Fresh Air - Best Of: Sterling K. Brown / Paul Giamatti

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

Actor Sterling K. Brown co-stars in the new film American Fiction. We'll talk about his role in that, as well as playing O.J. Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden. Also, we'll hear from Paul Giamatti. He just won a Golden Globe for his role in The Holdovers, as a pompous and disliked teacher at a boys boarding school. The Holdovers is the second collaboration between Giamatti and director Alexander Payne. The first was the surprise hit movie Sideways.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger in for Terry Gross. Today, actor Sterling K. Brown. In the miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson, Brown played prosecutor Christopher Darden. He was one of the stars of This Is Us and was in Black Panther. He now co-stars in the new film American Fiction, which is on a lot of critics' best of 2023 lists. Also, we'll hear from Paul Giamatti. He just won a Golden Globe for his role in The Holdovers as a pompous and disliked teacher at a boys' boarding school. The Holdovers is the second collaboration between Giamatti and director Alexander Payne. The first was the surprise hit movie Sideways.

He asked Payne how his acting had changed over the past two decades. I'm like, was I better? Was I better? Was I even better than I used to be? And he's very cagey about it. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger in for Terry Gross. Terry has today's first interview.

I'll let her introduce it. It looks like my guest Sterling K. Brown is about to be in the cultural zeitgeist again. He co-stars in the new movie American Fiction, which is on many critics' 10 best lists and is likely to be nominated for Oscars. In the popular miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson, about one of the most controversial trials of the 20th century, Brown played Christopher Darden, one of O.J. Simpson's prosecutors. Brown won an Emmy for that performance in 2016. He won another the following year for his performance in the popular NBC series This Is Us.

That series brought many viewers to tears. While shooting This Is Us, he managed to get away long enough to play a small but important role in Black Panther. He was nominated for an Emmy for his guest appearance on an episode of the popular comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which satirized TV series about police detectives. Let's start with his new film, American Fiction. It stars Jeffrey Wright as a college professor and novelist who's black. He writes fiction that's pretty obscure, like a novel based on the Greek tragedy The Persians by Aeschylus. No one wants to publish his new novel. It appears to him that the only books white publishers want by black authors are books

about being poor or in in gangs, or addicted to drugs, or being a pregnant teenager. So under a pen name, he writes a book conforming to those expectations to prove his point. He's offered a huge advance, the book becomes a bestseller, and he gets even more money when the film rights are sold. But the pseudonym leads to unexpected trouble. Sterling K. Brown plays the writer's brother. He's a plastic surgeon who's currently having money problems because his wife has left him and has taken half his practice after discovering he's having gay relationships. He's just come out as gay and is going a little overboard in reconstructing his identity. The film is a

funny satire about race and the publishing industry, while at the same time probing complicated family relationships. Sterling K. Brown, welcome to Friendshare. So happy to have you on the show. Terry, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Did you experience any of the same type of preconceptions about what it means to be authentically black in your personal life or in your acting career? Absolutely. I found it definitely when I got to Hollywood in the early 2000s that the idea of being intelligent was something that I needed to shed. Many casting

directors be like, he's got this smart guy thing. If he can lose that, then he'll be much more castable. I think that similar to what you were saying in your intro with regards to the kinds of for how blackness needed to be portrayed in order to be, quote unquote, authentic. When you were an economics major and then you interned at the Federal Reserve, did you want to be in business or economics? Yes. I think at that point in time in my life, Terry, the most important thing was being able to pour back into my community in a way that was substantial. And the primary way that felt most substantial was through financial resources. So my goal was to make money. I felt like my mom sent me to this fancy college prep school and I got into Stanford University. I felt like the most important thing that I could do to show my appreciation is make sure that I was able to be a contributing member

of the family, a contributing member of the community in terms of financial resources. So I said, what better way to make money than to be an economics major, learn what money does and how I can make more of it, right? And what I found through my first year at Stanford and through this internship at the Federal Reserve Bank was that while I was good with numbers, I wasn't really interested or passionate about the inner workings of what it took to make money. Like money in and of itself wasn't a driving force for me that motivated me to continue. I couldn't see a life just making money if I wasn't doing something that excited me or ignited me in a more passionate, spiritual, holistic sort of way.

