Ronan Farrow

than the ones asked. If you see that, absolutely, and you've calibrated these well, because there are maddening in various ways, and ones that I hadn't really contemplated in all cases. But I'll give it a world. Hello, I'm Mini Driver, and welcome to many questions. I've always loved priest questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions,

there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So I took the format of proofs questionnaire and adapted what I think are seven of the most important questions you could ever ask someone. They are when and where were you happiest. What is the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your

last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more we begin to see what makes us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who am honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with, and today I'm talking to Ronan Farah. Ronan is an extraordinary polymath. He is a Rhodes scholar. He has worked for the Obama administration, and he's been a voice actor

in Miasaki films. As a journalist, he conducted a revelatory investigation into sexual assault against women working in film, and in doing so he acted as an empowering ally to those women. The work on this investigation also won him a Politzer Prize. He has been a speechwriter and advisor, has a j d from Yale, law, a PhD from Oxford, and as I learned my conversation with him today, He

is also a songwriter. His resume speaks to his rigorous intellect and curiosity, and in action he illuminates stories and ideas that need to be heard, whether he's advocating for the protection of refugees, is a political advisor, or unmasking insurgents of the US capital. As an investigative reporter, Ronan tirelessly pursues truth, even if and oftentimes when it means

speaking that truth to power. I go backwards and forwards on the first question of where and when were you happiest, because we're so encouraged to be happy all the time, rather than the place that we're headed. I don't think that's fair. Well, not to be terribly pedantic right out of the gate, but you know, what is happiness is what you come do very quickly in answering this question, or I did anyway, And I also I found it

surprisingly hard to answer by any metric. You know that there are a lot of professional moments of fulfillment that came to mind as obvious answers. Getting a tape of Harvey Weinstein trying to entrap a woman after months and months of trying to get that those are obviously moments of fulfillment of a kind, But then I think was I happy then? Because those high points were also marked by a lot of stress and can also be frankly

kind of scary. I mean, I think both on a level that any writer would relate to, where you're in the zone crafting a scene, but also you're on a terrifying deadline and it's stressful and you're afraid you're going to fail, and is a lot writing on it, I think, particularly when it's investigative reporting and in ways that are unique to my kind of work, which is very combative in some ways, and you know, there are sometimes private investigators hired to follow me around and smear me in

various ways. So those moments of fulfillment are often entwined with a lot of anxiety. And I don't know if happiness quite captures what those moments are, and I don't think they're mutually exclusive. No, I agree, it is part of the satisfaction of doing an incredibly hard job that is dangerous and frightening at times but also incredibly necessary, and then that paying off. I think there are ways

in which that's a healthy happiness. You know, if you are doing something whatever your profession is that you feel is contributing in a positive way to other people's lives. That's a great thing to nurture in yourself. On the other hand, that can take a lot of unhealthy forms. You know, I know and really respect a lot of great war reporters who famously do get a high off

of being in conflict zones. And you know, during time I've spent in some those types of places, you encounter a lot of those people who are in it, maybe for all the right reasons, but also I think you know, if they were to search themselves on a personal level, it's probably not the healthiest thing that they need to

be in those high octane places all the time. So is that happiness or is that kind of getting a certain kind of high again, regardless of how noble the intentions, And we all benefit so richly from people who take those risks. I just know plenty of people who thrive in those settings and do us all a public service. But also I think it comes from a place of brokenness in part. You know, I don't know that that's anything to be discouraged, because we do all benefits so much.

You know, the world is a better place for that. But can you box that into a simple term like happiness. I don't know. I know, I was going to say, maybe happiness expands or retracts according to the person. The intense joy that I felt when I had my son, it's different from the intense joy that I felt when I traveled to Cambodia with Oxfam years ago and there

was these blacklisted workers. They'd all been fired from the sweatshops for, you know, not wanting to work for a dollar a day and be able to take bath and breaks. And they started this factory and I arrived there on my birthday and they made this whole party for me, and I spoke a bit of French, but they were all speaking camar I mean, it was. It was one of the most intensely happy experiences of my life. But

it was completely different to having my son. And was that happy because you felt you were doing something that mattered, that was in the public interest. Yeah, it was. All of these things were wrapped up in one the idea

