Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Lupita Nyong'o

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Lupita Nyong’o (The Wild Robot, Mind Your Own, Black Panther) is an actor. Lupita joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how her father’s political activism affected her childhood, feeling homeless and homesick wherever she is, and growing up on American television. Lupita and Dax talk about the internal battle of developing her American accent, the identity crisis that it caused, and how much she loves earnestness. Lupita explains how she learned to shed her ego, the importance of allowing yourself to fail, and why her Academy Award had an extra special meaning for her.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman, just fixing her blouse. That's right, and I wore it for this very show.

You did? It's a Mickey Mouse. Did we talk about Mickey Mouse a? It's a Mickey Mouse. Did we talk about Mickey Mouse a lot? I'm Minnie Mouse. Oh, yes. Oh no, I thought that that was obvious. I thought you meant for specifically Lupita.

Oh no, but when I wear these things, I do hope people are putting two and two together. Well, people have been picking up the things in the background, like the mice. Oh, good. And then of course they want a more 360 view. in-depth tour. But people have picked up that that's your grandma, your hot, hot grandma.

Yeah. And the mice, so slowly. Have they seen Taylor on a sandwich? I'm not seeing a lot of comments on that. That must be buried in the shot or something. But today's guest is Lupita Nyong'o. She is an Academy Award winning actor. She was in 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther, Us,

A Quiet Place, Little Monsters, and now, well not now, but September 27th, The Wild Robot, which is an animated movie based on the cutest series of books that we read in our house about Roz, a robot who develops a heart. That's our favorite robot story. Isn't it? We love it.

Should the robot join us for this intro? It feels apropos. Please watch the wild robot. Roz is a distant cousin of mine. We were assembled in space and shipped off to different planets. Oh no, they're long lost. Yeah.

Sad. I miss her, even though I never formally met her, but I know we share a circuit board. Oh. Please go see the wild robot 927. Oh my God. He doesn't do good at plugging things.

No, he doesn't. He starts to fritz out if he's not programmed for it. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Uh oh. Yeah, he didn't like that. No one can say that. I was on The View last week. Couldn't be said.

Wherever you listen, you couldn't be said. Yes you do, you say, listen anywhere you get your podcasts. We can. Nailed it. You nailed it, but you're in the space. On these other shows when they had to say at the end, check out Armchair Expert. It was marbles in a lot of people's mouths,

and I understand. Okay, in addition to Lupita having the wild robot out, she also has a really, really well done podcast called Mind Your Own that's extremely well produced, and I really, really like it, genuinely. So podcast called Mind Your Own that's extremely well produced and I really, really like it, genuinely. So check out Mind Your Own podcast and The Wild Robot. This was a really fun interview. I really liked getting to know her.

She was very cool. Me too. There was a lot there. Yeah. Yeah. Please enjoy Lupita Nyong'o. We are supported by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.

We of course have our website built by Squarespace by Wabiwab. He found it very easy and intuitive. You've heard us talk before how we actually host our own website on Squarespace and we're so happy with it. Rob did a beautiful job. He used the templates. It was easy, fast, and its're so happy with it. Rob did a beautiful job, he used the templates, it was easy, fast, and its functionality is off the charts. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to set up

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after pay and clear pay. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com slash DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash DAX to get started today. What's up guys? It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode I bring on a friend.

I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on. So follow, watch and and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["He's an Ob-Chair Expert"] Hello! Oh my gosh, look at your beautiful outfit! Thank you. Hello! Hi! How are you? Welcome! Thank you! Thank you so much!

You remember me being at Ohai? Love it! You don't have to lie if you don't. I mean, you've had a few ones to forget. Oh my god, what a dream of you. Ha ha ha. Well, right back at you, hard to forget. In fact, one of the funniest things I've ever seen

was you and Trevor Noah were at the front of the stage. Oh, yes. Can I tell you about this, Monica? They could do real-time face swapping. They were showing off how that AI could do this, and so they swapped Trevor and Lupita's face, which is fine, everything's groovy. Then we get some white folks in the mix,

and now there's white faces on. Trevor goes, this is somehow worse than racism. Yeah. It was. Someone did not think that through. Thank you. Yeah, it was great. You don't have to wear those and you can wear those.

Okay, great. So if it's interfering with your radical hairdo. Yeah, keep one open. Yeah. Now that you're recording a podcast, have you found that you have a whole setup you desire? I recorded that podcast all over the world. It happened over the span of a year and I was moving around.

But this is goals. Oh, well, it's not very high tech, but I do think we have a vibe in here. Yeah, you do. And you're at home, which is lovely. Yeah. Good and bad. I'll tell you the bad part. If I have to be on set and it's an hour away, I will always be very early. If set's five minutes on the street, I'm going to be late because I think I have so much time.

I'm late always. Wonderful! You are today. It's across the board. I'm not today because I had someone pick me up and that's always better. If I'm driving, I'm in trouble. I've gotten to be so late too. I used to be early and it's messed with my identity.

Oh yeah. What happened? I guess I got too big for my britches. Well, it's really... That's the only option. I have to say what's really funny is it used to be a really big issue between us. Like if I was late, she took it as I was entitled, my time meant more than hers. Hers was expendable and it was a very personal experience.

You are the boss. Yeah. So there is something about when the person at the top, you weren't doing this, but is, quote, doing whatever they want, it feels like, oh my God, there's just no respect for anyone else, which of course is not true. Well, not in this case.

I respect the shit out of you, and I always have. Certainly, there are probably people, I don't know. Point is, once she started becoming late, I in this case. I respect the shit out of you. I always have certainly there are probably people I don't know point is when she started becoming late. I just loved it. Yeah, like I just enjoy better about yourself She'd roll in eight minutes late. I was like, I can't imagine you feel more important than me. That's what's going on, right? Can I take off my shoes? Oh, please? Yeah, this guy's the. Whatever you want to do. Lay down. This couch is so inviting.

So when you're recording the podcast, I imagine there is a home base for when you're doing all of the odds and ends and you're doing intros and doing all that stuff. Or is there not? Do you go to a studio at any point? Yeah, I do. I moved here last year and so the tail end of the podcast I would go to Margarita Mix and Recorded it there. Oh, wow. I get PTSD there really why because I've only gone there to do Looping to do additional dialogue recording if you're not an actor

It's all the lines that got fucked up The audio was no good in the movie and then you got to go in there and redo your acting with nobody there Yeah, and do your big emotional scene crying into a microphone. I know. I really love that process though. I would have guessed that. Really? Why? Yes. Because you speak many languages.

You have thought greatly about your accent. You have great control over it, I'm sure. I feel so invincible when I get it right. Because it's so hard to recreate the emotion and the exact energy of what you did on the day. And you don't have all the stimulation as you did on the day. So you kind of have to self-generate. And I love that challenge.

Okay, so that's what you dig about it. Because my wife is insanely good at it, like a robot. But she likes the symmetry of it. I heard it and it's like a math equation and I can do it. Yes, it's like music. You have to find the rhythm of how things happened and recreate it. I like that. And then you're sticking the landing, right?

It's like every syllable, you're kind of like, it's sticking the landing, sticking the landing. I can't relate, but it seems fun for you guys. Yeah, it's my one way to be a musician, I suppose. I was going to say, are you musical? I love music, I love to sing, but I don't like to be judged for my singing. So I don't want to do it for real in front of people.

Have you sang in a play or anything? I sang in a movie called Little Monsters. It's a zombie romantic comedy. I was a kindergarten teacher who got to play a ukulele and sing kindergarten songs. Oh, that's cute. I could hear you say ukulele again. That was pretty great. I love that.

I also don't know if we can go on any further without me knowing who makes that skirt Your outfit is so cute. Oh, it's stud. I like that brand you know about that Monica's a fashionista. I knew you were gonna come looking just absolutely perfect and so I was like, I gotta look cute. Then there's a leak in my apartment. Oh, another water leak? There's a lot going on this morning. Okay, wow. I'll only look okay.

You look lovely. We'll get to the fashion aspect of your life because it is a big aspect of it. Yeah, I do wonder how one enters into that fray and then does it successfully, especially brand new. First movie out, you're going to the Oscars, you gotta deliver. A lot of pressure.

Yes, it's not easy to start with an A. Maintaining an A is always gonna be harder than achieving it. That was my fear. So yeah, you probably did it both on the acting front and the clothing front. But we'll earmark that and get to it. Alrighty.

Okay, so I think it's really apropos that we would go through your whole history even more than normal because in addition to talking about the wild robot, we're going to talk about mind your own, which I listened to this morning is really fantastic. It's very, very well produced. I don't know who puts it all together. Snap Studios. Snap Studios. Good job.

But of course, your own personal stories really front and center in the podcast. So I suppose lots of people know this. I didn't, but born in Mexico, counterintuitive from the outside. Yes. Well, that was the reason I was born there because my dad was a political activist. There was a lot of stuff going on and his life was in danger. And so he went into self exile and he had a friend who had connections at a university there. He was a professor of political science.

And so he went into self-exile where no one would look for him. No one's looking for a Kenyan in Mexico. He got to lay low for three years. But just to put a point on how potentially dangerous it was, his brother, your uncle, murdered, disappeared. That's what we believe. He disappeared and was never found. So this is the mystery of our family. The same year that the whole family moved. Yeah, so it's what led to my father leaving.

Once his brother disappeared, all that was found was his shoes on a ferry. They obviously looked for him. There was no sign. Nobody would say anything. And that was the last straw after a bunch of stuff that had happened. He made the very difficult decision to flee and go into self-exile. And what was his own personal leanings that put him in opposition with the then powers that be?

We were under an autocratic ruler. His name was Daniel Arapmoy. He was our second president and we were under a one party system. So he was a dictator and my father and his colleagues were organizing and fighting for democracy in Kenya. So they were having all these meetings and trying to organize to call for a democratic system. The president didn't like that. I can't imagine. Yeah.

So he endured all sorts of detentions and torture. organize to call for a democratic system. The president didn't like that. I can't imagine he did. Yeah, so he endured all sorts of detentions and torture and the president was hell bent on stopping any sort of opposition to his ruling. And you're one of six. How many of you were around? I'm second. So at the time that my dad fled, he only had one child.

Your older brother? I have an older sister. You have a brother that teaches at Yale? No, that's my cousin. Oh, it's your cousin! Yeah, that's my cousin. Easy mistake, because I was like, he was born much earlier than you, maybe 74.

So my presumption was like, oh, clearly. That's my father's brother's son. Oh my God, the one we just spoke of. Yes, Tavia Nyong'o. Yes, he's a professor at Yale. He was at NYU and now Yale? Yes, that's correct. Wow.

What does he teach? How impressive. Performance art. Oh, cool. Performance studies. And African studies. Performance studies. Let me get that right, please.

With some specialty on the African diaspora. Yes. Oh, so cool. You know more than me. Hopefully you'll know more about my family than I do, and this will be very complimentary and symbiotic. Okay, so you're number two. You have an older sister. This is not the pediatric.

That's my cousin, that's Tavia's brother. What is going on, Shepard? The pediatric ophthalmologist, Omondi Nyong'o, is Tavia's brother, and he's in San Francisco. Oh, fuck. You tell me. Who are your siblings? I'll stop telling you who they are and you tell me who they are. Most of my siblings are in Kenya. My youngest brother, he was in the Oscar selfie the year I won.

He was the one plebian. There was all sorts of celebrities and my brother. Classic little brother move. Yes, exactly. And that's Junior Nyong'o. And he's an actor. He just graduated from UCSD. So he's the other one that's here. And then I have my older sister. She is in wellness and she does meditation.

And then my younger sisters are in Kenya. Okay, great. So when mom and dad go to Mexico City, they have one child with them. How much older is your sister? I'm three years younger. She's like one because my dad left first without my sister and my mom mom and then my mom joined.

And so you're in Mexico City for only a year-ish. Yeah, so I was born there and then we left before I turned one. So your childhood memory, one through 16, you're in Kenya, you're in Nairobi. Your father's teaching at University of Nairobi? No. Okay, great.

Ha ha ha ha. Hold on one second. At least these are all really positive mix ups, right? I love these, yes. You got the name of the university right. He thought they are at some point, yes. I should have like refreshed my history before I got here. I didn't know it was gonna get this deep and this specific. So my dad, after Mexico, he had a short stint where he worked for the UN in New York.

So I actually started walking in Queens. Oh! And then my mom couldn't handle the winter. She was like, if you want a wife, you'll find her in Kenya. And she left with us and my dad followed. And he worked in an Arusha in Tanzania for a beat. And then at some point came back and was working in Nairobi. And I don't know, you probably know more than me at this point.

Everything I've said has been wrong. This is probably my lowest batting percentage in the interview, but that's okay, there's time to go. Was it then back to being peaceful? No, no, no. There was a coup at some point. When it came back, there was still the same autocratic ruler. He was teaching, but he went right back to his activism. So I grew up in a lot of political tension, but I was also protected from it.

So things were happening and then I didn't always really understand what was going on, but he gets snatched up, detained, tortured. So I spent a lot of time not knowing where my dad was when I was younger. Despite all of it, they still really worked hard to give us a sense of normalcy and stability, even if it was quite tenuous at times. Okay, I hope I have this right, because there's a great curiosity underneath it. You went to an international school while you were in Nairobi? Um...

I give up. What'd you read? I give up. Well, yes, and the... What if I had your... What's my name? What's my name, Dak? I said, you are, and I just tried to confirm that you were the actor I thought you were and it was completely

wrong. Like, oh! Your name is Dr. Mike, right? That's who we're interviewing at Zoom. Well, no, I went to a Kenyan system school until year six and then I went to a British system school. And then I went to Mexico when I was 16, spent seven months there learning Spanish and then came back and joined the International Baccalaureate.

