Showing results by author "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Hear actor Steve Carell and music critic Milo Miles on this edition of Fresh Air. Steve Carell is starring in the new comedy film Dan in Real Life. Carell is best known for his role as Michael Scott in NBC's The Office. His other film roles include The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine. He rose to fame as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where he was part of the team from 1999 to 2004.

Actor Matt Damon and writer John Ridley on this edition of Fresh Air. Matt Damon's film The Bourne Identity is being released on DVD next week. The Bourne Identity is a thriller about a man with amnesia flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, riddled with bullet holes. Damon has been in many hit films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Saving Private Ryan and Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with close friend Ben Affleck.

Musician, producer, arranger, composer Quincy Jones on this 70th birthday rebroadcast edition of Fresh Air. In his fifty year career he's worked with just about anyone who is anybody in the music business. As a teenager he played backup for Billie Holiday, along with his 16 year old friend, Ray Charles. At 18 he began playing the trumpet in Lionel Hampton's band beside Clifford Brown. He went on to work with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Lesley Gore and many others.

The late writer, Carol Shields on this edition of Fresh Air. Carol Shields discusses her life, her work, and her diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her best-selling novel The Stone Diaries. Her books are often about middle class people leading quiet lives.

Author Martin Amis on this edition of Fresh Air. Amis is considered one of the leading British writers of the late twentieth century and one of the most controversial.

Hear writer and professor Carol Muske-Dukes and British singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry on this edition of Fresh Air. Muske-Dukes' new novel is Channeling Mark Twain. Fellow author Mary Karr described the book as "a riveting story about women in prison, with language that scorches the page and characters you won't be able to live without...She's given us a true hero in Polly, who's [as] unforgettable as Huck Finn."

Lyme Disease expert, Dr. Jonathan Edlow and chef Jeremiah Tower on this edition of Fresh Air. Dr. Jonathan Edlow is the author of the new book Bull's Eye: Unraveling the Medical Mystery of Lyme Disease. In the book he chronicles the emergence of the disease, how scattered clues led to the cause - bacterium Borelia burgdorferi, and then to the deer tick that spread it.

Journalist Robert Kaplan and Peter W. Galbraith, former U.S. amassador to Croatia, on this edition of Fresh Air. Robert Kaplan is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. His story in the April edition of magazine is "A Tale of Two Colonies." Kaplan traveled to Yemen and Eritrea to investigate how the war on terrorism is forcing the U.S. to be involved with each. Yemen is believed to have the largest Al-Qaeda presence outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Hear actor Steve Carell, Curb Your Enthusiasm executive producer/co-star Jeff Garlin, and actress Susie Essman, on this edition of Fresh Air. Steve Carell is best known for his role as Michael Scott in NBC's The Office. His other film roles include The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine.

Hear artist Chuck Close, actor Richard Gere, rock historian Ed Ward, and film critic David Edelstein on this edition of Fresh Air. Chuck Close has been called "the most methodical artist that has ever lived in America" and the "reigning portraitist of the Information Age". He creates jumbo-size faces on canvas (8 or 9 feet high), copying them from photographs. They are painted in a dotted faux-pointillist style.

Hear actor Mark Wahlberg, actor Colin Firth, and film critic David Edelstein on this edition of Fresh Air. Wahlberg was nominated for an academy award for best supporting actor for his role as a police sergeant in the film The Departed. Then, Colin Firth, who is probably best known for his role as Mr. Darcy in the BBC/A&E production of Pride & Prejudice. Finally, David Edelstein reviews the new documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.

Hear Pulitzer prize-winning historian Garry Wills and epidemiologist Devra Davis on this edition of Fresh Air. Garry Wills' new book is about the separation of church and state written into the Constitution by our founding fathers, and the challenges to it through the rise of evangelical fervor over the years. His new book is Head and Heart: American Christianities. Wills says that, contrary to the popular notion, the separation of church and state is "the great protector of religion, not its enemy."

Hear British scientist Richard Dawkins and geneticist Francis Collins on this edition of Fresh Air. Richard Dawkins is a professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. The New York Times has hailed him as a writer who "understands the issues so clearly that he forces his reader to understand them too". In his latest book, he writes about what he sees as the irrationality of a belief in God and sets down his arguments for atheism.

Actor Matt Damon on this edition of Fresh Air. He's touring the country promoting his new film, The Bourne Identity, a thriller about a man with amnesia flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, riddled with bullet holes. Damon has been in many hit films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Saving Private Ryan and Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with close friend Ben Affleck.

Actress Amy Sedaris and writer Clifford Wright on this edition of Fresh Air. Sedaris is the star of the comedy series Strangers with Candy that airs on Comedy Central. She plays Jerri Blank, a 47-year-old ex-con, ex-prostitute, lesbian high school freshman. She's the sister of David Sedaris, a humor writer who has been on Fresh Air several times.

Hear comic Don Rickles, documentary producer Huw Cordey, and rock critic Ken Tucker on this edition of Fresh Air. He's known for insulting his audiences on stage, but Don Rickles doesn't consider himself an insult comic. His heyday was in the 1950s and 60s, on TV and in Vegas. Frank Sinatra was an early fan and helped get him noticed. Rickles has a new memoir, Rickles' Book: a Memoir.

Photographer and reporter Scott Peterson and psychologist Robert Jay Lifton on this edition of Fresh Air. Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor has been covering the war on terrorism since the September 11th attacks. He is also the paper's Moscow Bureau Chief, and their former Middle East Correspondent. Peterson recently attended a training camp for journalists to learn how to deal with kidnappers and gunmen. He was also a friend of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl.

Hear filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz and law professor Elyn Saks on this edition of Fresh Air. Jeffrey Blitz wrote and directed the new film Rocket Science. It's a partly autobiographical coming-of-age tale about a teenage boy who joins the high-school debate team. Blitz won the Dramatic Directing Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Author Garry Wills on this edition of Fresh Air. Willis, a Pulitzer Prize winner for Lincoln at Gettysburg, has written a new book criticizing the Catholic Church, Papal Sin.

Blues singer Otis Taylor and Retired Lt. Col. Bradley Biggs on this edition of Fresh Air. Otis Taylor brings his banjo to the studio for a concert and conversation. He plays tracks from his new CD, White African. Taylor plays the guitar and ukulele in addition to the banjo. His music is often described as minimalist, and his lyrics are often stories of race and racism. He's been compared to John Lee Hooker.