Q&A with CNN's Anderson Cooper

By Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Anderson Cooper might rightly be called the face of CNN.

Since his breakout performance covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (he famously berated officials for the devastation), Cooper has seemingly been everywhere: covering disasters, helming the well-received eco-series Planet in Peril and, of course, hosting his own nightly news show, Anderson Cooper 360.

This week, Cooper anchored CNN's prime-time coverage of the Democratic National Convention. We caught up with him at the CNN Grill on the Pepsi Center grounds.

* I understand you interned for the CIA when you were in college.

I had many different summer jobs when I was in high school and college, including two summer jobs with the CIA. I was in a training program to see if it was something I wanted to do. It wasn't as dramatic as the spy game; it's always interesting to see how government works. It turned out not to be something I was interested in.

* Does the fact that you're such a celebrity now - you're on the cover of several magazines - ever get in the way of doing your job?

I never even really think in those terms. I don't read stuff about myself. I'm aware it's out there, but I'm sort of blissfully ignorant. That's how anchor monsters are made - when people start to believe their own hype.

* Given who your mother is (Gloria Vanderbilt), you didn't exactly grow up anonymous.

Thankfully, my last name is Cooper and my dad wasn't well-known; he came from a poor family in Mississippi. I grew up much more connected to that side of the family than my mom's history.

* Didn't I read that you went on The Tonight Show with your mother when you were 3 years old?

That's actually not true. I did go on the game show To Tell the Truth when I was about 7. I was pretending to be the world's youngest bear trainer, and I got two votes. The Tonight Show thing, I don't know where that came from.

* Given your hectic travel schedule, how do you relax?

I'm not very good with vacations. I think I've taken seven days off this whole year. Basically, I have a house two hours outside of New York I'll go to and read and sleep. The idea of getting on a plane and going somewhere is the last thing I want to do when I have time off.

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