Fresh Air - Best Of: A Life Of Self-Contempt / Character Actor Julianne Nicholson

Episode Date: July 20, 2024

Humorist/writer Shalom Auslander's new memoir is a satirical look at all the ways a sense of "feh," which is Yiddish for "yuck," has made its way into his psyche and every aspect of his life. Auslander has written extensively over the years about growing up in a dysfunctional ultra-Orthodox Jewish family. His new memoir, aptly titled Feh, is about a journey to write a different story for himself.We'll also hear from Julianne Nicholson. Proud to call herself a character actor, she's appeared in dozens of films and TV series, from Ally McBeal and Boardwalk Empire to August: Osage County and Mare of Easttown, where she earned an Emmy. Nicholson is starring in the new film Janet Planet.And, Ken Tucker takes us back 50 years to Stevie Wonder's album Fulfillingness' First Finale, which he says is an underrated treasure.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, writer Shalom Auslander. His new memoir is a satirical look at all the ways a sense of fe, which is Yiddish for yuck,

has made its way into his psyche and every aspect of his life. Auslander has written extensively over the years about growing up in a dysfunctional, ultra-Orthodox Jewish family. We'll also hear from Julianne Nicholson. Proud to call herself a character actor, she's appeared in dozens of films and TV series, from Ally McPhil to Boardwalk Empire to August Osage County and Mayor of Easttown. Nicholson is starring in the new film Janet Planet.

And Ken Tucker takes us back 50 years to Stevie Wonder's album Fulfillingness' first finale, which he says is an underrated treasure. internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Today my guest is writer Shalom Auslander. For decades, he's written with humor about what it was like to grow up in a dysfunctional household within an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community near the Catskills in the town of Muncie, New York. He describes how it was drilled into him from a very young age that he was born into sin, which meant he was broken,

shameful, and in constant need of redemption. Now in his middle age, Shalom Auslander explores the weight of trying to shed those feelings in a new memoir titled Fe. Fe is the Yiddish word for yuck, a pervasive feeling of self-contempt Shalom has battled with his entire life. In his attempt to rewrite his story, he faces some of the darkest parts of himself, which include addiction, thoughts of harm, and contending with the loss of his good friend, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom Shalom says also battled with feelings of shame. His first memoir, Four Skins Lament, was about his childhood years and his estrangement from his religious community and its traditions.

His work has been featured on This American Life and in several publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire Magazine, and The New York Times. And Shalom Auslander, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you. Glad to be here. Can I have you read a passage from Pha to get us started? Sure. The story of Pha is just the first story in a long book of similar stories, the collection of which is a book called You Suck.

The first part of You Suck is known as the Old Testament. Spoiler alert. Moses, the main character, dies before reaching his goal. Why? Because he was fat. The second part of You Suck is known as the New Testament. Spoiler alert. It ends with God making a huge wine press,

filling it with millions of people, and crushing them to death. Why? Guess. Most people who read the Old Testament don't read the New. Most people who read the New Testament don't read the Old. They don't have to. They're the same story. Fe. The name of the man who blinded me was Rabbi Hammer. People in Muncie went to him for advice. Tell us how to see, they beseeched him. But Rabbi Hammer was blind too. When he finished telling us Fe, he closed the book of Yusuk, leaned forward, and kissed it. Then he called us up, one by one, and gave us each a small copy of the book. To keep in your hearts and minds, he said, all the days of your lives.

Then he handed us our book and shook our hands. Mazel tov, he said. Hebrew for good luck. He wasn't kidding. I am 50 years old now, and still I am blind. It is a strange blindness. It is not a darkness, not a blackness, not an absence of light. Rather, I go through life as if beneath a shroud.

