Fresh Air - Best Of: Yo-Yo Ma; Actor Griffin Dunne

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

About 25 years ago, acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma asked a high school student to help him name his instrument. He brings his 18th century cello — aka "Petunia" — to the Fresh Air studio for music and conversation. Actor Griffin Dunne grew up in Beverly Hills, where his family would entertain Hollywood celebrities. That made for entertaining stories, but at the heart of his new memoir, Griffin writes about how the Dunne family overcame significant traumas, including the murder of his sister, Dominique. It's called The Friday Afternoon Club.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Yo-Yo Ma, perhaps the most revered cellist in America, brings his cello to play for us. Among the things he's known for are his recordings of the Bach solo cello suites, which he recorded three times over the years. He learned the first one when he was four. And I'm 68. That means I've been trying to get this right for 64 years. He learned the first one when he was four. And I'm 68. That means I've been trying to get this right for 64 years. Also, we hear from actor and director Griffin Dunn. His breakout roles were in the 1981 comedy An American Werewolf in London and the 85 Martin Scorsese-directed

movie After Hours. He's written a new memoir about his life and how his family dealt with significant traumas, mental illness, addiction, a closeted father, and the killing of his sister. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate

with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. I'm Tanya Mosley. Terry has the first interview, so I'll let her introduce it. My guest is Yo-Yo Ma, along with his cello, which he'll be playing. He's the most famous contemporary cellist and perhaps the most revered in the U.S. His best-known recordings are of the Bach solo cello suites, which he's recorded three times in 1983, 1997, and 2018. He's performed with orchestras around the world, but lots of people who pay no attention to classical music know Yo-Yo Ma because he's performed in so many different settings. He's played American folk and bluegrass music, and he's played music from around the world with the Silk Road Ensemble, which he founded. He appeared

on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and The Simpsons. On the first anniversary of 9-11, at the ceremony held at Ground Zero, he performed one of the Bach's cello suites. More recently, he played at the Memorial for the Seven Aid Workers from World Central Kitchen, who were feeding people trapped in Gaza. He started playing cello at age four, and by the time he was seven, he performed at an event attended by President Kennedy and former President Dwight Eisenhower, where Yo-Yo Ma was introduced by Leonard Bernstein. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama. That's one of the many honors he's received, including

19 Grammys. His latest album is called Beethoven for Three. I spoke with Yo-Yo Ma earlier this month at an event held at WHYY, where Fresh Air is produced, when he received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. The only honor greater than having Yo-Yo Ma here tonight is having Yo-Yo Ma with his cello here tonight. So I'm absolutely thrilled about this. So I want you to introduce your cello to us, because it's from the 1700s. This cello is older than the United States of America.

Well, Terry, the first thing I want to tell you is that the cello's name is Petunia. It has a name? Yeah. And the reason it's named Petunia is because I was playing in Salt Lake City in Utah, probably about 25 years ago. And a high school student whose name I still remember is Brittany asked me, does your cello have a name? I said, no, but I'll play you a piece of music, and if you can think of a name, maybe I'll keep it. And so I played a piece of music.

She said, Petunia. I said, that's it. And the name has stuck. You were quite the child prodigy. You were performing for presidents, current and former, by the time you were seven, right? Kennedy and Eisenhower? Do I have that right?

I guess so, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, Leonard Bernstein came and heard you, right? So I'm wondering, when you're young and people are making such an amazing, like, fuss over you, like you're so extraordinary,

do you risk becoming a praise junkie? Because you get so much of it. And that's maybe your measure of your worth in the world. But music isn't always about getting praise. It's about finding your voice within the music. And I'm wondering, some people can't make that transition, I think. Some prodigies never find what's unique about their playing because what was unique was that they were young and gifted. Now, what's interesting about 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, they are the center of their world.

