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you take the bomb! From

0:19

WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley

0:21

with Fresh Air Weekend. Today,

0:24

musician, artist, activist and punk

0:26

pioneer Kathleen Hanna. With

0:28

her band Bikini Kill, she helped form

0:30

a movement challenging the misogyny and punk

0:32

in the 1990s. She

0:35

describes how she wrote the iconic song

0:37

Rebel Girl while playing in a small,

0:39

sweaty basement. At the time, the

0:41

Riot Girl movement was just beginning. It

0:44

felt like the scene of punk women

0:46

that I was hanging out with and that I was

0:48

becoming friends with really wrote that song

0:50

and I just like grabbed it from there. Also,

0:53

actor Tyler James Williams shares the

0:55

motivation behind his role as a

0:57

no-nonsense teacher on the hit series

0:59

Abbot Elementary. And book

1:01

critic Maureen Corrigan will review Claire Massoud's

1:04

new novel. That's

1:14

coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This

1:17

is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley.

1:20

Our first guest today is the

1:22

co-founder of the so-called Riot Girl

1:24

movement, musician, writer and artist Kathleen

1:26

Hanna. Her new memoir is

1:28

called Rebel Girl, which is also the name

1:30

of one of the best-known songs by her

1:32

band Bikini Kill. Kathleen Hanna

1:34

recently spoke about her life and work

1:37

with Fresh Air's Anne Marie Baldonado. Kathleen

2:01

Hanna has always

2:04

been a force.

2:09

She burst onto the music scene in the 90s

2:12

as the frontwoman of Bikini Kill, a

2:15

band that fearlessly confronted issues

2:17

of sexism and sexual assault

2:19

while encouraging female empowerment through

2:21

their music. Her raw

2:24

vocals and unapologetic lyrics helped challenge

2:26

punk rock norms and inspired others

2:28

to do so as well. Bikini

2:31

Kill, along with other feminist punk

2:33

bands, encouraged their fans to come

2:35

to shows, write zines, and form

2:37

girl bands of their own as a

2:40

way to fight the sexism that existed

2:42

in punk and in wider society in

2:44

general. Hanna created a

2:46

space for young women to express

2:48

themselves, fight against misogyny, and build

2:51

community. Bikini Kill made an

2:53

enormous impact in music and in the

2:55

lives of their fans, but as Hanna

2:57

writes about in her new memoir, Rebel

2:59

Girl, it took a toll. Helping

3:02

fans deal with their experiences of sexual violence

3:04

meant that she had to think about her

3:07

own. In the book,

3:09

she writes about all that, as well

3:11

as her childhood, the building of her

3:13

feminist art in college, starting and leaving

3:16

bands, and becoming the face of a

3:18

movement. She also writes about finding out

3:20

that an undiagnosed case of Lyme disease

3:23

was the reason she couldn't physically perform

3:25

anymore. She's performing again with

3:28

her band Bikini Kill and her other

3:30

bands, La Tigra and the Julie Ruin.

3:32

Kathleen Hanna, welcome back to Fresh Air.

3:35

Thanks for having me. I'd like

3:38

for you to start by reading a passage

3:40

from the beginning of your book, Rebel Girl.

3:44

Sure, this is from the prologue. I

3:47

want to tell you how I write songs and

3:49

produce music, how singing makes

3:51

me feel connected to a million miracles

3:53

at once, how being

3:55

on stage is the one place I feel

3:57

the most me. but

4:00

I can't untangle all of that from the

4:02

background that is male violence. I

4:05

wish I could forget the guy who stalked me while

4:07

I was making my solo record, how

4:09

he sat on the roof of the building

4:11

across from mine and looked into my windows

4:13

with binoculars as I worked, how

4:16

he told my neighbors he thought I was a

4:18

prostitute who needed to be stopped. I

4:22

wish I could slice him out of my story as

4:24

a musician, but I can't. I

4:28

also don't want this book to be a list of

4:30

traumas, so I'm leaving a lot

4:32

of that on the cutting room floor. It's

4:35

more important to remember that I've

4:37

seen ugly basement rooms transform into

4:40

warm campfires. Dank

4:42

rock bro clubs become bright parties where

4:45

girls and gay kids and misfits

4:47

dance together in a sea of

4:49

freedom and joy. Art

4:51

galleries that had only ever showcased white

4:54

male mediocrity become sites of

4:56

thrilling feminist collaborations. I

5:00

also ate gelato on a street in

5:02

Milan with my bandmates and cried because

5:04

it tasted that good. But

5:07

yeah, there were also rapes and run-ins with

5:09

jerks who threw water on my shine. I

5:13

keep trying to make my rapes funny, but

5:16

I have to stop doing that because they aren't.

5:19

I want them to be stories because stories are

5:21

made up of words and words can't hurt me.

5:25

But the things I'm writing about aren't stories,

5:27

they're my blood. They're

5:29

the things that shaped me, the

5:31

things that keep me up at night rechecking the

5:33

locks on the doors, the

5:36

things that make me afraid and ashamed, the

5:40

things that inspire me to keep going. So

5:43

speaking of your memoir and the

5:45

title of your memoir, Rebel Girl,

5:47

I wanted to ask you

5:50

about that song. It was released in 1993.

5:54

It ended up being produced by Joan Jett

5:56

who heard about Bikini Kill and wanted to

5:58

work with you all. And this song kind

6:00

of became an anthem for the feminist punk

6:03

movement of that time. Can you talk about

6:05

writing that song? Yeah.

