JZ: Is there a particular game of the past, or even one of your own that you look back on fondly, or that you continue to learn from?
Carlsen: Um, nah. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. There are so many games that I’ve seen that I’ve learned from. I never – that’s also part of the same – never single out a particular player or a particular game.
JZ: What kind of music do you listen to?
Carlsen: More or less anything – both contemporary music and older stuff. Depends on my mood.
JZ: Is there anything you listen to when you’re focusing on studying the game of chess, let’s say?
Carlsen: No, then I usually do without music [he laughs].
JZ: How about movies? Any favorite movies you can name?
Carlsen: I don’t really watch too many movies. I don’t have the patience usually to watch one, one and a half or two hours in a row.
JZ: I feel the same way. [I’m usually] ready to get up and go somewhere.Carlsen: Yeah. I watch some TV series though.
JZ: Can you give me an example?Carlsen: Right now I’m just watching through all [the] Seinfeld episodes that I’ve seen so many times already. It never gets old for me.
JZ: Who’s your favorite “Seinfeld” character?
Carlsen: It’s hard to say, but it’s more or less a tie between George and Kramer. I just like everything about it. I’ve also watched all of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It’s a bit of the same humor.
JZ: The Larry David connection.Carlsen: Yep.
JZ: I read that you like to go ski jumping. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Carlsen: Actually I haven’t done that for many years, but I’m thinking about going back to doing that. It was an exciting thing to do when I was younger and at some point I think I reached my peak. If I was going to do that anymore I would have to spend more time on it and also to go for some really dangerous large hills. And I was really going to do that.
JZ: Is that popular in Norway? The thought of going straight down a hill and flying through the air terrifies me personally.
Carlsen: Yeah. Lots of kids try it at least. It’s fun.
JZ: In Norway how have you seen [chess] grow?
Carlsen: In a way that before I would know all of the people in the chess environment, and now there are people who are walking up to me on the streets, who are following all the top tournaments, that I’ve never met in my life. Even people who don’t actually play the game themselves, they follow me and other tournaments; and people who have never played in a club they play online and they get lots of pleasure from that. And I think there are also more kids interested to learn the game. At least I hope so.
JZ: Tell me why. What sort of influence can chess have on kids?
Carlsen: First of all my impression is that most kids think it’s a fun game, at least until they’re told otherwise by society. And I think it helps you to concentrate, to think ahead, to think analytically and so on. But again, most of all, it’s fun and when you have fun then you’re more interested in learning. That’s the main aspect for me, that it can be used as a learning tool for kids.
JZ: And you think society tells kids that they should do something different for fun?
Carlsen: Yeah. In my experience, when I went to school, and especially in after-school, and during breaks, a lot of people wanted to sit down and play chess up till a certain age when it was not supposed to be cool anymore and people wanted to do other things. Kids love games and chess is a game where you have to sit down and concentrate and it just helps in every way.