Right. And if you get a lot of attention, of course you want more attention. But I think as I was growing up, my wife and I have friends that say, Gileo, you know, you and your wife, you aspire toward normalcy. Now, that's interesting because, you know, kids are really smart. They know no matter what you say, you go to a class,

they figure out whatever hierarchy there is, who's smart, who's athletic, who does this and who's, you know, who's a bully and who's like, you know, on a fast track. And they figure all of this out. And I think we all have this aspiration to both belong and to feel special.

Right. Very true. All of us. So I didn't feel that I was particularly special because I didn't play with a lot of friends as a young person. And I never thought I was that special. A lot of people paid attention to me and said, you're this and you're that.

And I wasn't sure that that meant anything or was true or whatever, but I was trying to figure things out. I was actually very confused. About what? About everything. I'm an immigrant. I was born in Paris. My parents were Chinese. And guess what? When we moved from France to America, our French friends would say, Pourquoi? Why you go to America? This is the greatest country in the world. And once we arrived in America,

Americans said, Well, this is of course the greatest country in the world. You've arrived! And my parents would say, Well, there's Chinese culture, you know, ancient culture. This is so great. And I was wondering, you know,

then why are we in America? So I was very confused because people would say, choose. You must be one or the other, whatever. And I thought, why? Why do I need to choose? Because, you know, I love croissant. You know, do I have to give up, you know, croissant for Wonder Bread?

You know, I don't mind rice either, but I love potatoes too. You know, it's like, do we need to make a choice on everything? So when you were young and performing, were you nervous about it? And did you ever feel like, don't take this the wrong way, but did you ever feel like you were a trained seal? Do you know what I mean?

Like, here's the kid, and he's going to perform for you. This is an amazing act because he's a kid. Because it's almost freakish to be that talented when you're that young, and to be able to memorize and play such complicated music well that's assuming that you're doing a comparative thing i didn't particularly know what i was doing was you know good bad ugly or whatever i just did things now yes there's the part of me from two, not one, but two tiger parents. You've all heard of tiger parents?

You know, Asian household. And that, you know, I had to do, well, I had to listen to them. There's not much dialogue. It's a lot of monologue, right? You do this, you're a good boy, you can do this, and this is the right thing to do. And I had a father who was an incredibly

gifted teacher. And he was a professor in China. He was a professor of music. He started a children's orchestra in New York. And he was just a really brilliant teacher, but irascible. And I had a mother who was very, who loved music, who was a singer, who actually loved to be moved by music. So I had both the head and heart sort of thing

from either parent. And I think there was a lot of emphasis on trying to get things right consistently so I had fantastic training I had fantastic ear training but did I know why I was doing something or what it was about I think it was after I went away to summer camp and especially to college where whatever I was doing and that I was passionate about was matched easily by my peer group being interested in their passions. And suddenly the world opened up. What was a kind of like a, you know, a uni world,

a sort of hothouse atmosphere kind of world, opened up to sort of my, gosh, all this stuff. Did you have a chance to be a child when you were a child? Because you must have spent so much time practicing. this stuff. Did you have a chance to be a child when you were a child? I am living my best childhood right now. One of the things I find really amazing about your life story

is that you were so disciplined as a child. I mean, because you were learning so much stuff. I'm still disciplined. But you went through this period of actually rebelling. I'm still rebelling. Are you? Yes. Of course. I'm rebelling against people doing things and not knowing why they're doing it. I'm rebelling against people doing things and not knowing why they're doing it. I'm rebelling against people saying, this is the only way to go. I'm rebelling against people saying,

this is right and this is wrong without ever explaining why. Yes. But when you were rebelling in school, you were cutting classes. Yes. In Juilliard, you were rebelling in school, you were cutting classes. Yes. In Juilliard, you were sneaking out between orchestra breaks to get alcohol.

Absolutely, absolutely. And got really drunk and went to the emergency room. Who wouldn't do that? To the emergency room once. Absolutely. And my father had to check me out of the hospital because I was 15 years old. You had a fake ID.

Yes. He could not have been very happy about that. No. He gave up drinking because, you know, like guilt, shame, all of that stuff. Your father gave up drinking because you were a bad example? Yes, because he thought, you know, because my mother said, you know,

see, you're a bad example for your son. It was horrible. Were you punished? Well, the shame and guilt was like, you know, if that's not punishment enough, it's like, you know, my father's only joy, you know, was a glass of wine. He gave that up.