Okay. So you found the passion in acting, but this reminds me of a line that you say in American fiction. So your brother, the main character in the story, who's the novelist who can't get published, you say to him, like, you know, me and your sister, you're like, we're doctors. We save people. Like, what can you do?

Revive a sentence? And so that reminds me, like, did you worry, like, okay, so I'm not going to give back to my community through learning about economics and money um what will being an actor give back to my community like what what meaning does that have in the larger world great question and it's something that i thought about for a while um and so when i told my mom that i was going to change my major i knew that she will probably have some questions for me in terms of why I wanted to do it.

But most importantly, I had to let her know that I prayed about it. And I said, yes, ma'am, I had. And I felt led. And that gave her permission to give me permission to dive into it without any sort of regrets or second questioning. I want to talk to you about the role that you got your first Emmy for, and that's the role of Christopher Darden in The People vs. O.J. Simpson, which was the first season of American Crime Story. You won an Emmy in 2016. You were, you know, Darden was one of the prosecutors, one of the two prosecutors, and he was portrayed by O.J.

Simpson defenders, by people who thought OJ was innocent, as having the job so that the prosecution could present a black face. But Darden really, I think, deeply believed in OJ's guilt. So I want to play a clip from the closing argument that you make in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. So here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, to grasp this crime, you must first understand Mr. Simpson's relationship to his ex-wife, Nicole. It was a ticking time bomb. The fuse was lit in 1985, the very year they were married.

Officers responded after Mr. Simpson beat Nicole and took a baseball bat to her Mercedes. Then in 1989, Nicole had to call 911 again, fearing for her life. When officers arrived, Nicole ran towards them, yelling, he's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. She had a black eye, a cut forehead, a swollen cheek. In her torn bra, Nicole pleaded with the officers, you've come up here eight times. You never do anything about it. And they want to tell you that the police conspired against Mr. Simpson. This case is not about the N-word.

It is about O.J. Simpson and the M-word. Murder. Now, I'm not afraid to point to him and say he did it. Why not? The evidence all points to him. In February 1992, Nicole filed for divorce. She was running away from the man who said he'd kill her. She saw the explosion coming.

Why else fill a safe deposit box with threatening letters from the defendant, a will, and police photos of past beatings? She knew that the bomb could go off at any second. And then it did. Now I'm going to skip ahead to the end of your closing argument. He's a murderer. And he was also one hell of a great football player but he's still a murderer when i saw the series i thought oh you look so much like christopher darwin you're so good in it um you you were in college at stanford during the child what did you think of oJ at the time?

Did you think he was guilty or innocent? I'm going to be honest and say like it was a second consideration. It wasn't the first thing on my mind. I think that was sort of what a lot of us were experiencing was that we wanted the criminal justice system to work in favor of someone who looked like us because we were accustomed to it working against us. But in terms of like seeing someone beat the system who doesn't typically beat the system, I think that was the driving factor, at least for me, in terms of why I rejoiced in his innocence at the time in the not guilty verdict, right? And it was such a strange thing to step into, Terry,

having been so pro-OJ and anti-Darden as a young person to have an opportunity to step into that other person's shoes and experience life from their perspective. And it was me and my friend Sarah Paulson had the best time on that show because she would read Marsha's book. I would read Chris's book. We would read excerpts to one another. We would go over the evidence. And the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I'll say this. She was the main prosecutor and your partner in the trial.

Correct. And the way that it was set up even in the room, in the courtroom, like we had sort of crappy kind of chairs, and the dream team had, like, these spinning swivel chairs that had, like, nice armrests on them and everything. And Sarah and I would look over at them and, like, gonna beat these bastards. You know what I mean?

