Adam Driver abruptly storms out of radio interview due to phobia

Adam Driver.
Adam Driver. Photo credit: Getty.

Star Wars actor Adam Driver has abruptly stormed out of a radio interview after the host began to play a snippet from his new film.

Driver was recording an interview with NPR's Fresh Air earlier this month when host Terry Gross began playing a clip from his Netflix film Marriage Story.

Variety reports it wasn't initially clear what prompted the actor to leave. 

"We were looking forward to the interview, so we were disappointed that we didn't have a new interview to share with our listeners about Marriage Story," producer Danny Miller said.

He believes Driver's departure was likely due to the actor's phobia of hearing or seeing his performances. In a profile piece in The New Yorker in October, Driver admitted he doesn't watch himself on screen and when he was forced to at a premiere, he began hyperventilating. 

Miller said the radio team was aware of the phobia, and Gross said Driver could take his headphones off to make sure he couldn't hear the clip, but instead Driver just left.

"After the clip concluded we were informed by our engineer in NY that he had walked out of the studio, and then left the building. We still don't understand why Adam Driver chose to leave the interview at that point," Miller said.

Gross previously discussed Driver's dislike of seeing or hearing himself in a 2015 interview. 

"I don't want to hear the bad acting that probably was happening during that clip," Driver said in 2015.

"I've watched myself or listened to myself before, then always hate it. And then wish I could change it, but you can't."

The actor is yet to respond. The interview never aired.

Driver has received various award nominations for his role in the film, after previously being nominated at the Academy Awards for starring in BlacKkKlansman. He appears in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which opens this week.