Not Reading the Comments with Maureen Dowd

Summary

Fail Better with David Duchovny: Episode Summary Episode Title: Not Reading the Comments with Maureen Dowd
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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Introduction

In this poignant episode of Fail Better, host David Duchovny engages in a deep and reflective conversation with renowned New York Times columnist and author, Maureen Dowd. The episode delves into the theme of failure—its inevitability, its impact on personal and professional growth, and the societal aversion to it. Drawing inspiration from Samuel Beckett's mantra, “Fail again. Fail better,” the discussion explores how embracing failure can lead to profound revelations and resilience.

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Maureen Dowd's Journey with Failure

[03:06] Maureen Dowd: “I always say, I have gotten into more scrapes and had more failures than anyone who still seems to have a career.”

Maureen Dowd opens up about her extensive experiences with failure throughout her illustrious career. She emphasizes that failure is not a singular event but a recurring aspect of her professional journey. Dowd reflects on the ingenuity of human perseverance in finding new ways to stumble, underscoring that each failure presents an opportunity for growth.

[03:43] Maureen Dowd: “Well, you never learn from success, do you?”

This insight highlights Dowd's belief that true learning and development stem from overcoming failures rather than merely experiencing successes.

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Transition from Journalism to Academia

Dowd shares her unconventional decision to return to graduate school at Columbia University, inspired by Duchovny’s past academic pursuits. [04:07] Maureen Dowd humorously recounts her struggles with academic writing, contrasting it with her journalistic approach.

[05:25] Maureen Dowd: “It's hard when you've been a journalist because the whole thing with a journalist is you take a small thing and then universalize it. You expand on the small thing, and in academia, they want you to do the reverse.”

This anecdote illustrates the challenges Dowd faced in adapting her storytelling skills to meet the rigorous demands of academic scholarship, ultimately leading to academic setbacks but enriching her understanding of failure.

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The Power of Storytelling and Characterization

David Duchovny delves into Dowd's unique storytelling ability, noting her capacity to perceive people as complex characters influenced by historical and mythological narratives.

[09:22] David Duchovny: “You have a way that you interview. I feel like it comes from another time.”

Dowd discusses her fascination with integrating mythological and Shakespearean elements into her profiles, adding depth and timelessness to her portrayals of modern figures.

[10:03] Maureen Dowd: “He behaves in that way, like capriciously and cruelly. And so Trump would be Zeus with the thunderbolts, and Elon would be Dionysus, the God of fertility...”

Using these comparisons, Dowd illustrates how contemporary personalities embody traits of ancient gods, providing a richer understanding of their behaviors and influences.

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Interviews with Prominent Figures

Dowd recounts memorable interviews with iconic personalities, revealing their vulnerabilities and complexities beyond their public personas.

Uma Thurman Interview: [23:58] Maureen Dowd: “Uma Thurman tells you that Quentin Tarantino tried to kill her...”

Dowd describes uncovering a harrowing account of a dangerous stunt gone wrong, highlighting the deep personal struggles behind public successes. This interview not only shed light on Thurman's resilience but also emphasized the importance of personal storytelling in understanding failure.

Paul Newman and Al Pacino: Dowd shares intimate moments from her interviews with legends like Paul Newman and Al Pacino, revealing their internal conflicts and struggles with fame.

[44:22] Maureen Dowd: “He had this lifelong struggle with being cast as a sex symbol, and he really didn't like it.”
— Regarding Paul Newman

[48:05] Maureen Dowd: “That's what's so interesting, because we're never going back to this Elon Musk, you know...”
— Discussing Elon Musk

These reflections underscore how even the most celebrated figures grapple with personal failures and societal expectations.

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Charisma, Power, and Myth in Politics

A significant portion of the conversation explores the intersection of charisma, power, and mythological archetypes in political leadership.

[33:25] Maureen Dowd: “I'm endlessly intrigued by the high and mighty self-destructing and by those who topple from great heights and somehow soar back.”

Dowd analyzes political figures like Barack Obama, comparing their leadership styles to mythological characters and Shakespearean roles.

[35:00] David Duchovny: “It's like Faustus. You have... this passion, this unreason that you can control with your charisma, that it's morally wrong in some way.”

The duo discusses how charisma can be both a tool for greatness and a potential downfall, drawing parallels between political leaders and literary figures who embody similar traits.

Barack Obama Analysis: [37:51] Maureen Dowd: “When you look back at his presidency... he wanted to state his position. It was the right position.”

Dowd critiques Obama's reluctance to engage in the pragmatic aspects of politics, suggesting that his idealism may have hindered effective governance, a common theme in discussions about leadership and failure.

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Reflections on Modern Political Leadership

Dowd provides a critical examination of contemporary leaders, exploring how their personal struggles and leadership styles influence their political effectiveness.

[40:33] Maureen Dowd: “He wanted to state his position. It was the right position.”
— Referring to Barack Obama

This reflection suggests that political leaders who adhere strictly to their principles without the flexibility to navigate the complexities of governance may encounter significant challenges, embodying the concept of "failing better" by recognizing and adapting to their limitations.

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Conclusion and Future Directions

As the episode draws to a close, Duchovny and Dowd contemplate the future trajectories of their careers and the ongoing dialogue between failure and success.