Like, completely convinced that we were gonna sort of, like, retell the trial and it was gonna come out the way that we wanted it to. Did you see, as a young man, did you see Christopher Darden as a traitor for prosecuting a black man? Absolutely. Hands down, a hundred percent. He was a persona non grata, as far as I was concerned. Like you're trying to take down one of our heroes. I think, I think that's the way a lot of black folks will relate to people who quote unquote make it, um, celebrity or otherwise, but particularly celebrity in particular at that time, we have so few people that are able to, to make it to a level of esteem, notoriety, what have you, that the idea that the system, the man that, you know,

America is trying to bring them down, and that a black man got attached to being Christopher Darden to the wrong side, this felt like, why are you allowing them to use you? That was definitely my perspective at age 18 or 19 when it happened. So what changed your mind? Was it stepping into Christopher Darden's role, becoming him for the series, or was it examining the facts more closely? Yes.

That's yes to both of them. The DNA evidence is overwhelming. My perspective as a human being has shifted in terms of also in terms of playing Christopher Darden, like who is the voice for the people who were murdered? They don't have anyone to speak for them. And so someone has to do it. Right. Even getting into Darden's book in terms of being a prosecutor, he's like, we need to have a black presence in all facets of law enforcement, whether that is as police, whether that is as prosecutors, as defense attorneys, like a presence in all of those things means that we can work from the inside. And I think that that's sort of an admirable perspective that he has on how law

enforcement can work at its best. We're listening to Terry's conversation with Sterling K. Brown. He co-stars in the new film American Fiction. We'll hear more after a break. I'm Sam Brigger, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Let's get back to Terry's interview with Sterling K. Brown. He stars in the new movie American Fiction. He won Emmys for his performances in the popular TV series This Is Us and in the miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson. So let's talk a little bit about This Is Us. And this is a series, this was a series, an incredibly popular series about three siblings.

And the white mother was pregnant with triplets, but only two children survived. So the father, who's also white, decides like he'd planned on taking home three babies and that is what he's going to do. So he adopts a baby born the same day who was left at the door of a firehouse. Now that baby is black. So you're the adult version of that black baby who grew up in the white family. So you're set apart from the family in two ways. You're the only black person in the family, and you're the only sibling who's not a twin. And part of the series set in the present, you're married to a black woman, you have two children, and later adopt a third. So I want to play a scene from the first episode. You've been searching for your biological father, and you finally found where he lives. So you go, you drive over there, you bang

on his door, and as soon as your biological father opens the door, you make a little speech. So let's start with the banging on the door. Yeah, yeah, it's tough with all that banging. I heard you the first time banging on the door. Who the hell is that? My name is Randall Pearson. I'm your biological son. 36 years ago, you left me at the front door. Now, hold on. Just let me say this. 36 years ago, you left me at the front door of a fire station. Now, don't worry. I'm not here because I want anything from you. I was raised by two incredible parents.

I have a lights-out family of my own. And that car you see parked out in front of your house cost $143,000 dollars and I bought it for cash I Bought it for cash because I felt like it and because I can do stuff like that Yeah, you see I turned out pretty alright Which might surprise a lot of folks considering the fact that 36 years ago my life started with you leaving me on a fire station doorstep with nothing more than a ratty blanket and a crap filled diaper i came here today so i could look you in the eye say that to you

and then get back in my fancy ass car and finally prove to myself and to you and to my family who loves me that i didn't need a thing from you even after i knew who you were. You want to come in? Okay. I love how that ends. So the father's played by Ron Cephas Jones, who died a few months ago. But I love how he casually invites you in after this long negative harangue about him. And you just say, okay. Talk about deciding how to play that and whether you talked about how to play those final notes, whether you talked about it with Ron Cephas Jones. So that was one of the audition scenes for the show. Did you audition with him for that scene?

No, no, no. Auditioned by myself, you know. So in that scene, I remember thinking that what I understood from reading the pilot of the show, and what was very sort of surprising in terms of how it landed on people ultimately, was that it made me laugh from beginning to end. And so I was always sort of focused on the amount of light that the show had. And so when people talk to me about it, they're always talking about the tears that the show caused. But I think both of those things are true.

