This message comes from NPR sponsor Capella University.
Interested in a quality online education?
Capella is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.
Learn more at capella.edu.
From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Tanya Mosley.
Today, Benicio del Toro.
He's starring in Wes Anderson's new film, The Phoenician Scheme.
In it he plays Zsa Zsa Korda, a wealthy industrialist who survives multiple assassination attempts and tries to reunite with his only daughter, a nun living in seclusion.
Also MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong Fast talks about her mother, Erica Jong, who became famous for her 1973 feminist novel Fear of Flying.
The novel was known for the character's sexual fantasies.
I have always wanted to talk to my mother about sex as little as possible.
I remember when I was little, she'd be like, do you want to have the talk?
And I would be like, please.
Dear God, my whole life is the talk.
Yeah.
And Justin Chang reviews the new romantic drama Materialists.
That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics.
In Eleanor the Great.
June Squibb brings to vivid life the spirited 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein who, after a devastating loss, tells a tale that spirals beyond her control.
From director Scarlett Johansson comes a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell.
Deadline puts it, there won't be a dry eye in the house.
Eleanor the Great, only in theaters September 26th.
This message comes from AT&T.
Whether you're calling your parents to say happy anniversary or checking in with your kids before bedtime, staying connected matters.
That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they'll proactively make it right.
That's the AT&T guarantee.
Terms and conditions apply.
Visit att.com slash guarantee to learn more.
AT&T.
Connecting changes everything.
This message comes from FX's English Teacher.
Last year's critically acclaimed series returns to follow Evan, Gwen and Marky as they vie for their students' divided attention.
CY Cosmopolitan called its premiere season a masterclass of comedy, while Glamour raved it's the year's funniest and most heartwarming new comedy series.
FX's English Teacher returns September 25th on FX.
All episodes streaming on Hulu.
This is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Tanya Mosley.
Our first guest today is Benicio del Toro.
He has made a career out of playing complex, morally ambiguous characters.
In Traffic, for example, he portrayed a Mexican police officer forced to decide whether to uphold justice or compromise his ethics in a corrupt system.
In Sicario, he played a former prosecutor turned assassin.
Del Toro's latest collaboration is with director Wes Anderson in the new film The Phoenician Scheme.
He stars as Zsa Zsa Korda, a charismatic but morally compromised tycoon of the 1950s who, after surviving an assassination attempt, tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter, a novice nun played by Mia Threpleton, in the hopes that she will one day take over his empire.
I've appointed you sole heir to my estate, which you may come into sooner rather than later.
I'm provisionally manager of my affairs after the event of my actual demise on a trial basis.
Why?
Why what?
Why sooner rather than later, since you survived again?
And why am I sole heir to your estate?
You have eight sons at last count.
Nine sons.
Nine sons.
What about them?
They're not my heirs.
Why not?
I have my reasons.
Which are what?
My reasons?
I'm not saying.
I'm saying I'm not saying.
This is the second Wes Anderson film for Del Toro.
In 2021, he starred as a volatile imprisoned artist in the French Dispatch.
Del Toro's career spans decades.
In 1995, in his breakout role, he played a small-time crook in The Usual Suspects.
He went on to play the drug-fueled lawyer, Dr Gonzo, alongside Johnny Depp, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
In 2000, he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Javier Rodriguez in Traffic.
And in 2005, he won Best Actor at Cannes for his role as Che Guevara in Che.
Vinicio del Toro, welcome back to Fresh Air.
Thank you, Tanya.
Thank you for having me.
You know, I read that Wes Anderson wrote this character with you in mind.
You are essentially in every shot.
And I want to give the audience a taste of your character.
As I mentioned, his name is Zsa Zsa Korda, and he's this powerful industrialist from the 1950s whose conscience is kind of awakened by his relationship with his estranged daughter.
And in this scene I'm about to play.
The two of them are on Korda's private plane alongside Michael Cera, the family tutor.
Let's listen.
We're starting our descent.
Prepare your documents before we deplane so you never delay my schedule.
Passports.
That's yours.
I don't have a passport.
Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation.
I don't.
My legal residence is a shack in Portugal.
My official domicile is a hut on the Black Sea.
