Anne-Marie Baldonado
Appearances
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Yes, you're picked up by your dad when you're almost five and you move to live with your parents in Canada. What do you remember about those early years, living with your parents who didn't really know and trying to acclimate yourself to this new country?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
He says being fired from his accounting job is what helped him take the leap into acting. Simu Liu, welcome to Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Our guest is actor Simu Liu. His films include Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Barbie, and the new film Last Breath. More after a break. I'm Anne-Marie Baldonado, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
In your memoir, you write about how difficult it was for you growing up as a teenager with your parents and their unrealistic expectations for you. What was so hard about your relationship back then in your teens?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
your memoir is this beautiful, I think, way to try to reconcile what a lot of Asian American and Asian Canadian children of immigrants go through, that tension between knowing that your immigrant parents gave up so much for you, but they put all this pressure on you to succeed in a way that they understand. And it's not open to other ways of life.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
And I feel like you telling the story of your grandparents and and your parents and your own story, trying to understand what they went through. It was like you were trying to repair the hurt across generations, the way you do that by explaining their lives and their hardships and what they came to parenting with as their background. Can you quickly describe what their teen years were like?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
This new movie, Last Breath, is about saturation divers. Can you explain what saturation divers do?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Because it's this contrast to your teen years, obviously. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
For them, it was like literally the education that saved them. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Now, even though you loved performing in high school and college, whether it was starting a high school boy band or performing in front of other students, you still went through school and university and got a business degree and graduated and became an accountant. But your accounting career was short-lived. Can you talk about what happened there, your acting origin story?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
What was it like breaking into acting and performing, having no past experience, no training, no family in the business? What kind of jobs did you get?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. My guest is actor and writer Simu Liu. His films include Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings and Barbie. His new film is called Last Breath. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. You've talked about this before, but I want to ask you about being hired to do stock photos.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
So, you know, if someone needs a photo of a diverse workplace or people working in an office at all, they could find a photo of you. What was was that a good job for you at the time? And why are those photos still out there?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
I want to ask you about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And Shang-Chi is the first Asian character to be a lead in the Marvel Universe. The film was released in 2021. Let's play a scene from the film. And as with a lot of Marvel films, it's kind of challenging to set up the story. But when we meet you at the beginning of the film, you play Shawn.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
who lives in San Francisco and spends a lot of time with his friend Katie, played by Awkwafina. You're attacked by assassins on a bus, and it comes out that your character has a secret identity. Your father was a mortal warrior, and your mother was also a magical fighter. And when your character was still a child, your mom gets murdered, and your father wants you to avenge her death.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Instead, your character flees to the U.S. It's now a decade later, and the father is looking for you and trying to call you back. Now, in this scene, it's your character explaining the story to Awkwafina.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
That's a scene from the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The story goes that before you got this role, you tweeted at Marvel about how they needed to have an Asian superhero.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Actor Simu Liu has taken on some roles that are pretty physically challenging. He does killer fight sequences in the film Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. And who can forget him dancing as one of the Kens in the movie Barbie? His latest film may be even more extreme, the action thriller Last Breath. is based on the true story of deep-sea divers in peril at the bottom of the North Sea.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Well, yeah, that's it. Watching this film back, you know, it's so funny. You two are very funny together. And of course, it's this action movie, but there are also all these parallels between your character and your life. You know, there's the idea of parents wanting you to be something you're not. Of course, in the case of the movie, it's about being an assassin, but still.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
And then there are also these ideas, as we heard in the scene, like these ideas of trying to assimilate and trying to to blend in. Was that one of the things that was attractive about this movie?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
My guest is Simu Liu. He stars in the Marvel movie Shang-Chi and Legend of the Ten Rings, the film Barbie, and the TV sitcom Kim's Convenience. His new film is called Last Breath. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. I think many people first saw you on the CBC show Kim's Convenience about an immigrant family in Canada who runs a convenience store.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