So that's where the international comes in. I guess the only reason I wanted to talk about that is I was just curious if your parents had a vision for what your life was going to be. When I hear that they sent you back to Mexico City to learn Spanish, or maybe you instigated that, but then there was an international school, it makes me think they had dreams of you being kind of

worldly in some sense. Well, they did. My dad went to school in the US. He went to the University of Chicago. And my mom, she was primarily educated in Kenya, but she also had a stint at NYU. So my parents have always been very worldly. And so because I held a Mexican passport, they were like,

you should know how to speak Spanish, just to open up the world. That has always been their mentality. The idea that where you're born is not necessarily where you belong. The world is your oyster kind of thing. Yeah. But also in Kenya, it's very common for kids of quote-unquote means to be educated outside. Because of that autocratic rule, growing up, there was just a stifling of what was possible in Kenya. So the university, growing up, they were often on strike because teachers were not being paid enough

and kids were agitated. So there was an instability in the tertiary education system that resulted in a lot of us going outside the country to get educated. The brain drain is a thing in Kenya. So we all knew that we were going to go out of Kenya to get educated. The question was where. So a lot of times with my friends, we were like, yeah, I'm feeling Australia, maybe Britain, maybe the US.

It was just like the norm to go and get your college education outside the country. What was it like going to Mexico City at 16? Well, actually, I went to Taxco Guerrero. I was born in Mexico City, Dax. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. And then my schooling. I've never started crying in the middle of an interview, but I do feel like I'm really getting close to it.

You're really good at the need for fact checking. That's true. You're really great at creating a fact check. Yeah. You earned that section. Yeah, this will go down as number one. Okay. Oh God, I have so much work to do.

Good thing you're really doing it for me, which I appreciate. It's a good thing I know my life. You should write her a thank you card after this interview. So the school I went to was in Tasco, which is in the state of Guerrero, which is about two hours away from Mexico City.

And what was the vibe there? How different did you feel? I was a complete fish out of water. To be so other was tough. I bet. I gotta add something, and I'm sure that everything about your looks is loaded for you.

I have your children's book. We've read it to our kids. Not in preparation for this. We had it for a while. I know it's a very big element. You're so striking too. It's not like you're gonna just kinda, you're not gonna go under greater,

better and worse. I'm sure it's a double-sided sword, but you're just like really... Stunning. Thank you. So beautiful and just, it's very striking. Well, thank you. I didn't feel that way when I was a teenager. I wasn't particularly striking.

I didn't stand out for my looks growing up. I actually didn't associate myself with the word beautiful until I moved to Mexico. Oh really? Yeah, because growing up, I was part of a majority race. First of all, so I'm unremarkable growing up in Kenya. We also suffer from this thing called colorism, which is the preferential treatment of people with lighter skin, which is what my children's book, Suluwe, is about. And so I got teased a lot for being dark skinned in a country where I was surrounded by people

with dark skin. When I became a teenager and started to grow self-conscious and want to be cute and want boys to like me and stuff, I was part of a friend group and I was the darkest one between my two best friends. I got overlooked all the time. Like, I was not remarkable. It wasn't until I moved to Mexico and then I stood out

like a sore thumb and Mexicans were fascinated by me and there was a sort of exoticism that came with it. But suddenly you're getting the kind of attention you kind of want, right? As a teenager, suddenly people are like, oh, Morenita, que bonita. And you're like, wow, okay. I know Bonita's pretty. What was the other one?

Morenita is like brown skin and people would stop me in the street and wanna take photos of me, and I'm like, okay, this is kinda weird, but okay, you know. Was it be careful what you wished for? Exactly, it's like, oh man, I wanted attention, but now I'm getting it all the time, and it's kinda strange because people are rubbing my skin

to see whether the color comes out and people are touching my braids. I had people grope me. That's not nice. And so it was odd. It was sometimes unwelcome and uncomfortable. And I can't take it off. And then I have this name Lupita, which is so Mexican. And so I'm in a little town with 40,000 people.

So once people learned my name, I remember taking this walk to school, which was about a 20-minute walk, and all the builders would just yell my name. I remember taking this walk to school, which was about a 20 minute walk, and all the builders would just yell my name. Oye Lupita, buenos dias, buenos dias. By the way, great training for being famous. You didn't know it at the time. I did not know it.

I just simply cannot hide, and there's nothing I can do about being one of two black people in this town. But it also really boosted my self-confidence. I met this photographer that wanted to photograph me, and that had never happened. And suddenly I was the subject of his camera, and the way photographers, they shine you, and they're like, yes, yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And that word was being showered on me in a way that I'd never had.

So, Mexico was a time when I really stepped into myself and I learned to dance. I just got rid of my self-consciousness. How quickly did you pick up the language? On a scale of zero to 10, 10 is impossible, zero is way easy. Because I grew up speaking more than one language, I definitely feel like I was up to the challenge.

But I remember that first month being there and just feeling stupid. Because I couldn't say simple things. I remember this moment where I saw a sunset and I was like, I just wanted to talk about it and I couldn't. So the dictionary became like my Bible. I would like go through these moments of feeling tongue-tied and then run to a dictionary and find out the word for sunset and then I'd hold on to it for dear life

because I need it for the next time. How do you say sunset? I don't know. I don't remember. You're like, good thing I'm beautiful here because I'm also stupid here. I forgot how to say sunset. You gotta have one or the other. Yeah, today I've forgotten how to say sunset because I'm also stupid here. I forgot how to smile. You got to have one or the other.

Yeah, today I've forgotten how to say sunset, because I no longer need it. Whatever you're just pointing at your face trying to explain, is I saw the sunset and it was like... Yeah. I feel like, oh, bonita. Bonita, bonita. So the first month was tough,

but I learned enough rudimentary Spanish in class that by the end of the month, I made a pact with myself that I wouldn't utter another word of English. In a sense, I put myself in complete survival mode so that I would hold onto the language. And it really helped. It's really funny how early patterns emerge and you have no clue at that moment they're going to be patterns because we're're gonna get to your American accent. Only upon reflection where you're like,

oh, shit, I've been doing the same thing for quite a while. And maybe even before that trip to Mexico, there was some commitment like that, where I'm gonna do this, and I'm all in, and I'm not gonna waiver. You're so right. That dogged commitment. There, did you ever feel guilty? Because there was obviously racism with the hair touching

and trying to get your skin off. But there were a lot of positive things that came out. Or was that confusing? You're like, am I supposed to like this or not like this? I came from a majority culture. So I had not experienced American racism, for example. Right. You probably don't have that button installed.

I don't have it. I understood that I was a foreigner. And I understood that these probably don't have that button installed. I don't have it. I understood that I was a foreigner and I understood that these people didn't have any sort of interaction with black skin, but I didn't have an inferiority complex about it. This is how they're responding to me because they're ignorant as to who I was. And for me, I would take that sort of racial reaction

to outright discrimination. And I did experience outright discrimination as well. Like, I remember it was hard for us to find a place to live because they would take one look at us and say, oh, the place is taken. There was fear that came with us being so different. So I didn't care for that. I would take the touching my skin any day,

then the like, you can't sit with us version of racism. That makes sense. You're really trying to assess the intentions of people. And if you're not detecting that this is stemming from some sense of superiority. No. I've had a lot of fun being other in places. And because I'm from the white hegemonic society,

I just enjoy being exotic. Like I've been in Northern Thailand where people were touching my skin and taking pictures with me and staring at my eyes. And I'm like, oh, this is fucking awesome. I'm like an alien that landed in this jungle. And I love it. But again, I have the luxury of coming from a place

where I've never been made to feel inferior other than socioeconomically. Right, and you can enjoy it because it's temporary. Yes. Exactly. And then when it becomes just your lifestyle, then it does become a burden. And that's what happened, because I was living in Mexico. It wears off, the novelty.

Well, again, the parallel with fame is really funny too, because I loved the initial experience of being recognized. Mmm. I've been working for nine years in this city, trying to get work and couldn't, then it happened and then people were seeing me That was a proof that I was succeeding and I loved it And then I got this very claustrophobic feeling of like alright, but there's no turning it off I can't exit this body or this face or any of this stuff

I'm at Fatburger in Austin by myself and 60% of the restaurants staring at me Why am I by myself that claustrophobia of that is unique. I don't have any control over it, it's a scary feeling. I grew up with my father being recognized, so I had experienced it all my life. That projection of what people need from you, you can't ever really fulfill their expectations. So I don't think I ever went through a phase

where I enjoyed being recognized. I didn't not enjoy it. I was kind of neutral towards it. I was like, I understand that it goes with the territory. And I remember with 12 Years a Slave, when we began our press tour, I was with the likes of Brad Pitt, who straight up stops traffic. There's nothing. Like the other city, you can feel him that he's close by.

It is otherworldly you can feel him that he's close by. It is otherworldly to be around him. So to see people fainting and crying and tattoos. So to observe it, and I was often the one being given the phone to take the photo of... Sure. ...Rad and Michael Fassbender and Chuta Ejiofor. So I experienced how they handled it. I remember the first few times someone said,

can we get your photo? I was like, oh, okay. Thanks. I'm here too. Right. I guess now it's my turn. And then, of course, it just became something else. A different size.

And you're like, what does life look like now? Exactly. It can get scary for a minute. There's variety within it all. I actually went through this, just this weekend, I was on a subway in New York with my friends and the conductor came and he was like, has anyone ever told you you look like Lupita Nyong'o?

He didn't even know, he was like, that girl from Black Panther, she just did this movie, A Quiet Place. And I was like, uh, yeah. And she's in Us and she's in Star Wars. And he was, does anyone ever told you you look like her? And I was like, yeah, they tell me that a lot. He was like, uh, yeah. And she's in us, and she's in Star Wars. And he was, does anyone ever told you you look like her? And I was like, yeah, they tell me that a lot. He was like, but is it you?

And I was like, um, I don't know. And he wouldn't let it go. And then I said, it's me. And then he wouldn't accept that it was me. I've been there. And then you're in a fight with the person. You're like, hold on a second. Why am I now convincing you that I'm me?

And then I've said, fine, I'm not. Whatever makes you happy. My go-to is when someone goes, you ever been told you look like Jack Shepard? And I go, and I smell like him too. Oh my goodness. They're like confused. That's smart.

I'm gonna try that. They kind of spin out for a minute and you're kind of out of the interaction. Then you didn't deny it. You made them think, I don't know. I like that. You might want to try that. I'm taking notes.

Yeah, yeah. You guys smell like them too. Ding ding ding, bye! Yeah. Okay, what were my other Kenya questions? Just fun childhood, is it fun there? Is it fun in Kenya? Was it like a fun? I had a wonderful childhood.

I grew up with a lot of family. So I have more than 30 cousins on one side. I've named five of them in this interview. Yes, exactly. You know half of them. So I have a lot of cousins and I grew up with a very close-knit family. And I really enjoyed my childhood. Yes, there were some challenging things in it. Ultimately, I'm going to be very interested in you contrasting all these many worlds you've lived in.

And so again, as an outsider who's been to Kenya, looking around the little kids, to me, it seems very frenetic and vibrant. It looks very familial versus I go to some expensive town in Connecticut and I'm like, eh. To me, there seems to be a vibe difference. There's an openness, I think, that I grew up with, an intimacy that went beyond my nuclear family

My extended family is very close and we show up for each other. We do a lot together I grew up in chaos kids everywhere There was so many people to choose from so many people to fight with so many people to side with home alone house Yeah, exactly. There was always noise always music. Do you sometimes crave that chaos? Yes, I do. Yeah, and do you feel like it's lacking in certain places you're at? Definitely. I miss having so much family around me. I was raised to allow myself to leave.

My mom, I remember once I was feeling homesick and just wondering about what my future would look like. And I called her and I was like, mommy, do you ever see a time when I move back? And she said, Amundi, you are a citizen of the world. That just gave me permission to choose my home as I see fit. She just reminded me that, yes, I am from Kenya,

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Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. ["Tribe of the Mountain King"] I miss my family often and I go home as much as I possibly can and I get my dose of family, but I carry them with me. I think this is a positive for me on a much smaller scale, just even the cultural difference between Detroit where I'm from and then California. What ends up kind of happening and again It's all your perspective. I get to decide how I feel about it on one hand I'll be here and I'm like, yeah, not my people I go home

I get my dose and after a minute I'm like now I'm also not this anymore So I want to go back here and maybe I could feel like someone who doesn't have a real Moring, but I choose to look at it as like oh, this this is kind of fantastic, because I am multifaceted, like all people. There are geographical places I go and I indulge those things. I'm just happy about it. But I could also imagine someone taking it as like, well, I'm not really sure now where I'm supposed to be.

I totally relate with that. I feel homeless and homesick everywhere I am. Right. Because there's that Kenyan part of me, there is no returning to that version of me that didn't have home in Mexico, that didn't have home in America. So there's no returning.

So when I go home, yes, I'm scratching a certain itch, I'm getting my dose, but then there's also a part of me that feels like I don't belong there anymore. I go to Nairobi, there's a whole new network of roads that I don't recognize. I don't know how to navigate the city. So this city is telling me, you don't belong here anymore.

But my family is reminding me that I always will. And so I live in that tension of like, is this home? It is in some ways, but there's other ways in which America feels so much more like home because of how much I've grown here, how much of me I've discovered here. At this point, I'm comfortable in the discomfort of really not belonging anywhere and belonging everywhere. Yeah, yeah, I love that. For me, it was really trippy when I had passed the amount of time I ever lived in Michigan here. I've been here for 29 years and I was only there for 20.