My certificated abode is a lodge perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sub-Saharan rainforest, accessible only by goat path.
I don't live anywhere.
I'm not a citizen at all.
I don't need my human rights.
That was my guest today, Benicio Del Toro, in the new Wes Anderson film, The Phoenician Scheme.
And Benicio, that line, I'm a man who does not need his human rights.
What a line.
It is a great line.
How would you describe this man, this character that you inhabited?
Ruthless businessman, a tycoon, a rascal who is looking for redemption, whether he knows it or not.
He's a character under reconstruction in a way.
So that's the beginning of the character, and the character has an arc.
And wherever he starts in the movie, he will end up in a completely different place.
And, you know, he's faced with mortality.
He starts to look at his life in a different way, And because of the help of his daughter.
Like you said earlier, his daughter helps him put him in track and perhaps awaken his consciousness.
You and Wes Anderson actually collaborated on this.
And I was thinking about...
What it actually means to have a director write a role tailor-made for you.
Like is there something about the moral dilemmas your character is dealing with that Wes Anderson felt only you could draw out?
You know, Wes is a great director, and we know him as a director, and we know his films.
But really, he is maybe a better writer.
And what I meant by that is, like...
I think actors look for characters that are layered, and by that I mean may contradict themselves.
They break the stereotype, let's put it that way, if they contradict themselves.
And then when you get a character that has an arc, like Zsa Zsa in the Phoenician scheme has a hell of an arc.
Then, as an actor, you're doing interpretations, right?
So now you're almost in the cockpit of the character and of the story.
You're part of this, of what's happening, and you're looking at the arc and you're making sure that it's believable where the character is going to end up.
So it's a real rich... character to tackle.
So much is said about Wes Anderson's aesthetic.
I think the description you gave was it's like being in a pop-up book.
I mean, he works with an incredible art director, Adam Stockhausen.
He's worked with Wes, I think, most of his films.
And they collaborate amazingly and these things come to life and it's like you're in fantasy land, but you're in real fantasy land.
What was it like for you as an actor being in sort of like a real pop-up book?
Because when you're performing, of course, they're all different types of sets.
But I mean, this is very, very different, almost maybe the complete opposite of maybe, a big franchise film with CGI and visual effects.
You're actually in it.
Everything around you is real.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wes doesn't use CGI that much.
I don't think so.
I think very little, really.
But the first thing you're trained to, if you do film, you train yourself is to erase the camera.
It's not there.
And when you find yourself in the moment and you're acting, the set will not get in the way.
The camera is not going to get in the way.
What does happen in a Wes Anderson film is, when you walk in, the set will embrace you, to really feel that you are in this room, in this dining room, in this airplane.
And the details are – makes it really exciting.
But when it comes to – when they say action, you just got to be in the moment.
And usually being in the moment means you – take everything around you for granted, you know?
So it's a combination, you know?
Wow. after another, every time you walked on a new set.
Yeah, wow, because also there's real artwork.
So I mean after you're done with the take, I mean you could literally turn around and be right up on some very famous art pieces.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean I thought I'd seen everything, but you know Wes got real artwork in several of these scenes.
And you know, I remember there was a Magritte there that actually belonged to me.
So it was kind of nice.
There was a Renoir as well.
It's in the bedroom of my daughter's room, Liesel.
That's played by Mia Threpleton.
And there's a real Renoir there.
And it was pretty amazing.
The paintings came with security guards.
There were a couple people there watching the painting and making sure no one was touching them or anything.
You know, the light were not too close to the painting, etc.
Your wardrobe is from that time period, but it's also otherworldly.
It's a man in his 1950s suits, but there's also something almost like E.T. about it.
Milena Cananero is the...
Wardrobe designer.
She's won four Oscars.
She worked with Stanley Kubrick.
She is incredible.
I mean, everything is from the time.
And, you know, sometimes you build your character from the shoes up, from the bottom up.
And it's like the shoes will just make you stand and walk in a particular way.
And the shoes of Zsa Zsa were like, you know...
Good, strong, big shoes.
Big shoes?
Heavy shoes?
How would you describe them?
You can walk over crocodiles with these shoes.
