Fresh Air

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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 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

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