And you're at the 20 something marker. I feel like it's like, yeah, halfway. And the first part of your life always feels longer than the current part, right? Yeah, because those are the formative years and your brain is literally developing. It's taking up more real estate up there, but really when you're objective about it,

you're like, no, no, much more of my life has happened here. Exactly, yeah. That's fascinating. When you're like, no, no, much more of my life has happened here. Exactly, yeah. When you're there, are you seen as this famous actress now too? Yes. Yeah, so that is another thing. Your position in the world has changed. The way the world sees you has changed. So that will fundamentally change a sense of rooting.

And it's complicated because at home, there's a sense of like, you're one of us. I meet a different sort of reaction to my celebrity. Oftentimes Kenyans wanna prove that I ain't special. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. You know, they kinda wanna like not treat me differently. And in Soding, they maybe treat me worse than they would

of someone that they didn't recognize. That's so comforting that that's universal. Yeah. Cause that's a great point, Monica. You want to go home and slip into this thing you remember, but that's really not an option anymore. I want to go to my favorite Coney Island and do it like I did before I left. But that's off the table. It's never going to happen.

Yeah. Oh, it's fascinating. Okay. So clearly these will be wrong, but after you leave Mexico, you go back. Ultimately, you go get your BA in Massachusetts in Amherst, yeah? Oh, oh. Yes. Oh.

In the city of Amherst at the College of Hampshire. Oh. Congratulations. Oh, one for 20. One for 25, one for 30. But it was slippery. It was slippery. Well, I've lost all my confidence.

The opposite of what happened to her in Mexico is happening to me in my home. Okay, so now we're getting a third whole new reality in worldview, Kenya, Mexico, and now Massachusetts, which is its own vibe within the US as well. What is that experience like? Yo. Being dropped in Western Massachusetts, The US as well. What is that experience like? Yo. LAUGHS

Being dropped in Western Massachusetts, what was interesting is that I grew up watching American TV. What was your favorite? I loved Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Step by Step. Love, too. And Full House.

How about Beverly Hills 90210? Didn't watch that. Fuck! It's the age gap. It was on. I just don't remember it. It didn't really feature in my life. Alright. That's fair. Are you obsessed with Mary-Kate and Ashley like I am because of Full House? No.

Oh. Just me. Just me. But I respect that. You're getting blasted now too. I respect that. Zero for one for Monica. I feel like they did such a good job of extricating themselves from that, that I don't even think of them in relation to that.

I don't connect to that at all anymore. But I think it's why I love the rose so much. Like, I like the clothes, but really I think it's because I've loved them my whole life. That's a good excuse for paying those prices. I do like what they're doing. But I grew up watching American movies. When I came here, I thought I knew more than I realized I knew. You know, because I came here with like, I know this place. I know these people.

I know Bel Air. I know... I know New York City. San Francisco for full house. Yeah, and then I got here and I was like, oh, this isn't what it is on TV. It's boring. Well, it's different. With life. I was at Hampshire College, which is super liberal arts, hippie, no GPA, no exams, no

majors. What? No classes, no college. And it was just wildly different. So it's not even the school experience that you see in these shows. And I realized I am so unprepared for this environment. And then the winter. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no. And then winter came. Winter's coming. Oh yeah. Yeah, no. And then winter came. Winter's coming. It came. And my first winter was the coldest winter in 30 years. Oh my God. And I was wearing gloves and a ski mask by Halloween. We got a long way to go.

We're not even a thick of it yet. And everybody would stop me and say, hmm. What did you just rob? Yeah. What bank are you coming from? Exactly. They'd be like, you know, it's going to get so much worse. And I was so not prepared.

I had never felt temperatures like that. And I was miserable. Sure. You're your mom. Yeah. I had fantasized about snow and wearing winter coats. You see these movies where they walk into the door and then they have to hang their coat.

We didn't have coat hangers in Kenya. Like that idea. It was romantic. It was so romantic. I couldn't wait to own a coat and have to put it down. I couldn't wait to like shake the snow off my boulder. Maybe a snow angel. You know what a snow angel is?

Yes, I learned. I learned and I said, I won't be doing that. And that first winter, I was miserable. And were you lonely too? I was lonely. I was confused. And I was just like, when does it end? And in Western Massachusetts, it ends in July.

It's even crueler than that. Actually around May, you're going to get three beautiful days and you're like, here we go. And then fuck you, nope. three days later, blizzard. And you go back. It's an abusive relationship. It truly is. And I was like, all this for education? Barely? It sounds like barely.

We left out, and you'll correct me, but yeah, you had already done Romeo and Juliet at like 13 or 14. You've been acting, you were in plays, you've gone now there for theaters. I wasn't confident enough to focus on theater. So I was doing it as an extracurricular activity. When I heard of auditions, I'd go on audition. I was doing plays and I was taking a few theater classes.

But because there was no major at Hampshire, you could just like create your own thing. So I was doing kind of film and a little theater and some African studies, and I was trying to call it something. You know? But I wasn't focusing on theater because it just didn't feel like a tenable thing to do.

As a Kenyan, where back home there wasn't really an industry to fall back on, and I just couldn't really dream the dream of being an actor in America. It was too big of a swing. So I just wouldn't allow myself to be honest about where my passions lay. Okay, so you get out, you're a PA for a while.

I actually was a PA while I was in school. Oh, you did, okay. So I did the Constant Gardener. While you were still there. Yes, I went home for my first summer vacation and they happened to be shooting in my neighborhood. And I happened to have dinner with a friend who had a small role in it. And so I was like, please, you gotta introduce me to someone

I need to be on that film set. On my way home after dinner, I went to the set, introduced myself to the second AD, and I was like, I wanna do anything. And he was like, okay, we'll try you out for two weeks, see how you do. And I was like, I want to do anything. And he was like, okay, we'll try you out for two weeks, see how you do. And I was like, so enthusiastic. I got Ray Fiennes' coffee with gusto. And then they kept me on for the whole shoot.

Wow. Then you do someone's short film, Something River. East River, thanks to Actors Access, thank you. Oh God, most people cannot say that. Cannot say thank you to Actors Access. Thank you. Oh, God. Most people cannot say that. Can not say thank you to Actors Access. Well, that's how I got that little role. Is that related to you? Ultimately, you go back to Kenya and you do a show.

So when you're an international student here, they grant you one year called OPT, which is your optional professional training year, where you can work in the area that you studied. And so in that year, I moved to New York and I was working in administration. I was working as an assistant to a woman who had just started her own style business.

And I hated it. I was doing QuickBooks. Oh my gosh. It was hurting my head. And so I did that for 10 months and my visa was running out, and it was like, what am I going to do? I was also auditioning for things, and that's when I did East River. I realized then that I didn't want to stay on and do this administrative job.

I was going to lose myself if I continued to do that. And my mother was like, you can always come home and figure it out. You have a loving family, you have a roof over your head, you don't need to gravel in America. And I took that advice and went back home and I was in a crisis of what is my life going to be? And she gave me this book called Map for Life, which is basically a book that helps you figure out your purpose.

And over this Christmas holiday, I sat with this book, asked myself some tough questions, and the one thing that just kept coming up for me was this thing about wanting to be an actor. And I wrote it down in the book. Was that hard to write? Very hard. And then I went to my mom and I said,

okay, mommy, I figured it out. And in a very small voice, I said to her, I want to be an actor. And she said, I've mommy, I figured it out. And in a very small voice, I said to her, I wanna be an actor. And she said, I've known since you were three. Oh, moms are great. Yeah. But it's like sometimes when people come out

to their parents and the moms like. It is like, it does sound like that. Yeah, hon, I know. Yeah. It's okay, yeah. I've been hip to that for a while. Yeah, obviously she had been a part of my journey and she was the one who was exposing me

to as much as she could, debate and poetry and improvisation, all these things. And she was like, yeah, you've known that and I've known it and yeah, go forth and do it. And that's when I decided to apply to grad school because I was like, if I'm going to be an actor, I need to understand my instrument. I'm doing it out of instinct and there's too much against me to only do it with instinct. Can I also be a little more cynical? Which is, I need some accreditation. For sure. We all have different acting theories. I like instinct. You were probably made better. Who knows? Maybe you would have been great anyways. But the accreditation

I understand greatly. Yeah. I remember for undergrad, I'd applied to Ivy League schools because I definitely had my sights on those. Seen a couple shows about it. Yeah. My dad went to a really good school and I got into one and my dad saw the fees and he was like, you're not going there. He was like, you can do that for grad school. And so I had this dream of going to an Ivy League school.

And then when I learned there was a drama school at an Ivy League school, I was like, I kind of have to try and get in there. And they were the best. And actually I had a Kenyan friend who had gotten into the Yale School of Drama, Gilbert Awur. He was the one who really planted the seed in me that a Kenyan could do this.

Right, right, right, right. Seeing someone who is like you doing something that you wanna do. I'm reading this great book right now. I was just telling Monica, she's a professor at maybe Stanford now, Fifi Lee. She moved from China here in 11th grade and she went to Yale.

The amount of work from learning English in 11th grade to get to Yale, her description of what it was like to walk around that campus and feel that history and knowing that, fuck, did she go to Princeton? Wherever Einstein was set up there, maybe it was Princeton, regardless. Were you having that experience of like, this is surreal and incredible,

or was it not as shiny as that? Oh, it was very shiny. So I always had the support of my parents and my immediate family got my interest in the arts. Extended was skittish about it. Wanting to be an actor is such a, what is that? It's not real. It's so frivolous. It feels erotic.

It's very impractical. And you're going to waste a trip to Yale on that frivolous thing. Like if you're going to Yale, Go physics or something. Well, that was the thing though. When I wanted to be an actor, people were like, whatever. But when I said I was going to Yale to become an actor,

then people were like, oh, whoa, wait a minute. If Yale has actors, then okay. So I kind of got the buy-in of my community when I was like, I'm going to the Yale School of Drama. I was no longer out of my mind. The Ivy League of it kind of like validated it. And so when I got to Yale, it was amazing to be there and my cousin had been to Yale,

but being there, it's like Hogwarts. Oh! That's my hunch. But then the drama school is like the stepchild. What's the grumpy guy's cabin that everyone visits? Oh, Hagrid's cabin. Yeah, it's more like Hagrid's cabin. Yeah, it's kinda like that.

I wanna go there. Although what an alumni. Yale drama. We've interviewed so many, yeah, yeah. Paul Giamatti, right? It's crazy that that's the stepchild when it is one of two, Julliard and Yale Drama, best schools for theater. Now would be a fun time,

which again is a part of mind your own. This is when we start committing very realistically, you're like, I'm going to try to pursue acting in this country, I need to have the accent of the people who live here. I've got to perfect this and kind of that internal battle. I think the most poignant part of that story is like calling mom.

I went to Yale knowing that I wanted to try my hand at being an actor, and the best place to become an actor is in the United States of America. And I needed to prepare myself to be marketable in an American market. And an American market requires you to sound American. Yeah, it's one of our catches. Yes. And like at the time that I was going to school, there was not this diversity and inclusion talk.

I was just trying to make myself as neutral, quote unquote, as possible. Like a newscaster. Yes, all American sounding. And so when I got there, speech and dialect is part of the training. And that was why I really wanted to go to school, because I needed those kinds of skills.

I've never been a mimic. I have classmates who could just hear you talk and then just mimic you. And it's amazing. I don't have that kind of ear. So I needed to learn accent from a very technical place. Something that I just had never done. It was fun to listen to you explain these differences. You're like, in Kenya, we pronounce all the fucking letters. You didn't say fucking.

All the letters in the word. How do you say couldn't in Kenya? I would say couldn't. And then here you say couldn't. Couldn't. Couldn't. Yeah. It's lazy.

And how many, I don't know if we should say lazy. I can say that, you're from here. Language evolves. Cause that's like when people would call Emonic's lazy. That's not right. It's a judgmental word. Yes. But in some of my speech training,

they would say, make your tongue lazy. Okay. To get there. So they weren't afraid. I know. You should be a speech therapist. It is a very provocative word. It is, yeah.

And so when you think of a lazy tongue, it's just not moving as much. It's not as dexterous. A lazy tongue just moves less. And so when you're trying to lazy tongue, it's just not moving as much. It's not as dexterous. A lazy tongue just moves less. And so when you're trying to achieve a certain American accent, because not all of them have a lazy tongue, it's the different parts of the mouth as well. Your speech comes about with your tongue, the placement of it,

your teeth play a role, your lips play a role. There's so much more than just the tongue. So you can have lazy lips too. Lazy lips sink ships. Yes. Okay, so you go all in though, and I think this is an interesting part of it. You kind of go method on this,

which is like, I'm going to do this not just at school and not when I'm performing, but I'm going to do this. Throughout my life, I'm going to adopt an American accent in my waking hours. I think that's the right approach with the goal at hand. Where it got conflicting is calling mom. Yeah.

I don't know whether you've ever done anything like that. Try and change your sound. Have you ever done that? This has been a great debate between my wife and I. So we're both from Detroit, and Detroit has an accent. And she went to NYU to Tisch, and she learned to rid herself of this Detroit accent. And then when we got together, she would make fun of me

for still having it and being an actor. And again, this is where my enormous privilege comes from. I'm like, yeah, I sound different. That's fucking radical. I don't wanna sound like everyone else, because I don't have the same fear of being excluded. So I'm like, you're damn right I sound like I'm from Detroit. And that's interesting because not everyone sounds like they're from Detroit.