It's like that strong shoes, old school shoes.
Everybody now, including myself, we walk on sneakers all the time.
But this is like a time where everyone wore hard sole shoes.
Her shoes were from the period.
And they were like, the minute I put them on, it was like I started to like get into character with that, you know.
It's not the only thing, but it's very important, I think, the wardrobe for an actor.
You mentioned Mia Threpleton, who plays your daughter.
Yes.
You tell this story about her auditioning for the role, that there was something in her eyes.
It was something about her eyes that made you feel that your character needed those eyes, that look.
Can you elaborate on that?
Well, you know, yes.
I think Wes had her in mind already because we only auditioned her.
I was in London and we did a reading and then we started playing a little bit.
And there was a moment there in between scenes.
No one blinked.
And it was pretty amazing to see such a young actress.
You know, just hold her instrument.
You know just everything, just there.
And just kind of like she was just looking at me and didn't blink.
And I remember telling Wes, like...
You know, I think that's what Zsa Zsa needs.
He needs a strong support if he's going to become a better person.
It was like she was just comfortable.
Almost like a soft hand would escort me into the right direction.
If I was going to explain that look.
I mean, she's got those big eyes and...
Almost a compassionate, strong, but compassionate look.
We need to take a short break.
If you're just joining us, we're listening to my interview with actor Benicio Del Toro.
We'll continue our conversation after this break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
This message comes from Bluehost.
Bluehost can make building a great website easy and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Customize and launch your site in minutes with AI.
Then optimize with built-in search engine tools.
GoodRx is writing with you at every step.
GoodRx is not insurance, but if you have insurance or Medicare, GoodRx may beat your copay.
Save time and money on prescriptions at GoodRx.com slash fresh.
Support for NPR comes from Dell.
The new Dell AI PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you breeze through everyday tasks like editing images, summarizing meeting notes and replying to long emails.
You had this relatively small role, and it was at the beginning of the film.
You played Fred Fenster.
He was this small-time crook and con man, rounded up like with a bunch of other guys.
And you made this choice.
It wasn't called for in the script to give this character a mumbling accent.
And I want us to take a listen of this, because in this scene you've just gone through this lineup with several other guys and you're now in a holding cell and your character is complaining.
Let's listen.
So I did a little time.
Does that mean I get railed every time a truck finds me?
Finster, will you relax?
These guys don't have any probable cause.
Right.
No PC.
Now that's right.
You do something, I never let you go.
You know, they treat me like a criminal.
I'm not a criminal.
You are a criminal.
And what you got to go and do that?
Trying to make a point.
That was my guest today, Benicio Del Toro, in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects.
Benicio, you chose this accent to make him memorable, because he was actually one of the first to die, I think.
It's what a bold choice for a young actor.
You know, it was a decision made between the director and myself because it's correct.
I died on page 37 out of like 98 pages.
So I did propose to Bryan Singer and the writer Chris McQuarrie if I could just create something out of it.
And they trusted me.
That was the win there when they trusted me because now I just had to deliver it.
Where did you get the accent from?
I got it from many different influences.
Joe Frazier, the boxer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thelonious monk.
Yeah, yeah.
And I would play with it, you know.
The fact is that the movie became a huge success.
And you're only as good as your movie in a way, you know?
I think that the fact is that that movie helped my career quite a bit.
But the fact is that there was a great ensemble in that film and the movie was a huge success.
At the box office, it was very independent.
We shot it in 21 days or 20 days.
And it was, you know, it's a sign of like, you're only as good as your movie.
I mean, I think if that movie would have not been a success the way it was, we might not be talking about that my character in it.
You have the ability to kind of transform and be ambiguous ethnically and it seems to work in your favor.
But has it always worked in your favor?
You know, it's interesting because The first time I ever acted in Spanish was in traffic.
I mean, I did say lines in Spanish in Basquiat.
And I might have said something in Spanish in a James Bond movie I did called License to Kill, when I was 20.
But for the most part, you know, the whole ethnic thing was not out until...
I did traffic and suddenly the ethnic thing, the Hispanic, helped me create a character and helped my career and changed my career really.
And it was traffic.
So it's funny, because, you know...