[52:00] Maureen Dowd: “I told my mom that one of my fellow columnists was writing a memoir. And she thought about it and she goes, of whom...”

Dowd humorously touches on the possibility of writing a memoir, reflecting on her journey and the failures that have shaped her professional identity. Duchovny encourages her to pursue this ambition, emphasizing the value of sharing personal narratives to inspire and educate others on embracing failure.

[53:12] David Duchovny: “Go get that PhD. All right. Thank you so much and I'll be in touch.”

The conversation ends on an encouraging note, highlighting the mutual respect and support between the two prominent figures as they navigate their paths through failure and success.

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Notable Quotes

• Maureen Dowd: “I always say, I have gotten into more scrapes and had more failures than anyone who still seems to have a career.” [03:06]

• David Duchovny: “It's really the most human of things is failure.” [03:33]

• Maureen Dowd: “He wants to state his position. It was the right position.” [37:51]

• Maureen Dowd: “You're entering into a dialogue with your mentors and your teachers.” [09:16]

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Key Takeaways

• Embracing Failure: Failure is an integral part of personal and professional growth. By confronting and learning from failures, individuals can achieve resilience and deeper self-awareness.

• Storytelling and Mythology: Incorporating mythological and literary frameworks enriches the understanding of contemporary figures, drawing timeless parallels that resonate across generations.

• Charisma and Leadership: Charismatic leadership carries the potential for both great influence and significant pitfalls. Balancing personal principles with pragmatic governance is crucial for effective leadership.

• Personal Narratives: Sharing personal stories of struggle and triumph can inspire others to navigate their own challenges with courage and authenticity.

This episode of Fail Better offers a compelling exploration of failure, resilience, and the human condition, providing listeners with valuable insights into the complexities of success and the lessons learned through adversity.

Transcript

[Megan]

Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcast.

[Maureen Dowd]

Tired of the same old political shouting.

[Sarah]

Matches and talking points? Looking for thoughtful conversations that go beyond the headlines and help you understand issues that matter? I'm Sarah. And I'm Beth. Together we host Pantsuit Politics, a podcast where we bring grace, nuance, and perspective to the news because democracy deserves more than hot takes. Join us as we approach politics and current events with curiosity, empathy, and a commitment to understanding the bigger picture. If you want to stay informed without the anxiety, we're the show for you. New episodes drop on Tuesdays and Fridays. Subscribe to Pantsuit Politics wherever you get your podcast.

[David Duchovny]

Lemonada I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Maureen Dowd is an author as well as a columnist for the New York Times, where she's been since 1983. She started at the paper as a metro reporter, and before that she reported on various topics for other papers. She describes the role of a news reporter as a hard one to fill since she's had to approach subjects who'd just gone through violence and other horrors. We talk about how she coached herself through doing that work and how she eventually found her voice. You may know Maureen for her writing on Monica Lewinsky and the subsequent backlash to it starting in 1998. It was actually for that commentary that she won a Pulitzer Prize. The following year, Maureen has continued writing I and her new book, Notorious, brings together some of the most interesting profiles she's written. Apparently she didn't see fit to include the two profiles she's written of me, but that's okay. We talk about the through lines of power and even some behind the scenes details of interviewing those powerful people. For the rest, you'll have to read the book. Until then, here's my conversation with my friend Maureen Dowd. Good morning, Maureen.

[Maureen Dowd]

Good morning, David.

[David Duchovny]

How are you? I'm good, good. Thanks for doing this Shoe on the Other Foot I wanted to start with well, I hope you had a good time meditating on failure in some way.

[Maureen Dowd]

I always say, I have gotten into more scrapes and had more failures than anyone who still seems to have a career.

[David Duchovny]

Really? Do you feel that way? Huh?

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, because you can always find ingenious new ways to fail. You think you've learned your lesson from one failure? There's some amazing, incredibly clever new way you can find.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, that's. It's, it's interesting to think about it that way because I think it's. It's really. It's really the most human of things is failure. I mean, obviously.

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, you never learn from success, do you?

[David Duchovny]

Well, you learn. I mean, if you chase it the same way, you learn that it's actually failure in disguise.

[Maureen Dowd]

This is Beckett, right?

[David Duchovny]

Well, you know, it's interesting that, you know, you're a reader and we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about books, I hope, and your career as a graduate student.

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, I just have to tell your listeners that the reason I went to graduate school recently at Columbia and my advanced senility is because of you. Ever since I came to interview you in Vancouver for the X Files and you talked about how you went for your PhD at Yale but then didn't finish your dissertation, I just thought that was the most incredibly romantic thing. And I wanted to do exactly the same thing, except getting my master's was so hard that I couldn't even pretend to try and go and fail at getting the dissertation right.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I mean, you went back to being a student. Our first kind of brushes with A, B, C, Ds and Fs as students. And you went back after a hugely successful. Well, during a hugely successful career and put yourself at the mercy of some pimply graduate student slapping a C or worse on your papers. And I wonder how that felt, you know, going back into that student mode.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, my first chorus, it was a British professor. It was a pre Renaissance plays and I got a B plus. And at Columbia, a B plus is an F, you know, but they all wrote exactly, exactly the same thing on my papers. They said you're a good writer. This paper is so well written and entertaining, but it is not written in an academic style. Oh, you know, as you know, you've got to have the thesis and you've got to back it up. And they like. It's hard when you've been a journalist because the whole thing with a journalist is you take a small thing and then universalize it. You expand on the small thing, and in academia they want you to do the reverse. You know, they want you to zero in on that little thing. And I never did. I never did learn to write an academic style.