So I felt like in that scene, like you have to be able to, you can't live too much in one tone. Otherwise the show becomes monotonous. So you're able to go in and you give this man the peace of your mind. But at the same time, all you really want is to be in relationship. And so you see that front-facing anger towards this man. But really what he wants is to be understood, to understand why he left in the first place, and ultimately to be loved. So Ron Cephas Jones, who was in that scene with you, your biological father in the series, he died a few months ago. And Andre Brouwer, who you also work with, he died at the end of 2023. And then you also worked on Black Panther,

and you knew Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer at a young age, shocking everybody because he didn't make it public. I'm wondering if that made you think about your own mortality. Yes. First of all, yes. And I would say even predating all of those beautiful souls transpiring was my own father who passed away at the age of 45. And so I thought about it since then when I was only 10 years old. And my brother and I will have this conversation. My brother's 14 years older than me. So he's 61 now. And he'll always say that, you know, no black men in our family have lived beyond age 65. And I remember thinking that I, that may be true for them, but it does not have to be true for us. And so I've been very conscientious in terms of

health and lifestyle choices that I try to make for myself to be here for as long as possible. I have two beautiful boys, Andrew, 12, Amari, 8, and I want to be here to experience and enjoy them as much as possible. And beyond them, I'm looking forward to, if they indeed have children, to being able to enjoy and experience those young people as well. So, you know, some things are out of our control, Terry, but the things that are within our control in terms of diet and exercise, in terms of water consumption or whatever else there is out there, I try to make myself as informed as possible so I can be around in the healthiest version of myself for as long as I possibly can. Well, speaking of exercise. Yes.

You go around shirtless a lot. I don't go around shirtless a lot. Wait, wait, wait. Your character does in American fiction after he comes out. And so we can see your chest and it is very ripped. So you've been in the gym a lot. So I know you're doing your part in terms of exercise. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming to our show. It's really been great to talk with you.

Terry, the pleasure has been all mine. Thank you for having me and I look forward to doing it again. Me too. Sterling K. Brown co-stars in the new film American Fiction. He spoke with Terry Gross. The holdover showed up on many of 2023's best movies of the year lists. And its star, Paul Giamiamatti just won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy. Giamatti plays a pompous and lonely classics professor named Paul Hunnam

at a New England boarding school for boys in 1970. He is almost universally disliked by other faculty members and by the students because of his impossibly high academic standards and merciless grading. The students also mock him behind his back because he has a lazy eye and bad body odor. The body odor is uncontrollable, the result of a rare disease commonly known as fish odor syndrome. But he doesn't do himself any favors in the way he treats his students, as he does here in this scene handing out his students' graded final exams. I can tell by your faces that many of you are shocked at the outcome. I, on the other hand, am not, because I have had the misfortune of teaching you this semester,

and even with my ocular limitations, I witnessed firsthand your glazed, uncomprehending expressions. Sir, I don't understand. That's glaringly apparent. No, it's... I can't fail this class. Oh, don't sell yourself short, Mr. Coates. I truly believe that you can. I'm supposed to go to Cornell. Unlikely. Hunnam also flunked a former student, the son of a major donor,

dashing his chances of going to Princeton and going against the wishes of the school's headmaster. The headmaster decides to punish him. Hunnam must babysit students that have nowhere to go over winter vacation. At first he has a handful of kids under his care, but most are rescued by one of their fathers, who whisks them off in a helicopter for a ski vacation, leaving only one, a smart but surly junior named Angus Tully, played by Dominic Sessa, whose mother and stepfather can't be reached to

get permission for him to leave as they're off on an overdue honeymoon. Hunnam and Angus make up a trio with the school's head cook Mary, played by Devine Joy Randolph. Mary is mourning her son Marcus, who was a scholarship student at the boarding school but was killed in Vietnam. These three broken and lonely people, thrust together haphazardly, find a bond growing between them as they face the loneliest holiday. This is Paul Giamatti's second starring role in a movie by Alexander Payne. The first was the 2004 film Sideways. Paul Giamatti has also starred in American Splendor, Private Life, and Win-Win. He played the title role in the HBO miniseries

John Adams and starred in the Showtime series Billions, which ended its run last October after seven seasons. Paul Giamatti, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So Alexander Payne has said that he wrote the role of Paul Hunnam for you. What was it about the character that interested you? Well, everything about it. I mean, first of all, it was the fact that he was going to direct it that interested me about it. You know, I would sort of do anything he wanted me to do.