that these women had started their own factory. It was my birthday that I thought had been the last by traveling to the other side of the world, and the fact that they'd used what little resources they had to make me a cake and decorate the factory, and we were just women, not speaking the same language, but celebrating. So it was a convergence of a lot of different kinds of happiness. Is that's exactly and maybe that's it

is It is pluralistic happiness. I also got to thinking, in reflecting on this question now harderist answer, I think I allowed a lot of very happy moments to be shadowed by anxiety or sadness in a way that I wish weren't the case. You know, simple things like getting recognized by fellow journalists, are finally getting that graduate degree

after seven years of work. That's gratifying but also feels more like relief than happiness in the moment, and I think I allow those moments to immediately turn to thoughts of not even on a totally conscious level, it's just sort of hovering there, What am I going to do next? How can I be this useful again? Can I match this? You know? All these So this is this is really interesting because do you think I'm trying to think of a different word than overachiever, Because there's I don't think

there's any such thing. There is just doing the things which you feel compelled to do. But you have done an enormous amount of things that are big and extraordinary, and you've done them very young. Do you think that because you do so many different things that are big, that their bullets are and their New York bari and their modeling college and their road scholarly and their advocacy and there's global in the title, do you think that the bar is set incredibly high for what might be

perceived as happiness for you because of how you'm roll? Yes, And you know, there are all these studies over the years of people who are happiest and least happy, And of course it doesn't track to a particular worldview of success that or commendations that that you just kind of

touched on. You know, I think they are simpler and maybe more essential things to be happy about, and I don't know that I'm always the best of being in touch with them, But ultimately that is what I came down to and deciding how to answer this question, I ultimately came to thinking about really simple pleasures and times and places. You know, that memory came to mind of being a teenager lying in bed in my childhood home, just crushing a box of Mint Milano cookies and playing

this game. I remember vividly. It was a visual novel on the Nintendo DS called Phoenix Right Ace Attorney, which is a bonkers Japanese courtroom draw. There will be some tiny segment of your audience that gets that reference, and I I was really content then, I think in a very kind of quiet, low key way, and is this too off color? Also in my teens, you know, making out in a bathroom with a crush during a house party.

That was like some things like that, And I think I could probably do a better job in my adult life of embracing those small and simple moments. Now, you know what. I love that your paradigm runs from busting predators to making it in a buthroom when you're a teenager, to playing Nintendo DS. Like, I love that paradigm, and it's why you're such an interesting person because that's where you live. You can't do all three of those things at once, I've found, but there is time enough in

life to multitats. Yeah, that was That's a very spec That would be a very specific kind of multit It would require a lot of just manual dexterity. It would need another, It would need at least two more of Yes, Yes, this is a hard question. What is the quality you like least about yourself? I found this much easier to answer because there are so many rich and wonderfully terrible things about me to choose from. Lack of punctuality is up there. Not in important professional things, but in most

other things. I am always late, and I think that flows from a broader issue. I see this trait in a lot of super ambitious people. You kind of think you can accomplish it all in any amount of time. So it's like meeting in ten minutes, Well, let me start writing the Great American novel in those ten minutes. There's a fair amount of perfectionism run amuck. I think in me that that leads to a lot of procrastination. You know, every book that I've done has been a

year late. This is obviously nothing new if you talk to any writer. But I've let it get to the point of several times in life where it really does threaten to sort of cause real problems. And I think that is an offshoot of that same worldview of like I can do anything in any amount of time. So I'm gonna leave it till later. And also it's got to be so good, so I'm afraid to start. I think the big one, though many as I really thought deeply sort of what's most consequential is an inability to

be in the moment. I do a lot of songwriting, and it really shows up there. Especially I'm used to brute forcing things by overthinking them, and I think that that actually can work well in a writing and a particularly a lyrical context. You know, I like narrative and character driven lyrics and and that can involve a cerebral approach.