6:08

We wrote that one in the basement of

6:11

this house called the Embassy. It was a

6:13

punk house and punk houses a lot of

6:15

times have names. And

6:17

this one was called the Embassy because it was pretty

6:19

close to Embassy Row in DC. And

6:22

I'll always remember writing that song because it was

6:24

one of those times where I was

6:27

writing it as we were playing it. So

6:29

they started coming up with the music and

6:32

as it became more full formed, I

6:35

started hearing the first couple

6:37

lines in my head and I just stepped to the

6:39

mic and then they just kind of fell out. And

6:45

I stepped back and started thinking, okay, what's the

6:47

chorus going to be? I

6:50

was looking through poems

6:52

and stuff I had in my notebook and

6:55

then I was just like, no, what are

6:57

you feeling in this moment? I'm

6:59

going to feel this moment because

7:02

in that moment, Riot Girl

7:04

Meetings had just started in DC. Our

7:07

friends, Bratmobile, were playing shows

7:10

and we were just gobbling

7:12

up like, you know, Manner

7:15

from Heaven and Joan Jetta

7:17

just called me on the phone and said, I

7:19

like your band. And I was

7:21

just like, I'm not going to look

7:23

at my notebook. I'm going to feel this

7:25

feeling. And then I walked

7:28

back to the mic and I just sang.

7:33

And Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, you are the queen of

7:35

my world came out. And

7:39

it just kind of happened and it felt

7:42

like the scene of punk women that

7:44

I was hanging out with and that I was becoming

7:46

friends with really wrote that song and I

7:49

just like grabbed it from the air. So

7:52

let's hear my guest, Kathleen Hanna

7:55

on the song Rebel Girl by

7:57

Bikini Kale. You

8:30

Know Well,

8:52

who's on wobble girl from 1993

8:55

by the band bikini kill I

8:57

think for a lot of people that song is about you

9:00

You know like you heard a lot of girls

9:03

a lot of your fans wanted to be But

9:07

so you were thinking Who

9:09

else were you thinking about when you wrote that song? I?

9:13

Mean I was thinking about my

9:15

friend Juliana looking who's a Spoken

9:18

word artist who really kind of

9:20

mentored me I was

9:22

thinking about Toby. I was thinking about

9:24

coffee. I was thinking you know bikini

9:26

kill My bikini kill band name,

9:28

you know, I was thinking about

9:30

the girls in the

9:33

riot girl meetings who were saying stuff

9:35

like You know just crying

9:37

because it was the first time they'd been

9:39

in an all-female atmosphere And they

9:42

were just like whoa, this feels really weird.

9:44

I'm confused and then like wait

9:46

Why have I never made this a priority before?

9:50

and just that feeling of you

9:53

know a Room

9:55

changing like you know just sitting at

9:57

a crappy plastic Office

10:00

Max table with

10:02

a bunch of young women who have

10:05

been relegated to the back of the room at

10:08

punk shows for so long. Finally

10:11

saying I've always wanted to start a band

10:14

or hey, does anybody know

10:16

how to play guitar? I'd like to learn. That's

10:20

an amazing feeling that really kind

10:22

of changes the

10:24

room into this beautiful

10:26

place of possibilities. We're

10:29

listening to the interview fresh years

10:31

and Marie Baldonado recorded with Kathleen

10:33

Hannah, co-founder of the band's bikini

10:35

kill and letie gras. Her

10:38

new memoir is called rebel girl. We'll hear

10:40

more of their conversation after a break. I'm

10:42

Tanya Mosley and this is fresh air weekend.

10:47

Now you were born in Portland, Oregon,

10:49

but you spent a lot of your

10:51

childhood in Maryland. Can you describe where

10:53

you grew up and your family at

10:55

that point? We

10:57

moved a lot all around Maryland. Like we moved every

10:59

three years. So I changed schools every three years. You

11:01

know, we live in kind of suburbs where not much

11:04

was going on. Typically,

11:06

then we moved back to the

11:08

Pacific Northwest and

11:10

I changed schools even then

11:13

in high school. I went to two different high schools. So

11:15

I really

11:17

started seeing

11:19

the game. You

11:23

know what I mean? Like what a

11:25

game school was and how at every

11:27

school there was like kind of the

11:29

same group breakdown, you know, like

11:32

the popular rich kid click

11:35

the stoners, the people who were into this kind

11:37

of music. The people who are into that kind

11:39

of music. The people who are

11:41

into sports, like these kind of different

11:44

groups and

11:46

how a lot of the ways

11:48

the interactions were so similar. At

11:53

every place that it just started to feel ridiculous

11:55

to me and and I

11:58

didn't have very many friends. I

12:02

just sort of experimented with like, what would it be

12:04

like if I was in this group of people? What

12:07

would it be like? And I think it gave me

12:09

a chameleon like quality that definitely

12:12

served me later when I had to grin

12:14

and bear it through a lot of nonsense

12:17

in the punk scene. But

12:20

yeah, I think the moving a lot made

12:23

me really turn to

12:25

singing as my home. Well,

12:28

one of the first times you performed

12:30

as a kid was in a musical.

12:33

It was Annie. Can you talk

12:35

about what you liked about

12:37

performing at that point? I

12:40

didn't think of myself as a good singer, but I sang

12:42

all the time by myself because

12:44

it was a place that I felt safe. And

12:47

I knew no matter where we lived, I

12:49

could walk in the woods and sing.

12:51

I could like find somewhere to be by myself where

12:53

I could sing or I could sing along to records

12:56

in my room. And that was

12:58

always kind of like my favorite place to

13:00

be, was like singing along to a record

13:03

or humming as I walked to

13:05

school, anything to do with singing. But

13:08

it was very private. I didn't

13:10

want anybody to know and I didn't think I was

13:12

good or whatever. It was something

13:14

that was fun. And

13:17

then a friend of mine in, I

13:20

guess it was fourth grade, Maureen

13:22

Gaines convinced me to go with her to

13:24

an audition for Annie for the school play

13:26

and I got the part. And

13:28

so in that moment I was like,

13:31

wait, other people think I can sing? Like

13:33

it was this real shock. Like I was like, I didn't

13:36

realize that I actually had

13:39

any kind of talent at it or that

13:41

it sounded good to

13:43

anybody beyond myself. So

13:46

there was that kind of eureka moment.

