Fresh Air

Fresh Air Weekend: Edward Snowden; Journalist Andrea Mitchell

By editor • 10 hours ago

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes And Star Maggie Smith

By Dave Davies • Sep 20, 2019

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. "Downton Abbey," the feature film based on the Masterpiece series that ran on PBS for six seasons, opens today in theaters. Much of the cast returns in the movie for a plot set in motion by the visit of King George the V to Downton. In this scene, conflicts emerge as servants at Downton are talking about preparations from the royals with the king's page, who's part of the royals advance team.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOWNTOWN ABBEY")

'Ad Astra' Approaches The Sublime With Its Portrait Of Masculinity In Crisis

By Justin Chang • Sep 20, 2019

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. The science fiction drama "Ad Astra" stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut who sets out on a dangerous voyage to the outer reaches of the solar system. It's the latest picture from writer-director James Gray, whose earlier movies include "We Own The Night," "Two Lovers" and "The Lost City Of Z." Our film critic Justin Chang says "Ad Astra" is a space odyssey that sometimes stumbles but ultimately soars.

Edward Snowden Speaks Out: 'I Haven't And I Won't' Cooperate With Russia

By Dave Davies • Sep 19, 2019

In 2013, Edward Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance of American citizens.

Racial Tensions Complicate The Search For A Missing Child In 'Heaven, My Home'

By John Powers • Sep 18, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. "Heaven, My Home" is the latest crime novel by Attica Locke, a prize-winning novelist also known for her television work, which includes writing for the hit series "Empire" and the recent Netflix mini series "When They See Us." This new book is the second in a series about an African American Texas ranger. And our critic-at-large John Powers says that Locke knows how to write a mystery novel that stings.

Journalist Andrea Mitchell: Asking Tough Questions Is 'Very Empowering'

By Terry Gross • Sep 18, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

'Second Founding' Examines How Reconstruction Remade The Constitution

By Terry Gross • Sep 17, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Some of today's most divisive issues related to racial equality, voting rights and voter suppression, women's rights, who gets to be a citizen, mass incarceration and what is the meaning of equal justice are issues you can't fully understand without understanding the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. These are the amendments that were added to the Constitution after the Civil War in the era known as Reconstruction.

'Fresh Air' Remembers Cokie Roberts, A Founding Mother Of NPR

By Terry Gross • Sep 17, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. We've got some very sad news today. Cokie Roberts, one of the founding mothers of NPR, has died from complications of breast cancer. She was 75.

Reporters Dig Into Justice Kavanaugh's Past, Allegations Of Misconduct Against Him

By Terry Gross • Sep 16, 2019

Several Democratic presidential candidates are calling for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after The New York Times published an essay Sept. 14 describing alleged sexual misconduct that occurred during his college years at Yale.

Fresh Air Weekend: The CIA's Quest For Mind Control; Tan France Of 'Queer Eye'

By editor • Sep 14, 2019

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Linda Ronstadt On Making Music: 'I Knew How To Sing My Whole Life'

By Terry Gross • Sep 13, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Linda Ronstadt is the subject of a new documentary that opened today called "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice." We're going to listen back to the interview I recorded with her in 2013, a month after she revealed that she had Parkinson's disease and could no longer sing. The disease had ended her singing career years before it was diagnosed.

The 'Hustlers' Grab Back In This Crime Story With A Feminist Twist

By John Powers • Sep 13, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

'Waste' Examines The Global And Local Afterlife of Recyclables

By Terry Gross • Sep 12, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. I don't know about you, but I've been really confused lately about how and what I should be recycling. And I'm confused about what happens to my recycling after it's carted away. I'm referring to plastics and paper as well as electronics, including old phones and computers. We used to ship a lot of our waste to China for recycling. But recently, China stopped taking it. Now what? What are governments doing and what is industry doing to deal with the problem of waste?

Filmmaker Ken Burns Goes Wide, But Not Deep, In His Chronicle Of 'Country Music'

By Ken Tucker • Sep 12, 2019

Ken Burns is our great explainer, television's finest illustrator. He's a filmmaker who gives us what we know from fresh angles, so that we can learn more and appreciate topics on a deeper level. Whether his subject is the Civil War or baseball, Burns has made an art of divining what most Americans know about a subject and then putting an arm around our collective shoulder and murmuring, "Yes, but have you seen this?"

Why Fashion Expert Tan France Nearly Turned Down 'Queer Eye'

By Terry Gross • Sep 11, 2019

When fashion designer Tan France got the call to audition for the Netflix makeover series Queer Eye, his initial reaction was to say no. France, the gay son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants, didn't want to take on the burden of representing his community — especially on television.

"The thought of being one of the very first openly gay South Asian men on a major show. ... That pressure was so hard to handle," he says. "The pressure of being one of the first to do something is massively stressful."

Singer/Composer Jazzmeia Horn Is A Double Threat On 'Love & Liberation'

By Kevin Whitehead • Sep 10, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR.

'She Said' Reveals The People And Practices That Protected Weinstein

By Terry Gross • Sep 10, 2019

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A 'Poisoner In Chief'

By Terry Gross • Sep 9, 2019

During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.

Atwood Hints At A Brighter Future In 'Handmaid' Sequel 'The Testaments'

By Maureen Corrigan • Sep 9, 2019

Now that it feels like we're living in a society that I find myself thinking of as "Gilead lite," how could The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, possibly convey the same degree of shock as its predecessor? The answer is, it can't.

Fresh Air Weekend: Janet Mock On 'Pose'; Elvis' Guitarist James Burton

By editor • Sep 7, 2019

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

On 'Pose,' Janet Mock Tells The Stories She Craved As A Young Trans Person: As a writer, director and producer of the TV series about the underground ballroom community in 1980s New York, she says the work sometimes makes her tear up.

Lana Del Rey Crafts A Hypnotic California Sound On 'Norman F****** Rockwell!'

By Ken Tucker • Sep 6, 2019

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

Obscure Artists Alice Guy-Blaché And Tom Lehrer Get Their Due In 2 New DVDs

By David Bianculli • Sep 6, 2019

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

Maggie Gyllenhaal Takes On The Power Imbalance Of Sex Work In 'The Deuce'

By Terry Gross • Sep 6, 2019

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Our guest, Maggie Gyllenhaal, stars in the HBO series "The Deuce." Its third season premieres Monday. "The Deuce" is about the intersection of prostitution, pornography, organized crime, cops, politicians and feminists in the Times Square area of Manhattan in the '70s. It's also about changing attitudes towards sex in that period and how pornography became more mainstream.