But as a performer in particular, it can be a handicap, I think, just even not knowing that much except from Afar, you know, just growing up around actors, I see this. You need to be spontaneous and trust yourself to fail and be rough around edges, and that doesn't come naturally to me. It's why I really respect actors, you know, the the Udha Hogan thing of being present and being just in touch with your emotions in a really raw

an unfiltered way. You know, I don't know about acting specifically. I've I've done a little light voice acting, anime voice acting of all, you know, and we've both worked with Miyazaki. What a thrill right beyond I couldn't believe that you work with his son and with him, and I couldn't believe that you've done that at all, Like it was shocking and amazing to discover that. I mean, it's, you know, a grand statement to say worked with them. I did tiny parts in the American dubs, but I would lick

stamps for Studio Jibli that their work is so incredible. No, no, I mean I did the American dubs to on Princess Mononoki, but when he came to your part, I love that. But I mean, I'm an actor. Like the fact that you,

how dare you? How dare you have gone to Oxford and also done a Miyazaki movie and also want upon it set those kinds of little exposures to that sort of performing aside, I would probably have trouble ever delivering a truly great piece of acting, because I do think I tend to be too cerebral and in my head too much of the time. And you know, I could perhaps do things that are technically great, but that next level of transcending technique is a real reach for me

and I frankly don't know. Maybe you have advice on this how to get past that? Well, I would say as any therapist would advise you. Awareness is the only place to begin as an actor. Awareness of like what it is that you're doing wrong. God, I remember I was invited by this amazing artistic director CaAl Richard Air, who was the artistic director of the National Theater in London, and I was invited to this cabal of actors to

to work on Shakespeare. And you know, I duly did my my balcony scene and at the end of it he was like, great, this is so great because it's so important to see how not to do this scene. It's so important to see how terrible it can be when you know all the rules of iambic pentameter ignored. And I was. I was so embarrassed and so crushed. It's devastating. Here's the deal. He's absolutely right, and it forced me to study Shakespeare with ten times more attention

than I had before. So I think awareness of the place to begin, and that requires humility, and it requires acknowledgement, and then you just begin. And I think, then desire, if you really, if there was something that you really wanted to do, you would figure it out. You know.

I obviously this is most relevant in my life, not because I'm you know, trying to crack the nutb could I ever theoretically be a great actor, but but because in so many of the things I do, I do think you need to possess both of those abilities, being able to rigorously overthink everything and be precise and technical, and then also knowing when to let go and just

be emotional and honest and in the moment. I mean, I think you need that in any profession where you have to communicate, whether it's to an audience as I sometimes have to, or in reporting when you're trying to connect with someone and unearth what's going on in a situation. And so I'll take those thoughts to heart. You know, I think I sometimes want it too much. You know that the quality you described of do you do want it enough? I think sometimes for me that leads to

overthinking and not being able to just clear your mind. Well, in that case, you know, I prescribe, I don't know, yoga and a few more milkshakes, right I relaxed? There you go? That would be three Also a note, I will take perfect This is my this is my therapy. You're right, you just need therapy. You don't need therapy per se. I'm fascinated to hear how you answer this.

What question would you most like answered? If I could wave a magic wand and answer anything, I would obviously choose the question whose answer would save the most lives. You know, I'd go for something really meaty and high priority.

I don't know what the biggest scientific obstacle right now is to better energy storage, or curing cancer, or developing technological approaches to reversing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, but I would enlist a lot of experts to try to determine what single answer could help the most people. Now for something more fun. I know this is random as hell, but here's what leapt to mind from my

own career. There's this guy, Sandy Burger, who was Bill Clinton's National security advisor, who went into the National Archives while he was Clinton's liaison to the nine eleven Commission. And I'm not kidding. Many stuffed a bunch of sensitive documents down his pants and socks and hid some and destroyed others. And because of the record keeping practices there. We actually never conclusively found out what might have gone missing.

And this guy was a constant guest on cable news up until his death a few years back, and to the best of my knowledge, no one ever got a satisfactory answer out of him. No one knew what he stuffed down his knickers. Oh, I mean, I think there was some limited accounting, and he did plead guilty to that charge, but to my knowledge, there's never been a full accounting that we can really trust of what he was up to or why. And I even had him on my cable news show once and I was like,

I'm going to ask him. I told my colleagues this, and my producer, who was a veteran journalist I really respect, and at the time, bear in mind, I was a very young anchor just starting out, said you absolutely cannot. This is not in the news that was years ago. This would be an ambush, it would be very rude. There will be another occasion for that. And I didn't

and then he was completely dead. Oh no, oh god, And we never found out what he destroyed her for whom so after curing cancer or climate change, what the hell Sandy Burger was up to? Wow, I go, I really know, I'm going to be thinking about that for days. Okay, So what person, place, or experience most altered your life. I write about this in my book Catch and Kill.

