‘Wonder Man’ star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II on cancellation and confidence
Two weeks after being nominated for an Emmy for his leading role in Wonder Man, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II found out that the series had been cancelled. He says Marvel could do more to support Black-led projects. Abdul-Mateen spoke with co-host Tonya Mosley about how he stumbled into acting, padding his early resumé, and working through his stutter. Also, film critic Justin Chang reviews Teenage Death and Sex at Camp Miasma. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Challenges the U.S. military is facing in Iran
Defense analyst Stacie Pettyjohn says while the U.S. military is facing long-range missile shortages, prolonged deployments, and vacated regional bases, Iran is building cheaper weapons quickly. She tells Dave Davies the U.S. military is scrambling to adjust to innovations in modern warfare. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Jason Segel is not afraid of the ‘dirty underneath’
Segel returns to talk with Terry Gross about his Emmy-nominated series Shrinking, in which he plays a therapist who suffered a nervous breakdown in the wake of his wife’s death. Segel opens up about his own therapy, acting opposite Harrison Ford, and overcoming writer's block. He thinks of his vulnerability as a super power. "I'm kind of devoid of pride or shame about the dirty underneath. I'll say the stuff that a lot of people are trying to hide." Segel wrote and starred in the hit comedy film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and played David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
What evolution reveals about eating, dieting and fat
When you’re dieting to lose weight, human evolution is often working against you. We’ll talk about why with Daniel Lieberman, author of Fed Up and founder of Harvard’s Department of Evolutionary Biology. He spoke with Terry Gross about diets he’s tested, and the often contradictory information about what’s healthy to eat and what’s not. Also, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Etna, a novel that looks at war through the narration of a dog. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Best Of: 'Spider-Man' dir. Destin Daniel Cretton / Novelist Harriet Clark
Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues to break box office records, after having the biggest U.S. opening weekend in history. Tonya Mosley talks with the film’s director, Destin Daniel Cretton. Long before Marvel, he worked in a group home for at-risk teens. He says it's an experience that shaped everything he's made since then, and became the movie Short Term 12. Also, we hear from Harriet Clark. She was a baby when her mother was a getaway driver of a robbery of a Brink’s truck in 1981. The robbers were members of a radical offshoot of the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. For 37 years, Clark spent Saturdays visiting her mother in prison. “She figured out how to mother me in some of the most difficult conditions possible,” Clark tells Terry Gross. Her novel, The Hill, draws on her experience visiting her mother in prison. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Reckoning with America’s history of slavery
Poet and writer Clint Smith says we are taught to think of slavery as something that happened a long, long time ago. But then he learned that his grandfather's grandfather had been enslaved. “This person who was so central to my life and my own identity is someone who was only a generation or two removed from a family member who had been born into slavery," he tells Terry Gross. Smith is the author of the bestselling book How the Word Is Passed, about distortions in how the history of slavery was taught to him and other children -- and the ways many Americans deceive themselves about that history. He's also the author of the collection of poetry called Above Ground. Also, critic at large John Powers reviews the new TV series Lanterns. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Colman Domingo loves a challenge
Colman Domingo is nominated for two Emmy Awards for two very different performances — in the Netflix comedy The Four Seasons and in HBO's Euphoria. "I can go very deep with my characters," he tells co-host Tonya Mosley. He talks about doing comedy with masters like Tina Fey, filling in for Jimmy Kimmel, why he loves being in his 50s. Also, Lloyd Schwartz reviews a remastered album of Handel arias by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
The race for tech supremacy: The U.S. vs. China
China produces at least 70% of the world’s drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. And with the U.S. stockpile of munitions diminished from the Iran war, would the U.S. have what it needs to defend Taiwan if China invaded? Terry Gross talks with New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos about his latest story, “The Future Made in China.” “The irony here is that we are in some ways beholden right now to the Chinese factory in order to produce the munitions that we need to defend American interests from China. That’s the exquisite problem that we've found ourselves in,” Osnos says. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
