Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Or at least, she adds with a smile, a place that isnt boring.
Youve been interviewing people for more than 40 years.
What do you think thats taught you about yourself?Thats hard.
Im not exactly sure I can enumerate what Ive learned.
Its like youre slowly being changed every day by doing this job.
I have learned, though, that everybody is insecure and everybody is troubled.
Even incredibly talented people have deep insecurities.
Maybe this is perverse, but I find that idea comforting.
It helps me cope with my own stuff.
Whats your stuff?Whats my stuff?
Yeah, your stuff.Okay, my stuff.
Nothing major, but an overactive mind thats often focusing on the negative.
Like,Whats bothering me today?
Let me work that for a while.
Whats making me most insecure?
Ill focus on that.
I would totally dismiss the favorite thing to listen to part.
Id think that was just their way of cushioning the blow that yesterdays show was terrible.
Theyd just come up with a false opening to be nice about how bad yesterdays show was.
Whats the function?I like to quote John Updike on this.
Thats kind of how I see interviews.
I love making those connections.
I think we all feel very alone.
you’re able to reveal more.
Not always, but sometimes.
Im not trying to prove that Im smart or funny.
I just want the guests to say things of value.
Im not saying were here to cover up a guests bad deeds.
I really had not.
Whats especially confounding for me is that I love Louis C.K.s work so much.
To find out what hed done was deeply upsetting.
It left me speechless.
I cant sit in judgment of a person I dont know what happened.
But if I am aware of allegations, I cantnotask about them.
So rather than create that situation, Id prefer to just not do the interview.
But I did ask him aboutSoon-Yi.
I didnt want to just say, So, you married your daughter?
I kind of asked around it.
Needless to say, he didnt think it was.
Have all those thousands of interviews led to any general insights about human beings?What can I say?
You think you have meaningful conversations with someone, then you find out they masturbated in front of women.
So when you ask, Have you learned things about people?
Yeah, Ive learned you may think you know somebody based on an interview and you dont necessarily.
We all have things were ashamed of.
Were all different, which is why people are interesting.
I dont think everybodysequallyinteresting.
There are several layers, which Im sure you have too.
Theres the layer thats just trying to listen, and listening is surprisingly hard.
People think when you interview that you talk a lot.
Actually, I listen a lot.
I talk very little.
Im thinking,Is this an interesting answer?
So Im thinking all that, and Im also thinking,Is this interesting enough to follow up?
If so, what is the follow-up?
Theres a lot going on.
It was more that I knew I liked it and felt comfortable doing it.
But then I got a chance to do radio, which I would never have thought of.
Why not?Because Id only heard one woman on the radio:Alison Steele, the Nightbird.
Once I had a microphone, Why would you talk tome?
became Now I have a reason to talk to you and you have a reason to talk to me.
And I do think people thought of me as somebody who played fair.
The other thing that prepared me to be an interviewer was being anEnglish major.
When youre reading fiction, youre becoming the narrator of the story.
Part of the preparation is thinking,Whats it like to be this person?
And then when youre talking to the person its like,Wow, that person lived through that?
I graduated high school in 68 and got my B.A.
in 72 there were almost no women on radio then.
Somy parentshad no reason to think that I would find a home there.
I dont think my parents had heard interviews on the radio.
I wanted it so badly that I just devoted myself to it.
So what need didFresh Airfill in your life?
Why did you want it so badly?When I was in high school I wanted to write.
He said something like, This is the kind of language that can shatter.
I was so excited.
And I thought,Write what?
I dont have stories that just come to me.
He looked at me kind of smirky and said, Write a love story.
I thought,Thats about the last thing Id write.
Hes just saying that because he thinks women should write love stories.
Hes not the key in whod be reading love stories probably.
It was so dismissive.
I was discouraged really easily, I guess.
But, also, I just didnt think I was good enough to be writer.
Interviewing fit so many of my needs.
But I have a go at let any pointless misinterpretations and accusations roll off my back.
Its kind of glorying in the violence.
And I wanted to know if that violence read differently after all those children were killed by a gun.
[Tarantino] interpreted that, I think, as meaning, Its your fault, Quentin Tarantino.
Which I didnt mean at all.
My sense is that some listeners believe youre tougher on guests whose politics they think you disagree with.
Ive gotten both insults and compliments for interviews Ive never done.
What can you do?
Theres no way of controlling what people think.
Can empathy be learned?Im not so sure.
Even if theyre listening, theyre not picking up on the emotional meanings.
I dont know that you’ve got the option to teach emotional understanding.
You know about that whole thing when I askedHillary Clintonabout gay marriage?
She thought you were trying to pin her as a hypocrite?Which I wasnt.
As you’re able to tell, what I was asking was unclear.
I also think her answers were guarded and unclear.
But I wish I had asked that question better.
Is there a question you wish youd asked in your life?About my life?
To someone in your life.I wish I couldve asked my parents more about how they felt about dying.
They were children of Eastern European immigrants who grew up without the language of psychology and philosophy.
My father, Im not sure he ever read a novel.
Theres a certain kind of introspective language he might not have had access to.
He probably wasnt encouraged to use it even if he did.Absolutely.
That was all fine.
We just never had the conversation.
He was uninterested, and I didnt want to tell him what he should be feeling.
How do you feel about dying?Im not afraid of it.
What Im afraid of is pain.
