but.

But Cara wasn't taking that. She tweeted, "Some people just don't understand sarcasm or the British sense of humour."

This got thousands of responses from fans and celebrities alike, but our favourite? Scrubs actor Zach Braff summed up everything that was wrong with the interview:

"@Caradelevingne or how it's condescending to ask an actress if she's read the book."

Nice one, Cara. May you keep using sarcasm in interviews forever.

Take it from us. Celebrity interviews are HARD. It's stressful, nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing. As an interviewer, you can accidentally stuff up from time to time and try to cover your tracks, OR instead of apologising and erasing it from people's memories, it becomes a viral video.

Which is pretty much how an interview on the US morning show Good Day Sacramento went when the anchors interviewed model/actress Cara Delevingne.

Cara, 22, was promoting her new movie Paper Towns when she called in from New York City to talk about the film. What followed was the most painful four minutes we have ever watched.

If you thought our interview with comedian/former imaginary BFF Amy Schumer was bad, you need to watch this.

It all started to go downhill around the moment Cara was introduced as "Carla", then continued to plummet as Cara tried to be sarcastic, but ended up just seeming like she didn't want to be there.

Note to interviewers: Try to get the name right. Then try not to complain loudly about the guest on live television.

Note to celebrities being interviewed: If you're on a delayed, crappy phone connection, don't try to be sarcastic. It doesn't work.

Smile and nod, people. Smile and nod.

Do you think Cara or the anchors were to blame for this horrible interview?

Feature Image: Booktopia/Twitter.