I think I found the setting interesting. I found the time period interesting. I found the Christmas story aspect of it, the sort of Scrooge-like story of sort of kind of redemption and change and rebirth and selflessness interesting. The character was really wonderful. The language is wonderful.

I think I found the character quite touching because I thought he's a guy who, as far as he's concerned, is doing absolutely the right thing. He's created this sort of persona for himself that feels very comfortable and safe to him at this place and conveying classical values in this way. And he's created this kind of fantasy world for himself. And it comes apart a little bit as the story goes on. This guy sort of has to let go of a lot of his shtick in some ways. And I thought that was interesting. Is it tricky to play a role where in the movie the character is disliked by lots of people, but you have to play that person in a way that the audience can empathize with? Yeah, that's always sort of difficult.

I mean, I think, you know, he's lived in this strange, rarefied world, in this world of intellect. And, you know, he's hobbled by his own intellect. It's, you know, the thing that makes him feel superior is the thing that keeps separating him, too. And, you know, he just doesn't go about anything the right way. But he's not wrong a lot of the time. So hopefully that comes across as somewhat appealing. But also I thought, you know, he's somewhat self-aware. He takes pleasure in his own nasty wit in a way that hopefully is funny to people and

makes him somewhat appealing. So you worked with Alexander Payne once before, and by all accounts, that was a positive experience all around. So working with this person that you hadn't worked with in about almost 20 years, did that provide you an opportunity to reflect on how you've changed as an actor? Yeah, I hope I have. I've asked Alexander and he's very cagey about it. He won't give me a straight answer about it. I'm like, was I better? Was I better? Was I even better than I used to be?

And he's very cagey about it. And he sort of, he says, you're pretty much the same, and I liked you before, and I liked you now. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. The whole thing has been interesting, this sort of full circle thing coming back 20 years later. I think that that first experience was different because, I mean, I had never done anything like that before. I had never had this much responsibility before in playing a lead role and stuff and working with somebody I really admired. And I was very nervous, you know, and that was gone. I mean, I'm old and jaded now.

I'm not as nervous now. You know, and in some ways I miss those nerves. You know, maybe in some ways those nerves are useful. I definitely, I think I have more command of things. Am I better or anything like that? I don't know. But I was more relaxed, that's for sure. And with him, I was even more relaxed because I trust him a lot. Your character has a lazy eye and you've sworn not to say

how that was created, which is fine. I won't ask you about that. But you also, you have this rare disorder whose name I'm not going to try to pronounce, but it's commonly known as fish odor syndrome, where the character's body is unable to break down this chemical and has just a really unfortunate body odor issue. So, you know, as an audience, we only have so many senses to experience the movie. But unfortunately, I guess in this case, but I was wondering, like, do you think about that in your character as you're acting them? Like, I'm assuming you didn't spray yourself

with some sort of foul odor. No, no, listen, there would be people who would worry, who would have like codfish cakes in their pockets and stuff like that. I thought about doing that just to sort of mess with Dom in particular, but I didn't do that. I thought about doing that just to sort of mess with Dom in particular, but I didn't do that. I mean, there's ways in which, yes, the body odor thing is, I keep, there's a kind of, you know, saying in theater, particularly when you do Shakespeare, that if you're playing the king,

you don't have to play the king. Everyone around you plays that you are the king. And so I don't need to play that I smell like fish. Everybody around me needs to play that I smell like fish. He's used to smelling like fish, you know? So to a certain extent, they need to do it. There was actually some thinking in this movie. It was interesting with the hair and makeup people. They said to me in particular, you know, I can't believe it, bathe as little as possible. And I said, okay. And I think it probably helps, you know, to give me an appearance of sort of, you know, there's a tactile sense probably about the guy that comes across. Right, sort of unkempt. Yes, and sort of, you know.