I had pitched a story when I was a TV reporter about the Hollywood casting couch, and I was in a meeting with network executives, some of whom were ultimately involved in trying to shut down this reporting. Ironically, but at the time, one of them said, in an off hand way, didn't Rose McGowan make an allegation of this kind recently? And you know she had spoken without naming

her alleged assailant. But that kicked off my digging into this and figuring out that it was Harvey Weinstein and getting a whole lot of people to share their stories about them very brave people, and I was very grateful that they did a very very difficult thing, and that ended up being significant in I think both their lives and my own. It's interesting that it would come out of an apparent lack of support from a network and not wanting to explore a story, but you didn't stop.

It forced you to continue looking into that story and then take it elsewhere, which is where we all then got to hear about it. And I've talked a bit and written in that book a bit about how that feels at the time, and I think I myself have learned a lesson from that experience. It doesn't, or at least didn't, in my case, feel like a triumphal moment of you know, yes, it's a setback, but I'm going

to do the right thing. What it feels like at the time is incredibly shitty and scary, and you don't know whether the truth is ever going to emerge, and you don't know the degree of immolation of your career and whether it will be worth it. But I think you do, invariably in those situations have a little voice saying, you know, well, here's what the right thing is, regardless of what the strategic or savvy thing is. And I

think it's good to listen to that. Oh my god, I mean it literally created a scaffold to which so many women could tether themselves to, could feel strong. You literally created a framework. I don't know. I've been in this business for a really long time. I worked with Harvey, I've watched the goings on, and you never ever ever felt that you would ever be anything than a voice screaming into a black hole to say anything about any

of it. And it just changed. It changed in an incidant with Rosa's testimony and then with all of the women that came forward so bravely. I was going to say, really, you know that that's on them. It was an honor to be able to do some reporting, to be one of the whole community of reporters who did important work on those stories. But really, I think it comes down to the bravery of those sources. Yeah, they did a tough thing, and I think they changed a lot as

a result. Yeah, so the pendulum is swinging from the deep to the more delicious. What would be your last male? A lobster? Apparently they used to be larger many until over fishing poor lobsters scientifically interesting trade. I believe they just continue to get larger and larger until finally the size of the shell can't keep pace with the size of the body, and they outgrow their shell and they die.

You know that the shedding can't keep up. Well, we got into lobster science very fast here, But the point being, I have an annoying bougie answer to this point, you'd like to eat a big lobster. I like lobsters. They walk, They'll walk in an enormous distance in their life. They're the greatest marine hikers. I'm not sure I could eat one. They're beautiful creatures, and I think you have the moral

high ground here. U know, I am not a vegetarian, and I am self aware enough to know that if I were a better person, I would be for a variety of reasons, the carbon footprint and environmental impact of the livestock industry, the treatment of various types of animals that are food staples. I think it can be problematic and also delicious. I mean, I think that's but by the way that that might be on my grave step.

Problematic but delicious, yes, please maybe all be. I think that there may come a time in life where I have the ethical fortitude to go vegetarian. But in the meantime, I do think it's appropriate to have a degree of cognitive dissonance there to say, Okay, the ideal outcome morally is to never harm a living creature in any way, But there are concessions that get me into practicality, and you just have to pick carefully where to make them.

I think having consciousness about stuff we can be failing miserably, And like I said earlier, I think having awareness of the faulted nature of being a human being is sometimes the best that you can do. I mean, maybe don't eat lobster every day, but I don't think you were, because we're talking about your last meal. So because your last meal, I think you're allowed a lobster. To be clear,

I don't eat lobster every day. I contemplated something that was more every day, like mashed up cottage cheese and sardines is a staple of mine. I would say, eat that several times? Is that? How did you ever come across?