Yeah, right? You see, I see everybody's... So was there a point where you weren't sure whether you really wanted to play music or whether that was just your father's idea? Well, let's put it this way. I loved music. I think after I went and started playing chamber music with friends

at the Alexander Schneider's sort of Christmas string seminar, which is now known as the string seminar, 10 days around the holidays where you just are playing chamber music and playing, meeting, you know, 15, 16, 17 year olds. That's my version of fun. I wanted to become a, you know, to join the Juilliard Quartet and play cello and be with friends. That was my goal. Did I want to be a cellist? Eh. Did I want to do that?

Yes. But you know what really inspired me most? When I was nine, I read a book by Pablo Casals. And he said in his book that I am a human being first, I'm a musician second, and I'm a cellist third. And now, coming from my background and reading this from my hero,

I thought, that man I like. How did that compare to the message you were getting from your father? It was the opposite. It was the reverse, right? You're a cellist first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the right order for me always,

always is you're a human being first and then you are a member of that sector of musicians second. And last, I'm a cellist. We're listening to the interview Terry recently recorded with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at an event held at WHYY where Fresh Air is produced.

We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Was there a piece where you felt like you really found your voice as an individual? You know, as Yo-Yo Ma, as opposed to just like, you know, somebody who's incredibly talented, but this was your voice, your unique voice. That's a very interesting question. It implies that we all have a consistent one voice. And I dare say that all of us of a certain age

have multiple voices. I think that's really literally true. You think that's true? Yeah, I think it's literally true. Because we were talking earlier about what you, Terry, and I, Yo-Yo, try to do is to make sure that at every stage in life that we acknowledge that stage and not try and pretend we're another stage except for me

I'm still living my childhood but that's different that's an exception but I would say that this music ¦ ¦ ¦ This is a sonata by Schubert. When I was 10, I was mesmerized by Schubert.

And one of the things about Schubert that was amazing to me, and I think it appealed to me as a 10-year-old, was that in the happiest moments, there's sadness. And in the saddest moments, there's a glimmer of light. And I think it's the gray, right? But it's not constant gray. And I think that's a lot of life. And I think as an immigrant,

you're always aware of being able to be on the inside and the outside. Sure. Multiple times. How does the piece you just played relate to that? It has that poignancy. It has that wistful quality. And you're yearning for something, and it could be towards one way or another, and whatever. But I can tell you something else, that when I was 19, in college, they had an orchestra, and I was asked to learn a piece of music that at first I was terrified or didn't even like,

but I was incredibly attracted to it. And this is this piece of music. I'll play a little bit of this. Thank you. Oh, I love that. You love that, huh? Yeah. I love the turmoil of it. Yeah. So this was sort of, in a way, going to the dark side.

And it's a piece that was written at the height of the Cold War. Shostakovich, social realism depicting literally that very thing in society. And it's funny how we get so naturally into certain music, like that Schubert I loved as a 10, 12 year old. But for the Shostakovich, I wasn't born in the Soviet Union. I did eventually visit

the Berlin Wall and saw all what people went through to cross the Berlin Wall with all the flowers placed every 50 yards for somebody who tried it and didn't make it. But it was through reading a book about Shostakovich, who I think devoted his life to advocating for the voices of people that were part of that system.

And what is interesting is code. Everybody knew in Russia, in the Soviet Union, knew what that music was about. And it's harder to censor notes than words, but the messages were absolutely clear, right? Once I understood that that was the kind of advocacy, it's no longer about my voice, but it's about my advocacy for the voices of people that didn't have the voices anymore. I want to end by paraphrasing something that you've said. And I think this was in reference to recording the Bach cello solo pieces three separate times. And you said that your approach was, this might not be perfect, it might not be the best performance, but it's the best I can do in this moment of my life.