[David Duchovny]

I think what's instructive thinking about your style and your career is to go back and look at. I think you are a reader of people and of history and of politics, and I think you approach people as texts to be read in a way. And you. And you let. Sometimes you even let words kind of lead you in certain directions. You let. You. You obviously love words. And you kind of almost short circuit your own narrative sometimes to follow upon or the truth in a word.

[Maureen Dowd]

And.

[David Duchovny]

I don't. There's no question there. I guess I'm just.

[Maureen Dowd]

No people, you know, readers are always. It was funny because I never read the comments because I. So hypersensitive when I was little. I. I thought sensitivity was like leukemia. I thought it was something that got in your bloodstream. If you were criticized, you could die from it. I thought literally you could die from criticism. And that's my. Been my whole life now, for decades, getting criticized. So I never look. But I. I was really proud of a lot of the themes I did after, while I was getting my degree at Columbia. So I. I decided to look at the comments.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, you did?

[Maureen Dowd]

All the comments were, is she ever gonna stop showing off with all this hoity toity education stuff? But the readers also complain when I use big words. Like, my favorite word is ensorceled, like, you're in Source, only very few people are. And I try and throw it in there.

[David Duchovny]

I don't know what that means either. Well, James Joyce said every word is a novel. And if I could turn this screen around, I get the same criticism as you in my novels because I go to Goodreads and I look at the. I shouldn't say that because now I'm gonna get really nasty comments on Goodreads. But I go there to kind of look at what the reviewers are saying. Not the paid reviewers, but the. You know, the people. And I get a lot of shit for using big words and showing off. And in fact, I don't know how to explain it, but. And I'm sure I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's not. It's not showing off. It's entering into a dialogue. It's entering into a conversation with your mentors and your teachers. And for me, it's trying to continue a dialogue that was started in my head when I first started reading. They're chosen by me in a very intentional way to almost to lead people back to those things as well, and to breathe life into this way of thinking that I think is very valuable still and is neglected also.

[Maureen Dowd]

What you do that I love is in Ms. Subway's.

[David Duchovny]

You.

[Maureen Dowd]

You make it so much deeper by bringing in myth. I mean, if I like, you know, that old Barbara Stanwyck movie, Ball of Fire, which is based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I mean, she's a gangster's mole, and she has to hide out with professors, you know, old stodgy professors in a townhouse. And I just love anything where there's an element of myth. And it's funny because now covering Donald Trump and Elon Musk, I feel like everybody always says, which Shakespearean character is Trump?

[David Duchovny]

Right, right.

[Maureen Dowd]

And, you know, there's a touch of Lear, there's a touch of Caliban. And lately, I realized there's a lot of Richard III in the sense that Richard iii, even though he was a villain, would come to the edge of the stage, and with humor, he would tell the audience what bad thing he was about to do. So he let them in on his thinking with humor. And I feel like that's an important component of Trump. But really, I don't think he's too much like Shakespeare. He's more like P.T. barnum. But I think also he and Elon are like Greek gods, because they behave in that way, like, capriciously and cruelly. And so Trump would be Zeus with the thunderbolts, and Elon would be Dionysus, the God of fertility, because I think he has about 150 kids. I mean, that's how I think of them.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, but I love.

[Maureen Dowd]

You know, I love. I just think myth just gives everything a whole different depth.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I think what you're approaching there and what you're talking about and what you're teaching when we refer back, I think when someone like you is rhyming historically, is going back to Shakespeare, is going back to the Greek myths and talking about our current predicament, you're really saying, underneath it all, we've been here before. We've always been here. This is where. This is where we go. This is where we are. This is not unprecedented, which is like everybody's throwing their hands up and saying, unprecedented every day.

[Maureen Dowd]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

And you're saying, no, no, just look back here. Just look back here and look here, and what happens in the play to that person.

[Maureen Dowd]

But that's why, you know, these arguments that Shakespeare is now irrelevant or so silly because human nature hasn't changed. He dealt with like the Crayola box of human emotions. The primary jealousy, you know, envy, Macbeth. Like, I guess all of us have something in us that would like to know if we committed a murder, how would we do it or why would we do it? I mean, he dealt with those emotions that just never changed. And you can just see them played out in the White House, you know, all the time. I mean, it's. I don't think people realize that, you know, when they vote for a president, there's so many things out of their control. The president's family relationships are going to have so much control over life and death decisions. So. Yeah, Shakes, you know, I just think those basic primal emotions never evolve. We're always with them.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I think your approach is often. And what I think people love about your work is that the, the political is personal. That's it.