So I just made a decision. No, I will never try to break myself of that. Well, it's opposite goals. You wanted to stand out and you wanted to fit in. Yeah, same with Kristin. That was just her approach. Neither is right or wrong. No, it's just an approach.

It had been pointed out to me and I'm like, yeah. How boring is a world where we all sound the same. But when you try and change the way you sound, it's a crisis of identity. What you're saying is by you holding on to your original sound, you're holding on to an expression of yourself. So when I chose to change that, I went through a period where I just didn't know who I was. I felt like such an imposter. I felt like such a fraud. You know? And then when I'm calling home,

I feel even more like a fraud because these people know I'm not American. Yeah. And they don't need me to sound American. And here I am talking to my mother, the woman who birthed me, and sounding like some fake-ass version of myself. And was there also implicit in that some loftiness? No, it wasn't a classist thing at all. Again, this is where, and this is part of what I want to explore

when we talk about 12 Years a Slave in two days when we get there. Yeah, I know. Sorry, I like that talk. Yeah, you have such a different perspective. If you were black from Detroit and you went to Yale and you called mom and you were now speaking like a newscaster, there would be this added layer of, do you think you're better than us now? Because you're using the hegemonic accent.

That would be a complicated aspect if the same story took place and you were from here. Yeah. I just sound foreign. I sound like the place I'm living. And I explained it to my family You know, I told my family hey guys, I'm gonna be speaking in American accent deal with it And my siblings made so much fun of me. Of course that's their job. I was the butt of all their jokes They would like mimic me. Oh really?

I got a whole lot of that. Were you embarrassed? Yes, I was very embarrassed Growing up there were always people who went to America for like a month and then came back with an accent. And we'd be like, come on, guys. What are you doing? And I remember once my dad's African-American friends came to visit when I was a teenager and I decided that I needed to sound like them, right? And so, yes, there is like an elitist thing about sounding American

that I had experienced. And when I was coming to America to live, I didn't want that. I wanted to hold onto myself. And then when I decided I wanted to be an actor, now it became a necessity to sound American. So I felt like a sellout choosing to sound American, because I had been like you, Dax. I had wanted to keep my Kenyan accent,

but I also wanted to be employed one day. Yeah. Of course. So, for me, it was a practical choice to sound American, and it did a number on my self-esteem, self-identity. I just felt so lost for a minute there. And my classmates, too, they were like, you have such a beautiful accent. It's so sad that you're choosing to lose it entirely.

I didn't trust myself to be able to code switch and get the benefits of what the program was giving me. I wanted to get everything. I wanted to just milk Yale for everything so that it wasn't because I didn't try. I think it was the right decision. And I think the identity thing was hard and predictable. And then on the other side of it, you grow and learn.

And I don't think you were selling yourself out. And I don't regret it. It was harrowing. Yeah, I bet. Then coming out the other end was also tough. Because now, when I reach for my original sound, I can't get there. I went through grief for that as well. I went through a lot of grief with my voice.

You tell an amazing story, you had a roommate at time, they knew you as an American accent, and then 12 years comes out and you decide, as I do this press tour, I'm gonna return to myself, and I'm gonna greet my roommate in the morning, and you try to say hello, and it's just like this crazy abstraction that's no longer your old accent.

Oh, that's kind of devastating. Yeah, it was very devastating. I wish to God I could be a Flannel and have heard what your hello sounded like. What? Like, are you okay? Yeah. Oh! Yeah.

It's mom to her. Her voice. I mean, I assume you probably felt like, well, if I want to go back, that's easy. Yeah, I thought I would always have it. When I'm with my family, I get closer to it. But there's certain things about the American accent that were so hard for me to gain that then I couldn't lose it. Like saying can't instead of can't.

Now I can't say can't and not feel like a fraud. Oh, the couldn't and the wouldn't. I beat it out of me. I was so hard on myself. And now I can't go back to the way I used to say it And then you're just like oh man why I did all this to myself Nobody even asked me to do it and finding self-forgiveness It makes me think of like when a golfer has had a swing like tiger had a swing and then he wanted to go to The next level and he had to break himself of these couple things and learn the new technique which was

Laborious, and then he finally gets it It's like to go back to the thing that you rid yourself of, the muscle memory of it all is in the mix. Yeah. Okay, you get 12 years of slave right out of school. Right before I graduated. I have to imagine a completely unforeseeable opportunity, just as big as it gets as a chance.

I'm really, really interested in, as you were doing that material and acting out that stuff. I'm gonna reference Kirby Howell-Baptiste. She's amazing. She's a British actress. She's black and we had her on recently. She's also a very good friend of ours. And she said the thing she's really struck by being from England and coming here and being black is that in America, black history starts with slavery. That's the history of black people. And she finds that incredibly frustrating.

Americans tell. That for Americans, that's where the history begins. And she's like the history is so long and it's a chapter of the history, but yet in this country, it's really just, that's what we have. The framework. And I'm just wondering your perspective

on the material you were doing given where you're from, what things were dissonant? Growing up in Kenya with a father who is well traveled and went to school here, I was familiar with obviously American safe history, but as a footnote, in my history classes, I went to British system school. So I was learning about England more than I was learning about Kenya, more than I was learning about America. So it was just theoretical and it was a footnote. I learned more about Reagan and Truman than I learned about the enslaved populations.

So I was familiar with it intellectually and just rudimentarily. And I'd watch Roots, so I had that perspective, I guess. But that's about it. So when I got 12 years a slave, I got such a reason to delve into the history. And what I discovered, I remember even just when I started, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to a museum and I'm going to try and find ways to like experience this world.

And it was before the African-American museum that is in D.C DC now that does such a great job. I remember going to Baltimore to a small blacks and blacks museum to get the history there and experiencing the history for the first time. It was limited what I easily had access to. But then I remember getting into slave narratives and like Solomon Northup story and there's many others and it just opened this portal for me and a reason to take that time in history personally and it made it visceral, it made it immediate, it made it relevant and then now having experienced that I was understanding modern-day

America so much better because when I was an undergrad, Hampshire College was radical. And there was people asking lots of questions about lots of things around the world. So I had been exposed to critical race theory, and now I was coming into a more personal perspective of this history. And it just made it so visceral, so incredibly relevant.

It helped me understand my immigrant status, because without that history and the people that overcame it, I couldn't be here. So it gave me a humility and a gratitude for my immigrant experience in a way that I don't think reading textbooks would ever do. What I would have guessed is that being in Kenya and learning of this thing, it is history. And the markers, Emancipation Proclamation 1865, and then Civil Rights Act, you know,

these things. But I think when you're here, and if you're honest, it's like very present. It's current day. It's very current. It's very present. It's current day. It's very current. It's not over, it's not history. The ripple effects are still spanning out and I just wondered if you could really even sense that in another place or do you have to be here?

I don't think we care. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's not my history. That's another country. We're dealing with our own stuff. American history, so what? Yeah, sure. But that's their history. It's another country. We're dealing with our own stuff. American history, so what?

Yeah, sure. But then when you are an immigrant and you are here and you are experiencing things that are confounding, like being an African in America and being seen as black in a way, that whole paradigm of race is something that I didn't grow up with. I didn't have to think about my race on a daily basis, you know, in the same way. But here it means something. And here nobody cares that I'm a Luo, which is my ethnic group. In Kenya, everyone cares that I'm a Luo.

So there's other delineations. 11% of the population I learned that today. Wow. There's other delineations, right? That identify you in Kenya. Class, religion, ethnicity. In America, race is such a big part of one's experience. And when it's trust on you, there's so much to catch up on. The assumptions that are being made.

I remember being in an independent cinema class, and I did an assignment. We didn't get grades, but we got notes. And my teacher said, you need to go to the writing center. So I went to the writing center and the woman looked at my work and she was like, why are you here?

The teacher said that I need help with my writing. She was like, you write better than anybody else who has come through these doors. You need to go and ask your teacher why he sent you here. And I went back to the teacher and said, I went to the writing center and she said, I don't need to... And he was like, the man hadn't read my work and he'd made an assumption because of my skin color that I was... Behind? Behind.

Deficient. That I would need more work than the average student. And I looked at my classmates' work and I'm like, the grammatical pieces are shit. It's out of control. I'm like, wait a minute, what? And that was my first encounter of racism and its insidiousness that this man made an assumption about my abilities before he had actually taken in my work. Well dismissed you as a-

Yeah, completely. Dismissed me. For the rest of the semester, man, he gave me such great evaluations. He paid attention to me because he realized that I am taking myself seriously and I am not allowing your low expectations to be mine. But I can't even imagine living in a society

that always expects so little of you. And what that does to one's psyche. From day one. That is a lot to have to overcome. So these are the things that were so contextualized for me when I was able to live in the reality of the slave experience and actually see their humanity and the cost of that system, not only on the enslaved, but on the enslavers as well.

It is a very productive system to live in for everybody. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The darkness that arises from the slave holders. And I think Steve's movie does a really good job of showing the cost of humanity on so many levels. We just had Eric Larson, he wrote Devil in the White City, and he wrote this great book that's about the lead up to the Civil War. And he does portraits of all these different people that were slave owners and in politics. And you just look at the wreckage of their life. All of them had just multiple terrible atrocities going on on all levels. Because you're right, I think once you cross that bridge,

sky's the limit on what you're gonna do. It's like you've already made peace with the fact that you're owning human beings. You've concocted your brain in a way. Yeah, you've contorted it. Other things come easy after that. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. or armchair expert, if you dare.

My quick question about having come out and got nominated in one on your debut movie. Yeah, quick question. You're one of just a handful of people who've done that. I'm a pessimistic person by nature. So for me when I imagine that situation, I guess I probably would have a lot of fear. Well, I got to maintain this somehow. Yep. Like, ow.

And you just came out of college and like, oh my God, so early. Yeah. Oof. Yeah, it's kind of like people's follow-up movies who have these incredible first movies like, oh my God, I got to do this again and again and again. Did you have any of that? 1000%. I spent a year talking about being an actor,

talking about how I got into character. That year, I was unemployed doing that. I was fresh out of school. I got paid scale for 12 years, so I wasn't like rolling in the dough. I was going through a lot of like, what next? I was on a visa. I had a sell-by date. I needed going through a lot of like, what next? I was on a visa. I had a sale-by date.

I needed to be like out of this country by a certain date. One way to get a green card is to win a global award. So when I got nominated, my underlying hope was to win so that I could stay. Wow, I would have never thought of that. And I didn't utter it to anyone Hope was to win so that I could stay And I didn't utter it to anyone because I just felt like it was too high a stake So when I won I realized oh my god, I get the state and do the thing that I love to do I want to go back and watch you walk from the seat up to the stage and imagine in your mind you're like, oh, fuck yeah, I got a green card. That's the last thing I would do.

I can submit my application now. Wow. Oh, that is so funny. Real talk. Those were the stakes for me. Great to everyone who's won an Academy Award, but yours is the one that means the most. Everything else is like a doorstop on people's bathrooms. Yours really means something. Yeah. I heard Everything else is like a doorstop on people's bathrooms.

It really means something. I heard people use it as a doorstop. I was like, my friend, it will be on the highest, most exalted shelf for the rest of my life. It was my license to stay. I don't even remember what your question was. Me either. Well, it was, did you feel the pressure

of having to repeat this? Oh yeah, and then after that, I was riddled with anxiety. Because you hear about the curse of especially supporting actor award. I was terrified for so many reasons. Already, I was an anomaly. This industry was not waiting for me, wasn't expecting me, and it certainly didn't have the path for me to proceed. I'm African. I'm dark-skinned.

I'm a woman. These were all things that are kind of like strikes. There's not a lot of people you can pick up the phone and call. How did you navigate this? So I was really scared of what might become of me. And at the time, there was all these pundits talking about the limitations to my career, how dark the road ahead would be for me.

And I was trying to deafen my ears to it, but then I couldn't help but hear those things. And they're talking about me like I'm some sort of theory, when really I'm a living, breathing person and I'm trying to figure this thing out day by day. I would imagine the pressure of exploiting the greatest opportunity that can be given in the perfect way is too much fucking pressure.

Like deciding what you're going to do next. Yeah. Because you know, like, I've been given the greatest opportunity. I have to do this perfectly because this is the perfect opportunity. Where do you go when you've reached what is considered the pinnacle of your career? Yeah. First time out. Where do you go?

Seems like the only way is down. I remember reaching out to one of my teachers and them reminding me, like, you have to allow yourself the chance to fail. Because to avoid failure is to lock yourself up. You're going to do what other people want you to do and not what you need to do. People were like, you have to strike while the iron's hot. This is your chance. You have to get a lead role.

But what? Where? Lead role. And like, a lead role in a bad movie? Well, this is your chance, you have to get a lead role. But what? Where? Lead role, and like, a lead role in a bad movie? Well, how is that gonna help me? So I just really reminded myself why I do this. Well, by the way, that's why the curse of the best supporting actor is mildly real, which is you've just proven you're a great supporting actor

and the next step is for you to be the lead. Lead is its own thing, which is not to say that you can't be, it's just the move is really get in another great movie and be great. But the thrust from everyone around you is like, go be the name above title. And I had only done one movie, I still don't really even understand movie making.

I remember being on Star Wars, which was my next thing, and I did a whole scene and JJ was like, can you do that to camera now? Because I don't yet know this medium. Yes, of course. I had so much to learn. Hell yeah. I felt fraudulent and people are looking at me like I know what I'm doing.