And I find something really beautiful in that, because it expresses the commitment of doing your best in that moment, but it also has a kind of forgiving attitude that, like, it's not going to be perfect, but it's the best I can do right now, and that's going to be perfect, but it's the best I can do right now, and that's going to be good enough. I think that's a beautiful approach to things, to music, and maybe to life. I think, to me, that's been my experience of your approach over the last 40 years. Oh, please.

Thank you. No, seriously. Because, you know, I was going to ask you, how do you deal with burnout? How does anybody who does things for four decades avoid the trap of saying, okay, I'm caught in a rut. How do you, you know, How do you rejuvenate, regenerate,

and constantly be curious and active and do your best? I try and forgive myself because I don't want to be neurotic. I also don't want to fall under the spell of what I call an industrial aesthetic, which is your way of saying perfection, right? What do we do in industry? You make a million copies of something with the least amount of error. So here's a million copies, maybe it's six out of a million bad. I can't play a million concerts

and have six bum concerts. That's an unreasonable thing to ask of a human being. What allows me to not be paralyzed is to just say I'm doing my best. And if it doesn't work, you know

you know my intention is to do the best. You were so wonderful tonight. You are so wonderful. Thank you, Ian. I love you, Terry Gross. I love you. I love you. You are so wonderful. Thank you, Ian. I love you, Terry Gross. I love you. I love you. You're our hero.

Terry's conversation with Yo-Yo Ma was recorded on stage at WHYY when he was presented with WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. As the son of writer and television producer Dominic Dunn, Griffin Dunn grew up in the center of old Hollywood.

His father's lavish parties made for countless stories about the rich and famous. Sean Connery saved him from drowning when he was eight. His first babysitter was Elizabeth Montgomery, the actor who played Samantha in Bewitched. And he shared one of his first apartments with one of his best friends, Carrie Fisher. But at the heart of Griffin's new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club, is also the story of tragedy and how the Dunn family overcame it. Mental illness, addiction, a closeted father, and the death of Griffin's sister, Dominique, who was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 1982 when she was 22 years old. Griffin Dunn began

working in Hollywood as an actor. His breakout roles were in the 1981 comedy An American Werewolf in London and the 1985 Martin Scorsese-directed movie After Hours, which Griffin co-produced. His most recent work includes roles in This Is Us, Succession, and The Girls on the Bus. Griffin Dunn is also a director. In 2017, he directed the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold about the famous people who make up your life and your family. And the stories are both hilarious and at times pretty dark. And I'll say even the dark points, though, that you write about, some of them you write with a tinge of humor. I'm just wondering, had you been cataloging these stories, knowing that you wanted to write a book like this? I certainly have. I'd hear myself be telling stories to friends over dinner. And at a certain point, I started to think, that was a pretty good story. I'm going to make a note of that. And I would just let them pile up with, I'd be a decade or so away from beginning a book, but it was in the back of my mind. And they weren't just stories about me and my misfortunes that were usually always funny, but also about my grandparents and great-grandparents who also led incredible lives filled with scandal and infidelity and a lot of humor as well. I want to have you read an excerpt from the book about who you were from a very young age.

If hero worship were a disease, my case would have been terminal. By the third grade, I had so many idols, I couldn't keep up with which fantasies went with which actor or pop star I imagined was my friend. My walls were covered with cutouts of The Beatles, whose first album I played incessantly in front of the mirror, air-guitaring and singing the chorus as if I were the adored fifth member of the band. The actor I worshipped was Sean Connery,

though I only knew him as 007. The day he came to a pool party at our house, I was starstruck. I couldn't believe James Bond was doing laps in our pool, and was just as surprised to see on his head a large bald spot which must have been covered with a toupee for the movies. In an effort to impress 007, I jumped in the deep end before I had mastered a decent doggy paddle and sank like a stone. I saw the reflections of people smoking and drinking from below, like an underwater Hockney painting, oblivious to my effort to reach the surface. I was certain I would drown and not be found until Tuesday when the pool man came. Suddenly, in one swift motion, a hand lifted me by the butt and placed me at the pool's edge. A wee bit early for the deep end, Sonny, said James Bond.