The show was picked up by Netflix and got a lot of viewers through that, including my mother, by the way. And I want to play a scene from the pilot episode. Your character, Jung, is estranged from his dad who runs the convenience store. They haven't talked for years. Jung is working at a car rental place when his dad shows up one day to return a car.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Jung doesn't want to talk to his dad, so he asks his boss to talk to him instead.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
That's a scene from the first episode of Kim's Convenience. I thought it was interesting reading your book that there was this echo in the show in this first big role that you got early in your career.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
How are your parents feeling about you being an actor now?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Simu Liu, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Well, right. Saturation diving. It's one of the most dangerous jobs out there. These divers go down to the bottom of the ocean. They repair oil rigs and gas pipes. And it's to provide the infrastructure of the way people live their lives. And your character, David Yuasa, is based on a real diver. Just like you said, it's based on a real diver who made this rescue. You talked to him.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
It occurs to me it might be the first time you're playing a real living person. What was that like? What did you learn from him?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Yeah, he was essentially doing like that, what people do in gym class, like climbing the rope. And, you know, he has his co-worker whose life he's trying to save. And it's just like the most high stakes rope climb you could ever imagine.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
What was this shoot like? Were you shooting in extreme conditions? Because you play one of these divers who's at the bottom of the North Sea. As you've described, you know, you're in this little tin can, kind of isolated. Even when there isn't a crisis, it's this isolated environment. Did you shoot that way?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
In 2012, three divers were embarking on a routine dive when rough weather and computer errors caused one diver's umbilical cable to get stuck, leaving him trapped.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
I want to ask about the movie Barbie. And I was kind of shocked when I realized that it's only been a year since you performed the song I'm Just Ken with Ryan Gosling and the other Kens at the Oscar ceremony. That was just a year ago. And I just want to remind people to go back and watch it if they want to experience joy. But what was it like performing the song for the Oscar audience?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
I want to play a scene from Barbie. It's near the beginning of the movie. The main Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, has just tried to quote unquote beach. He was trying to run towards the water and he ends up hitting the plastic wave and he gets knocked down. And you play his number one op Ken, like his nemesis Ken. And you're laughing at him.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
And the other Ken in this scene is Kingsley Ben-Adir and Margot Robbie as Barbie is also here too. Let's hear it.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
That's Simu Liu in the 2023 film Barbie. How did you come to be part of this film?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
Yeah, you do show off your dance moves. And as you mentioned, you did a lot of dance when you were at university. Can you talk about what your dance troupe was like?
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
That's Simu Liu, with Finn Cole as the diver who stuck with only minutes of reserve oxygen left. Simu Liu's character with another diver, played by Woody Harrelson, desperately tried to bring the trapped diver back to safety. Simu Liu's first big break was in the CBC Netflix comedy Kim's Convenience, which ran for five seasons.
Fresh Air
Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark
You were born in Harbin, China, and you were raised there by your grandparents while your parents were trying to start a life in Canada. What do you remember about that time, those early years?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna has always been a force. She burst onto the music scene in the 90s as the frontwoman of Bikini Kill, a band that fearlessly confronted issues of sexism and sexual assault while encouraging female empowerment through their music. Her raw vocals and unapologetic lyrics helped challenge punk rock norms and inspired others to do so as well.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Bikini Kill, along with other feminist punk bands, encouraged their fans to come to shows, write zines, and form girl bands of their own as a way to fight the sexism that existed in punk and in wider society in general. Hannah created a space for young women to express themselves, fight against misogyny, and build community.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Bikini Kill made an enormous impact in music and in the lives of their fans, but as Hannah writes about in her new memoir, Rebel Girl, It took a toll. Helping fans deal with their experiences of sexual violence meant that she had to think about her own.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
In the book, she writes about all that, as well as her childhood, the building of her feminist art in college, starting and leaving bands, and becoming the face of a movement. She also writes about finding out that an undiagnosed case of Lyme disease was the reason she couldn't physically perform anymore.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
She's performing again with her band Bikini Kill and her other bands La Tigra and the Julie Ruin. Kathleen Hanna, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. I'd like for you to start by reading a passage from the beginning of your book, Rebel Girl. Sure.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So speaking of your memoir and the title of your memoir, Rebel Girl, I wanted to ask you about that song. It was released in 1993. It ended up being produced by Joan Jett, who heard about Bikini Kill and wanted to work with you all. And this song kind of became an anthem for the feminist punk movement of that time. Can you talk about writing that song?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