13:48

So I was like practicing, practicing,

13:50

practicing, practicing. And then once it

13:53

came time to be on stage, I

13:56

just felt like it was the first time where I really

13:59

expressed. mainly

14:01

sadness in front of

14:03

a bunch of people. Even

14:06

though I didn't write the lyrics

14:08

myself, they definitely spoke to my situation.

14:13

Just the quality of my voice and what I

14:15

could do with my voice, I

14:18

felt like I was saying, I'm

14:21

having a really hard time at home.

14:24

To a whole

14:27

auditorium full of kids and grownups.

14:30

That felt really like

14:32

a relief. Well,

14:36

you tell this story about what

14:38

happened after the real performance, and

14:40

that story is heartbreaking. Do you

14:42

mind sharing it? Yeah.

14:46

I was feeling really proud

14:49

of myself. As we're getting to the

14:51

car, my dad was

14:53

saying, let's go get ice cream. In

14:56

my family, that really meant you did a

14:58

great job. You know what I mean? Nobody

15:00

said, I love you or I'm so proud

15:02

of you. It

15:07

was more like, we'll get ice cream. That

15:09

is code four. We're proud of you.

15:13

I was like, they're proud of me. My

15:15

parents thought I did great. I read all

15:17

this stuff into it. They thought my singing

15:19

was great. They thought blah, blah, blah, in

15:21

my head. Then as I sit down in

15:23

the car, my dad says,

15:27

anyone who can make such a fool

15:29

of themselves in front of that many

15:31

people deserves an ice cream. I

15:34

was just like, oh my God. I

15:38

just remember feeling like

15:40

going from the top of

15:42

the world to just crashing

15:44

on concrete. That

15:48

was something that on my dad's side of

15:50

the family, I have to say, I got

15:53

to give them credit. They were so good

15:55

at giving a compliment and

15:57

then ripping it away. Like

16:00

it was almost a

16:02

skill that they passed down from generation

16:04

to generation. So while

16:06

I think it's a hideous

16:09

thing to say to a

16:11

child, that moment also

16:13

inspired me to keep

16:15

going because the fact

16:17

that that didn't stop me meant

16:20

I really wanted it. And

16:22

also I didn't like my dad. I

16:25

thought he was a jerk. So

16:27

like I learned really early

16:29

like whose opinion matters to you?

16:33

You know, I came out the other

16:35

end kind of being like more determined to

16:38

get more involved in music at my school because

16:40

I was like this is

16:42

what I want despite

16:45

you. When

16:47

did you decide that you wanted to be

16:49

a punk performer? You said that when you

16:52

were a kid you were always searching for

16:54

a way to be heard. Was this that

16:56

way? I moved

16:58

to Olympia, Washington to go to college

17:00

and it had a really thriving music scene

17:03

and they really defined punk in

17:06

that town in a different way

17:08

than I'd ever seen. I'd gone to punk shows in

17:10

high school and it was like you

17:12

know kind of B versions

17:14

of the Sex Pistols, you know straight

17:16

white guys who were like I'm gonna

17:18

spit on you and it just

17:21

was like a lot of toxic masculinity

17:23

disguised as you know radicalness. So

17:25

it's kind of like the beginning

17:28

of the edgelord. But yeah

17:31

when I moved to Olympia there were

17:33

all these kids who were making music

17:35

and putting out records on small indie

17:37

labels and you know they

17:41

sort of define punk not as a

17:43

genre or a sound, a

17:45

loud angry aggressive sound, but

17:48

as an idea as the

17:50

idea that you know we don't have

17:52

to wait for corporations to tell

17:55

us what is good music or art or writing

17:57

we can make it ourselves. So

17:59

it's like hey let's play. put on a spoken word event, let's

18:01

put on a punk show at the laundromat. It really

18:03

was the

18:06

town that gave me permission to do

18:09

stuff. And I'd always wanted

18:12

to be in a band, but sort of thought it

18:14

was off limits. And this was the place that I

18:16

saw people in bands just like walking around on the

18:18

street. And I was like, well, they can

18:20

do it. I can do it.

18:23

And at the same time, I

18:25

was being really inspired by feminist

18:27

performance artists like Karen Finley, who

18:30

I saw live in Seattle and was

18:32

just what this woman

18:35

is doing on stage, going

18:37

into from different voices, getting

18:39

naked and dumping chocolate and

18:42

sprinkles on herself, making

18:44

fun of herself while also being incredibly

18:47

powerful. And so a lot

18:49

of times when I first started being in

18:51

Bikini Kill, I thought of myself as a

18:53

feminist performance artist who was in a

18:56

punk band. Now, Bikini

18:58

Kill tried to make your

19:01

shows a safe place for

19:03

women, a safe space. Can you

19:05

describe how and why you did

19:07

that? Like it's of a particular

19:09

time. Yeah, we

19:11

did stuff like handed out lyric sheets so

19:14

that other girls and women would know these

19:17

are the lyrics and what the subject matter was,

19:19

because a lot of times you couldn't understand what

19:21

I was saying through the crappy PAs I was

19:24

singing through and sometimes even

19:26

talking in between songs, you couldn't understand what

19:28

I was saying. And

19:30

so that was one way that give them a

19:32

souvenir to take home, to

19:34

read through and think about

19:36

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at britbox.com. So

21:01

that they start their own bands or it

21:03

encourages them to write their own poetry or

21:05

write their own scenes. We also had deans

21:08

that talked about a lot of different political

21:10

issues of the day that we sold at

21:12

our shows. And I also, you know,

21:16

we prioritized having girls and

21:18

women come up to the front because

21:21

a lot of the shows we were playing back then

21:23

it was, you know, straight

21:25

cisgender white guys predominating and taking

21:27

up all the space of the

21:29

room. And we

21:32

really selfishly wanted to build community.

