Bloomberg investigative reporter Zeke Faux says the Trump family's new crypto businesses have earned them tens of millions, while raising questions about political influence and ethics. Also, we remember Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter Jules Feiffer. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Pamela Anderson's role as a lifeguard on Baywatch made her a global sex symbol in the '90s. But she longed to be taken seriously as a performer and person. "I've always been carrying this secret. I feel like I've known I was capable of more, but I didn't know what," she says. She now stars in The Last Showgirl . She spoke with Tonya Mosley about her career comeback, crafting her persona, and ditching makeup. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Polic...
Eisenberg's film, A Real Pain , follows two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland, which includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp. Eisenberg spoke with Terry Gross about tragedy tourism, and his own relationship to Judaism. The "Hebrew school dropout" says the suburban bar mitzvah scene made his 12-year-old stomach turn. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
NYT columnist and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom and scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. reflect on the struggle for civil rights and what it means to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the same day that President Donald Trump is sworn into office. "Perhaps the juxtaposition of seeing Donald Trump preside over the official state memorialization of Martin Luther King will remind us of our responsibility to remembering King as he actually was ... as he was a philosopher, an organizer of the people,...
Writer Pico Iyer lost everything in a 1990 California wildfire. After being rendered homeless and sleeping on a friend's floor, he was told about a Benedictine monastery. His time spent in silence on retreat there changed him both as a person and as a writer. He spoke with Terry Gross about his new memoir about the experience, Aflame . Also, comic and former Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. talks with Tonya Mosley about his new comedy special, Lonely Flowers. Learn more about sponsor messag...
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys has been adapted for the big screen. In 2019, Whitehead spoke with Dave Davies when the book was released. It's set in the early '60s, based on the true story of the Dozier reform school in Florida, where many boys were beaten and sexually abused. Dozens of unmarked graves have been discovered on the school grounds. "If there's one place like this, there are many," he says. Later, guest critic Martin Johnson reviews a new recordi...
Rape kits were widely known as "Vitullo Kits" after a Chicago police sergeant. But a new book tells the story of Marty Goddard, a community activist who worked with runaway teenagers in the 1970s. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the Western miniseries American Primeval , now streaming on Netflix. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
In 1990, writer Pico Iyer watched as a wildfire destroyed his mother's Santa Barbara home, where he also lived. In Aflame , he recounts the devastation of the fire — and the peace he found living in a Benedictine monastery. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
In the past, Donald Trump talked about keeping America out of foreign conflicts — but lately he's talked about potentially using force or economic pressure to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal, even Canada. We'll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT national security correspondent David Sanger. He'll talk about how Trump might handle the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and Iran's growing nuclear threat. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
A good comedian has to "know what regular people are going through," Roy Wood Jr. says. In his new Hulu special, Lonely Flowers , Wood riffs on how isolation has sent society spiraling. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about leaving The Daily Show , learning from other comics, and how an arrest pushed him to pursue stand-up. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Tilda Swinton stars as a woman with cancer who decides she wants to end her life in the new Pedro Almodóvar film The Room Next Door . She asks a friend to stay with her for her last weeks. She spoke with Terry Gross about the role and her own experience bearing witness to the deaths of loved ones. Also, we hear from award-winning actor Adrien Brody. He stars in the film The Brutalist as a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who seeks a fresh start in post-WWII America. Brody tells ...
A Complete Unknown – the film about Bob Dylan is in theaters. We're featuring interviews with three people depicted in the film: Suze Rotolo was his girlfriend and was photographed on his arm for the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. She told Terry about that photoshoot. Folk singer Joan Baez was already a star when she met Dylan. She took him on tour, but nobody knew who he was. She talks about some of those early shows. And Al Kooper was a session musician who played the organ on "Like a Ro...
The 39th president spoke with Terry Gross in 1995, 2001 and 2005 about poetry, Sept. 11 and his concerns about how intertwined politics and religion had become. Carter died on Dec. 29 at age 100. Today is his funeral. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
In Pedro Almodóvar's film The Room Next Door , Tilda Swinton plays a woman with late-stage cancer who wants to end her life. She asks a friend, played by Julianne Moore, to stay with her for her last month on Earth. Swinton's performance draws on her experiences supporting and bearing witness to loved ones at the end of their lives. "A life spent considering how we're going to spend our end is not wasted time," she tells Terry Gross. "We're all going that way, and the sooner we accept and embrac...
Adrien Brody won a Golden Globe for his role in The Brutalist , as a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who seeks a fresh start in post-WWII America. "I just was in awe when I read the script," he says. Brody spoke with Tonya Mosley about how his family's history helped him with the role, and about his collaboration with Wes Anderson. Also, John Powers reviews the new erotic drama Babygirl . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
In an experiment, science journalist Lynne Peeples spent 10 days in an underground bunker, with no exposure to sunlight or clocks. She wanted to see what happened to her body and mind when it became out of sync with its natural circadian rhythm. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about what she learned, how we change with age, and the importance of sunlight. Her book is The Inner Clock . Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the series Laid and Going Dutch . Learn more about sponsor message choices: ...