I can see the sky, the earth, the trees, the animals, all the flora and fauna without deviation, without distortion or diversion. But mankind appears to me grotesque, vile, foul, ignominious, none more so than myself. With others, I can occasionally be fair. With others, there is a chance of expiation. With myself, though, I am a hanging judge. To myself, I show no mercy. There is no criticism I don't believe, no compliment I accept. I avoid mirrors. Mirrors are bad. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in a store window is enough to ruin my whole day. This is what I think when I do. Fah. You know, Shalom, when I read that passage, I immediately thought about something my son said when he was about three or four years old.

And it was about the video game Pac-Man. And he said, is Pac-Man the good guy or the bad guy? And, you know. That's a great question. Which made me think about this book because really what you've been asking yourself all of your life is if God is a good guy or a bad guy. Right. And then sort of falling out of that, then am I the good guy or the bad guy? Exactly. Because the Old Testament and the New Testament, all of us, like God is the protagonist of that book.

He's the good guy. He's perfect in every way. And then there's us. And we're a pain in the butt. And we sin from day one, right? So you're five years old and you're sitting in a yeshiva or a madrasa or wherever you are and they tell you, so this is how humanity began. God made us out of dirt, and the first thing we did was steal. Then we lied about stealing. So God kicked us out because he couldn't take one more second of us. Then we had kids, and the boys tried to murder each other. Then God said, I'm flooding the world. I'm so sick of you, but I'm going to leave one group behind, one little family. So what does that family do? They get drunk and the father has sex with his daughters. And you're like,

I don't know if I want to belong to this family. This is a pretty screwed up family. And this is me. This is who I am. Was there ever part of that story that filled you with hope that you felt good about when you were a kid and you were learning about it? No. There was always a piece, the way the narrative of that book works, and all those books work, is just when you think it's good, it goes bad, right? So every up is followed by a horrendous down. And it's usually a down that's caused because we were fat. In some way or another, we caused this. This was our fault.

And I guess in my life, it just got to a point, I'm 54, in my late 40s, where the shrapnel of that story was threatening my life and my new family, which was a beautiful family. Made up of your wife and your children. Yeah, and that's it. I don't have any connection to my family, my birth family at all, and haven't for a long time. And it was causing more bleeding when I thought that that was something I could just sort of say, well, that's probably not true and I can move on. I realized that there's this narrative that's deep within me. And ultimately, I think deep within mankind, this story we've been telling ourselves for so long, that we suck. Right. Because you decided to become estranged from your family. You wrote this first memoir, Four Skins Lament, where you went through your childhood and you really took a hard look at what you had been taught.

And you and your wife made this conscious choice. We are no longer going to be in communication. We're going to start a new life. Take us back, though, to what you were escaping from. So you grew up in this ultra-Orthodox community. I think I through the town with someone and they were saying, oh, you know, it's weird. You drive through Muncie and it's quite beautiful. It's this, you know, bucolic little, or was, little country town.

You know, it's rural, no sidewalks, no streetlights, pretty pretty. And my feeling was like, yeah, but there's a monster here that you can't see. It's like that twilight zone where, like, there's a monster here that you can't see. It's like that twilight zone where like there's a monster here. And that monster is a God who is furious all the time. For me, personally, the problem that I ran into was that I couldn't just say, well, that's just a made up story because my father in heaven was crazy. And my father in the living room was also crazy. He was abusive. He was an alcoholic. Yeah, he drank a lot, he hit. And so my first reaction was, oh, there's another one? There's two fathers? I could do without any at this point. And so there was just a lot of bad feeling and shame involved with it.

I never quite fit in. I never felt like I belonged there. And it wasn't until my teens where I started to move out a little bit, frankly discovering literature in used bookstores in Manhattan, but finding other people who were taking this story or this shameful feeling and examining it. I was really fascinated in the book when you began to explore those puberty years. Puberty must have been hard because, I mean, it's a burgeoning sexuality, but you are in a community where rules around pleasure are so strict.