21:35

So we had more girl bands to play with.

21:37

And how is that going to happen if they're

21:39

all stuck in the back and

21:42

they can't see us play and they can't see,

21:44

oh, you know, that's how you do a

21:46

drum fill or, you know, that's how

21:48

you play, you

21:50

know, three notes on the bass and make them

21:52

sound really interesting. And so I

21:54

started saying, you know, inviting the girls to front, Hey, do

21:56

you guys want to come to the front? And then it

21:58

kind of became a thing. It's like something

22:01

that's actually meant to be an experiment,

22:03

you know, just in punk. It was

22:05

like, what if we just rearrange

22:07

this room a little bit? What's

22:10

going to happen? And what happened were, you

22:12

know, a lot of men were really mad and

22:15

hated us. But it

22:17

was also an interesting

22:19

experiment. Now,

22:22

recently you've been playing out again the

22:24

last couple of years. You've had reunion

22:26

tours with Bikini Kill and La Tigra,

22:28

and you're touring with Bikini Kill again

22:30

this year. Your shows when

22:32

you were young were so visceral. Do they

22:35

still feel that way to you? Oh,

22:38

yeah. But I feel like

22:40

there's so much more joy. Like

22:43

there's still, the anger's still there, but it's like

22:45

a joyous anger because it's like, you

22:47

know, a lot of us are sitting at home yelling at the TV.

22:50

And to get outside and like yell into

22:53

a microphone and to have that release, it

22:56

feels joyous to explore our anger in

22:58

public. It feels joyous to be like,

23:00

look, it's normal that we're all really

23:03

upset and sad and all these different

23:05

emotions, and they can all coexist

23:07

together. And the songs

23:09

really go from joy to sadness

23:12

to rage very quickly. And

23:16

I'm finding nuances in them that I

23:18

didn't know were there. And

23:20

the lyrics. Yeah. And

23:22

so I'm really enjoying the songs and they feel

23:25

very fresh. Like it doesn't feel like, oh, God.

23:27

I felt more that way about like

23:29

playing rebel girl for the 800th time

23:32

back in the 90s. And now

23:34

I feel like so excited when it comes on.

23:37

Because I mean, the song really has legs

23:39

because I can sing it about anybody in

23:42

my head. We played a

23:44

show in like 2019, and I got

23:47

up on stage and I sang it and I thought about myself

23:50

and I sang it to myself. I

23:52

mean, and I

23:55

felt proud that I kept going

23:57

and that I didn't give up and that

23:59

I was still making music and that I

24:01

really. love what I do and that I

24:03

have such great friends. I felt grateful, I

24:05

felt proud and I sang that

24:07

song directed at me and

24:10

I know that's probably really gross

24:13

and embarrassing but it felt

24:16

amazing. Well Kathleen,

24:18

Hannah, it's been great talking with you. Thank

24:20

you so much. Thank you.

24:30

If you want to remember to be

24:32

happy, be happy.

24:37

Never go, never go. And

24:41

we'll tell you something before you have

24:43

my will. Never go, never

24:46

go. I know I wanna take you

24:48

home, I wanna climb your tall, tall.

24:56

Kathleen, Hannah, spoke with fresh ears in

24:58

Marie Baldonado. Her new memoir

25:00

is called Rebel Girl, My Life as a Feminist

25:02

Punk. Writer

25:05

Claire Massoud is known for contemporary

25:08

novels rich in psychological insight, like

25:11

The Emperor's Children and The Woman Upstairs.

25:14

Our book critic Maureen Corrigan says that the title

25:17

of Massoud's latest novel signals

25:19

something different. It's called The

25:22

Strange Eventful History. Here's Maureen's

25:24

review. Claire

25:27

Massoud's new novel, called The

25:29

Strange Eventful History, is a

25:31

cosmopolitan, multi-generational

25:33

story that paradoxically sticks

25:35

close to home. Massoud

25:39

drew her novel from a handwritten

25:41

memoir of over 1,000 pages written by her

25:46

paternal grandfather. That

25:48

side of Massoud's family were Pinois,

25:50

French Algerians expelled from

25:52

their home in 1962 when Algeria won its

25:55

independence from France.

26:00

Displacement, both political and

26:02

personal, is Massoud's timely

26:04

subject here. After

26:07

being forced from their home,

26:09

the fictional Cassard family moves

26:11

from Algeria to Europe to

26:13

South and North America, never

26:16

quite feeling settled in these

26:18

different locales or in themselves.

26:22

The opening section of the novel focuses on

26:24

June 14, 1940, the day the Germans conquered

26:26

Paris. Gaston

26:31

Cassard is a French naval

26:33

attaché serving at the consulate

26:35

in Greece. His wife

26:37

Lucien and their two children, along

26:40

with a dependent aunt, have fled

26:42

Greece, hoping to reach the safety

26:44

of their home in Algeria. The

26:47

perspective toggles back and

26:49

forth between their experiences

26:52

and Gaston's, particularly

26:54

his career-damaging decision not to

26:56

heed General de Gaulle's call

26:58

to his fellow Frenchmen to

27:01

join him in exile in

27:03

London. Gaston felt he

27:05

needed to hear from Lucien before

27:08

he made a decision. She's

27:10

his life, his anchor, and

27:12

his rock. Throughout the

27:15

story, we readers will frequently

27:17

be told that Gaston's marriage

27:19

to Lucien seemed to be

27:21

the masterpiece of both their

27:23

lives. As

27:25

she does throughout the novel,

27:27

Massoud tucks in delayed reveals

27:30

about the characters. So

27:32

it is that deep into the story, we look at the story of

27:34

the American Cancer Society. This message comes from

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28:20

Rachel Martin. You probably know how interview podcasts

28:22

with famous people usually go. There's a host,

28:25

a guest, and a light Q&A. But

28:27

on Wild Card, we have ripped up the

28:30

typical script. It's a new podcast from NPR

28:32

where I invite actors, artists, and comedians to

28:34

play a game using a special deck of

28:36

cards to talk about some of life's biggest

28:39

questions. Listen to Wild Card, wherever you get

28:41

your podcasts. Only from NPR. Turned

28:43

out Lucianne is 13 years

28:46

older than Gaston. In

28:48

the novel's final pages, this

28:51

unusual age disparity

28:53

becomes devastatingly meaningful.