That's the song Rebel Girl from 1993 by the band Bikini Kill. I think for a lot of people, that song is about you. You know, like you think a lot of girls, a lot of your fans wanted to be. But so you were thinking, who else were you thinking about when you wrote that song?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I was thinking about... Your Bikini Kill... My Bikini Kill bandmates, you know?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Now, you were born in Portland, Oregon, but you spent a lot of your childhood in Maryland. Can you describe where you grew up and your family at that point?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Well one of the first times you performed as a kid was in a musical. It was Annie. Can you talk about what you liked about performing at that point?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Well, you tell this story about what happened after the real performance, and that story is heartbreaking. Do you mind sharing it?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Well, and there's this point in the book where you write about what your father went through, like he had siblings that passed away and his father passed away. And he sort of never recovered from that. And he carried this darkness, you say, into your house and he drank a lot.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
But I felt like that was not that you gave that background not to give him an excuse, but to maybe try to explain why he was the way he was.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
When did you decide that you wanted to be a punk performer? You said that when you were a kid, you were always searching for a way to be heard. Was this that way?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You went to college in Olympia, Washington at Evergreen State, and you started out as a visual artist doing photography, and you also worked in sewing-like fashion. You were also – Did a feminist fashion show. And you were working on this big project. You were at school late at night. So you weren't at your apartment. And your roommate, a close friend of yours, was attacked.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
She was assaulted in your apartment. It's a terrible story. And it's her assault that kind of propelled you to talk about violence against women even more in your work. And you also started volunteering with victims of violence. It seemed like it gave you like a framework for...
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
your feminism or thinking about oppression, but it also gave you tools to help the people that you were going to be encountering very soon.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You started playing in bands while you were in college, and at your shows, you started to talk about sexism and sexual assault between songs or in your songs, and that's when girls in your audiences started to come up to you and talk to you after shows about their experiences. with sexual violence and assault.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Now, Bikini Hill tried to make your shows a safe place for women, a safe space. Can you describe how and why you did that? Like it's of a particular time.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Now, before your book, you'd never really talked publicly about being a parent. You're married to Adam Horowitz of BC Boys, and you have a son. And you've said you didn't want to talk about it because you didn't want to be asked those questions that people ask women artists about work-life balance and doing it all. And I totally get what you mean there.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
But I did want to ask why you decided to write about it now.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Now, recently you've been playing out again the last couple years. You've had reunion tours with Bikini Kill and La Tigra. And your shows when you were young were so, like, visceral. Do they still feel that way to you?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Well, Kathleen, Hannah, it's been great talking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Okay. Now it's time for Jazz Plus Jazz Equals Jazz. Today we have a recording of Benny Goodman played over a separate recording of Miles Davis.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Actor Simu Liu has taken on some roles that are pretty physically challenging. He does killer fight sequences in the film Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. And who can forget him dancing as one of the Kens in the movie Barbie? His latest film may be even more extreme. The action thriller Last Breath is based on the true story of deep sea divers in peril at the bottom of the North Sea.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
In 2012, three divers were embarking on a routine dive when rough weather and computer errors caused one diver's umbilical cable to get stuck, leaving him trapped.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
That's Simu Liu, with Finn Cole as the diver who's stuck with only minutes of reserve oxygen left. Simu Liu's character with another diver, played by Woody Harrelson, desperately tried to bring the trapped diver back to safety. Simu Liu's first big break was in the CBC Netflix comedy Kim's Convenience, which ran for five seasons.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
He says being fired from his accounting job is what helped him take the leap into acting. His bestselling memoir, We Were Dreamers. An immigrant superhero origin story explores his family's immigration to Canada, his struggles growing up with immigrant parents, the challenges of breaking into the industry, and of being an Asian Canadian in Hollywood. Simu Liu, welcome to Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