I still don't know what I'm doing. I had to give myself that permission to fail on a daily basis. And I still give myself that permission. You have to. Because I didn't want to lock myself up. The reason why I was successful at 12 years is because I allowed myself to be new. I allowed myself to be unfamiliar and I allowed myself to be vulnerable. And the vulnerability, I think, is what people responded to.

And so to be a locked up actor actor. It's just not a recipe for Success and so I needed to give myself that vulnerability and the thing about being a celebrity is that it kind of Cancels out that vulnerability because now you have to put up your walls because celebrity is an ego trip people appraising You you're larger than life your people's heroes It's ego ego ego, ego. And the place I work from as an actor is to set ego aside. I'm always starting new. I'm asking new questions. I'm embodying a human being that I'm getting to know.

I can't have my ego in the room. So in order to go back to that work after being introduced to this celebrity, I had to shed myself off of that ego that I have to equip myself with. You have to. Yeah, it's a part of the job. You must. There's acting and then there's celebrity.

And one begets the other, but you can't use the tools of one for the other. And so I had to learn that. Unless you're George Clooney, he can kind of just be famous in things. He's a great actor, but also he kind of can be famous in roles. Out of sight, he's like a bank robber.

But he's a famous bank robber. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, but I felt like I couldn't do it that way. Well somehow you did it kind of perfectly. Because even as I was reading through everything you've done since that time, you're in multiple franchises.

Like, you've had a fucking stellar ride than doing Us and It being as successful as it was or just doing The Quiet Place Day One and It being enormously successful. So for however you found True North, boy did you navigate it well, even with that amount of anxiety, because that's seldom done. Thank you. It's about reminding myself. First of all, winning an Academy Award did give me a lot of privilege.

It gave me the chance to be able to say no. Having endorsement deals is helpful because it means that I have a little nest egg. I can choose, I can take my time. And I'm so grateful for that. And that was one of the things that I reminded myself and my support system reminded me. You now have this, use it.

Because there's plenty of actors who don't and they have to take the job because they don't have that. They're calling it hard. But I had it and I was like, okay, so now I have to exercise the choice. And it's hard because you're an actor. You know the way your brain will play games with you you've just done an amazing thing and suddenly now

you have time to yourself and the panic comes in that suddenly it will not happen again of course will the phone ring is that it is the best behind me all those things happen and I go through that often. Lupita the biggest stars we interview in between projects are like, that was a great ride. I guess I should feel lucky because it's over. Because we're freelance. You don't know whether it's going to happen again, if it's going to be as great. But I think just being comfortable with the fact that the next one could be a failure

and it's okay. I am more than my credits and having really supportive family and other Interests outside of acting I think has also helped me because then I'm getting a sense of self and a sense of self-worth And value for more than just being in successful movies. Okay, the wild robot Yes, so I have to watch things pretty regularly for guests and generally it's hard because I can't be with my family. So when I got the link for your thing, I was like, oh my God, this is The Wild Robot.

We've read all these books. You had, oh wow. Oh my God, they're my daughter's favorite books. Oh, I love that. So yesterday we all watched as a family and in fact, Kristin's dad and stepmom are in town. So all of us watched it together. Everyone's crying.

Oh. Roz, we love Roz. Oh, Roz. Okay, so for people who don't know about the wild robot, it's the cutest book series, and it's a robot on a planet of animals who becomes the mother of a goose. Yes.

Oh my God, it's so fucking cute. You hadn't read those books. No, I hadn't. They're cute, aren't they? Yeah, I read it when they approached me to play Rawz and I read the first book, I did the audio book, and I was like, wait a minute, when was this book written? Because it feels like a book that has always existed.

It's like instant classic, it just feels timeless. Yeah, there's like a book that has always existed. It's like instant classic. It just feels timeless. Yeah. There's like a quintessential story we like. It is the Tin Man and Wizard of Oz. It's a creature that's not supposed to have feelings in love. Getting it. There's been 20 and it always works. I got fascinated in the psychology. Like what is that? It's so appealing and endearing. Because we all want to be loved and all feel unlovable in some ways, but want proof that we are.

We want to project ourselves on things that aren't like us. A tin man or a robot, we don't expect it to have empathy. And so when it does have empathy, it mirrors us and affirms us in a way that is so powerful. As you're saying it, I'm realizing, at least for me, what it is. It's like, what's beautiful about that story and it being appealing is we've isolated

really the best thing about us, and we would want this object to have that. It's kind of great. We don't want the robot to be aggressive and punitive and jealous. It's idealistic and earnest. Yeah, and I'm generally allergic to it. And I've been telling you to get over it. I know. Well, when it's animation, then we give ourselves

permission. It's true. We do. We can have big feelings when it's animation. How do you feel about earnestness? I love it. Yeah. That's good. I like it. I think it's a better world. Yeah. It's a more honest world, really. Yeah, I think where I'm from or having an older brother, like to get caught being earnest and it not working out is like the deepest humiliation. It's very hard for me. You have to protect yourself. I got to protect myself. To believe in yourself or to believe in something beautiful is dangerous.

To have hope. To have hope is embarrassing. Silver linings, yeah, you don't want to always admit to them, but behind closed doors. Yes. How do you approach playing Roz? I was very cautious when they approached me to be a part of this because I realized that making an animation is a long process. I mean, it's years.

I was at a stage where I wanted to protect my creative heart. Because it's so easy to end up in projects with people who snuff out your earnestness, who snuff out your well-meaning. Dead shepard type. Yes, exactly. I hear you loud and clear. I'm glad you made it through this. I work with all my heart.

I don't know how to work any other way. I'm very open-hearted in the way I approach my art. And sometimes that can be taken for granted and taken advantage of. And I had been a little stung by some projects and I was like, I don't want to do this unless it's with the right people. If I'm going to do years of collaborating, I want to make sure we have the right chemistry, that we're aligned on the vision for this.

And when they approached me, of course, the script was still in development. And I read the source material and I loved the source material. It was exactly my kind of thing. Now, my question was like, the people making it, what reasons are they making it for and are we aligned? So I went through a very long process, meeting with Chris Saunders. Dating, yes. Having lots of conversations about what their intentions were,

where they saw this going, and what they wanted to say with this project. And once I was pretty confident that I was aligned with them and with the message that they were trying to get across, I signed up. And the first thing was really to ensure that we remained true to the fact that Roz is not human. She is a robot and she's a well-meaning robot.

Her programming is to be of help. She finds tasks and she accomplishes those tasks. And the task that she finds on this wild island is the task of being a mother to this gosling. And her goals are to feed the gosling, to teach it how to swim, and to teach it how to fly before the next migration. The risk we were taking was to have her fall into empathy

before she had earned it. And so that was one of my things that I was forensic about in the script development process. I was like, Roz cannot be empathetic, but what she can do is mimic empathy. How can she adopt the behavior of empathy in such a way that we as human beings then project the empathy on her? And she's guided, she has a mentor. She has a mentor, yes.

The goose tells her some things. People tell her some things, yeah. People tell her and she adapts. She has the power of mimicry and adaptation. And so she's able to become a more individualized entity because of that. And because she's programmed for kindness, that becomes her superpower. And I loved that story. So that's how I approached it.

Oh, it's so cute. I liked it so much. Thank you. You like Ernest. Yeah, I do. As long as I'm with my family and there's no bullies in the room, I don't have to protect myself. Yeah, it's really, really sweet and I love Roz and I love that story.

Okay, and then we talked already a lot about your podcast that's coming out, which is Mind Your Own. Would you like to describe it? Because I could do it, but I'll mess up. I would be happy to describe it. Mind Your Own is a storytelling podcast, all from the African perspective. And I've been working on it for five years. Really?

Yes. It had been a dream that I had even longer than that. I started fantasizing on having a storytelling podcast from the African perspective when I first moved to the U.S. And I got introduced to This American Life. Oh, what a show. That show really made a world of a difference to me, being in this new environment, but every episode you're just meeting

one unremarkable person going through an extraordinary event in their lives, and there was an intimacy to it that made me feel more welcome in this country. Can I propose it's the antidote to what you saw in movies and TV? Correct! Yeah, yeah. And so it just introduced me to America one person at a time,

in a way that was such a wonderful companion to me. And I remember thinking, wouldn't it be nice to have stories about Africans that we could reflect on. The more homesick I got, the more I longed to hear these stories. And so when I could, I started working on this podcast. I teamed up with Snap Studios and they did a hell of a job going out into the world

and finding stories. That was gonna be my big question is in the episode I listened to, there's a man living in Germany who is from Ghana. Randomly some guy asked him if he can play the drums and he lies and he comes home and tells his wife, I lied to this guy and said I can play drums, but he doesn't know what to do in Germany,

so he kind of learns the drums and they get sent back and then they end up in Canada. Like it's a crazy story. It is. And then my thought was like, how on earth did that come across your desk? Yeah. It's a unique and crazy story. It is. And then my thought was like, how on earth did that come across your desk? Yeah. It's a unique and specific story.

It's Snap Studios. So I teamed up with them and in each episode, I share a story from my own life and then I tee it off to a story from an African somewhere in the world. We explore in this podcast what it means to belong because like we just talked about home and belonging is something that's

very transient for me and I know it's transient for a lot of people. So we meet Africans who are experiencing homesickness and a question of belonging in different countries, in different religions, in different sexual orientations and it becomes hopefully an expansion of what we understand to be the African experience and a globalization of what it means to be African. Oh, that sounds amazing. It's really, really good. Oh, thank you.

Yeah. It's very, very, very well produced. So yeah, again, I applaud Snap Studio. It was a labor of love. Have you met Ira? I have met Ira. I bet. Isn't he the sweet, he lives up to the dream, doesn't he?

He really does. He was one of the people I went to when I finally wanted to start working on this. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And he took a meeting with me. I was so clueless about the podcasting process. But actually there is a little worksheet on his website about how to develop a podcast idea.

Oh, really? We should read that. And I totally did it. I totally did it. Me and my good student syndrome, I did it. We should have read that before we started. We should have. Yeah.

So I have a lot to thank him for. And I wanted to ask this earlier, I forgot. Because you grew up in an environment where your dad was sometimes taken, do you live with a lot of fear? Wow. I think I live always with an underlying fear for my father's safety. But I think I've grown comfortable with that fear.

And I've grown comfortable with the fact that nothing is promised. You could lose it at any point. Why worry? So many things could go wrong, but they haven't yet. Yeah. I think I'm a little bit more on the bright side of that. I'm living in the silver lining in that sense.

And to wrap up Peter's story, her father, he ended up being in the Senate and became a governor. He's currently a governor. He's currently a governor. Wow. What a family. The cousins, the brothers, the sisters. Hi achievers, it's a blessing and a curse.

What's happening romantically? Am I allowed to ask you that? Dax, this is your podcast, you get to ask whatever you want. The question is, will you get an answer? Yeah, that's right. Let me start with, I have one in particular friend I can think of.

He's so good looking, he's also an enormous star at this point, but his whole life he's been so good looking and charming. And I have noticed he's far less interested in that whole zone, because I think for him it's like a given. What do you mean? That if he meets... Attraction. Yeah, attraction.

It's just a given. If he meets a woman and he is himself, 99% chance the woman's gonna like him. Now me, like I got a whole thing to convince you that I'm the right choice. So it's a big challenge. I think maybe you're out of my league. There's a status thing. Maybe I like myself more if I get this, all this stuff,

baggage, insecurities. This one person seems completely liberated from that because he's so fucking attractive and charming that I think he's kind of been disinterested in it a bit his whole life. Does he have a personality to match? Enormous. So part of me was like, oh, I wonder if for Lupita it's like, yeah, I bet they like me.

What's the fucking challenge here? Who gives a shit? Everyone likes me. Yeah, that's kind of maybe my assumption. Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, there's no game in it. But if you've ever been an ugly duckling, it never really gets out of you. So I don't walk the world thinking I'm attractive,

but I'm very happy to receive that compliment. Okay. When people say to me, you're beautiful, I relish it. Me too. I love it. It's shameful how much I like it. I love it. Please keep saying it. It will not grow old.

Right. In fact, it will only grow better as you get older. I don't rely on it, but I do love it. Please keep saying it. It will not grow old. Right. In fact, it will only grow better as you get older. I don't rely on it, but I do love it. Okay, great. Well, that's helpful because we often have a debate about this. Like, do beautiful people get sick of hearing it? But turns out they don't. No, I don't get sick of hearing it because I wasn't always beautiful. And those formative years, unfortunately,

they're the ones that you're working out for the rest of your life. Oh, it's embarrassing. So 10 people will say I'm beautiful, and then the one person who criticizes me is the one that I'm caring for the next 10 days. So for me, I'm like, load up on the compliments as much as possible.

Stack the ratio. Have you gotten close ever to get married or anything? I haven't, and it's something that I've wanted. You have wanted. Because you could not want it. It'd be like, who cares? No, I've always wanted companionship. And you know what I've always wanted? Children.

This is dicey, but as you were describing your rootlessness or your, I'm at home everywhere and I'm homeless, this weird paradox of your life, and people will think I'm kid shaming if you don't have kids, but my first thought really is having experienced it all that evaporates when you have it's like Fuck the thing that you do or don't have you're now giving that thing to this person and that weirdly fills all those holes I had it's like it's actually irrelevant what my relationship is with home I have an opportunity to give a real home for people it was so powerful for me. I can imagine That's all I can do imagine at this point. I'm a childless cat lady

Yes, I do The best one I hate cats. Yeah, she did too though. I did she hated cats She was afraid to be in a movie with a cat. Okay, that's interesting, because now I kind of want to get a cat just so I can be a childless cat lady. Because I like that group. Because it's on trend. Yes. It's on trend and I really like a lot of the people who are.