Oh, yeah. Look, puberty is no picnic for anybody. But when you're told that all the things that are happening to you or you're feeling are evil or wrong, it's ten times worse. And you don't want to see yourself in the mirror. None of the way I feel about myself, to me, is a surprise. It all follows from that background. As I say, in fact, you're not born hating yourself. We're told this story, either through a story story or through the actions of people around us. But for me, with, you know, growing up, and it wasn't today, So porn was like hid under the blanket. Under mattresses, right. And VHS tapes where you had to go to a place to actually get them.

Yeah, yeah. And I would go into these places and feel awful. You would feel awful, but you still would go. I don't know. I feel like there was some element of, am I really that bad? You know, and when you're told you're bad, you're just like, okay, so I'm bad. So I'll just be bad. I heard you tell this story about your grandmother. And I think it was, was it Chiclets? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because you just mentioned how,

even though you were told you were bad, there was that small little part of you that was thinking, am I that bad? Can you tell the story of the chiclets and what that opened up in your mind for you? Yeah. I mean, that was a little tiny moment in my life was just one of those things you look back and go, oh, thank God it happened. But it was my mother's mother and they were religious. And we used to go over to her house in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. And we'd get there and she'd call me over and she gave me chiclets, which I don't know if listeners remember this. But it was this awful gum.

It came in little squares. They came in like a little yellow box. And she would give them to me when I got there every time. And I remember one time my mother saw her giving it to me. And she got upset. She's like, what are you doing? That's treif. It's non-kosher.

And I was ashamed, and I was ashamed for my grandmother because she looked a little chastised. And she just – my mother's like, don't give him that anymore. You're not allowed to have it. You shouldn't have it either. And whatever, walked out. And then my grandmother turned to me and she takes out the chiclets and takes my hand and pours two of them into it. And she just said, oh, don't worry about it. It's just gum. What did that signal to you? What did it say? Well, first I was like, oh my God, Bob is a sinner. Yeah.

Right on. Let's go for burgers. But then it was this, oh, maybe there's a middle ground, right? Maybe there's sanity in some of this, right? I didn't question whether she believed in all the rules and God and everything else. She did very much. But it was this moment of moderation, right? Of, yeah, God will let some gum slip.

Whereas I was told he didn't. He didn't let anything slip. The story of, you know, Moses not getting into the promised land is perhaps the purest of the pure one time hit a rock. And so God said, that's it. You're not getting in. Your life goal, you're not getting in. And that's the lesson you learn as a kid. Like do not mess up.

That's the Tony Soprano thing. You don't make more than one mistake because he's coming. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Shalom Auslander. He's written a new book titled Fe, which in Yiddish means yuck. It's about coming to terms with what he learned about himself growing up in a dysfunctional, ultra-Orthodox Jewish family and how in adulthood, he's trying to rewrite his story. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

The way that you express how you felt all of your adult life, this faith that's on you. And I think you actually said this, that it's probably what's on most people. We all, no matter if we're Jewish or not. But you express what I think a lot of people feel and don't say, but it's also what we are told that we shouldn't feel. So that is, you wake up every morning and you feel fat, you feel disgusted, you feel bad. And you have to actually walk towards the good. You have to make the conscious choice. Where we've been told the narrative that good is the place where we should be sitting in and the bad is just sprinkled in. Right. I don't understand that. I think that's because we know we shouldn't, but everybody I know,

everybody I've ever met has had to deal with these perceptions of themselves that they got from somewhere that are pretty negative. But yeah, I wake up in the morning and I remember we rented a new apartment recently and everything was perfect about it except the fact that the bedroom had wall-to-wall mirrors. And I'm like, oh, God, are you serious? I have to sleep looking at myself and wake up? The moment you wake up. Oh, God. And it's bad lighting.

It's sunlight. And you're like, oh, this is horrible. Is it as bad as you thought it would be though? I try and get up early before the sun comes up. But it is. It is. I have to kind of go, ugh. And at this point, I can laugh.

Laughter is the saving grace for me. So I can laugh at myself for it. But I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty happy when the shirt comes on. Even when you're alone? Oh, yeah. Is that a mark of faith? Because I would think that being alone, there's no judgment of anyone around you.