When he pulled you up from the pool and said that to you, were you aware right in that moment that it was Sean Connery that it pulled you out? Yeah, absolutely. He was one of the very few people of the extraordinary filmmakers and actors that came to our house. I was completely aware of Sean Connery as 007 and as a heroic figure, which I took very literally. And at my young age, really thought he could be with all those beautiful women and capture all those bad

guys. Your dad was this TV executive, and for a big part of your life, you guys were living in Beverly Hills. And so he'd hold these parties, as you mentioned. That's why Sean Connery was at your house. How would you describe these parties? They were all different kinds of parties. Sometimes people would come over in black tie, and there'd only be about 16 people in black be, at some point before the adults got too drunk, we would be brought downstairs, my brother, sister, and I, in matching bathrobes and pajamas, and my sister in a little Victorian bonnet on her head, a nightcap. And we'd come in, and all the adults would go, and ah and aren't they adorable yeah and and my brother and i would bow good night and my sister would curtsy and they would all clap and think that was delightful and then quite a few years later i'm end up working with dennis

hopper who was at that time quite young and a guest in our home and well before he did Easy Rider. And we were working together and he sort of stared off and said, yeah, I was at your parents' house when you kids came downstairs. I thought that was the saddest thing I ever saw. How did you interpret that? What do you think he meant by it? having famous people to his home and, you know, giving parties. And, you know, he would keep scrapbooks of the pictures he took of all the famous people who came to the house and the telegrams, the accepting his dinner parties.

And I look back on it, and it was kind of embarrassing. If you're just joining us, my guest is Griffin Dunn. He's written a new book called The Friday Afternoon Club, a memoir about his life and famous family who dealt with significant traumas, mental illness, addiction, a closeted father, and the killing of his sister. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. I want to ask you a little bit about your mom, where in the announcement of your parents' divorce, they sat you and your brother and sister down, because your mom said, I'm leaving you,

and so we have to tell the kids. Sat all of you down, and after the announcement was made, the kids are crying, you put your hands over your face. You're kind of crying, but then you look out of your fingers and you can, you and your mom's eyes lock. Yeah. I was faking it. And that's a significant moment for you.

Yes, it is. What did it represent? What was that unspoken thing you all were saying to each other? It was a kind of relief. There was a certain tyranny and he would lose his temper a lot at that point in his life. And it was exhausting. And being the oldest, I could just, I was empathetic to my mother. I could just feel her drift further and further away from the family. And it was kind of startling to me that I was losing a connection with her. I've always understood my mother. I've always—she didn't—she was sometimes, particularly toward the end of her life, a few words.

Because she suffered from MS. She suffered from MS. And towards the end of her life, she could not talk anymore. And this is before she was diagnosed, but soon would be soon after. And I just, I felt terrible that my brother and sister were crying, that I felt terrible about myself, that I didn't feel anything. I felt this kind of relief, and I felt guilty about the relief. So I pretended to cry, and I covered my eyes. And as you said, through one slit of my fingers, I saw my mother, whose hands was also covering her eyes in grief and tears. And I saw both of us saw each other's totally dry eyes. And we both knew we were faking it. You spent a lot of time thinking about your parents' marriage, of course, your mother's choice to marry him, divorce him, also your dad's closeted homosexuality, which

you actually didn't confirm until his deathbed, even though there were signs there. One of his first productions was the 1970 film, The Boys in the Band, which is one of the earliest movies centering queer characters. Does it seem obvious to you looking back when you put it all together? Oh, completely. And, you know, in the years since I've, even since his passing, he had, I think, a fairly robust gay life that remained closeted. Did your mom know when they were married? I don't know the moment that she knew.

I just know that after the divorce, I became her drinking partner. Now, I was not drinking, although she gave me a little glass of wine. Maybe I was now in my early teens. But she would drink to excess, enough to sort of overshare with a young kid, with her son. And it was then that she told me, you know, that this trip that I remember so fondly with my dad and this other guy who came with us, who I thought was hilarious, who reminded me of one of the characters, a character I liked very much in Flipper, the older brother. Mom was a little bombed and overshared that that guy was my dad's lover. Now, my reaction wasn't shocked. I actually was honored that I was thought of as being so grown up as to be confided in like a grown up.