[Maureen Dowd]

You know, it's funny, it's. It's amazing to me when I look back, because a lot of the guys I started with in political reporting were always sort of. I remember one of them criticized my work as being emotional and not intellectual, but they did not. They felt like you just dealt with the horse race, you know, the statistics, the. But they never got. And maybe this is an Irish thing, but politics is about people. It is. The vote for president is like the most personal vote you can make. It's about your future, your kids future. And also, you know, when America has gone through traumas like Watergate, Vietnam, Iraq, those were made by presidents with gremlins and on Shakespearean emotion type things. They weren't, you know, calculated by a data set, you know.

[David Duchovny]

Right. They were just going with their gut. Yeah.

[Maureen Dowd]

Or, you know, I mean, Dick Cheney was the kind of Iago to W. I think if he had chosen maybe people his own age that he knew, instead of getting these older regents superimposed on him, they led. They basically stole his presidency and he was too unseasoned and insecure to stop them.

[David Duchovny]

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[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

Hey Julia Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an investor and an evangelist for the Mill food recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet every single day. We're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where mill comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden, add to your compost, feed to your chickens. Or mill can get them back to a small farm for you, but you kind of have to live with mill to really get it, and that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.

[David Duchovny]

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[Maureen Dowd]

No, no. Well, you know, I'm. My family is still astonished that I got into this profession that is so rough and tumble in the sense of, you know, with a column, when you're taking on presidents, it's like being in a Godfather movie. You take one of theirs, they take one of yours, you go to the mattresses. And my family is shocked because, you know, when I was little, I was so shy, I could barely speak. I still don't do TV or that kind of thing unless I have to promote a book or something because I just freeze. So when I first started to be a reporter and I was covering a suburb of Washington and they would send me out on crime stories, I would drive up to the door of something where a woman had just killed her three little kids or a guy had lost his son on prom night in a car accident. And I would try to knock on the door, but I couldn't. And I would just go back and put my head on the wheel of my car and sometimes I would leave and pretend they hadn't been home. And at some point I had to have a talk with myself and I said, you know, you're getting paid to do this, and if you don't have the personality to do this, you have to find a different profession. And so I learned how to kind of project a different thing. The way, you know, Beyonce has Sasha Fierce where she just puts on a different thing. And so that's what I tried to do. Because in the end, you do have to go and ask people questions that they Might not want to give you the answers to. So you have to work up your nerve and, you know, just be something else. But also, when I first got into journalism, it was mostly men, and they could be very dismissive. I almost got fired once because an editor sent me out for beer, and I brought back light beer was not good. But I used to watch. My brother introduced me to old movies at afi, and I used to watch film noir. And the women could clearly dominate the men. So I did study up, not on the vixen part of film noir vixens, but on the how to. How to be an equal and even a superior to men you were dealing with.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I think, and forgive me if this is wrong, but you didn't try to fight the male fire with male fire. You. You came. You came with your own fire. So when you go into an interview, and I appreciate what you said about the young Maureen Dowd unable to knock on the door of the parents that had lost a child, that is very relatable for me personally, as I've been doing this podcast. I don't like asking people questions about things that might make them unhappy. And it's something that I have to. And, you know, I could. I could kind of parse it and go, yeah, well, you know, you want to be liked too much or whatever. But when you go into an interview and let's say. Let's say it's that. Let's take the Musk interview or even the Costner interview, because. Or the Uma Thurman interview, which Uma.

[Maureen Dowd]

Thurman loves you, by the way.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, I love him. You know, we were in acting class together.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah. She said she. She loves you.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I love Uma, too. I haven't seen her in so long. But thank you for saying that. But do you go in with an a priori in your mind? Do you have an angle that you're looking to get? I mean, my. When I go into a conversation with somebody, I always want to. I want to hear. And this is my need to be liked, probably, but I want to hear their version of the best of themselves first. And then we can get into failure and stuff like that. And I wonder, when you go into. I think the Uma Thurman piece is very interesting because you kind of got a scoop in that. And you're not like a scoop writer. You're a profile writer.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, I don't know. When I get them, I don't know what to do.

[David Duchovny]

I'm shocked. So you're sitting there and you're having this conversation with Uma, and all of a sudden you're getting a scoop. What are you?