When I was going out for movies early on, I would be asked to change my name because I would be limited.
It was an issue that you would be limited to play Latino roles, right?
Yes.
And so you went against it because you'd be limited to stereotypes.
And at some point, I said, bring it on.
Because...
I do believe everyone is different.
And I will play every Latino different if I have to play Latino for the rest of my life.
I want to go back way back to some of those early days when you were an aspiring actor, moving into some of your early roles.
So I know.
Earlier in your career you studied with Stella Adler, who she is famously known for teaching Marlon Brando and James Dean what became known as method acting.
Yeah.
I know there's so much there Benicio, but what do you remember the most about that experience of being in her class and learning from her?
It changed my life, studying with her at her studio.
I studied under several teachers, one whose name was Arthur Mendoza in Los Angeles.
And she would come for summer and winter and teach.
And I remember, you know, taking those classes.
And it was legendary.
But I think one of the things that she was really particular was the fact that the actor needs to understand what the writer is trying to say.
So you need to improve your reading comprehension.
Also, the other thing that was exciting about the class was the fact that it was a serious job.
An actor is as important as a doctor.
Had you gone into the class believing that?
Well, I never really thought about it, really, to be honest with you.
I don't come from a family of theater.
I did watch movies when I was younger, like anybody else, but I never thought about what was behind it.
And acting was looked at as not really a profession, not something that you would consider a real profession.
In my world as I was growing up.
You know a profession would be being an architect, being a lawyer, being a doctor.
Right, because your family were professional people right in Puerto Rico, where you were born and raised.
Yes, yes.
Many of my family members were lawyers.
And my godmother, who... I lost my mom when I was nine.
She was the one who stepped in and you know kind of like helped a lot and she was a lawyer as well.
But acting was like a hobby.
You don't turn that into a profession.
So when going into Stella, for me was like it is as important as any other profession that we consider important.
There was a respect for the craft.
It made it exciting for me.
It made me feel proud.
You mentioned your godmother, Sarah Torres Peralta.
She was also your mom's really good friend.
She's the big reason that you came from Puerto Rico here to the States to go to private boarding school in Pennsylvania.
Yes.
How different was Pennsylvania from your life in Puerto Rico?
I went into a controlled environment to an extent.
I went to a private school, a boarding school.
And...
What I do remember is suddenly I was alone.
But the person to my left or to my right were alone too.
So there was like this beginning that was very healthy for new thoughts.
There were no cliques.
I made friends with the basketball players because I played basketball.
But for the most part, everybody was an equal footing.
And also, you would find yourself alone, which is also healthy.
I think in Puerto Rico, I had my posse, my friends, and I was never alone.
You know, and here in Pennsylvania for the first time, it was like And you start looking in and you start having different thoughts and new ideas might come in, and it was healthy that way.
And I quickly made friends and you know I made a lot of friends and played basketball and made a lot of friends there.
I had, you know...
You know, I spoke English before I went to the school, but I had a thick accent.
But playing basketball created a language right there, and I think music also.
Benicio del Toro, thank you so much for this conversation.
Thank you for having me.
Actor Benicio del Toro.
He stars in the new Wes Anderson film, The Phoenician Scheme.
In the romantic drama Materialists, Dakota Johnson plays a savvy New York matchmaker who finds herself caught between two men played by Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.
It's the latest movie written and directed by Celine Song, whose 2023 drama Past Lives received three Oscar nominations.
Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.
The Korean-Canadian writer-director Celine Song, made her feature debut two years ago with Past Lives, a quietly captivating drama loosely inspired by Song's relationship with her husband, an American, and her brief reunion with a childhood sweetheart from Korea.
It was the gentlest of love triangles, as well as a sneakily philosophical movie about cross-cultural connections and fateful encounters.
And so I had high expectations for Song's new film, Materialists.
Like Past Lives, it's a thoughtful tale of romantic indecision, but in a glossier key with a star-studded cast.
Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a professional matchmaker for a company called Adore.
She arranges dates for New Yorkers who are tired of Hinge or Bumble and willing to pay thousands of dollars or more to meet their potential soulmates.
Lucy is very good at her job, and it's given her a coolly pragmatic view of happily ever after.