And so that helps too. Paul Giamatti stars in the new film The Holdovers. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. I'm Sam Brigger, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Let's get back to my conversation with Paul Giamatti. He stars in the new movie The Holdovers. It's the second time he's worked with director Alexander Payne. The first time was the 2004 hit movie, Sideways.

So this movie takes place at a boarding school in 1970. You actually were a student at a boarding school in the 80s. You were a day student. So a decade later, although I bet these places don't change that quickly. And you said that in preparation for the role, you thought a lot about your past and the people in it. I'm assuming the sort of people that went to your school. What did you take from those memories? I did go to a school like that 10 years on from when the movie set.

And it wasn't, I don't think, very different. There were girls there. Oh, that's a big difference. Big difference, yes. I'll say that. But, very different. There were girls there. Oh, that's a big difference. Big difference, yes. I'll say that. But a lot of those men were still there. And for the most part, they were men like this and these old school guys. Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't just the school. My whole life, I grew up around teachers and academia. My father was a professor. My mother was a teacher. My grandparents were all teachers and academia. My father was a professor. My mother was a teacher. My grandparents were all teachers and professors. So teachers and teaching were around me a lot. But for sure, being a day student at one of those places is different than living there. I think in some ways it could probably give me an anthropological perspective on it that maybe you don't have if you live there.

So I had some distance on it to be able to observe it in some ways. But absolutely, I mean, it was an interesting part to play. It's an interesting movie for me to watch because I think there was a ton of unconscious memories affecting my system, and I was ending up calling up all kinds of people I wasn't even aware

of. I was watching it and thinking, oh my God, I just reminded myself of this colleague of my father's. I didn't even realize I was doing that. I had a friend who wrote to me and said, I went to high school with him and he said, oh, you were clearly doing the head librarian in this whole thing. And I thought, I didn't even think about the head librarian, but he's right. I do seem like the head librarian. So, I mean, there was a ton, there was a deep well of people I was drawing on for this thing, even unconsciously. Some of it was conscious. I had a biology teacher who was very much like this guy and I thought about him a lot. And I thought about these men a lot, you know, and

they're interesting characters. They're complicated, interesting guys. So, you know, I rewatched Sideways in preparation for this interview, and I was thinking there was probably going to be some similarities between the character Paul Hunnam and Miles from Sideways. But rewatching, there's actually a lot of similarities. Like both are misanthropes who feel superior to a lot of people they encounter. Both are would-be writers, although they're teaching to kids and not necessarily always happy about that. Both have a pretty severe drinking problem. And in some ways, you could see the character from the holdovers at what might happen to Miles from Sideways if he doesn't end up with his love interest at the end of that movie. It is interesting.

And, you know, it's a subject that both Alexander and I kind of danced around and didn't really talk about. And it's very funny that we didn't because certainly you could see some, I could see all these similarities too. It'd be better asked to him how much he was consciously doing that, how much he meant to do that, that in some sense you really are seeing a similar guy at a different stage of his life. It's certainly, I could, you're absolutely right. There's lots of similarities. There's ways in which it didn't feel the same to me, though, too. He doesn't feel like the same guy to me. He feels like a more, I like this guy better than the other guy.

I feel like he's got more kind of backbone, sort of. He's less self-pitying. He's more sort of, I think he's funnier. I think he's kind of, I just think he's got more going on than the other guy. I liked him better as a person and a presence. I found him more fun to play. I liked it. Maybe that could be the same guy 20 years on that I'm enjoying. I don't know. But I could definitely see it. And in some ways i i remembered thinking at a certain point it's a funny way maybe it is like sort of the sequel to sideways that would never get made

as technically a sequel to sideways i don't know right but um alexander would be a good guy to ask about it but in a funny way we kind of avoided ever talking about it i can't imagine a sideways two, but... Yeah, exactly. No, no, you can't. You really can't. So maybe this is some sort of extension of it. Yeah. Your character, Miles, is a lover of wine, particularly Pinot Noir. In fact, that movie probably increased the cost of Pinot Noir across the country. But I wanted to play a clip where your love interest, Maya, played by Virginia Madsen, asks you why you love that wine so much. And, you know, your character, Miles, is talking about wine, but he's also really talking about himself. So let's hear that.