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, I mean, when Uma Thurman tells you that Quentin Tarantino tried to kill her, I mean, you sit up and listen. They had put her in a dangerous position doing a stunt for Kill Bill, or Kill Bill, too. One of them, when she was in the turquoise Carmen Gia, and they gave her a car, I think it was an automatic, when she wanted a gear shift, or they switched the car at the last minute and they. And unbeknownst to her, they switched the route to add a curve. And then he gave, Unbeknownst to her, all the stuntmen the day off because he didn't even want it to be an option that the drive could be done by stuntmen because he wanted to get her face in the rearview mirror with her hair blowing. And it was funny because I called one of a friend of Uman, Ethan Hawkes, and I said, I have a question about Uma. And he goes, did she tell you that Quentin tried to kill her? So this had been something in their circle for a long time. And Ethan was at some monastery, I think, and he had to rush to the set, and he said to him, hey, man, you know, she's not a stunt driver. What are you doing? You know, And I was so scared when the story published because it was so emotional, and she was crying at 2 in the morning. And, you know, I kind of sat here frozen for three days until Quentin Tarantino gave an interview to Deadline. He wouldn't return my calls and said, yeah, you know, I made a mistake. I put her in danger. And, you know, he just cop to the whole thing. Which was all she wanted to hear, right? I mean, she had neck and back pain from that accident. They never. She spent 15 years getting the footage of the crash out of him because she just wanted to prove that the people she trusted had not treated her correctly. And you know who. Miss. Clearly, she thought at one point she would never walk again. They had to lift her out of the car. And I think the story really helped her.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. What I like about that story, and as hard as it is to hear about somebody going through pain like that, it remained a personal story. It remained a personal story between Uma and Quentin, and nobody was trying to blow it up into a parable of women versus men or directors versus actresses, whatever it was.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, maybe it's. You know, my mom used to say there's no such thing as a private apology for a public insult or something. I mean, she just needed to set the record straight on all that. And in the end, Quentin decided she was right, and she was right to want that, and he gave it to her. But it took 15 years or whatever.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I mean, it's something that, that I talk about a lot, you know, in terms of, of failure of forgiveness and forgetting and, and just the almost the impossibility at times of forgetting and the difficulty of forgiving and the form of forgiveness and as you say, whether it's public or private, and the grace or the generosity to actually forgive an apology. You know, I think we live in a society that is constantly publishing apologies of some sort or the other, and we as people can smell bullshit on certain apologies, and we smell, you know, some are true.

[Maureen Dowd]

You know, and I think his career was not hurt. I mean, the way they both handled it, it wasn't meant to push him through the trap door like what happened to all these other guys. It wasn't.

[David Duchovny]

That was not. That was not her intention either. Yeah, yeah. But I'm wondering. You're sitting there and whatever your angle was going in on. Okay, this is the profile of Uma. I have certain thoughts I have about Uma. You're thinking, I, I, I'm a fan or, you know, I like this work or whatever.

[Maureen Dowd]

And also in that case, in that case, she had put a comment on social media.

[David Duchovny]

Oh.

[Maureen Dowd]

And it was elliptical, but it was pointed.

[David Duchovny]

Okay, so you.

[Maureen Dowd]

And I saw it and I thought, wow, you know, it was after the Times broke the me too and story, and she wasn't in it, and I thought, wow, maybe there's a story here. So she was starring in a play in New York, and I called and said, I saw this quote, and if she has a story and wants to talk about it, I'd love to do it. So that was sparked by her.

[David Duchovny]

But do you come in generally, do you come into an interview having some a priori thoughts on the subject?

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, most of the time, I'm just, just. It takes me a really long time to get some of these interviews because people are thinking, I will carve them up, which I only do to presidents or politicians when they have it coming. You know, it's not my preferred mode of writing. So with these longer profiles, I'm picking people like you, people who I think are really talented or really great leaders or really fascinating, larger than life people. I mean, you know, my brother took me to Hamlet when I was 13, and I immediately thought Hamlet was my boyfriend. And without realizing, he's the worst boyfriend in literary history. But I got addicted to people who burned through the screen, you know, who just. I don't, I don't care about David Franzen novels. I don't want to read about siblings fighting. I get that in my own life. I want to read about larger than life Shakespearean people who have talent and what they do with it. And there was this Shakespearean actor who told me one of the main themes of Shakespeare is you become your own worst enemy. And I'm really fascinated with people who are at the top where they have everything, but they become their own worst enemy. Foreign.

[David Duchovny]

This episode of Fail Better is brought to you by Booking.com Want to list your property as a vacation rental? Booking.com is the way to go. As one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world, it's the place to list if you want to maximize outcomes. You can reach new markets, earn more with consistent bookings, and turn hosting into a steady income. And that's because over the past 25 years, Booking.com has helped more than 1.8 billion. That's billion with a B vacation rental Guests find a place to stay Sounds like it's time to let them find yours. Booking.com doesn't just give you access to a big pool of amazing guests, they also make it easy to run a growing business. You can chat with guests, accept or decline bookings, and have total control over your property's calendar and finances. It's hosting on your terms, and I think that's pretty cool. If you're thinking about giving hosting a go, head over to booking.com to get started. In just a few easy steps, you can register your property in less than 15 minutes, and nearly half of partners get their first booking within one week. Plus, if your rental is already listed on another site, booking.com lets you easily import your property info. With booking.com the reach is global, the bookings are consistent, and the control is yours. For the bookings you've dreamed of, list your property on booking.com are you still.

[Sarah]

Quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the Now It Pays to Discover. Learn more at discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nielsen report.

[Reshma Saujani]

Hey, I'm Reshma Sajani, founder of Girls who Code and Moms first. I consider myself a pretty successful adult woman. So why is it that in midlife as I'm about to turn 50, I feel so stuck? Join me as I try to find the answer on my so called midlife. From LEM Media, I talk to experts and extraordinary guests about divorce, exercise, menopause, sex, drugs and more to understand what we're going through and how to make the most of it. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Duchovny]

You say in the introduction, I've always been fascinated with how powerful people wield power, how charismatic people create charisma. That's an interesting line. How talented people nurture or squander their talent. As a Shakespeare fan, I'm endlessly intrigued by the high and mighty self destructing and by those who topple from great heights and somehow soar back. Phoenix, like so you're talking about failure and resilience there. Really?

