By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, May 2012
In late May 2012, FishbowlLA noted that Deadline.com’s Mike Fleming — despite the relentless pace of his Hollywood-scoop reporting — had continued one longstanding freelance tradition: the Playboy Interview. The original framing documented that Fleming had contributed roughly two dozen of the magazine’s signature long-form centerpiece Q&As since the 1990s.
Then
The Playboy Interview had been, since its 1962 founding, one of the most-respected long-form interview formats in American magazine journalism. Mike Fleming’s parallel career as a Playboy Interview conductor was the substantive detail the FBLA piece foregrounded — the contrast between his fast-cadence scoop work and the slow, substantial long-form format.
Now
Mike Fleming has continued at Deadline.com, co-leading the site as Co-Editor-in-Chief with Nellie Andreeva.
Playboy magazine ceased regular print publication in 2020; the Playboy Interview format effectively ended with the print magazine’s discontinuation. The long-form celebrity Q&A has substantially migrated to podcasts and subscriber-newsletter operations.
The 2012 piece reads now as a small documented moment honoring a journalist’s parallel long-form craft — and a documented marker of a long-form-interview format that was within eight years of effectively ending.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.