Right, but there is no being alone. With faith, there's no being alone. There's always someone or something watching. God. God or society or, you know, I often wonder, like, if everybody felt really good about themselves, there'd be nobody at the gym. Yeah. Like, yeah, I know some people go because it feels good. Yeah, okay. But minus those lunatics, if everyone was fine, there would be no such thing as a health club.

Like, who needs that? We talked a little bit about you being estranged from your family. And the last time you were on the show, you talked about this interaction with, I think it was a midwife. You were having your first son, and she asked you if you were going to have family in the room. And you said, No, we're estranged from our family. And she said, Well, that is sad. And you said, Well, it's sad for them to be in our lives. And it's sad for them to be out of our lives. And that was 17 years ago. Yeah. Does it get any less sad? It changes.

I don't have any regret or feel like that was the wrong thing to do. And I look at my sons and my wife, and I'm convinced every day that it was the right thing to do. My kids are very free thinking and loving and they're artists and musicians and they would not fit in any better in Muncie than I did and probably have less patience for it. But the truth is that's kind of the happy ending. People hear it and they're like, oh, that's awful. But the truth is staying would have been awful because I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't have the marriage that I have. I wouldn't be the husband I am. I wouldn't be the father I am. I probably wouldn't be here.

I probably would have thrown myself off a building sometime in my early 20s, mid-20s for sure because that's what I was considering doing. I couldn't be in a place where everything pointed to there's something wrong with you. And that included everything from, I remember when my mother found out I was eating non-kosher, she told me I was finishing what Hitler started. And I was like, wait, Hitler started a Happy Meal? Because he left over the fries. And it's just this harsh, right? And you're like, well, that's kind of harsh. But I guess I guess

I'm ruining my people. And, you know, I write about this in Feu where like, you know, I so much hated being a male because of everything I was told in yeshiva about it. That when I was very young, I was convinced I wanted to be a woman. I found a Victoria's Secret catalog in the mail. And I was like, oh, my God, women are just perfect. And look at me. I'm gross. And I was like, oh, so let me put on my mother's pantyhose. at me. I'm gross. And I was like, oh, so let me put on my mother's pantyhose.

Let me put on some heels. Hey, you know what? Kind of works. Kind of feels good. Kind of works. And then like very soon after, you know, someone in the school, someone in my grade had found a porno mag at the side of the road. And it was a gay porno mag and they were all laughing at it and being horrified but the thing that horrified them most

was an ad for a film about a transvestite and i was like oh my god i'm i'm worst of the worst and i happen to have been wearing pantyhose under my yeshiva clothes at the time um and just felt like they're gonna find me they're gonna they're gonna know who i really am and i think that's been that's been the thing my whole life i feel like that's with a lot of people there's this impression that who you really are deep down inside is broken wrong evil sinful not enough in some way. And you have to work your way better than that. But it's not true. Oftentimes, the thing we are inside is the best part of us. We've just been told it's awful. So that's really what the battle against fear is to me. I'm curious, raising your children very differently than how you were raised,

you're able to see maybe a version of yourself that didn't experience the things that you... For sure. How do they interpret this idea of fae? My kids? Yeah. They have no connection to it whatsoever. They don't understand. Do you see it in them at all?

No. No. I can see. Look, they're not robots, so there are moments where it's like. They're human. Sadly. But they are. They're like, they get into their spaces where they don't feel as good or they're nervous or whatever, but it's at a normal level.

I remember reading that that was Freud's whole, I know Freud's persona non grata. But I do remember reading that, and I put this in Happiest, where he said his whole goal wasn't to make people happy. It was to bring them to a normal level of misery. And I think that's a very noble goal, whether he reached it or not.