28:57

I'm a Hermann Wook fan, so

28:59

I don't mean this as an

29:01

insult when I say there's a

29:04

bit of a winds-of-war feel to

29:06

this panoramic opening section. The

29:09

chaos of train stations

29:11

crammed with terrified pushing

29:13

bodies, the international cast

29:15

of characters temporarily marooned,

29:17

the overall sense of

29:19

a world in freefall.

29:22

Massoud could have carried on in

29:24

this fashion, tracing how the larger

29:27

forces of history shaped the family's

29:29

destiny. But something

29:31

much more interesting begins to

29:33

happen after we leave World

29:35

War II behind. The

29:38

narrative skips forward in time

29:40

at jagged intervals and the

29:42

perspective shifts to different members

29:44

of the Khassar clan. As

29:47

years speed by, characters

29:49

change, sometimes drastically, from

29:52

the people we readers

29:54

originally thought they were.

29:57

Not only human events then,

29:59

but human events. personality is

30:02

unstable in Massoud's family saga.

30:05

For instance, in 1940,

30:07

Gaston and Lucien's son,

30:09

Francois, is a responsible

30:11

kid, solicitous of his

30:13

frail younger sister, Denis.

30:16

Leap ahead roughly a decade,

30:19

and Francois is now a

30:21

self-absorbed college student in America,

30:23

the kind of dreamer who

30:25

drives to Key West to

30:27

find the end of the

30:29

road and his existential self.

30:32

Fair enough, after all, the beat movement

30:34

is in the air. But

30:36

when we next see Francois in Part

30:38

3 of this thick

30:40

novel, it's through the disappointed

30:43

eyes of his waspy wife,

30:45

Barbara. Perhaps, she

30:47

reflects, she made a mistake

30:49

marrying a man whose relationship

30:51

to the known world would

30:54

always be askew at

30:56

an uneasy angle. Still

30:58

later in middle age, Francois

31:00

is given to eruptions of

31:03

fury that drive Barbara and

31:05

his daughters away. Who

31:07

is this person? The

31:09

more radical changes within character's

31:11

selves, of course, are wrought

31:14

by time. Francois,

31:16

once so alive in his

31:18

anger, fades an old age

31:20

into a version of his

31:22

courtly father, Gaston. In

31:25

what could well be the verdict

31:27

of the novel, Barbara looks at

31:30

the diminished Francois and declares to

31:32

herself, all life

31:34

and the generations suddenly

31:36

collapsing like an accordion.

31:40

Massoud says in her acknowledgments

31:42

that this strange, eventful history

31:44

is one of those books

31:47

that take a lifetime to

31:49

write. The novel certainly has

31:51

the stately sweep and weight

31:53

of a magnum opus, but

31:56

I don't think Massoud is simply

31:58

praising her own accomplishments. As

32:01

I've said, this is a

32:03

novel about displacement, both political

32:06

and personal. And

32:08

you have to have lived a while

32:10

to write, as Massoud does here, with

32:13

such intimate melancholy about how

32:15

time messes with us all,

32:18

displacing us from earlier

32:20

versions of ourselves. Maureen

32:23

Corrigan is a professor of literature at

32:25

Georgetown University. She reviewed This

32:28

Strange Eventful History by Claire Massoud.

32:31

Coming up, actor Tyler James Williams talks

32:33

about why the success of playing the

32:36

role of a no-nonsense teacher on the

32:38

hit series Abbot Elementary feels so sweet

32:40

after enduring a traumatic experience as a

32:42

child actor. I'm Tanya Mosley,

32:45

and this is Fresh Air Weekend. On

32:48

the popular ABC sitcom Abbot Elementary,

32:51

actor Tyler James Williams portrays a stoic,

32:54

no-nonsense first grade teacher who has a

32:56

crush on a fellow teacher played by

32:58

Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of

33:01

the series. The show follows

33:03

their characters and a team of quirky

33:05

teachers as they, through trial

33:07

and error, try to give these kids

33:09

a quality education at Abbot Elementary. Playing

33:13

a teacher is Tyler's latest role in a long career

33:15

that spans more than 25 years. He

33:18

began as a child actor, most notably as

33:20

a young Chris Rock in the TV show

33:23

Everybody Hates Chris. He's also

33:25

starred in several other movies and

33:27

shows, including Dear White People, The

33:29

United States vs. Billie Holiday, and

33:31

season five of the AMC horror

33:33

drama The Walking Dead. Last

33:36

year, Williams won a Golden Globe for his

33:38

portrayal of Gregory on Abbot Elementary, which

33:40

is now in its third season. And

33:43

Tyler James Williams, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank

33:46

you for having me. Okay, I'm so excited

33:48

for this conversation. I

33:50

want to ask you about this character

33:52

first off, because when you won

33:54

the Golden Globe Award last year,

33:56

which congratulations by the way, you

33:59

said something like This win is

34:01

for all the Gregory Eddies of the world

34:03

to understand that his story is just as

34:05

important as all of the other stories. What

34:08

do you love most about this character? I

34:12

love the simplicity of

34:14

Gregory. I love that

34:16

his story isn't rooted in some sense

34:19

of trauma or some

34:23

massive conflict that is very specific

34:25

to his race. That's

34:27

really what I meant when I said that, was that he's

34:29

a guy with a job

34:31

who's just trying to do a good

34:34

job who happens to be black

34:36

at a black school with black kids.