This new movie, Last Breath, is about saturation divers. Can you explain what saturation divers do? Sure.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Well, right. Saturation diving. It's one of the most dangerous jobs out there. These divers go down to the bottom of the ocean. They repair oil rigs and gas pipes. And it's to provide the infrastructure of the way people live their lives. And your character, David Yuasa, is based on a real diver. Just like you said, it's based on a real diver who made this rescue. You talked to him.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
It occurs to me it might be the first time you're playing a real living person. What was that like? What did you learn from him?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Yeah, he was essentially doing like that, what people do in gym class, like climbing the rope. And, you know, he has his co-worker whose life he's trying to save. And it's just like the most high stakes rope climb you could ever imagine.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
What was this shoot like? Were you shooting in extreme conditions? Because you play one of these divers who's at the bottom of the North Sea. As you've described, you know, you're in this little tin can, kind of isolated. Even when there isn't a crisis, it's this isolated environment. Did you shoot that way?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
I want to play a scene from Barbie. It's near the beginning of the movie. The main Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, has just tried to quote unquote beach. He was trying to run towards the water and he ends up hitting the plastic wave and he gets knocked down. And you play his number one op Ken, like his nemesis Ken. And you're laughing at him.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
And the other Ken in this scene is Kingsley Ben-Adir and Margot Robbie as Barbie is also here too. Let's hear it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
That's Simu Liu in the 2023 film Barbie. How did you come to be part of this film?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Yeah, you do show off your dance moves. And as you mentioned, you did a lot of dance when you were at university. Can you talk about what your dance troupe was like?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
You were born in Harbin, China, and you were raised there by your grandparents while your parents were trying to start a life in Canada. What do you remember about that time, those early years?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Yes, you're picked up by your dad when you're almost five and you move to live with your parents in Canada. What do you remember about those early years, living with your parents who didn't really know and trying to acclimate yourself to this new country?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
In your memoir, you write about how difficult it was for you growing up as a teenager with your parents and their unrealistic expectations for you. What was so hard about your relationship back then in your teens?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
your memoir is this beautiful, I think, way to try to reconcile what a lot of Asian American and Asian Canadian children of immigrants go through, that tension between knowing that your immigrant parents gave up so much for you, but they put all this pressure on you to succeed in a way that they understand. And it's not open to other ways of life.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
And I feel like you telling the story of your grandparents and your parents and your own story, trying to understand what they went through, it was like you were trying to repair like the hurt across generations. The way you do that by explaining their lives and their hardships and like what they came, you know, to parenting with as their background.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Can you quickly describe what their teen years were like? Because it's this contrast to your teen years, obviously. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
I want to ask you about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And Shang-Chi is the first Asian character to be a lead in the Marvel Universe. The film was released in 2021. Let's play a scene from the film. And as with a lot of Marvel films, it's kind of challenging to set up the story. But when we meet you at the beginning of the film, you play Shawn.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
who lives in San Francisco and spends a lot of time with his friend Katie, played by Awkwafina. You're attacked by assassins on a bus, and it comes out that your character has a secret identity. Your father was a mortal warrior, and your mother was also a magical fighter. And when your character was still a child, your mom gets murdered, and your father wants you to avenge her death.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Instead, your character flees to the U.S. It's now a decade later, and the father is looking for you and trying to call you back. Now, in this scene, it's your character explaining the story to Awkwafina.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
That's a scene from the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The story goes that before you got this role, you tweeted at Marvel about how they needed to have an Asian superhero.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Well, yeah, that's it. Watching this film back, you know, it's so funny. You two are very funny together. And, of course, it's this action movie. But there are also all these parallels between your character and your life. You know, there's the idea of parents wanting you to be something you're not. Of course, in the case of the movie, it's about being an assassin, but still.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
And then there are also these ideas, as we heard in the scene, like these ideas of trying to assimilate and trying to blend in. Sure. Was that one of the things that was attractive about this movie?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comic Bill Burr / Actor Simu Liu
Simu Liu, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
World news is important, but it can feel far away. Not on the State of the World podcast. With journalists around the world, you'll hear firsthand the effects of U.S. trade actions in Canada and China and meet a Mexican street sweeper who became a pop star. We don't go around the world. We're already there. Listen to the State of the World podcast from NPR every weekday.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Yeah, the thing about your character Shiv, she's an observer. She sometimes hangs back and watches as her brothers, her father, people in the company interact. And she seems to process it. And you can see that on your face. Can you talk about how you thought about Shiv as an observer? Yeah.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