Was that? Just like opening your fridge and there just being a jar of capers and a couple of canisters of film and just go and some sardines and not not even I grew up eating sardines and cottage cheese and thought it was perfectly normal, until you know, I would break out the sardines and cottage cheese like out of my lunch box in grade school and people would just be horrified. Do you put them on saltines? Would you just eat it with the phone? Absolutely? Not just

with the spoon like a delicious fish dairy porridge. I'm going to have to make it now. Now that each said it, give it a whirl. It goes great with with to me os and avocado. I mean, it does sound terrible, but it also doesn't sound un terrible. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to make it. Cottage cheese is weird for me. The whole curd thing of it is odd and kind of bobbily, which has bad mouth feel. Cottage cheese. See, I love that kind of

mouth feel. Well, we're getting quite quite risque here. Many I like, uh not to put too fine a point on it, but slimy foods so so perhaps if I'm either too ethical to eat a lobster by the time I shovel off this mortal coil, or don't have the resources for a giant lobster, I would go with the simple pleasures of cottage cheese and Sartain's. You're very interesting person. God,

this is why you're a Rhodes scholar. I feel like I'm understanding a whole lot more about why I have not achieved what you have is because actually it comes down to liking the bobbily nature of cottage chee and mouth feel, and that for me now is on a par with studying a modeling college in Oxford and working with the Inner SA And you might win a Grammy. What a what a trip to be nominated for I just honestly, my eyes did roll a bit when I

saw that. I was like, and he's nominated for a Grammy. Great, Well, I'm so grateful for it because I am a lover of audio books. Yeah, me too. A good audio book is such a beautiful thing. The audio book that I was nominated for, it was really a labor of love by a wonderful team of women producers and engineers that put a whole lot of long hours into it, and we worked very hard on getting the music right and

getting the performance right. And it's very important to me as a listener when I have those things in place to connect with a story. I love a writer reading their own work, like I love Donna Tarts reading a secret history. Oh I haven't listened to that. She's got an odd voice that is a delight though she's not a trained actor. And then other times a wonderful actor can be the best approach. I don't know if you've done audio books, but you should, you have a wonderful voice.

I've done bits and pieces. I really like the discipline of it. And also growing up in England, you know, everything was on the radio. There were just so many radio plays and that was my first experience of theater really was the radio. Anything m Colin Firth reads as an audio recording I will listen to, and Judy Dench,

I mean, those are fabulous choices that you know. Who who's great who I encountered recently is John Malkovich does a reading of Vonnegut's Breakfasts of Champions, and he does it's such a perfect union of performer and text because Vonnegart is a quirky oddball and Malkovich reads it in

such a frankly insane way. And he does a unique thing, which is that Varnegart illustrated obviously some of his books, and Breakfast of Champions in particular has a bunch of little illustrations in the margins, and Malkovich kind of stops and breaks narrator character and as himself describes the illustrations as there is, which is a totally normal approach and rate that's brilliant that is brilliant. Perhaps perhaps a good note to to wind down on. Have you read anything

good recently? Do you have any audiobook recommendations? Oh my gosh, you know what, Actually, I haven't been listening to books. I've been reading them because there's been this time to actually read. And it's it's funny. That's a pleasure of its own kind. The physical books. I love those two, it really is. I've been reading. I've been reading quite

a lot of Anita Bruckner. I've been going back to my kind of the British, the British ladies who I never would have read when I was I was growing up, and I always um, I read Middle March again for like the tense time. Oh how area diut of you ever read gripping? It's gripping, like it's gripping gossip where like nobody's getting naked. But it's super awful, you know, it's it's so shocking. All right, I'm that sounds up my alley and it's an embarrassing gap in my classic

literature knowledge. So I am. I am going to read Middle March for you. I love that you're like recommend recommending things. I mean, Cottage cheese and sardines and audiobooks. I mean you are you notice that you're like you're my kind of Polly math mate. Some of my recommendations are more dubious than others. Is such a pleasure talking to your clime and tell you thank you. Such a pleasure, Minnie,

thank you for having me. Thank you very much. If you haven't already had your headphones plugged in too much today, I want you to listen to Roland's audiobook version of Catch and Kill. The story is incredibly powerful and it's important. Plus, as you heard, it was nominated for a Grammy because I mean, of course it was many questions. Is hosted and written by Me, Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry

Baby by Minni Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me and man Gesh Hetty Cador. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Gastella and Annique Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescadore, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support. Henry driver