34:40

I know that I've longed for stories that

34:42

were rooted in an everyday

34:45

conflict. I think

34:47

for a long time I was reading a lot of

34:49

things that had to

34:51

be so grandiose in the

34:55

things that they tackled. I read

34:57

that Quinta Brunson DM'd you.

34:59

You all lived down the street from each other

35:01

and told you about this character. When

35:06

she first told you about it, was

35:08

it the person that it now is? How much

35:10

of it did you bring to the table once

35:13

you were able to see the bones of this

35:15

person? I think

35:17

from the minute we got on the

35:19

phone about it, Gregory became a collaborative

35:21

effort. It's as if she had

35:23

laid down a stencil

35:26

of what Gregory could be and then we started

35:28

painting in the colors

35:31

of him. We

35:34

very quickly had a conversation about the

35:36

importance of showing

35:38

an active black male

35:42

struggling with and attempting to do a

35:44

really good job in raising the next

35:46

generation. Because those are the men I grew

35:48

up with and those are the men that she grew up with. It's

35:51

really interesting though you say, but you had never

35:53

had a black male teacher like Gregory.

35:56

That was the first time you had ever thought about it actually. That was

35:58

the first time it had even crossed my mind. mind. And

36:01

I think she read off some statistic about like, I

36:03

think it's less than 2% of teachers are

36:06

black and male in the US. And

36:09

that's where I always look for like the purpose

36:11

of a thing, right? Where's the purpose I can

36:13

hook into? And that was one of them. But

36:16

then there

36:19

was something about like a kind of quieter

36:22

introverted take

36:24

on him that I

36:26

really loved that I can't

36:28

remember how we got there. But

36:30

that slowly began to like evolve into who

36:32

he was. I think the beginning was just

36:34

he was very anti wanting to be at

36:36

AVID because he was looking for a bigger

36:39

position. Right. Because he started off there as

36:41

a substitute teacher. Exactly. We learned later on

36:43

that he had actually applied for the job

36:45

of principal and didn't get it. So yes,

36:47

it starts off where you feel like, Oh,

36:49

yeah, he just feels a little some kind

36:51

of way about being in the school. Right.

36:53

But we learn especially this season, the depths

36:55

of who he is. Exactly. And that's

36:58

what I wanted to slowly unravel. I

37:00

wanted to show a version

37:03

of not just a

37:06

black man showing up in

37:08

his workspace differently, but showing

37:10

up authentically himself, not necessarily

37:12

being, I

37:15

guess, flamboyantly entertaining. Yeah,

37:17

in his space, quiet in his space. What

37:20

was your school experience like? Because you

37:23

were a child actor. I mean, you since you

37:25

were four, right? Yeah. So what was school like

37:27

for you? So I

37:30

went to a traditional brick and

37:32

mortar school up until about sixth

37:34

grade. Around

37:36

that time, I was beginning to work a

37:38

bit more. And, you know, when you're in

37:42

a traditional school, you only get over

37:44

so many absences. And when you're

37:46

actively working, at some point, that becomes an issue. They knew

37:48

I was an actor, they knew I would have to leave

37:50

for auditions and all of that. But as work was beginning

37:52

to ramp up, they were like,

37:54

hey, we have this answer

37:56

for this at the school district. So

37:59

my mother... at that point, moved

38:01

me into this kind of homeschooling program where I

38:03

could have tutors on set that could

38:05

pretty much pick up on the program and teach me

38:07

what I needed to know, so

38:11

it could be a bit more seamless. Do

38:13

you remember that timeframe when it was like,

38:16

oh yeah, I'm working more than I'm

38:18

in school or I'm out of school a

38:20

lot? Oh yeah, I remember it. I

38:23

was never one who really liked

38:25

school. I liked learning. I

38:28

didn't like the

38:30

environment of learning with other people.

38:32

That was my issue. Like what,

38:34

specifically? I didn't like getting up

38:36

in the morning and going to sit in a room full of

38:38

like 15 to 20

38:40

other kids who I wasn't crazy about. Did

38:44

you have close friends in school? Not

38:46

really, no. There was nobody from that

38:49

age. On

38:51

this week's episode of Wild Card, actor Chris

38:53

Pine tells us it's okay not to be

38:55

perfect. My film got absolutely decimated

38:57

when it premiered, which brings up

38:59

for me one of my primary

39:01

triggers or whatever it was like

39:03

not being liked. I'm Rachel Martin,

39:05

Chris Pine on how to find

39:07

joy in imperfection. That's on NPR's

39:09

new podcast, Wild Card, the game

39:11

where cards control the conversation. Jasmine

39:15

Morris here from the StoryCorps podcast. Our

39:17

latest season is called My Way, stories

39:20

of people who found a rhythm all

39:22

their own and marched to it throughout

39:24

their lives. Consequences and other people's opinions

39:26

be damned. You won't believe the courage

39:28

and audacity in these stories. Hear

39:31

them on the StoryCorps podcast from NPR.

39:38

Humans are kind of overrated. Over on

39:40

shortwave, a science podcast, we're only kind

39:42

of kidding. We're

39:44

bringing you the wondrous world of animal science

39:46

to your daily life. From queer

39:49

animal love stories to songbird memories, we're showing

39:51

you how critter knowledge informs human

39:53

science. Listen now to shortwave,

39:55

a podcast from NPR. that

40:00

I really felt connected to because

40:02

I was really passionate about my

40:05

job. That was the thing

40:07

that I really loved. Most of my friends were

40:09

in that space. We were all deep feeling, creative.