You know, can I ask you a personal question, Miles? Sure. Why are you so into Pinot? I mean, it's like a thing with you. I don't know. I don't know. It's a hard grape to grow, as you know, right? It's thin skin, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you early. It's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it's neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention.

In fact, it can only grow in these really specific little tucked away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. And then, I mean, oh, its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet. That's a scene from Sideways with our guest Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen. First of all,

I just love how Virginia Madsen prefaces that question with, can I ask you a personal question? I was just thinking the same thing, how funny that is, that that's the deeply personal question. It's very funny. So do you remember doing that scene? Yes, very much so. I remember it vividly, yeah. So can you talk about, I mean, I'm sure when you saw the script, you're like, oh, this is a really good speech. Yeah, I thought it was a really good scene, you know,

and I thought it was a nice speech, yeah. And, you know, he's not aware so much as she is of what they're really talking about. She's the one who's much more aware than him. And so she sort of picks it up and really, really brings it home with a beautiful speech that kind of freaks him out because then he realizes what they're actually talking about. And it sort of, it hits him and, you know, he's,

he's really fallen for this woman. But I remember shooting it absolutely. I mean, it was a wonderful... I remember every second of making that movie. Probably because I was very nervous. But also because it was a really special experience. I mean, it just felt... I'd never done anything like it before.

And until Holdovers, I'd never really done anything quite like it again. Because of the sort of intimate atmosphere that he creates. And that was a very lovely, quiet, intimate evening that the whole crew was having, you know, and it was, I remember it vividly and she was wonderful in it and just absolutely entrancing in it. And I remember it very well. Do you recall what it was about acting that first appealed to you yeah i mean it's it's hard to articulate i mean i had always loved play acting i mean from the time i was a very little kid dressing up and being a character and particularly as a kid sort

of monstrous and grotesque things. I was very drawn to sort of like werewolves and mummies and things like that and sort of strange characters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And I enjoyed sort of always the school plays and stuff. But I think when I did it in high school, there was a kind of sense of connection that, and communication that was almost shockingly joyous that I felt. You know, it was not the easiest place in the world, that place. And the rough environments.

And I felt a kind of, you know, for lack of a better word, not that I felt seen or something, but I felt connected to people, to the other actors. And I felt a sense of communal effort that was really, really exciting to me. And as much as playing the character and getting laughs and doing all those things was great, when I think about it now, I think it was genuinely this feeling of connection. And I can't articulate it much better than that. As I said before, you went to boarding school, but you were a day student. It sounds like maybe you didn't fit in that well at the school. Did the acting help that? I think so.

It felt like it did. And it's interesting. I didn't feel enormously comfortable there. I came from a school that was very kind of very different. I came from a very kind of progressive private school that was very sort of gentle. And I went into an environment that was not at all that. And so I felt very, very jarred by it. There can be a lot of hazing at those schools. In very different ways, yes. And not just from the students.

You know, that sense of hazing, as you see in holdovers in Hawaii too. I mean, that guy's hazing those kids all the time in Hawaii. So the teachers do it too. Was there a point when you were thinking, well, this is something I should maybe consider pursuing? Well, later, yeah. I mean, I went to Yale University and went to college and then did it a lot extracurricularly and sort of fell into that. I wasn't a major or anything there, but I left it and it became obsessive to me. And I left, and it was shortly after that that I think I started realizing it was something that I wanted to do very badly, and I should. Your dad died at the age of 51 from a heart attack, and I think this was when you were at Yale and you were getting a master's in trauma.

Is that right? No, I had just graduated from undergraduate. Okay. And a few months after I graduated from undergraduate, he died of a heart attack. But you've said that it was because of your father's sudden death that you decided to become an actor, that before that you were thinking maybe becoming an academic? Well, you know, it's all hard for me to sort of be entirely clear about it. I mean, like I say, it was the thing I loved doing the most. I think I thought, well, I should do something else because, you know, being an actor, I just didn't, you know, but I loved it.

