The choice of language in which to conduct qualitative interviews with vulnerable subjects is a decision to which every director of a research project has to pay attention because it can affect the development of rapport between field researcher and participant. The received wisdom is that cultural and linguistic insiders are the preferred choice. However, such a choice is not always available to a lone researcher whose study takes them to a field site where their native language is not spoken. In this contribution, I discuss the advantages that can, in fact, be associated with non-native-native interviews. Using examples taken from my own research in the multi-ethnic states of the former Soviet Union, I discuss the political constraints that face non-native researchers in the choice of language in which to conduct interviews in authoritarian states, and how linguistic mismatches may assist in overcoming barriers in interviews with vulnerable subjects.