So I have to maybe get over this cat thing. Yeah, it's worth it. Let me tell you, I spent most of my life afraid of cats and then thanks to day one, I got over my fear and now I own a cat. He owns me. Her pitch to the director of day one was, could she have a chinchilla? And then Kimmel pointed out, she was telling that on Kimmel,

and Kimmel goes, you know, the entire movie would just be about the fact that this woman had a pet chinchilla. Like, forget whatever else is going on. All you'd remember is like, remember they made that movie about a woman who had a pet chinchilla? Well, Lapidza, this has been so much fun. Oh, it's been amazing.

You guys are so easy to talk to. You are too. All right. Well, thanks for coming in, everybody. Please see The Wild Robot. That's on September 27th. And listen to Mind Your Own, which is coming out on the 19th of September. So consume those things. They're both fantastic,

and I hope you'll come back. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. How do you feel about this air conditioning? It's better.

Much better than upstairs. Yeah. And much better than your apartment. It's so hot. Let's get into it. It's very, very hot. Yeah. It was 106 yesterday.

Mm-hmm. Tell us about what's happening at home. It's just, as I've said already on here, I have one air conditioning box. Yeah, a window mount. A window unit. It's in the kitchen. That someone decided to put in the kitchen, which is so interesting to me.

Yeah, it's in the kitchen, and so it doesn't disperse very well. It's not as bad as putting it in a closet, but it's not terribly far off. It's not, it is so hot. I had to sleep on a ice pack last night, which worked for a little bit. And I like having a comforter.

Like I like having sheets on top of me. I don't like the feeling of just being like with a small sheet. So, but I had to, I had no choice. So overall it was just really not ideal. And so I did purchase one of the like bed cooling devices or whatever. And hopefully that'll arrive soon.

You put a rush on that. How many do you think of those are inbound to California right now? Oh, probably so many. Well, I don't know how many people are in like this bad of a situation, because I do know a lot of people who live in apartments who have window units and stuff,

but most of them have one in their bedroom. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty rare not to have that. Yeah. It's outrated so, so bad. The ice pack method also for me would become a bit of, easily become a racket in my head that I need to fall asleep before it gets warm

and then that would set a clock. It's kind of like when I put my book on tape on. I can't estimate how long I think it's gonna be before I fall asleep. I have to go way beyond that so I can't even how long I think it's gonna be before I fall asleep. I have to go way beyond that so I can't even think about that it's gonna shut off while I'm still falling asleep. And that feels problematic, the ice pack.

Yeah, it is problematic. I mean, all of it is not ideal. Not ideal. It is not an ideal situation. Is that the welcome home you were looking for? No, I was ready to come home by the very end of the trip because on the last day of the trip, Not ideal. It is not an ideal situation. It's not the welcome home you were looking for. No. I was ready to come home by the very end of the trip because on the last day of the trip, I left Sunday morning, so Saturday night.

I had this big plan. I was going to get a massage at 6.30. I had that planned all week, and I had it planned on Wednesday, and then I moved it. I had moved it around all week, and then finally I'd settled on Saturday night at 6.30, and I thought, oh, that'll be a nice way to end the trip. I'll do that, and I'll go to dinner. And then earlier in the day, I don't know what happened, but I felt like I just didn't wanna go.

It just very rare for me. You didn't wanna go to your massage. Like, that has never happened. So it was a bit alarming. Yeah. It was a bit alarming identity-wise. So I gave go to your massage. Very rare for me, like that's never happened. So it was a bit alarming. Yeah. It was a bit alarming identity wise. So I gave it to my friend. Okay.

And I just felt like, oh, I just wanna be out and about. I don't really wanna be like in relax mode. And then I went from restaurant to restaurant for an hour trying to get into a place. And I could not. Because every place you wanted to go is very packed. Yes. Because you're going off of a list

of really good restaurants. Places I like or know or have been, but whatever. Oh boy. So by the end of that, I was like, it's time for me to go home now. I'm kicked out of this city. They're making it very clear. They don't want me here anymore.

They've had enough of me. Yeah, they're done with me. She saw her fashion show, she wrote her article, she did her press obligations, and now it's time for her to go bake in her apartment. I was ready to be home, and then as soon as I got home, it was like, oh my God, I gotta go back immediately. I can't live like this.

Right, you need to get back to the safety of a hotel. So it's a lot, but it'll be fine. The thing will come. The sheet mat food thing will come. The bed cooler will arrive. Yes, and it'll be okay. We did have a lot of fun in New York. We did, New York's the best.

Oh, we had fun. Two trips to Emily. Post the last time we spoke. Yes. What have we done? Well, I saw a play, which is very unlike me. Yeah, you did. And I can't stop thinking about it.

Ooh. Yeah, I'm now listening to the music from the play. It's called Stereophonic. I think it won some record number of Tonys. And then Adam, my friend Adam's like, you must see this while you're in town. Fanagled me a ticket. It's a play. It's not a musical, but there is musical. And it's clearly, I don't want to get sued, but it's clearly Fleetwood Mac. It's a group making an album

in the seventies. They've just had an album come out that is number one. there's two female singers and three male musicians, and they all harmonize together. In the songs, what I think is almost impossible to do is you could wanna tell that story, but how are you gonna make music that sounds like Fleetwood Mac? They're so unique and specific, and it's impossible. Didn't Will Butler do the music on that? He sure did. Will Butler from't Will Butler do the music on that? He sure did.

Will Butler from Arcade Fire did the music and it is so Fleetwood Mac. It's almost hard to believe that he figured out that recipe. Sarah Pigeon is playing, again, this is my takeaway, kind of the- Stevie Nicks? The Stevie Nicks character. And her voice is just impossible.

So they are singing. Oh yeah, cause you're watching them record an album. So they go into the studio. The set is- So it is a musical. It's not. Musicals are when they sing part of their dialogue to each other.

Yeah, there are variations on it, but yeah. I mean, if there's a lot of singing in the play, I guess I would call it that, a musical. They never just break into song in real life. Yeah. They're going into the recording booth, and the stage is incredible, because it's like all the board.

It's basically my life for six years on Parenthood. I was getting very fun vibes about how much time I did spend in a recording studio. And then that's on downstagestage and then upstage is glass and then the recording space, which accommodates the entire band at once. And they really play the instruments and they really sing and harmonize.

Yeah, that's cool. It really asked this kind of profound and interesting question, I think, this is what it was about, was they're miserable, as I think that band was often. There's all kinds of inner romantic relationships going on, there's drug abuse, there's addiction, there's all this stuff, and then there's huge success happening.

And it's kind of torturous for all of them. And when they do start playing, you're like, oh God, I think it's worth it though. Like the music is, it's the thing we felt when the Avett brothers started singing in front of us. There's something truly quite magical about that when it works and it's right. And especially with a band like Fleetwood Mac,

the way they're all harmonizing and the way their voices play off of each other. And that's been accomplished in this. And it's just this fun thought of like, God though, is it worth it? Is it worth it to suffer? Who for who? And who's it for?

Yeah. I mean, for us in the audience, we're lucky. Exactly, you just get the fruit of it. We get rumors and we don't care how much. And then also, if you remember, do you remember watching the documentary, we loved the defiant ones about Jimmy Iveen and Dr. Dre. Yeah, that was great.

And so Jimmy Iveen was the producer on those, Fleetwood Mac, that's why he and Stevie Nicks ended up dating for a while. And he was young and bullshitting his way into this scenario. And there's a character that's very much clearly Jimmy Iveen, which is really fun to watch because that person obviously becomes.

Him. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it was really good. When they sang a couple different times, I would just couldn't help but cry. There's like something, humans are capable of magic. Aren't they all dead?

No. Is anyone dead? Is Stevie Nicks dead? No. Okay. She's with us. I't they all dead? No. Is anyone dead? Is Stevie Nicks dead? No. Okay. She's with us. I do often think people are dead.

Yeah, it's kind of your thing. I guess. I say a name and you go, they're dead, right? Well, I do say right. This will be a fun game. You know how the New York Times has all these different games they'll send you, like put these historical events in order.

Have you seen these? Oh no. I get that. And occasionally there's an email that just says, put these historical events in order. have you seen these? Oh no. I get that, and occasionally there's an email that just says put these historical events in order, and it's a game. Okay. So there should, there'd be a fun game for you if I just said like six names

and you had to tell me who was dead and who was alive. Oh wow. That'd be really challenging for you. It would be. Yeah. Who's alive from everyone? Most of them. Yeah, McFleetwood's still alive.

Good. Christine McViewood's still alive. Good. Christine McVeigh died. Oh. In 2022. Okay. Peter Green also died in 2020. Okay. So 40% of the band?

Yeah, there's a lot of people. Oh, there are. Listed in, I think in one version of the band or another. Well, I guess we'd have to ask them, only they can answer that question. You took me to an institution. I did, we went to Balthazar. I didn't even know that was an institution.

Yeah, it's a restaurant. Yeah. It's a popular restaurant in New York, an institution. I had beef stroganoff for breakfast. You sure did, I thought that was a wild choice. Yeah, I made some wild eating choices. The night before that, I went to my favorite restaurant in the city, but also I think top three for me.

In the world. Yes. Okay. I love it. It's an Italian restaurant and I went there. They said it was a two hour wait. I was like, oh, just for one, even just for one person. And he was like, yeah.

And I was like, even at the bar? And then he said, oh, hold on. And so when he looked at the bar and he came back and he said, there is one seat in between two parties. So that was very exciting. That was a big plus in the single person bucket. Yeah, it paid off in that moment for sure. And so I sat down and there was a man next to me.

He was chatting with the people next to him, but he was clearly by himself. And so we started chatting a little bit and the bartenders and the people who were serving behind the bar seemed to be giving him a lot of attention or a lot of reverence. Uh-huh. And I thought, who is this person?

And he looked about, I don't wanna say age. Why not? Well, in case I'm talking about a mystery and I think it might get solved, I don't want to be really wrong about the age. Oh, okay. Older than you? I think so. Okay.

I think he was older than me. I would guess that. We were chatting and I got the last piece of lasagna, which was a huge deal. The people next to me ordered it and they were like, oh, we just sold out and that was- And yours arrived. Yeah.

Oof. Yeah, it was rough for them. It was great for me. Yeah. And we were laughing about that. Oh, he was privy to, it was great for me. And we were laughing about that. Oh, he was privy to that whole, okay. Yes, interaction. So you guys had an inside secret kind of.

Yeah, and eventually I said, after we had chatted, I felt like there was a rapport built. Yes. Eventually I said, so, I wish I remember the exact words I said, but I said something like, so what do you do or what's your deal? I don't remember how I said it, but like, what's your deal?

Why is everyone so excited you're here? And he laughed, but then I did not get a very clear answer. And I really was hoping that he would be done with his meal before I was done with mine so that I could get my questions answered from the bartender. Would you have gone as far as to glance at his credit card receipt?

Oh wow, I did not even think about that. I'm not that good at mystery songs. On your scumbaggery spectrum, you're not as high up as me. I didn't know, I didn't think about that, but I like that piece of advice. So I dig his name. His name is Kenneth.

That's all I know. That's all I know. But we did some Google searching. It's not Kenneth Cole. Yeah, I said, well, is it Kenneth Cole? Yeah. That might be the only Kenneth I know. It's not.

And he spends some time in LA. I recommend it all time. So maybe I'll see him again. And also something about a father. Yeah, he had said something about his father. Yeah. And then he had said something about restaurants on the street and then restaurants in Paris.

But none of it was really adding up to me. Your leading guest right now is he was a restaurateur. Yes. Yeah. But I have not found confirmation of that. Have you typed in Kenneth restaurateur? I did, but Rob, do you wanna try? Yeah, Ken Friedman? I don't know what I'm looking for.

Well, exactly. Restaurateur Kenneth. Was he a white guy? Yeah, he was white. The guy that's popping up looks too old. Well, this guy was kind of, how old? Like 50s? Yeah.

What does he look, can you send me a picture? Kenneth Friedman, yeah. Put it on the- Oh, can't do that. No, it's the spotted pig owner, so I would hope it's not him. Oh! Oh, wait.

Oh, wow, that would be everything. Ken Friedman. Well, that would be bad, because he got in big trouble, and maybe that's why he didn't want to talk to me. Hold on. Oh my gosh. Are we real-time solving this?

It's not him. Oh, so that's good news, I guess. Although that would have been exciting news as well. Yeah, it's not him. But that would have made a lot of sense all of a sudden. It would have. Because he was being elusive, like the blue whale. Unless he got a face transplant.

Okay. I don't wanna rule that out. Anywho, so that was a big mystery that did not get solved. And I would love like an Anmansur, that's a deep cut if you're a long time listener. What was the name of the restaurant so people know, oh yeah, I see him in there all the time. Okay, it's called Esodi.

I don't really know how to pronounce it. Little I, little I space S-O-D-I. S-O-D-I. It's incredible. I didn't want to say, I was purposely not saying it. So I told him, he said, have you ever got the eggplant Parmesan? Ding, ding, ding.

Me and you were recently talking about eggplant Parmesan and you said, you'll never eat that. I don't like eggplant. And I love it. And I said, no, I don't. And he said, how about the brand Zeno? I said, no, I've never had that either. And he was like, oh my God, you have to get those things.

I said, well, okay, well I'm leaving Sunday so maybe I can come back tomorrow and get it. And then he did say like, okay, well if you do, I think, well now I'm, okay, now I feel weird giving this information because what if all the armchairs go do this? Do what? Oh, say this, we'll just make up some names I guess.