When Sarah Snook did this play for a run in London last year, it earned her an Olivier Award, which is the British equivalent of a Tony. This isn't the only award that she's received. She won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for playing fan favorite Shiv Roy, the daughter of Logan Roy, on the show Succession.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Sarah Snook just received a Tony nomination for her role on Broadway in the stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. We'll talk more about Succession after a break. I'm Anne-Marie Baldonado, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I want to play a scene from Succession. This is actually the last episode. The board of the company is meeting to decide the company's future and who will take over. Would it be your brother, Kendall, or Shiv's brother, Kendall Roy, or would the board approve a sale to a tech company? After all the votes are in, Shiv is the deciding vote.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
She walks out of the room and the brothers, played by Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin, follow her.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Sarah Snook was born in Australia, where she went to drama school and received many accolades for her work on stage and screen. Her films include Jobs, The Dressmaker, and Memoir of a Snail. Sarah Snook, welcome to Fresh Air. Hi, thanks for having me.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
That's a scene from Succession. What's it like to hear that scene now? Oh, it's so funny. Oh, my gosh.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Jesse Armstrong is the creator of Succession. And a lot has been made about how some of Succession was improvised. And once I heard Kieran Culkin, who played your brother Roman, say that you're his favorite improv partner. Can you tell Talk about the improv or if there was a lot of it.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
And even in that scene we just heard, there's your character and Kieran Culkin's character reacting to what Jeremy Strong is saying. And like all the no's and the like oofs feel like very in the moment. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Well, the creator of this adaptation, Kip Williams, a fellow Australian, when he approached you about taking on this role or these roles, what was your response? I read that you said that if you had seen the show, you might not have agreed to do it. Yes.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I want to play another scene from Succession. This is a really emotional scene. It's when Logan Roy's children find out that Logan is dying. They're all on a boat celebrating the wedding of the oldest son, Connor. They've received a call from Shiv's husband, Tom, played by Matthew McFadden, who's on a plane with Logan.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
When he's passed out in the bathroom and isn't responsive, Tom calls the siblings to share the news. Kendall and Roman have tried to say goodbye and have handed the phone to Shiv, who's just finding out.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
That's a scene from Sex Session. That episode was such a killer. And it shows how the siblings are still their father's kids. They hate him, but they still love him and want his approval. Was that episode difficult to film?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I heard the director of that episode and many episodes, Mark Myland, talk about how you filmed this scene and gave it all of this weight and then you sort of snapped out of it and were your delightful Sarah Snooks self again. Is that how you usually are able to do things? Are you able to go in and out like that?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
My guest is stage and screen actor Sarah Snook. She played Shiv Roy on the Emmy Award-winning show Succession. Now she's on Broadway playing all of the roles in the stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. I want to ask you about Shiv's marriage to Tom. And spoiler alert, Tom, the son-in-law, ends up becoming the head of the company.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Shiv's by his side. And I want to play a scene, though, from earlier in that last season. Tom and Shiv are hosting a pre-election party when it looks like their candidate is going to win. And there are all these powerful people there. But they're so angry with each other that they go out on the balcony and have a blowout fight.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
As we've mentioned, you play all characters in this show, and you're also the narrator of this story. How do you differentiate between the characters? Do you develop the characters in the same way you would if you were just playing one part in a play, if you were slumming it and only playing one part?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
That's a scene from the last season of Succession. Can you talk about filming that scene with Matthew McFadden? Yeah.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
And Shiv is pregnant at that point, but hasn't told him. Yeah. Which makes it even more hurtful.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Now, you grew up in Australia, and I read that you grew up near a national park. So was that very rural or picturesque?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
And you have two older sisters, so you were the youngest, just like Shiv. Your parents got divorced when you were young, and you moved a bit, but I read that one thing that was constant was your love of watching movies, and your mom even worked for Disney for a time.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I read that you were sort of more interested in the character actor or the villain.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Yes, they have the good lines. They have the great lines. Well, Sarah Snook, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Nice to chat.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