Shalom, Auslander, thank you so much. Thank you. It's fun. Shalom Oslander's new memoir is Fae. As part of his summer series about great albums turning 50 years old, rock critic Ken Tucker has chosen Stevie Wonder's 1974 album, Fulfillingness' first finale. Although it went to number one, Ken says he thinks the album is, if anything, underrated, for reasons he'll explain. Here's Stevie Wonder and the song that opens the album, Smile Please. Smile, please. Love within, and you begin smiling There are brighter days ahead

In the first half of the 1970s, any list of the most popular music acts would have included Elton John, John Denver, the Rolling Stones. But there was no hitmaker working at as high a level of creativity as Stevie Wonder. He released back-to-back Masterpiece albums in 72 and 73, Talking Book and Inner Visions, respectively. He followed those up with a mouthful of alliteration for an album title, Fulfillingness's First Finale. It continued his hot streak. In the summer of 1974, it was impossible to avoid the jittery rhythms and bouncy vocals of one of the album's hit singles, Boogie On, Reggae Woman. I like to see you go right across the floor I like to do things till you holler oh no

I like to reggae but you dance too fast for me. I like to make my friends, so you can make me scream. Boy or woman, what is wrong with me? Despite the fact that it was neither reggae nor a boogie, Boogie on Reggae Woman was played everywhere because it was catchy and because people could not get enough of the sound of Stevie Wonder's voice, a reedy croon with a smile tucked inside it. By this time, Wonder had become, along with Marvin Gaye, one of the few Motown artists in complete control of his recordings, writing, producing, and hiring the musicians he wanted to execute his compositions. They say that heaven is

Ten zillion light years away And just the pure at heart He'll walk a righteous street someday They say that heaven is Ten zillion light years away But if there is a God We need him now Where is your God?

That's Heaven is Ten Zillion Light Years Away, a song that begins with Wonder asking if there's a God, only to blossom into a chorus about God's love filling his spirit. As ethereal as the music is, Wonder was also rooted in reality. At another point in the song, he sings the question, Why must my color black make me a lesser man? And later in the album, Wonder will offer the best protest song he ever wrote.

You Haven't Done Nothing is the angry cry of a citizen dismayed by the hollow promises of politicians. A citizen who also happens to be a genius musician. We are amazed but not amused By all the things you say that you do Though much concerned but not involved With decisions that are made by you But we are sick and tired of hearing this song

Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong Cause if you really want to hear our views You haven't Done Nothing was a pointed criticism of the Richard Nixon administration. It was released as a single on August 7th. Nixon resigned a day later.

But it transcends its context to exist now as a vivid showcase for Wonders' music-making at this point, playing keyboards as the lead instrument, drums that establish the rhythm grooves, harmonica when he feels like it. Fulfillingness' first finale won the Grammy for Best Album of the Year, yet today it feels underrated. I think that's partly because its overall tone was more subdued, more meditative than the albums immediately preceding it. A gorgeous ballad like this one, called Creepin', sounds utterly contemporary today. Say you'd stay beside me Why must it be That you always creep Into my brain

On the beach where... Following this album, Wonder would release a double album masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life, in 1976. By any measure, it was a remarkable run for any musician ever. And his gifts just keep on giving. Fulfillingness' first finale remains ripe for rediscovery in 2024. So I said, no, no, no, no, no way. Oh, no, please don't leave. Rock critic Ken Tucker revisited Stevie Wonder's 1974 album, Fulfillingness' first finale.

Coming up, we hear from actor Julianne Nicholson. She won an Emmy for her role in Mayor of Easttown. Nicholson is now starring in the new film Janet Planet. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Dave Davies introduces our next interview. Our guest today, Julianne Nicholson, is one of those actors who's well known to movie buffs and people in the entertainment world. If her name doesn't ring a bell with you, you'd surely recognize her face from memorable roles she's had in dozens of films and television series. She's perhaps best known for the HBO limited series Mayor of Easttown, where she played the best friend of the small-town detective mayor, played by Kate Winslet. Nicholson's role becomes central in the climax of the series, and her performance earned a