40:12

We looked closely into things that

40:15

other kids just wouldn't really care

40:17

about. So were your other friends

40:19

actors? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

40:23

Yeah. So that was the thing. There's

40:25

a bunch of them now who like, we all grew up together

40:27

and are now very successful. Like Leon Thomas III. We

40:29

grew up together in New York and I was

40:32

reading for stuff against Michael B. Jordan at the time

40:34

when he was on the East Coast. It's

40:37

great to see everybody around now, but that's

40:39

where I felt more at home. Yeah.

40:43

Everybody hates Chris, ran for four seasons. How

40:45

old, you were from what age range to

40:47

what? Twelve to 16. Okay. Twelve

40:49

to 16 years old and you were playing

40:52

a young Chris Rock, semi-autobiographical,

40:55

set in a different timeframe, the 80s. A

41:00

lot of your acting is through

41:03

physical, through your face because a lot

41:05

of the show is narration. So you

41:07

don't have many lines. One

41:09

of the things you are known for is

41:11

your face acting. Even to this day

41:14

on Abbott Elementary, it's like, oh, you

41:16

can give the side eye like no other. Right.

41:19

I'm just wondering how much was that perfected

41:21

during Everybody Hates Chris? Because so much of

41:23

your face is a part of emoting

41:25

what is happening in the scene. I

41:28

think it laid the groundwork for sure.

41:30

I think the crux of that show,

41:32

a lot of

41:34

people don't fundamentally understand it.

41:36

I've noticed over time. The

41:39

show. The show itself. It's not

41:41

that Chris

41:44

was hated on specifically.

41:47

It's that he felt like the world

41:49

around him was insane and that's how

41:51

he internalized it.

41:58

So for me, that was one of the reasons why I

42:00

was doing this. one of the only ways to really convey

42:03

all of the little things that were

42:05

happening in that show, because I could

42:07

feel them. There's a lot of micro

42:09

aggressions that we explore with the teacher

42:11

at one time. In

42:15

27 pages, as you do with a half hour comedy,

42:18

there's just not enough lines to respond. You can't say,

42:20

what? Or, oh my God, but for so many times.

42:23

That's when I learned that I should have, my

42:25

character should have an opinion, not just on his

42:27

own lines, but on everybody else's. It's

42:31

my job as a performer to show

42:33

what his opinion is on those things.

42:37

It definitely laid the groundwork for how I was going to

42:39

work for the rest of my life. It

42:42

also was such

42:45

a ... How would you

42:47

describe that time period for yourself? It was a

42:50

time of learning, but you

42:53

also said you walked away with some trauma from

42:55

that time period. One

42:57

of the things that

43:00

is very unique to me about that

43:02

show is

43:04

so many people have

43:07

such great, overwhelmingly warm feelings

43:09

about it from their childhood.

43:13

I'm one of a few people who don't. It

43:16

was a very difficult time for

43:18

me. I'm

43:21

one of those people who believes that fame

43:23

is inherently traumatic. You

43:26

are one thing one day, and

43:29

the next day you're something completely different. One

43:32

day I was just a kid in New York who

43:35

was like walking down the streets of Manhattan auditioning and

43:37

all of that. The next day my

43:39

face was on every bus in the city. I

43:43

think I really struggled with that

43:46

attention. I think attention that most people

43:48

seek, I wasn't necessarily doing this for

43:50

that. I was doing this because I love

43:52

to do it. Even to this day I still find it very

43:55

bizarre when people hyper obsess on you.

43:58

I think I was going through pure ... and was

44:00

awkward and wasn't really sure who I was

44:02

or who I wanted to be yet. And

44:05

I think that's an awkward time for anybody,

44:10

but it's really difficult when it's put

44:12

on the screen. And then

44:14

immortalized, you know what I mean? A

44:16

lot of the people I grew up with who were also child actors may

44:19

not have had a show that was as

44:21

big of a hit as everybody hates Chris B.K. So

44:25

that period of time for them wasn't necessarily

44:27

immortalized. And there's a certain aspect of, I

44:31

guess, infantilizing that happens. Where people try to

44:33

keep you in that place at the same

44:35

time. There was also something, was

44:39

it a producer? Or someone said to you

44:41

when you guys were wrapping that show that-

44:44

I'd probably never work again. This

44:46

producer said to you, no

44:49

one will ever be able to probably see you

44:51

outside of this character as a young Chris Rock.

44:53

Yeah. So I'm doing a good

44:55

job. Why am I

44:59

being punished for doing a good job? It was very

45:01

difficult for me to grapple with. And

45:03

it kind of contextualized the whole, my 20s,

45:06

essentially. What

45:10

propelled you to keep going in this

45:12

industry? So you're 16 when

45:14

it wraps. Yeah, I'm wrapped, yeah. You

45:18

continue to act. Yeah. And

45:22

I mean, what I'm about to say, I mean this

45:24

not to be dramatic. But

45:28

very seriously, there

45:30

was no other option. Having

45:35

been able to live

45:38

very early parts of my life, doing

45:40

what I loved on set consistently day

45:42

by day, I had tasted that.

45:45

There was no going back. It was either this

45:48

or bust. So I

45:52

was quite literally fighting for not just my career

45:54

but my life over the course of my 20s.

45:57

That's what drove me.

46:00

because I couldn't see myself doing really

46:03

anything else. This was it. So if

46:06

it wasn't this, it wasn't going

46:09

to be anything. So

46:12

something you've been very vocal about is

46:14

your Crohn's disease, which

46:17

is a chronic inflammatory bowel

46:19

disease. When did you

46:21

understand that you were sick? I

46:29

had been living sick since

46:31

I was about 19. I became

46:35

aware of how sick I was

46:37

when I was hospitalized at 23

46:41

and I had a

46:44

surgeon look at me in my eyes and

46:46

tell me, you need emergency surgery.