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah. When you were at the White Hot center, like Maggie the cat on the Hot Tin Roof, you know, how do you handle that? Do you use your power for good or for evil? Do you, you know, do you make your life better or do you stumble because the power is too intense? Like it's in politics too. When I first saw Barack Obama, I thought, okay, this guy's burning through the screen. It was like seeing a movie star. And, you know, I went on the road with him for a year because I knew this was going to be an amazing story. And he used that power that he had to have this amazing. It was the young prince usurping the queen, Hillary.

[David Duchovny]

So what have you learned? What is the macro in terms of failure and resilience? But I think we began by saying, you know, that these lessons don't, can't translate from place to place or time to time. But I would think with that line about creating charisma, that's an interesting. I would like to like do a close reading of that sentence because, well.

[Maureen Dowd]

That'S a, you know, that's a Greek word.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, it is. Yeah.

[Maureen Dowd]

You know, I've always thought movie stars, there's more than movie stars in the book, you know, but there's tech lords of the cloud and singers, comedians. But with movie stars, I do think they're a little bit like Greek gods. I mean, I just think the rules don't apply. The average rules don't apply to them. They're special creatures. If you have. And especially now because in a way, social media was like the French Revolution. I was like with my New York Times column, Marie Antoinette, you know, they overthrew us. They decided they were going to be the stars. You know, why should they care about movie stars? They can be the stars on TikTok and of their own lives. So in order to be a real, you know, a star star, you have to be so much more magnetic now because everyone has decided they're the star of their own tick tock film, you know.

[David Duchovny]

Right. Well, I'll say this. When I'm watching movies or tv, I will call out, you know, who I think has it, or, you know, they call it it, Whatever.

[Maureen Dowd]

So. So, yeah. So who has it?

[David Duchovny]

Well. Well, let's just say when I was casting my first movie, House of D, and I was watching a kid show with my kids called Even Stevens, and there was a couple kid on that named Shia LaBeouf, and I went, got it. He's got it. I want that kid in my movie. I didn't eventually get him. Another kid came in an audition, he had it. I chased him out of the parking lot and made him sign the contract to be in the movie. And that was the beautiful young man, Anton Yelchin, who died tragically.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah. I loved House of D. That's such a great movie.

[David Duchovny]

Thank you. So it is just it or charisma, and it goes back to the Bible. You know, we can talk about that with David, the biblical David. He had charisma. He wasn't a great guy. He sent Bathsheba's husband to go die in war, and then he took her as his lover, and Moses did everything that God asked him to do and got a shit deal. You know, Moses brought him. He brought Moses up to Mount Pisgah. He said, hey, take a look at the promised land. You're never going to get there. You see it, right? So God himself is a movie fan. God himself reacts to charisma or not.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And I think it was also very interesting to see Obama back out on the trail this past cycle. Not as effective like his style already seemed. It was like watching, you know. Yes. Perform in 1995 after Nirvana came out, you know, I was like, no, this is not hitting the same way it did.

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, Obama is a fascinating case. This new book, you know, Trump's an offstage character, and I have Peter, Thiel and Elon at a time when he didn't like Trump, but it doesn't have politicians in it. But Obama is such a fascinating case about what we're discussing, the charisma, because he. I always thought of him as like Luke Skywalker. He had the force, but he didn't Always want to use it. And he wanted to use it less and less and less. And when you look back at his presidency, I find it hard to remember him smiling and giving that and swear, selling smile like he did it during the campaign. And when his campaign was in trouble with Reverend Wright, he gave that amazing speech I went to in Philadelphia, where he talked about the world from the point of view of his white grandmother in Hawaii and his black father. And he was able to give us both sides of that. And if he had been able to beat that guy and explain globalization and all the other forces that were scaring the working class, instead it was just like, just get on the bandwagon. You can't fight it. You know, he never use that gift. And I think he stopped using his gift of charisma. You know, I spent a lot of time investigating this. And when he was at Occidental College, he made a speech and everyone went crazy. And he was sort of disdainful of easy emotion. And he decided that he didn't like being able to summon that easy emotion in people. And that's why he disdained, like, sound bites. He did poorly in the debates because he wouldn't accept. It was a joust. And you had to have a good line. You know, he was disdainful. So he kept that pretty much under wraps in 2007, 2008. But then when he got to be president, it turned out he didn't like politics. And Michelle, who was also an excellent politician, hated politics. So it was frustrating because the art of politics is persuading people to do what they don't want to do. That is the business we're in here in Washington. And he did not want to do that. And he couldn't pass a gun control bill because there were five guys that he had to persuade or give something to, and he refused. He wanted to state his position. It was the right position.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Maureen Dowd]

And people should just come along.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it's kind of not how human nature works.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yes, exactly. Human nature.

[David Duchovny]

It's. To go back to literary matters, it's like Faustus. You have. You can have this power, but there's a fear that if you exercise it in this. This passion, this unreason that you can control with your charisma, that. That you. That it's morally wrong in some way. Just a couple of other things I wanted to ask before I let you go. Thank you for giving me so much time. The. The essays in this book are. They range from. I think it's 1991, maybe the oldest one. Or 1989 even. I mean, they're. They're from quite a while ago, some of them.