‘Spider-Man’ director Destin Daniel Cretton
Cretton grew up in Hawaii, and says movies expanded his perspective: “That is how I traveled. That is how I was exposed to other cultures. That's how I understand how kids grew up in high school on the mainland,” he tells co-host Tonya Mosley. He explains how his job at a group home for at-risk teens inspired his film Short Term 12, how he relates to Peter Parker’s loneliness, and how his difficult relationship with his father helps him with directing. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air ArchivesSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Silicon Valley billionaires’ war on democracy
Journalist Gil Durán argues that a small circle of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists have concluded that democracy is in their way — and that they should be governing in its place. Durán traces their fringe ideologies from blogs, manifestos and private talks straight to the White House. “The weird stuff these guys say in their blogs or in their speeches is not just eccentric fluff. Because they have so much money, they can turn these weird ideas into policy and cause tremendous damage.” His book is The Nerd Reich. Also, Ken Tucker has a 50th anniversary appreciation of the Sparkle soundtrack. Loosely based on the girl group The Supremes, the 1976 film starred Aretha Franklin and the music was written and produced by Curtis Mayfield. In the audio of this story, we incorrectly say the theme music of the movie Shaft was by Curtis Mayfield. It was by Isaac Hayes. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Best Of: Jia Tolentino on plastic surgery & AI / ‘Beef’ creator Lee Sun Jin
Seven years ago, New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino coined the term “Instagram Face.” Now we talk about how current beauty standards are changing our relationship to reality. “It seems more explicitly anti-human right now than ever before,” she tells Tonya Mosley. “There seems to be something that’s dove-tailing with the age of AI.” Also, we hear from Lee Sung Jin, creator of the Netflix series Beef. The second season is a story about class and blackmail at an exclusive country club. He talks about how he has pulled ideas from his own life, and his experience working in writers rooms as the only Asian person. Film critic Justin Chang reviews the new erotic comedy I Want Your Sex, starring Olivia Wilde. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Remembering ‘The Man Who Listens to Horses’
The internationally acclaimed horseman Monty Roberts defied the conventional method of breaking horses and developed his own gentler approach — based on horses' non-verbal language. He died on July 31st at 91. Roberts spoke with Terry Gross in 1997, at the time of his memoir. Also, jazz critic Martin Johnson reviews Jason Moran’s record of Duke Ellington tracks, and John Powers reviews Tony, the Anthony Bourdain biopic that focuses on his first time working in a kitchen. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Novelist Claire Vaye Watkins on the beauty & brutality of the desert
Claire Vaye Watkins' new novel, 'Yellow Pine,' is about a group of misfits and activists in the Mojave desert, fighting a corporate solar development. Living in the desert is "not for everybody," she tells Terry Gross. Her home, near Death Valley, is staggeringly beautiful and brutal. She talks about growing up around environmental activism, solitude, and her father's escape from the Manson Family. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new thriller series ‘Furious,’ starring Emmy Rossum, by ‘New Girl’ creator Elizabeth Meriwether. In the audio version of this story, we incorrectly use she/her pronouns for the actor Lola Petticrew. Petticrew uses they/them pronouns. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
How Trump made an estimated $2.2 billion last year
New York Times reporter Eric Lipton discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations into Trump’s conflicts of interest and whether he’s exploiting the power of the presidency for self-enrichment. Lipton spoke with Terry Gross. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Jean Smart bids farewell to ‘Hacks’
The fifth and final season of the HBO comedy series ‘Hacks’ is nominated for 24 Emmys, including one for Smart as best actress in a comedy series. The writers “raised the bar every single season," Smart tells guest interviewer Aarti Shahani. They talk about why the show is ending, Smart’s distant relative who narrowly escaped the Salem Witch Trials, and adopting a baby when she was in her 50s. Also, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the novel ‘Country People,’ by Daniel Mason. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air Archives See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