46:49

And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah.

46:51

And he was like, no, no, no,

46:53

no. Like we need to do this

46:55

right now or your insides may explode

46:57

and you may die. Let's stop right

46:59

there because you know,

47:01

it's always surprising when a doctor, when

47:03

a medical professional is like, this is so bad.

47:05

We got to go right in. Did you,

47:08

how would you describe the

47:10

level of agony and pain that you were

47:12

in? Did you even, you didn't even realize

47:14

it? Oh, it was nonstop. It was nonstop.

47:16

It was like, it became

47:18

my normal. And that's, this is when, you

47:21

know, when we talk about everybody hates Chris,

47:24

this is the part that most people don't know that she almost killed

47:26

me. We had to figure out

47:28

what the direct connection was because the doctors, I

47:30

was diagnosed by a wonderful

47:33

black GI named Sophie Balzora

47:35

in New York. And

47:38

we've developed a relationship app

47:40

to the fact where we keep in touch with each

47:42

other. We check in with each other. I do, you

47:44

know, speaking events and things for her. And

47:46

I asked her not that long ago, I was like,

47:49

how bad was I? And

47:51

she was like, now the way I was out of it, you're one

47:53

of the worst cases I've ever seen. It

47:55

didn't make sense why it was so bad. And we

47:57

realized that one of the triggers was the stress. The

48:00

stress that I was experiencing from fighting

48:02

for my career, from carrying a show at

48:05

12, was slowly scarring

48:07

the insides of my intestines as it would

48:09

inflame because my body didn't know what to

48:11

do with the stress. I was so young.

48:13

It just saw this stress as like

48:17

the flu and it would try to attack a certain part

48:19

of my body to remove it. Were

48:21

you just living day to day just like doing

48:24

your own remedies to do like, this works for me,

48:26

this doesn't work for me. I don't eat this. How

48:29

were you managing from day to day? I was throwing

48:31

up like three times a day. Trying

48:35

not to eat when I knew I had

48:37

to work because I

48:39

knew eating could possibly mess something up and

48:41

I didn't know what it was. At

48:46

some point after I was diagnosed, they

48:48

were like, hey, you need to have surgery. And then I

48:50

remember my response was, I'm in the middle of production, I

48:52

can't. And they

48:54

were like, that's not really an option.

48:57

So there was a period of like almost

49:01

a year to year and a half. I was

49:03

living on painkillers. Like I was

49:05

living off of Percocets and hydrocodone. Because the

49:07

doctors didn't diagnose you yet. So you were

49:09

just getting the pain and I would go

49:12

to the hospital and they'd be like, I

49:14

don't know what's wrong with you because it

49:16

doesn't really show up on an X-ray. But

49:21

even after I was diagnosed, I was, I was,

49:23

it was the middle of shooting. I

49:26

was shooting Detroit for Catherine Bigelow.

49:28

Oh, the movie Detroit. Yeah. While

49:30

also shooting Criminal Minds. Oh, too

49:33

very heavy. And so I

49:35

was working seven days a week. I

49:37

was shooting Criminal Minds in LA and

49:39

then flying to Boston and Detroit to

49:41

shoot Detroit back and forth. And

49:43

I was like, there's no way I can stop right now. So

49:46

I just kind of lived off

49:48

of these very

49:51

strong, very strong

49:53

painkillers. At a certain

49:55

point, your doctor then said to

49:57

you, emergency surgery.

50:00

They removed six inches of your

50:02

lower intestine. Yeah. And

50:05

that's not all. You went

50:08

into septic shock. Yeah. Yeah.

50:11

Another thing that happened. So

50:13

when they remove six inches of my intestines, typically what they

50:15

will do is they will give somebody

50:18

who had that kind of a surgery

50:20

an ostomy bag for it to heal

50:22

and then reconnect everything later. Right. Again,

50:25

I'm an actor. I'm like, I don't have that kind of

50:27

time. And two, I can't be walking around with this. So

50:30

my surgeon, he said, I'm going to try. I'm going to

50:32

try not to. And we'll see what happens. He

50:35

reconnected everything. I

50:38

lasted maybe four or five days before it

50:40

perforated and opened back up. And

50:44

they took me back into emergency surgery. And I

50:46

came out with an ostomy that I had for

50:48

about six weeks. And

50:51

that's when everything broke. That's

50:53

when like I broke completely. I

50:57

needed that. I needed it to sit me down.

51:00

It sat you down. It sat me down. I

51:02

think that was the first time I had it. It was only

51:05

six weeks. It felt like years. But

51:07

it was only six weeks and I needed to sit down and

51:10

I needed to stop because

51:12

you can't work or

51:14

live in the place of hyper stress like that where

51:16

you feel like you're fighting for your life. For

51:18

me, it was either I have a long career or

51:21

my life in shortly. And

51:24

that was the stakes for me. But

51:26

you can't exist like that. How

51:29

are you now? How is your health

51:31

now? That's the thing that's so beautiful. I haven't had

51:35

an incident where I had to go to

51:37

the hospital in years at this point. I'm

51:40

on medication. But I think also I changed the

51:42

way I lived. Tyler

51:46

James Williams, this has been such a

51:48

pleasure talking to you. You

51:51

as well. Thank you. Tyler

51:53

James Williams stars in the ABC

51:55

sitcom Abbot Elementary, which is now

51:58

in its third season. Fresh

52:03

Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh

52:06

Air's Executive Producer is Danny Miller. Our

52:08

Technical Director and Engineer is Audrey Bentham.

52:12

Our Digital Media Producer is Molly Seavey

52:14

Nesper. With Terry Gross,

52:16

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