For her, people are basically human spreadsheets, little more than the sum of their physical and financial attributes.
At a wedding reception, she meets a handsome bachelor, Harry.
That's Pedro Pascal, who's clearly interested in her.
But Lucy just wants to bring him aboard as a client.
Love is easy.
Is it?
I find it to be the most difficult thing in the world.
That's because we can't help it.
It just walks into our lives sometimes.
Are you kidding on me?
Definitely not.
But I do think that you would be a great match for a lot of our clients.
We need more straight men in New York City.
You look about six feet tall.
How much money do you make?
Just straight up like that.
I make 80 grand a year before taxes.
Do you make more or less than that?
More.
I know.
Finance, right?
Private equity.
Johnson and Pascal have good chemistry, and the best scenes in Materialists belong to them.
There's a nice tension between Harry's suave charm and Lucy's professional reserve.
Johnson finds the nuance in Lucy's inner conflict.
She wants to marry rich herself, but she's held back by her belief that only rich should marry rich.
And Harry isn't just rich.
He is, in matchmaker parlance, a unicorn.
The complete package in terms of looks, smarts, and wealth.
But Harry says he's interested in what he calls Lucy's intangible assets— and she eventually relents, letting him take her out to fabulous restaurants and then back to his 12 million Tribeca penthouse.
Not since Fifty Shades of Grey has a Dakota Johnson character been so thoroughly swept off her feet.
Around the same time, though, Lucy reconnects with her ex-boyfriend John, played by Chris Evans.
They broke up a while ago for money reasons, and John, a cater-waiter and aspiring actor, isn't much better off now than he was then.
They still have feelings for each other, but for Lucy the math doesn't add up.
Considerations of love versus money have of course been a staple of romantic fiction, going back to at least the days of jane austen, and song means to put her own distinct riff on it here.
The skill that she brought to past lives is very much in evidence, from the hard-on-sleeve candor of the dialogue to the elegance of shabir kirchner's cinematography, which often basks in the visual splendor of a bright New York afternoon.
I've rarely seen Central Park, or a Sabrette hot dog cart, photographed so lovingly.
All of which makes me wish that I ultimately liked materialists more.
But after an absorbing first hour, the movie feels increasingly undone by its own ambitions.
It can't reconcile the screwball vigor of a comedy with the emotional oomph of a drama.
It's worth noting that, although Materialists isn't autobiographical, Song did once work as a matchmaker and she seems keen to expose some of the less savory realities of the profession, including the blatant racism and sexism of some of Lucy's clients.
One subplot addresses sexual violence in the world of modern dating.
And although you can admire Song for not shying away from the subject, the ensuing drama leaves Lucy's romantic dilemma feeling trivial by comparison.
I never really bought that dilemma to begin with.
Although Evans is an appealing performer, John isn't much of a character.
He loves Lucy, he's a starving artist, and that's about it.
It's hard to imagine that someone as cool-headed and unsentimental as Lucy would seriously entertain getting back together with this guy who shares a crummy apartment with two slovenly roommates straight out of a Judd Apatow romp.
In order to make Lucy's situation halfway plausible, Materialists winds up dumbing her down and selling Johnson's smart, tough-minded performance short.
In trying to teach Lucy about how relationships are more than math.
It's the movie that doesn't add up.
Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker.
He reviewed Materialists, starring Dakota Johnson.
Coming up.
MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong Fast talks about the issues she faced as the daughter of the famous novelist Erica Jong.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
This message comes from Fisher Investments.
Senior Vice President, Michael Hosmar, shares why he believes in empowering clients with knowledge at every step of their financial planning journey.
At Fisher Investments, we prefer to use a sizable group of experts with a diverse skill set, diverse knowledge, all collaborating together to deliver what hopefully, is optimal advice for our clients.
I believe the best and maybe the only way to properly address client expectations is through education.
Once I've met with a prospective client for the first time, I hope they feel that they've learned something.
I hope they feel they've made some progress and they understand not only the financial markets and financial planning better, but they understand their own personal goals and objectives a bit better as well.
I hope they have a little bit more peace of mind.