After Trevor Noah started anchoring The Daily Show in 2015, he brought on Ronny Chieng as a field correspondent who could offer a global perspective. Now Chieng is one of the show's anchors. He's third generation Chinese Malaysian, and grew up in Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. He has a new Netflix comedy special. Also, filmmaker and writer Miranda July talks about her novel, All Fours . It's about a 45-year-old married woman, her erotic affair with no actual sex, perimenopause, and the related...
The comic is hosting the Golden Globes this Sunday. She spoke with Terry Gross back in July about roasts, hurt feelings, and just wanting to be liked. Her latest HBO comedy special is Someday You'll Die. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
We continue our series featuring some of our favorite interviews from 2024, this time with Alex Van Halen and Selena Gomez. Alex Van Halen talks about his life and the career he built with his late brother Eddie, and the formation of their band Van Halen. From growing up as immigrant kids in California, to the wild antics of life on the road as rock stars and some of his stunts, like setting his drums on fire. Selena Gomez talks about her role in the Spanish-language musical film Emilia Pérez , ...
Brown won an Emmy for his portrayal of Christopher Darden in The People v. O.J. Simpson, and another for This Is Us . He now appears in the film American Fiction. He spoke with Terry Gross about losing his father, how his feelings about the O.J. Simpson case changed, and prejudice he faced in Hollywood. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Ruffalo played a debauched cad in Yorgos Lanthimos' bawdy, dark comedy Poor Things . It was a big departure from his previous work playing real people in dramas like Spotlight or Foxcatcher , or as the Incredible Hulk in the Marvel movies. The Oscar-nominated actor spoke with Sam Briger about these roles, how he got his start in acting, and how a brain tumor changed his life. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jimmy Carter died Sunday at age 100. The 39th president spoke with Terry Gross a few times over the years about growing up on a Georgia farm, entering politics, and his career in human rights and conflict resolution. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
In 2021, burnt out from the intensity of her early career, Maggie Rogers considered quitting music entirely. Instead, she took a detour — to Harvard Divinity School, where she earned a master's degree in religion and public life. Her 2024 album is Don't Forget Me . Kathleen Hanna's band Bikini Kill was the epicenter of the riot grrrl feminist punk movement of the '90s. Their song "Rebel Girl" was the anthem. Her memoir this year was about her time in the punk scene, her childhood, and finding jo...
This year TV news journalist Connie Chung wrote a new tell-all memoir. It's about breaking into the boys club of her industry, her marriage to Maury Povitch, and the big scoops of her career. The funny and off-the-cuff news icon spoke with Tonya Mosley. Also, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers musicians who died this year. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jeremy Strong is nominated for a Golden Globe for his role as lawyer and political hitman Roy Cohn in The Apprentice . The movie, he says, "explores essentially how Trump was made, and his philosophical moral framework." Strong talks with Terry Gross about playing Cohn and about playing Kendall Roy on HBO's Succession . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The new biopic A Complete Unknown follows a young Bob Dylan as he arrives in New York and changes American folk music forever. Edward Norton plays folk icon Pete Seeger, who had a big impact on Dylan. Seeger was famous for his songs about working people, unions, and social justice. We're revisiting Terry's 1984 interview with Seeger, as well as her 2016 interview with Bruce Springsteen, who was compared to Dylan when he broke onto the scene. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoic...
The singer-songwriter and Talking Heads frontman presents some of his favorite holiday music — including songs by The Pogues, James Brown, LCD Soundsystem and Paul Simon. Find his playlist on Apple Music and Spotify . Also, our film critic Justin Chang shares his list of the best movies of 2024. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jon Batiste joins us from the piano and plays some of his favorite Christmas songs. It's part two of our recent session with him. Batiste is the former band leader and music director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He's won multiple Grammys and an Oscar. Inviting musicians to perform or play recordings of their favorite Christmas songs is a new Fresh Air tradition. It started two years ago, with DJ and co-founder of the Roots, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, who put together a playlist of Ch...
Award-winning sister-brother duo Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell talk about their songwriting process, her changing voice, and their new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft . Later, Stephen Colbert and his wife Evie McGee Colbert talk about their cookbook of home recipes inspired by their South Carolina roots. It's called Does This Taste Funny? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
This month, musician Bonnie Raitt and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola were both honorees of the Kennedy Center for their contributions to American culture. We're revisiting interviews with both of them. First, blues guitarist, singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt spoke with Terry Gross in 1996 about her early years, finding her blues sound. And Francis Ford Coppola told us in 2016 the story of casting Marlon Brando in The Godfather . And film critic Justin Chang reviews two new movies: The Brutalis...