I was just wondering how your sexuality, your understanding of your sexuality, was also impacted by your father's repression of his orientation. And I say that because you hint at it. Well, I had been deflowered when I was 13 by a girl who was 16 and always had these girlfriends. And at the time, I had a girlfriend who I eventually married as a teenager as well in Tijuana, but that's another story. And dad always left his apartment unlocked. And I walked in on him with a guy who turned out to be, you know, his boyfriend, lover. And dad freaked out that I saw. And it was so clear what happened, what was going on. The guy didn't even have a shirt on. And he said, oh, this man is my valet. I've hired him to be. You almost wanted to laugh out loud.

You know, we got out on the street. And this girl could be quite cruel at times, too. And we both saw the same thing. And she said, so your dad is gay. Well, he's gay. I wonder if that means you're gay. Now, that was like a virus that went in my head. I mean, I actually, you know, I was 17 or 18.

I thought, you know, I thought it was hereditary. I thought, you know, and I didn't know. I hadn't really thought about my own sexuality as that being a preference. But I felt I had to find out because it scared me so much. And by the way, my mother had lots of gay friends. And, you know, there was a gay general who produced Patton, the movie Patton, and he taught me how to salute. And I found out at an early age that his practical husband was a publicist and they lived in houses next door to each other. I knew that story when I was

11 or 12. It didn't make any impression on me. I didn't find that unusual. I just didn't think it would literally the way I thought this would touch me if I'd been touched by it. And so I And I went over and kind of like had uncomfortable, weird sort of sex with the valet when my father was out of town. And the guy said to me, he said, Griffin, I got to tell you, you don't have what it takes to be a homo. And I went, okay, I found out. Okay. I think I'm okay. That's something else, though, you know, to say, I'm going to try it to actually confirm for myself or not whether I am. You know, when I got to that part in the book, I went, God, I really did that? I can't believe I did that. My young self really did that.

I kind of admired it. And then when I wrote it down, and it was, you know, I would send my editor, John Burnham Schwartz, these, you know, clumps of pages as I went along. And I remember he went, wow, you really said that? Right. I actually want to talk about your sister Dominique for a moment. I should tell the audience your sister was strangled by her ex-boyfriend John Sweeney. He was a sous chef who had been showing obsessive behavior towards your sister.

He strangled her and she survived for five days before you all made the decision to take her off life support. There's this one moment where you write about when you arrived at the hospital before she died. There were photographers waiting outside, and they were following your family. They were writing stories about her relationship.

And I wondered if you saw fame differently after experiencing that that part of fame what it changed was things I hadn't thought of before was something as simple as Halloween she she was attacked on Halloween Eve and and we arrived on Halloween from New York, my father and I. My brother and I were in the cab going through our neighborhood, and all these children were all dressed up,

and they were covered in blood, and someone had hatchets in their heads, and ghosts, and all this obsession with death and violence. And I just looked at these kids having the time of their lives, but violence had never touched their lives. And I kind of remember wishing it never would. And I just thought, I'm never going to put on a Halloween costume again. And I haven't. Who was Dominique?

What role does she fill in your family? Well, being the only girl and the youngest, she was by far the favorite of my parents and my brother and I. You know, just we were old enough to remember her coming back from the hospital. My mother had lost two girls before. And I was in the car with her when she miscarried a little boy. And she was fully pregnant but bleeding and she drove herself with me in the passenger seat which I remember that was another you're talking about my relationship my mother that was another hugely bonding moment

for us even though I was only about four years old and she said you're very brave Griffin when she left me in the car as she was taken in and I waited for my father. And then she lost another girl. So when she came into our lives, it was like, oh, my God. And my mom, first thing she said was, I can't believe I finally got a little girl. I finally got a daughter. And so we were, you know, so anyway, she was the light of our lives. That's okay. And so we were, you know, so anyway, she was the light of our lives.