My guest Molly Jong-Fast's new memoir begins with this sentence I am the only child of a once famous woman.
Her mother is writer Erica Jong, who became famous for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying, which sold about 20 million copies and was considered a groundbreaking work of second wave feminist literature.
The story's main character is a married woman who feels the passion has drained from the relationship.
Her fantasy is having passionate sex with a stranger with no commitment, no relationship, maybe not even knowing each other's names.
Erica John called that kind of relationship a zipless sex word that we can't say on the radio.
That expression caught on.
Erika Jong wrote a couple of other popular novels and then wrote novels that didn't catch on.
Molly writes that her mother had become addicted to fame and couldn't bear losing it.
From Molly's perspective, the addiction to fame and alcohol meant she got very little attention from her mother.
Pancreatic cancer.
When the memoir ends, the treatment for the cancer has been effective, and he's cancer-free.
The memoir is titled How to Lose Your Mother.
Molly has a level of fame now, too.
She's a political analyst on MSNBC, and before that, made frequent appearances on CNN.
Molly Jung Fast, welcome to Fresh Air.
Your memoir is really interesting.
I want your capsule summary of your mother's book, Fear of Flying, that made her famous.
So I think, when you think about fear of flying, it's important to remember exactly what that year looked like 1973.
So the pill was made legal in 1964.
So there was a sort of buildup.
And then in 1973, besides Fear of Flying, which really became a bestseller sort of after it was published around 74, the Roe v Wade decision came down from the Supreme Court, which made abortion legal.
So these were two sort of seismic events that changed the world for women.
And then my mom did this thing, which was she wrote this book, called That, for whatever reason.
I mean, this is the big question about books.
This is the big question about all of this.
But it just captured the American imagination.
And I think that American women were really primed.
They needed to be given permission and to sort of go forth and explore sexually.
And my mother was happy to give it.
And it was also a time where standards were changing.
People were living together outside of marriage.
There was an LGBTQ—well, it was mostly just like a gay rights movement at that time.
There'd been an expression in the late 60s and early 70s, smash monogamy.
So, you know, standards were really changing, and women were expecting to have sexual pleasure.
And I don't know that women before that felt that they had the— freedom to express their own sexual needs.
When I think about my mother's story, because my mother's very much a product of 1942, the year she was born, as much as she's a product of anything.
And in the 40s, women just were not necessarily independent of their spouses, right?
Like, you could not have a bank statement without a man as a cosign.
I mean, it really was you couldn't get a mortgage.
The world was set up as women were, sort of, And I think that this shift to women being autonomous was actually a very profound shift.
Now, I think my mother was an imperfect messenger for that moment.
And I think that that added to some of her problems.
Well, you describe her as writing what was perceived as a second wave feminist book, but that your mother in real life went from man to man trying to find an identity.
And she related mostly to men she thought she could seduce.
Yeah, I mean, it's funny because one of the parallels in this book is my grandfather.
And my grandfather was Howard Fast, and he was jailed during the House of Non-American Activities.
He wrote Spartacus.
He wrote a number of books.
And he and my father had this sort of death spiral, this kind of powerful same-sex parent who was so jealous that my father was going to live longer than he was.
I mean, really, ultimately, that was the...
And for him, in some ways becoming an icon of the time, becoming a sort of political hero, was much more of a fit because, even though he wrote novels too, he was really committed to some of the – you know, he wrote this very beautiful thing about his FBI file.
He had this – endlessly long FBI file, the kind that happened that we used to have during McCarthy and, who knows, may have someday again.
And this file, he said, you know, the worst things about me were not in this file.
The selfishness was not in this file.
What was in this file was my work with anti-segregation and my work with civil rights and my work with unions.
All of my best qualities were in this FBI file.
And I really do think for him it was much more of a natural fit.
For my mom, she was a feminist, but she was also very much a product of 1942.
You describe your mother as getting addicted to fame.
What do you mean by that?
And how do you think it affected her behavior and her ability to parent you?
Fame is, in this country...
Amazing, right?
It is the closest thing we have to magic.
It is a thing that makes people have a different relationship with reality, with the world.
This is not a case against fame.
It's sort of a warning of the power of it, if that makes sense.
