I
n her years since graduating from
North Farmington High School, then
college, Mara Reinstein has made
her home in New York City. There, she
launched a highly successful career
chasing celebrity scoops and watching
millions of movies to let her readers
know whether they should invest their
dollars at the local cineplex.
And she does so in a voice brimming
with wit, fun and a love for her work
that makes readers wish we could join
her on her escapades (and not just
so we can meet George Clooney!). So,
when it came time to catch up with this
hometown girl, who better to interview
Reinstein — than Reinstein?
Q: Did you always want
to be a writer?
A: Definitely. I knew it from the
moment I won a writing contest in
second grade at Hillel Day School. My
reward was a king-sized Hershey bar. I
equated quality writing with chocolate.
This was good enough of an incentive
for me to keep going. Also, I’m terrible
at math.
Q: How’d you get your
professional start?
A: The Detroit News used to have a sec-
tion called WPG — Without Parental
Guidance. I read it all the time in high
school. In 1991, there was a contest to
be a teen movie critic. Getting paid to
watch movies?! Yes, please. I submit-
ted a review of a lame Danny DeVito
comedy and got the gig. After school,
I did my French homework and wrote
important, topical essays about teen
culture, such as why the third season of
Beverly Hills, 90210 was not up to snuff.
The summer before my senior year of
high school, I was supposed to be a
counselor at the JCC. But the manag-
ing editor of the Detroit News called me
at home and asked if I wanted to work
downtown in the features department
of the paper instead. I accepted and
never bothered to tell the JCC. On my
very first day, I called up celebrities
such as Steve Martin and Teri Garr and
asked if they had any well wishes for
David Letterman before he started his
new late-night show on CBS. I always
joke that my professional career peaked
when I was 17.
Q: Did you do your parents a favor
and go to college in Michigan?
A: Nope! I went to the University of
Missouri, which has a top-notch jour-
nalism school. Mind you, its most
famous J-school alum is Brad Pitt. But
I spent my summers in Detroit doing
incredible internships — including
one at the Jewish News in 1996. Writer
Jennifer Finer [Lovy] let me tag along
on a super-plum assignment: An inter-
view with then-Detroit Tigers-catcher
Brad Ausmus at the old Tiger Stadium.
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He gave us a private tour of the locker
room (low ceilings!) and the offices. We
did the interview in the dugout, where
he broke it to us gently that he was a
Jew in name only.
Q: How did you get involved with
celebrity journalism?
A: When I worked at the city newspa-
per in college, I cowered in the bath-
room whenever an editor wanted to
assign a breaking-news story. I was not
cut out to sit in courtrooms or report
from the scene of an accident. I’m the
girl who subscribed to 18 different
teen magazines and hung up posters
of cute idols on my purple walls. That’s
how I wanted to make a living. Two
years after I graduated Mizzou, I got
my dream job at Teen People magazine.
I interviewed everyone from Beyonce
to Anne Hathaway before they got
super-famous. In 2002, I was recruited
to work at Us Weekly. I stayed at Us full
time for 15 years. I basically grew bar-
nacles.
Q: Your biggest scoop at
Us Weekly. Go.
A: Personally? At the height of Friends
fame, Anna Faris slipped to me in
an interview that star Courtney Cox
was pregnant. We made it the cover.
We broke a dozen cheating scandals.
Celebrities are more careless than
you’d think. I pulled a true all-nighter
for Britney Spears’ wedding to Kevin
Federline in 2004. We had somehow
obtained their pre-nuptial agreement,
which alleged that the wedding was
not legally binding. We ran the story to
mess with our competitors at People
magazine. They paid through the nose
for the exclusive. I had the pre-nup in
my desk drawer for 13 years. I was ter-
rified to throw it away.
Q: And now you’re a movie critic?
Tough life!
A: I started early. Really early. My
dad [Alan and mom Natie still live in
Farmington Hills] used take me and
my twin brother [Frank; she also has a
sister, Shelley] to rated R movies at the
Telex theater in Southfield as a form
of babysitting. MTV was a hard no,
but he happily escorted small children
to see Saturn 3, Brainstorm, The Right
Stuff, Chariots of Fire and really raun-
chy comedies. It’s a thrill to be able to
do this full time now as the longtime
film critic for Us Weekly. I also have my
own site, MaraMovies.com. And I’m a
contributing entertainment editor for
Parade. It keeps me out of trouble.
Q: What’s your favorite movie?
A: I’ve seen Back to the Future and Dirty
Dancing a combined 1,357 times. The
greatest movies are the ones you loved
in your formative years. But don’t get
me started on their sequels. •
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