this interview Harry Smith conducted with Fox for CBS in 2009. At the time, Fox was promoting the Michael Bay-directed “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” but Smith kept joking about how someone as attractive as her couldn’t possibly know anything about cars or motorcycles in real life. It was one thing for Smosh to make this joke in a silly video, but it was another thing for a professional journalist to be saying it to Fox’s face in an interview with a limited time for real questions.
The result was an awkward interview where Fox didn’t seem comfortable, which led to her making a joke that led to some “Transformers” fans trash-talking her in the years that followed. “I’m in the movie, and I read the script, and I watched the movie, and I still didn’t know what was happening,” she remarked. “So, I think if you haven’t read the script, and you go and you see it, and you understand it, you may be a genius. […] This movie is for geniuses.” Her reply was then interpreted by certain people as her making fun of “Revenge of the Fallen,” which wasn’t considered a cool thing to do on a press tour.
The moment’s easy to forgive in the full context of the interview, though, because the question Smith asked her was hard to answer tactfully. He said he couldn’t follow the movie and asked her, “Are you supposed to literally understand what every scene is or what it means?” In other words, he was telling her “Revenge of the Fallen” is a mess (which is true) and asking her if it was supposed to be one. Combine that with Smith’s general condescension towards Fox throughout the rest of the interview, and it’s understandable that she would respond the way she did.