And so what I would say is that when my mom got going with it she could not – losing it became incredibly traumatic.
How did it affect your formative years, especially when you were becoming sexual yourself, to be the daughter of a mother who was famous, in part, for writing about sex?
I personally have always wanted to talk to my mother about sex as little as possible.
And in fact, like probably you know, she would always be like.
I remember when I was little, she'd be like do you want to have the talk?
And I would be like, please, dear God, my whole life is the talk.
Yeah.
What do you mean by that?
Right.
Like, it's just, you know, she's talking about sex.
I'm in a green room waiting for her to hear her talk about sex.
I mean I said to my husband when I married him.
I said you know, my mom is going to wear a robe and you're going to see her naked.
And I apologize in advance.
I said, you know, this is not the norm.
You know he comes from like a nice sort of bourgeois intellectual family where people are not, you know, getting drunk and taking off their clothes.
And I said, you know, welcome.
Yeah, so your mother would walk around in a robe that was not tied.
Yes.
That was peak Erika Jong.
And, you know, is it – I said to him, you know, this is what's going to happen to you, so –
I'm sorry to tell you.
And actually the other day I was saying to him, like, you know, you marry into a family like that.
It's, you know, you have to be emotionally prepared for what you will witness.
Can you describe what your parenting was like when you were a teenager and you were doing cocaine and you were drinking a lot before you checked into rehab?
So I was – I mean I did delight in being a terrible child.
I think it's important to mention this.
I really did – there really was quite a lot of payback for the bad parenting I felt I had had when I was young.
So I do think we ultimately got square.
And I do remember one night – being in Atlantic City and the next morning calling my mom and being like mom you'll never guess where I am.
And I was like, I'm in Atlantic City.
And it just was such, I don't know how she survived that period.
I think it was very, very stressful for her too.
But she downplayed your issues with addiction.
She didn't think you needed to go into rehab.
Right.
Well, she didn't, and then she got very into it.
But the reason why she did that was because when you come from an alcoholic family, when people start going to rehab, it can be very worrying.
If you want to keep drinking, that's not good.
You mean if you went into rehab?
Maybe it meant that she should go into rehab and there was no way she was going to do it.
It threw the whole, I mean, she did end up stopping drinking a bunch of different times.
And I write about this in the book where she'd get the drinking would cause problems and she'd stop.
But yeah, I mean, it was such for her.
It was very.
You know, if you come from an alcoholic family system, once one person gets sober it throws the whole thing into chaos.
Right.
You know the children of other famous parents and I'm wondering if they've had similar issues with how they were raised and what are some of the patterns that you see?
I am fascinated by this because I am... nostalgic about my childhood, but I appreciate history.
And so I find my mom sort of interesting at this point.
I'm a little bit removed from it, I feel like, and my grandfather.
I'm just interested.
And so I'm quite friendly with Jacob Bernstein, who is the son of Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron.
And I love Jacob.
I think he is...
One of the smartest writers out there.
He also made this incredible movie about his mom called Everything is Copy.
And so we have these discussions about who is the best Nepo baby, right?
Like who, what is the, you know, and we both have a theory that it's Tracee Ellis Ross.
She's the best Nepo baby because she has like an incredible career.
Everybody loves her and thinks she's so nice.
And also her mother is Diana Ross, right?
Like that's the best nepo baby.
And the rest of us are just trying to keep up.
A couple of your friends who are the children of a celebrity parent were kidnapped with the understanding that the parent was famous and probably had a lot of money.
Yeah, that was a very 80s thing.
People don't do it anymore.
I actually knew a couple of people who were kidnapped, with varying degrees of success, but it did capture my mother's imagination.
And she was very worried that I was going to get kidnapped, slash also slightly hoping.
Seriously?
I mean, you know, I don't...
When you come from a writer family there is always, you know, as much as you love your family, you know content does come knocking at the door.
I mean, it is you know, I write about that in the book that often I would see her the wheels turning, wondering if she was sort of hoping that something might go off the rails.
You felt that your mother I think I can use the word betrayed, that your mother betrayed you a little bit by basing characters on you who weren't really you.
I mean, they didn't reflect accurately who you were.