And how do you develop these different voices? If you could talk a little bit more about that. And then how do you keep them straight?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Basil is the artist who did the portrait.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Now, in an interview, I heard you say that when you were a kid, you used to love listening to cassettes of poems of Roald Dahl. And you used to memorize them. And I tried to find it online. I couldn't actually find it.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
But I was thinking that if you memorize those poems and they were read by British actors, listening could have been like great training for you doing The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is a bunch of different flowery British characters.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
It's hard to describe Sarah Snook's performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Snook plays all 26 characters in this stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel from 1890. It feels like you're watching a two-hour sprint. She's giving a nonstop monologue, a crazy athletic solo performance.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Through the help of cameras and recordings of you doing the other parts, you're actually acting opposite yourself. Is it odd to be acting with yourself as a scene partner? And this is like a version of yourself that was recorded a few years ago.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Well, the performance is highly choreographed. You have to be very precise. You have to get to a mark or where you're supposed to be in time for you to interact with a recording of that you performed as another character. You say there are sequences where you have like seconds to get lines out. Otherwise, the scene cues will be off.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
One thing I want to add about the play is that it's funny. Not only the turns of phrases or the performance, but there's also this cheekiness to it. Like the narrator is a bit cheeky. And there are also other choices that you make. The way you switch from character to character can be quite funny.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
For those who don't remember this gothic horror story, it's about a young man, Dorian Gray, who falls in love with his own beauty when an artist friend paints a portrait of him. He loves his own image so much that he makes a wish, a Faustian bargain, that allows him to stay young and beautiful while his portrait ages and decays.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I want to ask about Succession. The show is about a rich and powerful family. The patriarch, Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, runs a media company. His health is deteriorating and his children are jockeying for control of the company, for power, and of course, for their dad's love. You said that originally you didn't want to audition for the role of Shiv Roy.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I'm guessing this would have been like over or around 10 years ago now. Why didn't you think the role was right for you at the time?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Do you remember what you did or what your take on it was that might have sort of, even though you originally didn't think it was the role for you, made them take note of you to be Shiv?
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Like that's like a little above it, but also like showing up angry and wanting to win the test. Yeah, exactly. As Tom says. There you go. Yeah. Well, it occurred to me that the way Succession was filmed may have had some similarities to the way you perform your current role in Dorian Gray.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
I think that for Succession, there were numerous cameras following the cast as they did scenes, kind of like the cameras that follow you on stage.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
The show uses pre-recorded snippets of Snook, playing different characters, projected on huge video screens. There are cameras, iPhones, and lightning-quick costume and set changes, all used to tell this story that culminates in Dorian spiraling, and ultimately facing his sins and his mortality.
Fresh Air
Sarah Snook Almost Didn't Audition For 'Succession'
Wait, so you would sort of perform the scenes and it was kind of the camera people's job to sort of anticipate where you might go with it?
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I want to go back to the origins of the show Hacks. Where did the idea for Hacks come from? And I think some of the origin story involves a car trip way back in 2016. Yeah, actually 2015.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I think it's kind of a thing now to ask comedians what their thoughts are about cancel culture, the thought that it's difficult to do comedy now because everyone's too PC. And I think it's a little unfair to ask all comics about this issue. But you and your co-creators actually take this topic head on, especially this season. Why did you want to do that and not shy away from it?
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I'll say too that the series even starts with the younger comic Ava having a tough time getting a job because this kind of edgy joke she put on Twitter kind of made it so that was hard for her to get work.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
It's very rare for people to go inside.
It's Been a Minute
Bad news for protein bros: you might be getting scammed
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-22-2025 7PM EDT
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-22-2025 6PM EDT
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-25-2025 12PM EDT
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
Short Wave
What's A Weather Forecast Worth?
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
Short Wave
All Of Life Has A Common Ancestor. What Was LUCA?
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
Up First from NPR
Russia Intensifies Attacks On Ukraine, Summer Travel Season, Wildfire Forecast
This is Fresh Air contributor Anne-Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, Oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the Fresh Air podcast.