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Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, September 29, 2015)

Jimmy: That's funny. Has there ever been a situation where you didn't know your lines before?
Viola: There's been a situation where I have not known my lines, and there's been a (laughs)... the most prominent situation is when I was doing "Doubt" and Meryl Streep kept screwing up one line.

The structures of Jimmy's question and Viola's answer are very similar, yet they use different tenses in them. Which structure would be preferable in this context?

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  • There are many cases where past perfect and simple past are interchangeable (I'm sure I've told you this before), and this is one of them. Commented Nov 3 at 15:49
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    It's clumsy extempore speech, so don't treat it as a model. It's "valid", but only just. If Viola had more time to think before speaking, I'm sure she'd have preferred There was a situation where I didn't know my lines. Commented Nov 3 at 16:31
  • I haven't known until now that he went. Have you ever known what you brother did? Commented Nov 4 at 18:44
  • This question is similar to: What's the difference between the simple past tense and the present perfect?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Commented Nov 14 at 17:21

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It's absolutely fine. I wouldn't even call it clumsy. It not only retains the tense of the question ("has there been...?"), but stays consistent within itself by using the present perfect tense.

It makes more sense that both the interviewer and the interviewee use this tense rather than the simple past "was", because that would suggest they were talking about a period of time in the past, and I'm guessing that the interviewee is still an actor. So, there has been a situation as described, and there may be again in the future.

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