Okay, okay, so he said. Find Carol. He said. Tell her Peter sent you. He said, I think Danielle is working tomorrow, so if she is, tell her Kenneth sent you or says hi or something. Yes.

I was like, okay. So, did you find anyone? Is this him? No. No. He did into interior design apparently. Oh. That's a good guess too, interior designer. That is a good guess.

That, no, okay, so this guy's like older than that. He looked kind of like comedian-esque. Like he had a lot of tattoos. Anyway, mystery is out there. And I'll be the one, obviously, cause you don't read comments, I'll be the one that will probably, if anything pops up.

Yeah. Yeah, there's probably gonna be, it's like when you open up a murder hotline and you get way too many tips and you gotta weed through so many. Do you think? I know it, Kenneth, it's gotta be him. Do you think he could be in witness protection

and I'm really blowing up his spot? I do not think they put witness protection people in Manhattan, I just don't. Okay, I don't know what he's up to, but. You need to know more. I asked, every time I asked something a little personal, he got elusive. Wow, this is intriguing.

I know. Did it cross your mind when you were striking out at the restaurants to go there and give the name? No, I'm too scared to do that. You are. What would I have said to the host? I would have said, hey, well, just so you know, Kenneth sent me,

and also who is Kenneth? Well, no, you'd have to say, can I speak to Diane? Oh, you mean Danielle? Danielle, sorry. And you'd say, hey, Danielle, Kenneth told me to say hi to you if I was in. And she'll say, Do you have a table?

How do you know Kenneth? And I'll go, how do you know Kenneth? And who is he? Flip the script, and more importantly, who is he? Why can't he afford to be here? Who is my friend, Kenneth? Yes. So anyway, mystery out there in the universe.

Hopefully that will get solved. Kenneth, if this gets back to you and you're mad, I'm really sorry. Yeah, I don't think, I can't see any reason why he would be mad about this. I did do something, so far I feel good about everything I've done. But I did one regrettable thing

that I guess I'll call myself out on. What? During this conversation. Tell me you had a popular podcast. I didn't, but the next worst thing, I told him I had a house. And I did that as a calculated move. Yes, of course.

Because I wanted him to know. You were a woman of means. I just wanted him to know like he could tell me things. Exactly. Yeah. I totally get it. It makes no sense. But that's dumb. But right, but I would have had the same compulsion.

Like I'm trustworthy because I also have some means. Well, I- Which is funny. This is so- I belong here and you can trust me. Right, it's like it's an I belong here thing, which is dumb because guess what? Everyone belongs there.

They do, but these things also are real. I guess, but he was having fun talking to the people next to him on the other side, and I don't know if they belonged there, but they did because again, everyone does. They were there. Yeah, if you're there, you belong there. Yeah, wherever you're at, you belong. Well, not if you're wrongly incarcerated. Sorry to bring it down. That's, everyone does. They were there. Yeah, if you're there, you belong there. Yeah, wherever you're at, you belong.

Well, not if you're wrongly incarcerated. Sorry to bring it down. But it's always on my mind. I'm always trying to get some movement. Well, you have to keep it at the forefront. Yes. It's an important cause, I believe that. Maybe he went home and he said,

I was chatting with this person and she, I guess her name is Monica. She owns a house in Laughlin Park. No, don't. And then the person goes in Laughlin Park. And then the person goes, Laughlin Park. And then she was like, and then he was like, oh my God, who is she? He might be on the same quest to figure out

what your racket was. He might be, but you know what? If he had asked me, I would have said, cause me and you, okay, to be BTS, I did already tell you this story. And I asked you if that had happened to you, if you were at a bar by yourself. Yeah.

And someone was next to you, a young, a very young 20 something. Uh-huh. Why is my person so much younger? Oh, you're the person. No, I come across as 20 something. I thought it was you in this scenario, but I'm Nathan in this, Kenneth.

Yeah, you're Kenneth, you're Kenneth. And you're sitting next to what you believe is a 20 something. She's actually 37, but you think she's 27. Yeah, I would think you're 20. And she's talking to you and she asks you like, why is everyone so excited you're here? I asked you, how would you respond?

And you did say you'd respond poorly. This happens to me. Is someone notices other people are acting weird around me or I take pictures with somebody in front of them. Yeah. Well, it's happened to me as well. Yeah. But then does someone ask you

why are they taking pictures of you? Right, but then I don't have a problem. That's the thing. And that's why, so when you said it did kind of bother you, it's like, oh, that's interesting. It feels really weird to explain to somebody why you're famous. I don't know I don't know why that feels weird, but it's like it feels like you're bragging Well, yeah, but it's not to me. It's not like you're not answering why you're famous. You're answering like but you are it's like why are people

Treating you like you're famous. I guess like I don't think of it like that I think of it like that. I think of it more like, oh, this is the answer to this, which is that I have a podcast that some people listen to. That's how I would say it. Like, oh, I have a podcast that some people like. Yeah. And I guess- This sounds really, now I'm gonna-

Oh, no, wait, sorry, oh my God. Now I'm remembering exactly how I phrased it. I said, because he had mentioned he has spent time in LA and he's back and forth and whatever. And I was like, eventually when I asked my question, I said, are you an actor? I said, are you an actor? Or why is everyone so excited you're here?

Yeah, okay. So I didn't say, what's your deal or what do you do? Because maybe if I had said, what do you do? That would have been worse or better, I don't know. Well, my fear would be like, I would say, well, first of all, I don't often know why someone comes and asks for a picture with me. I don't know if it's because they watch me on TV

or in a movie or they listen to the podcast or they saw me in a Carvana commercial. I don't really know. Or maybe even for some people, they just know I'm married to Kristen or something. I don't really know. Yeah. So then I feel like I'd be saying, well, I'm an actor and I have a podcast

and then my fear is what have you been in? That whole conversation. You don't like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause that is just me listing things I've been in and them going, no, no. And you're just finding out all this stuff they don't know your things you've done. I get that, I get that being uncomfortable.

And then now they're getting more and more, like then I feel like whether they're thinking this or not like, Jesus, haven't you been anything big? Like you've said all these things and I don't. It's like a mutual projection situation happening for you in those situations, which I do understand. Yeah. But I-

Like Parenthood? No. The movie? No. Well, there was a movie. Yeah, Steve Martin. No, they made a show about, you know- I mean, I think you're making it much- I think, okay, I'll let you off the hook. I do think you're making it a much bigger thing than it actually is, but I was with you once when this did happen at Taco Bell, but that was extreme. They were very high. They were so high. Yes.

I don't care if someone knows anything I've been in, but once they ask me and they don't, then I am embarrassed. Right, but that's, but like, you don't need to be. I know, but I am. I know, but. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, I get it. Is I'm thinking, but that's, but like, you don't need to be. I know, but I am. I know, but. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, I get it.

Is I'm thinking, they're thinking, nice, guys, trust fund. But none of these, no one's seen any of these things he's saying. Sure, but what, who cares if they think that? Well, cause I'm not a trust fund. I know, I know. I, you know, built and or earned the things. Yes, so you know that I know. I built and or earned the things.

Yes, so you know that's true. So it doesn't really matter what the sky speaks. It doesn't. And I'm all over the map on what day I feel which way. Yeah. Often I don't care. Yeah. But mostly, yeah, I just rather.

But anyways, I had suggested you should have said, what's your hustle? Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I like that, but that's just not me. Yeah. That's you. That's me, okay. So, but I like it, I think it's cool.

Someone asked me that I would think that was a cool way of saying it, but it's not how I talk. Pfft, yet. You're incorporating new words all the time into your vocabulary. Viviparity. Viviparity, atelier. I've always been saying atelier. You're incorporating new words all the time into your vocabulary. They have a parody. They have a parody, a tilly-ay. I've always been saying a tilly-ay.

I said there was an actual storefront in Manhattan that I saw that said a tilly-ay. It probably was an a tilly-ay. It was a subway. No. They're making sandwiches. No, it wasn't. Okay, this is for Lupita, and this is a ding ding ding

because fashion week in New York, and Lupita is so fashionable. We can't move on yet. Okay. You went to your first fashion show. Yeah. It was very fun. You wrote an article.

I did for Elle. And I'm so proud of you. Oh, thank you. That's sweet. Monica. Thanks. It's so good. Thank you.

It's so good. It was fun. And I told you this already, but what's weird about it is it feels real. It's a real article. What do you mean? Like it reads like these articles read. Like somehow you know how to write the way they write.

It's also very much you. Yeah, it's very neat. But also the details are falling out and the way they're supposed to in a structured, you have this many words. Yeah. You still have to learn everything. Yep.

Very skillfully done. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate it. It was fun. That part is very fun. Did they give you feedback at all? So Elle Magazine does- I've heard of it. Does a series called Front Row Virgins.

I think I did talk about this before. If someone goes to their first fashion show, they bring in, they see it, they write a little article on it. So I got to do that and I went to Susan Alexandra if someone goes to their first fashion show, they bring in, they see it, they write a little article on it. So I got to do that and I went to Susan Alexandra collabed with Rachel Antonoff. Both incredible. Rachel's a friend.

Rachel's a friend of yours. Yeah, now a friend of yours. Yes, very, very, very sweet. And it was also so fun because it was a dog show. It was like a straight up dog show, which was very sweet because all the dogs were up for adoption. They were all rescues, they worked with these rescues

and they were up for adoption. I think a bunch of them got adopted. Well good. I know. Although, do you think anyone's already like, impulse by, they got swept up in the fashion of it all? I did. And they're like, this dog's not as hot

as it was on the runway. It was like up close, not as, like models sometimes. Oh, yeah. I don't care. Actors. Like human models. Sometimes up close you're like, oh God. Back up.

But the humans that were walking the dogs down the aisle. Were they hot too? You still gotta get hot humans to walk the dogs. Well, they use like real awesome like New York celebrities basically. So Alison Roman, my friend, my chef, walked in the show. With a dog. Yes. Holding it or dragging it behind?

Hers was in a stroller. Okay, I would want that. Yeah. Because I don't know how unruly the dog's gonna be. Me too, and some people were panicked, I could tell. Yeah. So anyway, it was very fun and there were a lot of cool people there. I felt very, very the fuck's gonna be? Me too, and some people were panicked, I could tell. Yeah. So anyway, it was very fun, and there were a lot of cool people there.

I felt very, very honored to be there. You did. I did, yeah. Was Kenneth there? God, great question. Fuck, I bet he was. I don't think he was, because I met him after the show, and I was dressed in head-to-toe Rachel Antonoff. Such a cute sweater, had a bagel on it.

A bagel, everything a bagel. A lot of people have commented on the sweater, and as they should, it's a very, a cute sweater, had a bagel on it. A bagel, everything a bagel. A lot of people have commented on the sweater and as they should, it's a very, very cute sweater. But my pants are like these paisley pants. I was really in an outfit. Yeah, you were loud. Yes. And I think if he had been at the show,

he would have said, oh, I was at the show and he would have been able to tell them. Were you in the front row? I was. Oh my God. Yeah. Were you conscious of getting photographed and stuff? Were you wearing sunglasses the way on tour goes?

When tour, I wanted to, but I felt like I wouldn't be able to see. It's like hustle. You can't say hustle. Yeah, it's not me. You can't wear shades at the thing. It's not me yet. Were a lot of people in the sunglasses in the front row? No. No one was.

It wasn't like, if you read the article, my main takeaway sort of was like, this was a beautiful event and like a really fun event. It was sort of the antidote to what fashion sort of does represent in the city, which is very like exclusive and elusive. Exclusionary. Yeah, and it's on purpose that way. Yes. And so this was not that and I thought thatlusionary. Yeah, and it's on purpose that way. Yes.

And so this was not that, and I thought that was lovely. Yeah, yeah. So no one was wearing their sunglasses inside. Were you gifted a piece of the jewelry? I was gifted a purse. You were? Yes. Okay, wonderful. That's very, very cute.

And then, you know, when I did, the next day, I went to her store, I went to Susan Alexander's store, I walked there, and I bought some jewelry. You bought a bunch more stuff. Oh, and you know it was so cool. She's like a drug dealer, take this purse, we'll see you in five. It's the right move.

But it was meant to be because she has so much awesome, really, really funky, cool jewelry and purses. She's known a lot for her purses, just like all beaded and stuff, very cool. But the jewelry, you can do like charms and make your own charm necklace or bracelet. But they have initial ones. And so they have the initials

and each initial has like a little like design, I guess on it. And the M has a mouse on it. No. And the P has a peach. No. So I got an M and a P. Same.

I know. Yeah. I know. So anyway. Well, the L had a cherry on it. That would make no sense. Why? Because M for mouse, P for peach.

Like the- L for cherry. Yep. Jesus, man, you're so- You're right, I'm sorry. You think because you didn't sleep well last night. That's why. The heat. Yeah. Anyway, it, you're so. You're right, I'm sorry. You think because you didn't sleep well last night. That's why. The heat.

Yeah, that's why. Anyway, it was really, really fun. And it was really fun to, I like walked immediately to this little cafe and I wrote my article and I felt very New York. Yes, writing an article in a cafe. That was actually, it was actually a wine bar. Even better. It was like half cafe, half wine bar Who's life are you living? It was actually a wine bar. Even better.

It was like half cafe, half wine bar. Whose life are you living? I think I'm living Carrie's from Sex and the City. Oh my God, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was great. It was very fun. I'm glad you got that.