[Maureen Dowd]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

And in a way, you know, and I've gone through this, like, X Files reboots, you know, in a way, like, this is. This is a. The journalistic equivalent of a reboot. And the question is, like, what's. Why. Why. What's the reason to do this now? And I think when I, as a reader, I can read Shakespeare every five years, and it's a different thing. And I wonder if. I wonder if you happened at Columbia.

[Maureen Dowd]

It's like a different thing.

[David Duchovny]

So I wonder if you have that sense of, like, okay, maybe these are old articles or whatever. Maybe you're not interested in that time. But. But to read it now, these are still people in play, some of them. To read it now, does it read differently? Is that kind of the idea?

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, that's interesting, because I was worried about that. And Al Pacino has a memoir out, and they put together some of Paul Newman's diaries into a memoir. And you do learn things when they write about themselves that I couldn't get as a reporter, meeting them once. But I. I did get things that they don't have. You know, like Paul Newman. I grew up with a picture of him in his tight white T shirt on my wall. I thought he was my ultimate, you know, Hollywood heartthrob. And then when I interviewed him, I was dumbfounded to find out he wasn't sexy. But he wasn't sexy because he had this lifelong struggle with being cast as a sex symbol, and he really didn't like it. And he felt it consumed his life in a way he didn't like. And when you spend time with him, you could see that because he didn't have any vibes. He had shut down all vibes going out. I went out with his racing team, and we were in Wisconsin, and we were at the hotel, and we were sitting in the bar after the race, and women were, like, lining the balcony and the bar. Like, it was like Alfred Hitchcock's the Birds. There were just more and more coming, and it was getting kind of threatening. And then this one woman came over and pulled out a chair and sat next. Next to him and said, hi, Paul, how's your day going? Or something. And he just looked at her like she just joined us as though she were part of the, you know, drink. And he just looked at us and he said, I'm. I'm going to go to my room. I mean, so he had to withdraw. He knew how to turn it on. Like he wanted to bring a six pack of beer onto the plane. And the flight attendant said, you're not allowed to do that. And he took down his sunglasses and looked at her, and she goes, you're allowed to do that.

[David Duchovny]

Well, you have to use your power for the. For the good things, you know.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, yeah, use your power.

[David Duchovny]

But. But I think what you're talking about is very interesting because it's very similar to the way we've just been. You've been talking about Obama, you know.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yes.

[David Duchovny]

That he had this.

[Maureen Dowd]

But in his power, it wasn't that. Isn't he sort of. I think it's more like what you were saying about Faust. He made an intellectual decision that he was. Was able to summon emotion in people too easily, and that that was something.

[David Duchovny]

He disdained or morally wrong in some way.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yes. I love that formulation. Yes.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I'm thinking now about Newman and Obama in the sense of, you know, and. And charisma, where it's almost like the deal becomes, okay, you love me for this thing that I have no control over, really. It's just something that arose in me over time. But I want to be loved or I want to have effect or effect in the way that I want to control in a way, in a different realm. You know, say Newman wanted to be known as a great actor and not, you know, a sex symbol or whatever. And Obama wanted to reason you into agreeing with him rather than passionately persuade you into it. And I think that's something that we see a lot or something. I think that you kind of get to a lot in your profiles, you know, this kind of. You're talking to people who are beloved in some way, and you're asking them, how would you rather. How would you rather be loved, you know, than the way that you are?

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah. And in the Kevin Costner one, you know, it's just. You're hitting them at a certain. I was hitting Kevin Costner at the moment. Moment where he was famous, but he was starting to be criticized. He was in jfk, and there was a lot of controversy about that. You know, he played the district attorney, and then he was in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. And there was a lot of criticism about his. Now you see it, now you don't. English accent.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Maureen Dowd]

And he did not. Not like that phase of his career where he was the top Hollywood honk. But he was getting criticized, and he was just in a very surly mood, not only to me, but we were in New Orleans walking to the interview and he. These very sweet senior ladies asked if. If they could take a picture with him at a red light. He wasn't going anywhere, and he just started yelling at them. Couldn't they see he was in an interview? You know, it was like watching someone kick kittens.

[David Duchovny]

But on the other hand, were you also thinking at some point, wow, he's really not performing Kevin Costner for me, He's.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yes. And you only have to do it for an hour, you know. Yeah, but that's what's so interesting. That's what. That's why when I went back and read these pieces, they did not seem old or out of date to me because it's a portrait of someone. They say life is a series of snapshots, but it's a portrait of someone at a certain moment. And most of these stars are at their height or they're about to go into kind of a different phase of their career. Two of these things. When I interviewed Al Pacino and Paul Newman, they had never gotten an Oscar, and then they got Oscars for the movies that I was writing about. So I feel like that's a good luck thing if anyone wants to give me an interview.

[David Duchovny]

And also, you have. You have Musk in a kind of almost an innocent Elon Musk in yours. And I wonder.

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah, so. And that's. That's what's so interesting, because we're never going back to this Elon Musk, you know, the one I captured. It's not even that he's so different, but his priorities were different because he was focused on the existential threat of AI he was trying to find a kill switch for AI so that if it got smarter than us, which it's going to do very soon, you know, and starts improving itself and makes us the family pet.

