‘Who would you most like to work with if you could choose?’ people ask.
I’m not sure I can answer that because the best stories are always the ones you know nothing about until they arrive in your inbox. If someone is already known to you well enough for you to want to work with them on their life story, the chances are you already know a lot about them. Unless they are going to reveal some completely new and secret side to their story it would not be particularly interesting to spend several months of your life on it.
It would have been fun to have been given the access that Andrew Morton had to Princess Diana when she decided to talk for the first time about the realities of being part of the royal family, but revelations that dramatic from people who are already heavily scrutinised by the media are very rare indeed.
The most interesting stories are the ones that come as complete surprises.
‘Hi, I am the Pope’s secret mistress,’ would be an opening line that would definitely catch my attention.