Primetime Emmy Award. She's appeared in the films August, Osage County, I, Tonya, Black Mass, Dream Scenario, and Weird, the Al Yankovic story, among others. And in the TV series Ally McBeal, Law and Order, Masters of Sex, Boardwalk Empire, The Outsider, and others. Nicholson is now starring in Janet Planet, the first film written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. It's in theaters now and has earned widespread critical praise. Nicholson plays a single mom and acupuncturist living in rural Massachusetts. The story centers on her relationship with her 11-year-old daughter, played by Zoe Ziegler. Julianne Nicholson,

welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. It's great to have you. You know, this film, Janet Planet, is about a mom and her daughter in this beautiful rural setting and about their relationship. And I read that when you were young, really young, I guess age seven or so, your parents moved into the countryside and lived for a good stretch building a house, and you lived without running water or electricity? Yes. So my parents split up, and then my mother and my younger sister and I moved out to Western Massachusetts, to Montague, Massachusetts, to a little cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water. We had a pump. We had kerosene lanterns and candles and wood stove with my stepfather.

And that was definitely a new way of life and one that I expect was challenging at the time, but I actually only look back on with total fondness. And I feel like our movie really captures sort of the innocence, even though this story takes place in 1991 and this was more sort of late 70s, early 80s, it captures a similar feel, a similar quality to being 11 years old at that time, before cell phones, before, you know. We had a little black and white TV that we were each allowed one hour a week, and you'd have to plug it into the car battery to watch it.

That charge, that was the charge for our tiny little television. And as the battery died, it was sort of, the picture would get smaller and smaller and you'd just be like straining your eyes, just hoping you'd get the last five minutes of The Muppet Show or whatever it was that we were watching, Magnum P.I. Wow, a simpler life. I'll say.

More modest expectations. Well, let's hear a clip. This is you as Janet in the film talking to your daughter Lacey, played by Zoe Ziegler. You're lying in bed. She likes to have you sleep with her. She's very attached to you.

And she has something to say. Let's listen. You know what's funny? What? Every moment of my life is hell. I don't like it when you say things like that. But it is you actually seem very happy to me a lot of the time I can't tell

I don't think it'll last though well that's Zoe Ziegler with our guest Julianne Nicholson in the new film Janet Planet. This character says, Zoe, the kid, says some pretty enigmatic things. I mean, you know, saying so commonly, life is hell. But she prefaces it with, you know what's funny, and finishes it with, I don't think it will last. You're a parent. I don't know.

What did you make of that when you looked at the script, Janet's way of dealing with it? I just thought it was such a beautiful look at a child and parent relationship in a way that we don't often see. This sort of deep intimacy and knowing of each other while also both having your own completely separate worlds. And I feel like there's also a very particular thing between a single parent and a child and the dependency that they can have on one another. Right. It can be more like a friendship than parenthood at times. Yeah, I think the lines get pretty blurry there, for better and worse, I would say. You've worked with child actors before.

Do you have things that you do to try and build a relationship before you start shooting? I like to, if I can, just reach out to them before filming, reach out to their parent, whoever's going to be around, and just start a relationship before we get to set. I like to find out, you know, a little bit about who they are, what their interests are, what they like. And I often will buy a present to bring, either send beforehand or bring to the first day of set. Something small, but something that's particular for them or something that I remember that I loved as a child or that my kids loved when they were little, just to sort of start a relationship. So when the cameras are rolling, I feel like you really feel that. Right. You're not coming in as strangers, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to talk about Mare of Easttown, the limited HBO series, which was a huge hit for HBO.

And you played the best friend of Mare, the small-town detective, who was played by Kate Winslet. Now, this is set in a very distinct place, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, which is actually near where we are here in fresh air. It's a working-class community. The setting is a big part of the story, isn't it? I mean, tell us about getting familiar with it and kind of what that added to things. I mean, you actually shot it on location there, right? We did. We shot on location outside of Philadelphia, as you say.

And it was very helpful to go there beforehand and get a feel for the place. And I felt like it's not the same, but growing up outside of Boston in Medford, Massachusetts, I felt like there was a similar feel. Not exactly, not quite as dark as East Town, but it felt familiar to me, sort of northeast, outside of a bigger city, working class. It felt like an easy world to slide into.