Im really afraid of suffering.
Im afraid of being trapped in a hospital incapacitated.
But the prospect of not existing isnt scary to you.No, its not.
I also dont believe in a literal heaven and hell.
Unless it hurts.Then Id bevery afraid.
Who is Terry Gross in the minds ofFresh Airlisteners?Ive learned a lot about this from Twitter.
Anytime I ask a question relating to sex, people go Whoa!
They often quote back the phrase with the sexual reference as if its really remarkable.
Like, She said something sexually related!
Whats that about?I think its probably younger people thinking of me as the older person.
Kind of like how you dont want to hear your mother talk about sex.
Moment of release instead of ejaculation that kind of thing?Yes, Im trying to think of one.
I dont know, self-pleasuring instead of masturbation.
I really tie myself in knots trying to say things like that.
People find that hilarious, for good reason.
How does your work spill over into your personal life?
And I mean more from a psychical rather than practical perspective.
Some people can go on for seven minutes without a breath.
At some point, you have to interrupt them and explain, This is radio.
We need to take breaks.
Im not going to make the case that Im a great interviewee!
I wasnt intentionally avoiding the question.
I was just going on a tangent.
Maybe you were unconsciously avoiding it.No, no.
Im happy to address the subject.
What I was saying actually connects to your connection.
In real life, youll run into someone on the street and say, Hi, how are you?
and seven minutes later theyre still telling you.
So Ive gotten practice with asking people in a nice way to stop talking.
I dont want to be in that audience.
I want people to talk with me, not to me.
I used to be really shy and now I feel like I can talk to anybody.
I know I can ask questions that will help me find common ground.
I can navigate to the place where me and another person can have a real conversation.
But off the air, I like to benotthe interviewer.
I want to engage with the person Im talking to on an equal level.
As interlocutors.Have you ever been exactly sure what that means?
Heres my reaction to you, heres your reaction to me.
Thats as opposed to just tell me more about you.
In an interview, I like to hang back.
Its not about me.
You know that lady in the afternoon?
That really annoying lady?
And I said, Oh, uh, thats me.
You were in perfect bargaining position!And I did end up buying the car from him.
Does getting recognized like that happen a lot?It happens more and more.
It gives me a sense of being watched when I think Im invisible.
I used to think of myself as nondescript.
Outside of being short, Im not the kind of person who is visually memorable.
To be noticed when you dont think of yourself as being noticeable is a little spooky.
My work days are so rich in terms of connecting with people.
Theres not a lot of time for other connection.
You and your husband listen to records together, right?Every Saturday morning.
That was kind of a nice artifact.
And we love hearing people do standards.
You know how on the flip sides of 45s groups would cover an old song?
Or on albums if they needed to fill time theyd do the same thing.
Im not ready to stop and Im not ready to have a stop date.
I want to do whatever it is that I need to do to keep going.
Im not looking to retire.
Have you ever had offers to leaveFresh Air?Ive had offers, which I wont discuss.
Who would be your ideal last guest?No one!
Im not thinking of a final guest!
I dont have fantasy guests anymore.
Lou Reed, Stephen Sondheim, Dennis Hopper.
I think John Updike was on it.
Lou Reed walked out on me.
Do you take bad interviews personally?No.
The thing I tell myself in situations like that is that these people dont know who I am.
Lou Reed,Bill OReilly, Gene Simmons they dont know who I really am.
The people who know the show, know what to expect.
Match me louder and faster!
Does that actually work?
[Laughs] No, I dont think so.
What Im really trying to do is find the persons comfort zone.
Some people are great on craft the process of writing, the process of making the film.
Some people are great on anecdote.
Some people are great on biography, their personal story.
So Ill just keep looking for that spot.
Youre fishing.Yeah, Im fishing.
Sometimes I never catch anything.
I cant argue that every interview I do is interesting.
Sometimes we dont run interviews because theyre boring or confusing.
Whats an interview that felt like a breakthrough for you?Gosh, its hard to think of one.
Id say theMaurice Sendakinterview.
He was in this very reflective place and it was this beautiful and heartbreaking interview.
It stopped people dead in their tracks.
You could hear in his voice that he was tearing up.
Its probably the interview that surprised me more than any other Ive ever done.
Whatever the gig, its rare that someone has the same job for as long as youve had yours.
Do you ever find yourself thinking any paths-not-taken thoughts?I found the job that was best-suited for me.
Im not sure my job has had a bad effect on me physically.
Im either reading, screening something, listening to something, or talking to someone.
Its a sedentary life.
Im proof that you’re able to hurt yourself by sitting and reading.
I have back issues.
Sittings also probably not good for your heart.
What about non-physical downsides?I dont have children.
I cant say that was a sacrifice.
I didnt feel called to have children.
The show is premised on me preparing at night for the next days interview.
Doing that with children wouldve made me a terrible mother.
The women in my neighborhood were full-time mothers and thats not the life I wanted.
So I went completely in the opposite direction and Im not sorry.
I made a choice about what I wanted and Im glad I did.
Do you still sing?Only in the kind of spaces that shy non-singers sing in.
Were talking about the shower, empty elevators, closets.
Ive had cats run from my singing.
No you havent.That is literally true.
Our current cat seems to tolerate my singing.
The previous one would run away.
Isthatsomething you took personally?I kind of did.
But I learned to live with it.
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.
