Terry Gross

"This climate that we're in right now with our polarizing political views in this country, it was very similar in South Africa," the star of The Old Guard says. Originally broadcast Dec. 16, 2019.

SNL "Weekend Update" co-anchor Colin Jost acknowledges that his clean-cut image sometimes rubs people the wrong way. "When I get hurt or hit on camera ... the audience really loves it," he says.

Welsh actor Matthew Rhys says his version of the iconic criminal defense attorney is more hardboiled than the one Raymond Burr played on TV: "He's a man who kind of lives on whiskey and cigarettes."

Best known for his roles in Moonlight and Castle Rock, Holland has a starring role in a new radio version of Shakespeare's Richard II. Originally broadcast in 2018.

The president isn't known for his faith. Instead, author Sarah Posner says he connects with Evangelicals by voicing the legal, social, religious and cultural grievances of the Christian right.

Author Larry Tye chronicles Sen. Joseph McCarthy's infamous smear campaign in a new book. He says both McCarthy and Trump are "bullies" who exploit fears and "point fingers when they're attacked."

The Top Chef host started out as a model/actress, never intending to have a career in food. But she loved to cook and to write down recipes. Her new show, Taste the Nation, explores immigrant cooking.

We listen to archival interviews with Reiner, who died June 29; with Mary Tyler Moore, who worked with Reiner on The Dick Van Dyke Show; and with Mel Brooks, a longtime friend and collaborator.

Radley Balko, author of Rise Of The Warrior Cop, says police departments across America are increasingly using equipment designed for use on a battlefield, including tanks, bayonets and grenades.

A film of the original Broadway production of Hamilton, taped in 2016, begins streaming on Disney+ on Friday. Miranda, who stars in the title role, says the production is as timely as ever.

Jones lost countless friends to the AIDS epidemic. He became an activist after Harvey Milk's assassination: "Meeting Harvey, seeing his death, it fixed my course." Originally broadcast Nov. 29, 2016.

Meaker wrote the lesbian pulp novel Spring Fire in 1952, and was surprised when it sold 1.5 million copies. She went on to write other lesbian-themed books under pen names. Originally broadcast 2003.

Baranski started her career in theater and now stars as a progressive lawyer in The Good Fight. "I was a passionate acting student and nothing was going to stop me," the Emmy Award-winning actor says.

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones says 250 years of slavery and 100 years of legalized segregation robbed Black Americans of the ability to accumulate wealth; cash payments would help repair the damage.

For Susan Burton, decades of disordered eating was about power. "As long as I was bingeing, I didn't have to think. I didn't have to think about any loss or pain or wanting or yearning."

Dr. Julie Holland thinks psychedelic drugs can be used in psychiatry to make treatment more efficient and effective. "This is sort of a new paradigm," she says, "a revolutionary way to treat trauma."

Giddens' Freedom Highway is an exploration of African American experiences, accompanied by an instrument with its own uniquely African American story: the banjo. Originally broadcast May 11, 2017.

In the 1960s, Reagon was a founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee's Freedom Singers. In 1988, she spoke to Fresh Air about the songs she sang as an activist.

Blogger Kristen Howerton talks about how raising two white biological daughters and two black adopted sons helped her understand white privilege. Her new memoir is Rage Against the Minivan.

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm warns that the threat from the pandemic is ongoing. "We will all know somebody — we will all love somebody — who will die from this disease," he says.