Yeah, with a very distinctive accent, which has actually been parodied on Saturday Night Live more than once, including a very funny send-up of Mayor of Easttown, which does a lot with all of that material. Was it hard to learn the dialect? Murder-dur-dur, right? Yeah, murder, dirter. That was a Saturday Night Live take. That was Saturday Night Live, yes. I mentioned that to somebody,

and they reminded me that that's what it was called, which made me laugh so much. It was tricky for sure, because the show had a wonderful dialect coach. Kate has a dialect person that she works with, and then there was also another person who helped the rest of us who was there every single day, and it's so helpful to have a dialect coach on set that can help tweak little sounds as you're filming. She made a number of recordings of different people in the area. And how we did it was I chose one person whose sound I liked and I thought I could try to aim for. So it could be more specific.

Like mine isn't a very strong accent. I think it can be jarring when you watch a show or a film about a place and everyone has the same version of the accent. Yeah. And also, as you know, from being there, it doesn't sound the same in everyone's mouth. So it was challenging and nerve wracking, but fun. Well, I want to play a scene from this. This is a critical scene in the final episode. And I guess I should give a spoiler alert. We usually don't worry about spoilers in, you know, a series that ran two years ago. But if you have not seen Mare of Easttown and want to, you might want to move away from the radio or your podcast for a few minutes.

The plot of the series centers on the murder of a young woman whose body was found at a creek bed. And after a lot of twists and turns in the investigation, in the end, your husband, John, we learn, had been having an affair with this young girl and has confessed to killing her in an encounter when she was upset and he was trying to end it. However, Mare, the detective, the Kate Winslet character, your best friend, actually learns that it is your son, Ryan, who I guess is about 12 years old. He had learned that his dad was having an affair with this young woman. He took a gun from a neighbor's shed and went to confront her to tell her to stay out of his family. They tussled over the gun and he fatally shot her.

So it's your son who actually did this, we learn. And after he's been confronted and confesses to the police with Mare, with you at his side, in this scene, you're in your car after he has been taken away for processing. You're understandably terribly distraught. And Mare, the detective, your friend, who's now responsible for sending your son to jail, gets into your car. Let's listen. Laura. Don't. Look at me, Laura. Don't touch me. Laura don't touch me

don't you touch me why didn't you come to me Laura no just one thing why couldn't you just leave it alone you have John why couldn't you just leave it alone

it's Ryan it's Ryan it It's Ryan! It's my Ryan! My Ryan! Ryan! It was an accident. He doesn't even know how to hold a gun. Why couldn't you just leave him alone?

My whole family's gone now because of you. Get away from me. I don't want to see you again. Get away from me. Get the f*** out of my car! That is our guest Julianne Nicholson with Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown. Such a powerful moment. Boy, it really hit me watching this again.

Is it hard for you to listen to? Yes. I just had to remove my headphones. Yeah. It is. Yeah. No, actually, it brought tears to my eyes when I listened to that. And having heard this, having seen the series two years ago, coming back to it, I wonder if you can say anything about summoning that kind of emotion in that scene.

Did you think of your own son, what losing him might be like? I don't remember exactly what I was thinking about before that particular moment, but I do tend to personalize scenes as much as I can. And, you know, using imagination and the words on the page, and obviously an incredible scene partner like Kate. I think it was, you know, probably something like picturing my son in circumstances like that and what that might feel like. You know, I've heard actors say that it means a lot to have other actors with you that you know and trust, but particularly if you're doing a difficult scene. And in this case, of course, it's Kate Winslet, your personal friend. But this is also a scene in which you are expressing such rage at her.