And his dying was a very profoundly destabilizing thing for everybody in my family. He was a very solid, grounded figure in the world. And for him to disappear in an instant at that young an age freaked me out, obviously. And I think it did impel me to go, I'm going to pursue and do the thing that I love to do. Because possibly your time is short. Sure. You should really just go for it. And also my father had instilled that in me.

And so all of a sudden his absence made that, his urging me always to do that throughout my life somehow even more present in my mind. And I thought, I'm going to do the thing I love to do. It's what he would have said to me to do. And so I did. So your dad left academia and became the commissioner for Major League Baseball. And it sounds like he loved baseball. I did.

A lot of his life. Did that also make you feel like that you should pursue the things that you really love? Yes, I think so. I think that was also a part of it. I can remember my dad when he left the presidency of Yale. And he sort of took kind of a year off. He wasn't really doing much. And I was in college and I think the baseball thing sort of came through and I can remember him in this very kind of giddy way, funny, giddy way saying to me, well, I'm thinking about going back to teaching, but they've asked me to go and, you know, they've asked me if I'm interested in going to baseball, what do you

think? And I was like, geez, I don't know. And I was a little bit like, geez, I don't know, do the safe thing and go back to teaching. And he was like, no, no, no, I think I got to do baseball. And I was like, yeah, okay, do baseball. And he did, and it was very much him doing a thing. And I remembered thinking, oh, yes, of course,

he couldn't have done anything but go into baseball. The guy was out of his mind with joy. He was out of his mind that he could go to baseball games anytime. And, you know, I mean, it was pure oxygen to the guy. So I don't know how I ever could have thought, like, don't do that. Was he particularly supportive of your acting? Well, I mean, he only really ever saw me sort of do it in college as a sort of extracurricular thing. But, yes, he was. I mean, he took real ever saw me sort of do it in college as a sort of extracurricular thing.

But, yes, he was. I mean, he took real pleasure in it. And that was lovely. You know, I mean, he took real pride and pleasure in it. And he enjoyed coming and watching me act. And that was nice. You know, he never saw me act professionally. But he saw me do that stuff.

And there's something lovely about that because I was certainly having a pure experience. And so was he, I guess, watching it. You're in your mid-50s now, is that right? 56 years old, yes. So, you know, as I said, your dad died at 51. So you've outlived him now by five years. Do you reflect upon that, like the time that you've had in your life that he was not able to have? Absolutely.

No, I think about it all the time. Yeah, it's strange to have outlived him. You know, it's, yeah, and it's shocking to me how young he was. I think, you know, when you're 22, 51 seems way, way, way off. You know, and even as you're getting older and, you know, you're 45

and 50 looks like it's still a ways off. And then you hit it and you're like, oh, my God, he was so young. It's shocking, you know, absolutely shocking. And extraordinary how much he did in such a short period of time. I mean, really accomplished an enormous amount. But shocking that he was that young. And terrible, you know, just terrible. So what do you want to do next?

Are there particular kinds of roles that you're looking out for? I never really have much of a plan, no. So I don't know. I say this and I don't really know what I mean, but I sometimes think it. It would be interesting, this is just a general statement, to play a less verbal character. I'd like to play somebody that the part that's hyper-articulate, which is great. But I would love to see what it's like to really do more with less verbiage. I don't know what that means exactly in terms of what kind of part I'd play or anything like that. But I know there's some feeling of like, geez, I'd love to do more just with my body and my face and not so much with my mouth.

So people must really like writing you dialogue. I think they do, yes, which is great. And it's very flattering and I get great dialogue written for me. But sometimes, you know, it's a visual medium. And, you know, sometimes the face and the eyes and the body and things like that are, you know, it's a realm for expression with those elements that are sometimes more satisfying than words. Well, Paul Giamatti, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you very much for having me. Paul Giamatti stars in the new film The Holdovers. He won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy for this role. 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 Shurok, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman,

Anne-Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelly, and Susan Yukundi. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Sam Brigger.