And she, you know, she grew up, she was quite a bossy little thing. And my dad called her Little Miss Muffet. And she, you know, loved animals, you know, just from the get-go. And my brother and I would just just compete to do things for her. And she knew my father was gay long before we would find out. And she never told us. And my dad knew that she knew because he had a relationship with a friend of hers for 20-something years, which we never knew. I never knew until dad was on his deathbed.

His deathbed. And when she decided to become an actress, I was in New York doing everything but being an actor and being rejected and, you know, on the border of being a bitter guy. She said she wanted to be an actress. I went, oh, God, Dominique, don't do that. And I think about a week or two later, she auditioned, one of her very first auditions, for a TV movie called Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. And she played the teenage hitchhiker. She was number one on the call sheet. And she was off and running.

It's almost, though, like you were a reluctant actor, though, because you actually turned on a lot of roles following After Hours. What was that reluctance about? I think I had a complicated relationship with success and certainly with fame because with fame, one, it brought back all that kind of the importance of being famous was when I was brought up in the house. Like, you know, the way people talked about celebrities, they were like celebrities and then everybody else were a bunch of nobodies. But there was also, they came with a great deal of attention, like unwarranted attention. Was it a kind of self-sabotage?

Because, I mean, you were offered some really powerful roles like sex, lies, and videotape. I know, I know. But then you decided to do roles like a talking penis. I know. That's exactly what I get into. I just felt kind of lost. I felt lost about my decisions. And, you know, every actor at some point, usually early in their career, they think the entire world is waiting to see what decision you make next. And that, you know, it will cause great controversy and affect the economy if, you know, you take a crappy job or do a movie that's a flop. So it paralyzes a lot of people.

And I was particularly paralyzed with that. I felt much more comfortable producing movies that I had developed the story with and that I knew where it was going movies that I had developed the story with, and that I knew where it was going, that I knew was a good movie that was attracting top directors and top actors. That at least I knew I was doing really good work. When I was, my decision making about being an actor that just involved me, I wasn't so good at that kind of decisions. You produced a documentary about your Aunt Joan, 2017, about her life and career. It's called Joan Didion, The Center Will Not Hold. And I want to play a clip from it.

It's the two of you. You're looking at old photographs, and you remind your Aunt Joan about the time when you and your brother, Alex, first met her as children after your uncle married her. Let's listen. Do you remember meeting me for the first time? Maybe it was in Portuguese Bend. Here's my, like, five-year-old memory of meeting you. We were at the pool.

Alex and I had matching swim trunks. Right. These tight, like, bicycle pants with gold buckles on it. And we were, you know, this is how, this is during our leisure time in our matching bathing suits. And everybody was very excited about you and John coming over. Mom was kind of nervous and was telling us about,

you know, we're going to meet John's wife. I'm meeting you. And John says, Griffin, you got a little, I got a little something poking out of there. And I looked down and one ball has come out of the seam that was broken in the tight bathing suit. And Dad and John, and I think my mom, roared with laughter. And I was scarlet.

I was so embarrassed. And you were the only one that didn't laugh. You were like, you just kept right on going, just like with a totally straight face. I always loved you for that. That was my guest, Griffin. You should see my smile, just remembering that. Yeah, it's such an intimate moment. You and your aunt, you're sitting side by side together. I was also thinking about, I mean, why this moment is forever cemented in your mind. What was it about that moment of meeting and of person she's known for as a writer. But in my mind, at that time, having never read her, she was a person who didn't go with the crowd, did not join the laughter of adults toward a little boy. She saw it differently. And she looked at me through these big sunglasses.

And, you know, she was not that much taller than me either. And I felt this unbelievable connection. And she seemed the subtext between us was like going, I'm not with those guys. Well, Griffin, thank you for allowing us into your family's life and your story. Thanks so much. Griffin Dunn's new book is The Friday Afternoon Club, a family memoir. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Thank you. Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.