In other words, like you had a really bad delivery when you gave birth to your two twins.
You nearly died.
You were bleeding profusely.
Your placenta had attached to the uterus.
Things could have gone either way.
And in your mother's novel, where this is fictionalized, you were exaggerating what happened.
The character was exaggerating what happened in the delivery room.
So you felt betrayed by some of that and by some of the representations of the character based on your husband's.
But now you've written a book which is kind of brutally honest about your mother.
Do you feel that you have betrayed her?
And I'll mention here too.
Now she has dementia and probably wouldn't know the difference one way or another.
I doubt she could read your book.
She doesn't remember anything.
So I guess it's a two-part question.
Do you feel like you betrayed her?
And would you have ever written the book if she was in her full senses, if she had a memory, if she had a discerning memory and could read it, interpret it and then talk to you about how she felt about it?
Yeah.
So the first question is, yes, I would write this book even if she were 100 percent clear.
And I think that what – it's funny because the journalist in The Times who writes about publishing and who really knew my mom's oeuvre right and had read those books and interviewed her – she really wanted to call her.
And I said, oh, I don't know about the ethics of calling her.
She's got dementia.
You know, if you can't sign a check, should you be able to weigh in on?
And I thought no, she should call her.
I know Erika Jong, and Erika Jong would be delighted by this book, even if it said...
You know, my mom always said to me, you can write anything you want about me.
And I feel that way about my children, too.
I mean, my mom wrote about me, and that changed the course of my life, perhaps in a very good way.
I'm not convinced that it hurt me.
I actually think it really helped me.
And again that's the question when we talk about nepotism.
Having a famous parent is a huge advantage.
That's why it's so complicated.
If it wasn't a huge advantage, people wouldn't care about it.
But I do think with my mom I did actually, you know, she talked to her and my mom said like I am delighted.
And I do believe for my mom, for Erica Zhang, that her legacy was, is always and will always be the thing.
And, quite frankly, like I love my kids and I think I'm a pretty good mom, but a writer's legacy is a pretty big deal to all of us.
How would you compare what you consider feminism to what you think your mother would say?
So I feel bad for my mom because she really was in an impossible situation, right?
Born in 1942, the difference between being born in 1942 versus being born in 1978, right?
Post-Roe.
Unfortunately, now we're post-Roe again.
But I think that I...
I have – I know I can be without a man.
Like I've been married for a long time.
I adore my husband.
He's hilarious and the smartest person I've ever met.
But I know that I could – I can survive in any way.
I don't think that my identity is so dependent on him though I appreciate him a lot.
And I think for my mom, it was very hard.
That period, you know, their marriage broke up in the early 80s.
And there was this period where my mom, just she could not.
You could see her searching to have an identity.
And she had all these men.
And she was like, there was a brief period where she was like engaged every month.
Like I just remember being like, this guy can't – we just had a stepfather.
Now we have another one, you know?
And then she had this young boyfriend, and then she – and when she found my stepfather it was like oh, now this is an identity she can live with.
I don't have that.
But I wouldn't have who I am without the Erika Jongs.
Right.
There is no whatever feminism.
I am third fourth fifth, whatever without the second wave feminists.
You know, we, Betty Friedan walked so we could tweet.
You know, we are very much the product of those women.
Molly Jungfest, thank you so much for talking with us.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me.
Molly Jong Fast's memoir is titled How to Lose Your Mother.
She spoke with Terry Gross.
Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.
With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.
This message comes from NPR sponsor, 1Password.
Secure access to your online world, from emails to banking, so you can protect what matters most with 1Password.
For a free two-week trial, go to 1Password.com slash NPR.
This message comes from Michelin.
More than a tire company, Michelin is an innovation company.
From connected mobility to clean materials and now taking on one of the toughest mobility challenges space.
Developing an airless wheel for space exploration, designed to withstand the extreme conditions at the moon's south pole.
Michelin isn't just making exceptional tires, they're helping build a better future.
Motion for life.
More at michelinman.com slash y-michelin slash innovation.
This message comes from Warby Parker.
Prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable.
Glasses designed in-house from premium materials, starting at just 95, including prescription lenses.
Stop by a Warby Parker store near you.