Thank you. So Lupita fashion. Lupita, she looked absolutely stunning in a very modest, like, it was one of these people acts like they're not doing much, but everything's done perfectly. Exactly, perfectly executed. Casual, but flawless. I have considered buying the red skirt she was wearing.

Oh yes, you should. And I think I might. Okay, great. You got the deets from her? Yeah, in the episode she said, so I should order it now before being here in Middlesex. You wanna pause and from her? Yeah, in the episode she said, so I should order it now before people hear it in the middle cell. Oh yes, you wanna pause and order it?

Yeah, I wanna pause. Okay, she talked about in college, it being so cold, like the winter being so cold. Yes. So I looked up the world's lowest temperature. Okay. Which is ironic considering the heat right now. Negative 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Say that one more time. Okay, negative 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's negative 89.2 degrees Celsius. I mean, we're not too far away from Calvin at that point. Exactly, and this was in 1983. That is not that long ago. Yes, but how long have they been keeping records? Okay, that's true.

This is in Antarctica or something? Yes, Antarctica. Yeah, like how long has there been an instrument sitting in Antarctica to measure this? That's pretty cool. It was set at... But do I remember this right from physics? Calvin is negative two...

Calvin is Rob's son. Rob's son, who's negative 276 Fahrenheit. Rob, can you look? And at that temperature, all the atoms stop moving? 273. 273. Damn it, why did I get so close? Well. 273.

And at zero Kelvin, do atoms stop moving? I wish just for this moment that Rob's name was Adam. Looking up Kelvin. That would be great. Rob, will you name your next son, Adam, so that we can make this like work? And Rob, can I call you Adam just for this segment? We're doing now about Kelvin temperature.

That is, atoms are considered to be essentially not moving at zero Kelvin. Oh my God. Oh my God. So you're really- Playing with- You're getting close to- Fire.

Time and space stopping. Wow. That's nuts. Uh-oh. What? This is on Arizona State University. Oh, jeez. How dare you. Sun dev jeez, how dare you.

Sun Devils, Flaky Jakes. Remember how much I like Flaky Jakes? Yeah. Across from Sun Devil Stadium. Yeah. Gets gone now. Love it. We don't know who stole from who,

Fuddruckers or Flaky Jakes. Yes, it's still up in the air, even though we did look it up and we do know, but we don't know. Yeah. Okay, Fei-Fei Li, whose book you were reading, she comes up on this episode and you were a little stumbly over-

In fact, I know I got it wrong. She went to Princeton for sure, not Yale. She went to Princeton and she also got her PhD at California Institute of Technology. We call that Caltech. Right up the road in Pasadena. Oh my God, is it Kenneth? Nathan? What if?

Would you rather date a Kenneth or a Nathan? Oh, I don't have that. Okay, next question. You have a friend named Kenny and a friend named Nate. They're both wonderful. They are, neither goes by Nathan or Kenneth though. Yeah, but I wouldn't- They're going by Nathan or Kenneth.

Oh, really? That's why I asked. Oh, okay. I think Nathan's my're going by Nathan or Kenneth. Oh, really? That's why I asked. Oh, okay. I think Nathan's my pick. I think so too. Kenneth sounds, apologies to all Kenneth. Especially the one who's definitely gonna listen to this. My God.

It sounds really old money to me. Kenneth the Ninth, you know. Kenneth feels very blue blood. Wow, that's very interesting. Not for you. No, in fact, Nathan is short for Nathaniel, and Nathaniel really sounds old- Nathaniel Longhorn Clemens.

Who's that? Exactly, is that a person? Nathaniel Longhorn Clemens. Do they own Longhorn, the restaurant? Adam, will you look up Nathaniel Longhorn Clemens? There's a Nathaniel Clemens Jr. that died today. Oh, somebody did die. 2023. Oh, congratulations.

But she's the Sequoia Capital Professor of Computer Science at Stanford. And former board director at Twitter. You should know all this. I'm not there yet. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. The Samuel Longhorn Clemens was Mark Twain's. Real name. Real name, yeah. Samuel Longhorn.mens was Mark Twain's. Real name.

Real name, yeah. Samuel Longhorn. Samuel, oh! It was not Nathaniel. But still, pretty good. Close. Pretty good. Well, I'm off by three today. Okay.

273, 276, Nathaniel, Samuel. Okay, the 25 best drama schools ranked. Oh boy, you'll love this. Juilliard. Juilliard. Yeah. Yeah. Ohulliard. Julliard. Yale. Hial. Oh my God.

You gotta say it effectively. What's the heading again? The 25 best drama academies. Number one, I already forgot it. No, no, hold on. My uncle went there. Yeah, he did. Julliard.

Number two, Hial. For some reason you put an H in front of it. Hell, okay. What's number three? I don't know if we're gonna make it. I think we'll do top three. Well, hold on now. NYU.

This is fun. NYU, New York University. Tige. I would like to blow through these fast. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Just try to do a tiny bit of an accent. Okay, I won't.

UNC. Tar Heels. That, I won't. UNC. Tar Heels. That's right. UC San Diego. All right gang, I'm out on this list. What the fuck, but you're pro Arizona State? Wolf, Lakey, Jakes. Oh my gosh. Red Rockers.

Oh my God. I mean, London Academy of Music and Drama Art, Lambda, that is a big. It's gotta be above UCD. It's not. So you're wrong. Did the university of- It's above Carnegie Mellon.

Guys. It's above Guildhall London. Guys. Oh my God, number nine is the Old Globe in USD San Diego. I mean, look, you don't- Tell me what I don't know. You don't, look, do you- You know I have been professionally employed

in show business for 20 years? Do you know a lot about acting schools? I know that I have worked with hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of actors at this point. Not in theater. And I've learned of all their academies they've gone to. And I've yet to meet someone that was a proud graduate of UC San Diego acting program.

Okay, well. We've had like seven guests on there were Yale drama. Yeah, Yale is number two. We've not had a UCSD acting major. I don't know if we have or not. I don't know if we have. Okay. I mean, we have. Let me ask you this, let's flip this

because it's always me who's in trouble for rejecting the list. Does that sound right to you? I'm surprised by it, but I believe it. Okay. Because I definitely believe one, two and three. Yeah, me too. That's where they hook you.

So then I can't say, oh no, now it's wrong because I haven't heard of it. Yeah. That seems a bit arrogant. John Ritter went there. Okay, thank you. That's their last alumni. I'm not saying it's not,

maybe that's where we're getting hung up. When I say, I don't know that I believe that. You said, I'm out on this list. Yeah, I'm out on this list or that squirrels are the fifth smartest mammals. That's on a list. That's not what it was, but okay. It was up there. No. It was above dolphins or something, preposterous.

I would need much more investigation before I believe that. Not I know definitively that's not true. Okay. Okay. That's fair. I think you, like all of us, might get stuck on your old information,

unwilling to open your mind to new information. Okay. So I want you to do some research on this list and come back. I would need to see it on many, many more lists. Okay. Brown University, UCLA, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also very, I know, very fancy.

Wow, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I'm surprised by that, but I will take it. There you go. American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, USC, LA, National Institute of Dramatic Arts, Sydney. What about inside the Actors Studio? Columbia. The new school, is there anyone out here in the new school?

Let's just keep going. Columbia University, Case Western Reserve, that's in Cleveland. Okay, what are you giggling about? Nothing. Yeah, what? I believe it. Okay.

And we still haven't gotten to the new school. Cal Arts, Cal Arts, I do know is good. Florida State University, Northwestern. Northwestern is below all those other ones that we, okay. Southern Methodist University, SMU, as they say. University of Missouri, Kansas City, Savannah College of Art and Design, SCAD. SCAD. Purchase College SUNY, and University of Georgia.

There we go, that's why you made us Liz. I made that up. Oh, you did? Yeah, I made that last. Oh, you did? Yeah, I made that last one up. But yeah, so. And no new school. Okay, no USC.

Can you major in acting maybe? USC was on the list. Oh, it was? Yes, it was. I can also, let me look at one more list, okay? What was that? Who was it? That was a Hollywood reporter.

That's high. Very reputable. Okay, how about this? This is US News and World Report. We'll do a little crossover, okay? UCSD. Looking for colleges with a drama major. See a list of colleges with drama here

to evaluate admission, admission set of tuition, rankings and more. But no. Rankings. Yeah, but that's like MIT is number one. That's just saying. Great drama program. Just saying. That's like the best school on the list that has a drama program.

So this doesn't work. Their production of A Beautiful Mind was very believable. Okay, anywho. Their production of Oppenheimer was also quite believable. They made it into a theater production. Yes, the movie's based on the play that's based on the book. Wow. American Prometheus.

Samuel Longfellow. No, the play's based on the movie that's based on the book. That also could be the order. Okay, the Black History Museum that she referenced in DC is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. That's in DC is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. That's in DC. Okay, now I looked at the people, notable people,

who got their EB1A, that's an extraordinary ability visa. Remember she said she got her green card from winning the Academy Award. Yes. So yes, you can be an alien of extraordinary ability. Aren't all aliens, they've already gotten here. I agree. I agree.

But there is lists of notable recipients. I'm gonna read some, okay? Okay. Bettina May, she's a pinup model and a burlesque dancer and photographer. Wow. I know. It's very progressive. Very horny.

1979. Okay, a basketball player, Dirk Nowitzki. Oh, Dirk Nowitzki played for the Mavericks. You knew that? Incredible three-point shooter. Oh, wow. Gorgeous. You know who else? German. John Lennon. Sure. Yeah.

Avi. Husson, I won't be able to do this last name. Manoj. Avi. Husson, I won't be able to do this last name. Manoj. Nope, computer scientist and creator of BTWin AI Friends. Okay, so AI, oh my God, Melania. Tron. Melania. Okay.

Wow, okay. Extraordinary. When is she gonna, oh, she was a model. Model. Ding ding ding. Not pinup though. No, regs. Regs. Okay, Yoko Ono, Tanith Belbin,

that's a Canadian American ice dancer. Oh wow, she used the EB1A classification to obtain US citizenship and time to win a silver medal for the US at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Oh. Pretty cool. Very cool. Okay, now there's also O-1, an O-1 visa. That's different, but a lot of people have those.

Justin Bieber. Oh, Biebs. Uh-huh, Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan. Gary Newman. It's not Piers. It's Piers, I say Piers. What do I say? You just said Piers, I think.

I think it's fine. It's a matter of, it's a matter of, When I ask, I'm generally, Piers Morgan. Huh. Figuring out I'm saying something wrong. It's generally for me. I don't, I think you're right.

I think, I think maybe I've heard it both ways. Piers Morgan, Piers Morgan. What's the English talk show host that's combustible? Piers Morgan? Piers Morgan. Oh, what are we talking about? Piers Morgan. Oh my God, I'm thinking of Piers Brosnan.

Oh, no, Brosnan, oh my God. Piers Brosnan. You would always say Piers Brosnan, right? Piers, yeah. Piers, okay, great. So that was my confusion. I thought we were talking about Brosnan. Brosman?

Brosnan. Brosnan. Yeah. And I heard you say Piers Brosnan. And I was like, whoa, I think it's, from my recollection, it's Piers Brosnan. Jeez, this is like- Nathan. Jeez, this is like. Nathan?

No, this is like Massimo. Yeah, Massimo. What a designer, what a good designer. Okay, Piers Morgan. Right. Okay, now. When you just stuck your tongue out, it reminded me of Tonka. Oh, I forgot

it was on camera. Fuck, did you watch the last episode? Yeah, it's which I was just about to ask you. I did. I forget, are we talking about it now or later? Later. Oh, we are? Oh, come.

Well, because it was gonna be, I think we wanted to talk about it on somebody's episode coming up, who introduced us to this show. Okay, that's fair. I think that's fair. So everyone has one more week to watch the show. Yes, chimp crazy.

Chimp crazy. It's four episodes only. I was expecting like a tenor, so I was kind of pissed yesterday. I mean, if they told, if there was six more, I'm thinking how much stuff's happening in that. If they went another six episode, everyone's dead, we met probably.

I know. You know, we want everyone to watch it. We're sort of forcing everyone to watch it. Yeah. It's not uplifting. You're not gonna be uplifting. You're not gonna feel good. No, you're gonna feel bad and I want you to watch it. And we want you to feel real bad. You're gonna hate it, watch it. It's not uplifting. You're not going to be uplifting. You're not going to feel good. No, you're going to feel bad, and I want you to watch it. And I want you to feel real bad.

You're going to hate it, watch it. Everyone's talking, and you're selfish, OK? And you're cheap. You OK? Are you all right? That was Nathan and I's bit, if you may recall. I know. We give someone terrible news, but then we

ask if you're OK right away. That's right. And the same delivery. Listen, a lot of people have been saying that you're looking pretty bad lately, okay? A lot of people say you've been talking behind everyone's back and you're not trustworthy. Are you good? That's a great bit.

It's been a while. I should bring that up at my next breakfast with him. We'd spend three hours thinking of negative stuff to say to one another. Nate. This stuff that you can't recover from. Nathaniel. Nathaniel.

Is his name Nathaniel? It must be. You know his father's name, I love to say this. What? Well, his name is Nate Tuck. Yeah. His father's name on his birth certificate is King Tuck. No.

Yes, his name is Kingston. No. But he goes by King or birth certificate is King Tuck. No. Yes, his name is Kingston. No. But he goes by King or Kinger. King Tuck. That's cool. Fuck, what a good name. That's a great name.

Blows Kenneth out of the water. No, Kenneth. Is a good man and we wanna hear from you, Kenneth. Please tell us what your racket is. You are like, you. Or your hustle. Okay, bye. All right, love you. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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