[David Duchovny]

Can I bring it back to what we've been talking about? Just because what you said just struck me as like, our relationship to AI is very much the relationship we've been talking about with Obama and Newman with respect to their charisma. You know, it's like AI is our charisma. It's our magic power. It's going to be. And we have to start discussing it in terms of morality, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, and not just because we can do it. Do we do it?

[Maureen Dowd]

Yeah. You know, Peter Thiel has. There's a piece on him in the book, and he has an interesting line that made me think of you. He said, when AI gets consciousness, it will be like extraterrestrials. Landing on Earth, it will be like that. It will be like this whole other species among us. And then things are going to start moving so fast that unless we have some prior planning, it'll be too late. It probably already is too late. Because now the lords of the cloud have taken over Washington and gotten rid of all the watch. Watchdogs. The little Doge boys are getting rid of all the watchdog groups and inspectors, and, you know, they're just dismantling the things that would have. So regulation on AI is not even being discussed anymore in Washington. I mean, it never was really, but. So I captured Elon at this moment where he wanted to be an advocate for humanity. And now Elon is busy. He himself has turned into an existential threat to government in Washington. So he isn't paying attention. So no one's paying attention. So in a year now, you know, this. Aliens are landing among us, and there's no one anymore who's looking out for us. Us. Let's end on a positive.

[David Duchovny]

Okay, I do.

[Maureen Dowd]

Destruction of humanity.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Yeah, we could end on that, but I'd rather end on, like, what's. What's the ambition at this point now, you know, to. To be at this place in your career? Is there a book in your.

[Maureen Dowd]

Maybe I can go for that Ph.D. well, my.

[David Duchovny]

My mom, who has passed, would be very proud of you if you did. I. She. She had dementia the last six, seven, eight years of her life, and every time I saw her, she would ask me if I was going to finish my PhD. But for you. Do you have an ambition to write the story of you going back to graduate school, to write the story of you confronting literature again after all these years and all the things that would bring up in you, which would bring in up your early life, probably your Catholicism as well? Because that's what going back to school does. It makes you young again in that way, and you get to confront these things that you confronted as a young person from the place you are now. And I wonder if you think there's a book in that or is it just the PhD?

[Maureen Dowd]

I don't know. You know, one time, many years ago, I told my mom that one of my fellow columnists was writing a memoir. And she thought about it and she goes, of whom, I think that put the fear of God into me about not being vain enough to write a memoir.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I think your. Your mom is right, but she's wrong about you. Because I think you are a character, and I think you are a character in your pieces as well. And I think people are interested in you not only as a writer, but also as a figure and I think as what I got back to earlier, just speaking about whatever your style is, how much of it is intentional, I think, and how much of it has just grown over the years or I think people are interested in that. So I think that there is a story that would be interesting in a memoir, but.

[Maureen Dowd]

Well, David, you're my guiding light. You are the one that caught me to get my master's degree, so I'm gonna listen to any advice you have from me.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I will just speak to you as my mom might, and I'd say go get that PhD. All right. Thank you so much and I'll be in touch. I hope we stay in touch. Thank you.

[Unknown]

There was one quote from Hunter Thompson that I had wanted to run by Maureen that I didn't get to this 100 Thompson was having trouble with Jan Winner at Rolling Stone, and he said, I think Jan Winner should be ashamed because Rolling Stone is not more of a weapon than a tool. And I wonder about journalism these days. You know, it's a time when I think journalism needs to be a weapon. Hunter Thompson was, of course, talking about the Nixon years rather than a tool, something that I think all journalists are thinking about right now. Also was very moved by her discussion of how she did not have the balls or the toughness to go knock on doors of, you know, parents that might have lost a child in search of a story and that she had to steal herself, toughen herself up in order to become the journalist that she is. But there was that initial failure of nerve that she overcame. Very instructive.

[David Duchovny]

Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You'll get bonus content like my thoughts on conversations with guests including Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or for all apps, other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That's lemonadapremium.com Failbetter is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kupinski and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowland and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on on Amazon Music with your prime membership. This episode of Fail Better is brought to you by Booking.com Want to list your property as a vacation rental? Booking.com is the way to go. As one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world, it's the place to list if you want to maximize outcomes. You can reach new markets, earn more with consistent bookings, and turn hosting into a steady income. And that's because over the past 25 years, Booking.com has helped more than 1.8 billion. That's billion with a B vacation rental Guests find a place to stay. Sounds like it's time to let them find yours. Booking.com doesn't just give you access to a big pool of amazing guests. They also make it easy to run a growing business. You can chat with guests, accept or decline bookings, and have total control over your property's calendar and finances. It's hosting on your terms, and I think that's pretty cool. If you're thinking about giving hosting a go, head over to booking.com to get started. In just a few easy steps, you can register your property in less than 15 minutes, and nearly half of partners get their first booking within one week. Unique. Plus, if your rental is already listed on another site, booking.com lets you easily import your property info. With booking.com the reach is global, the bookings are consistent, and the control is yours. For the bookings you've dreamed of, list your property on booking.com guess what?

[Sarah]

Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard right, 99%. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts you're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com credit card.