Was working with a friend more complicated in that case? No, it wasn't more complicated at all. I've been a fan of Kate's forever, from Eternal Sunshine to, I mean, everything I've ever seen her in. And to have that history, it just allows you to go a bit deeper. And I just trust her. And looking at her, she's just so clear eyed and with you that it allows for me and it just allowed things to open up even more. You asked Mare in that scene, why couldn't you just leave it alone, you know, leave her son alone? And she doesn't answer. But I imagine what she would say is, look, this is my job.

I took an oath. I have to play it straight. But the interesting thing is that in this series, we know that very recently Mare, that very detective, when she was in a battle for custody for her grandson with the son's mother who had long struggled with addiction. That mayor had gone to a police evidence locker, stolen two bags of heroin, and planted them on this woman, committing a crime, violating her oath to protect someone in her family. But she wouldn't do it for you, her friend, Lori, which just added a whole other element when I thought about it. Totally. Were you aware of that at all?

Was she aware of it? God, now that you remind me, how dare you, Mayor? Laurie didn't know that. But of course, I think Laurie knows that she's no angel. You know, I think that was part of her grief. Like, this is where you make your stand. This is where you do the right thing. I completely understand Laurie's feelings. If the husband was already in, if John was already in there taking the blame.

Though there is the thought too we talked about, which is if Ryan was never punished for it or never had to own up to it, would that not ruin his life in a different way? You know, the guilt around that. So maybe she did him a favor in the long run. You know, I saw online your acceptance speech for the Emmy in which you talked long enough where the band started trying to play you off. But you spent the whole time thanking other people. And especially Kate Winslet, who was in the audience. You said that in addition to being a great actress, she was so good at caring for the whole time thanking other people and especially Kate Winslet who was in the audience you said that in addition to being a great actress she was so good at caring for the whole production

you said she led us every step of the way with such care and intelligence and love that's the lead actress in the series yeah what did she do that was so special there with with everybody? She just comes with so much heart and so much just innate talent. And she brings everyone with her. Some people are doing the thing for themselves. She wants everyone to shine. She wants the story to be the best it can be. It's not just about her glory. And she's just paying attention all the time to everything that's happening on set. I don't know how she does it. She just must have like feelers or sensors out all the time, like just tracking how much beverage is in that beer bottle,

how many chips are on that table. Why is that clock not set for the right time for the scene? I mean, she's just a miracle. The show had great ratings. You won the primetime Emmy. Did it change your career? Did the phone start ringing a lot more?

You know what? It's so funny you should ask that, Dave, because I've been asked that before. And for the first year, I would have said no. It didn't change it much at all. But I'm doing a show now for Hulu with Dan Fogelman, the wonderful Dan Fogelman who wrote the series This Is Us. And he reached out to me to

do this incredible part, unlike any I've played before. And I'm sure a big part of that was Mare of Easttown. So I'm sure that yes, it has. But I do also feel like it's a body of work that I've been growing for over two decades. And then something like that on top of it just makes it a little easier to say yes. Yeah, makes sense. Can I say something else about that? When I won the Emmy, it I mean such a thrill of course

and I wished that I thanked my husband more because he's been I'm gonna get upset emotional I should say not upset he's been such an incredible supporter also I've been away from home by the way tears have come and go with me. It's not a big deal, so don't panic. I just feel like the family is the one that makes the sacrifices, and I'm just so grateful.

Well, my recollection is that you did thank him and your kids. I did, but not enough. Could never be enough, I guess. Yeah. Well, good luck with the new film. It's been fun to talk. Thanks so much for speaking with us.

Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed it. Julianne Nicholson stars in the new film Janet Planet, written and directed by Pollard Surprise winning playwright Annie Baker. Fresh Air Weekend

is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salat, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Chorak, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

This message comes from NPR sponsor Grammarly. What if everyone at work were an expert communicator? Inbox numbers would drop, customer satisfaction scores would rise, and everyone would be more productive. That's what happens when you give Grammarly to your entire team. Grammarly is a secure AI writing partner that understands your business and can transform it through better communication. Join 70,000 teams who trust Grammarly with their words and their data. Learn more at Grammarly.com.

Grammarly. Easier said, done. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.