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- [00:00]
Tanya Moseley
This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics presenting the Penguin Lessons, a new comedy starring Steve Coogan as a teacher whose life is upended after he rescues a penguin from an oil slicked beach. Starts Friday only in theaters.
- [00:15]
Amanda Knox
This is FRESH air. I'm Tanya Moseley, and today my guest is Amanda Knox.
- [00:20]
Narrator
American Amanda Knox entered an Italian courtroom.
- [00:23]
Amanda Knox
Convicted of a horrid crime in a foreign land, sentenced to 26 years for killing her roommate, her pleas for innocence seemed more cold and calculating than remorse.
- [00:32]
Narrator
Amanda's MySpace nickname, Foxy Knoxy, dubbing her.
- [00:37]
Amanda Knox
The angel face with the icy blue eyes. Knox was catapulted into global infamy after being convicted and later acquitted for the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher. She's become a symbol, though few still to this day can agree on what she represents. To some, she was an innocent woman unjustly imprisoned, a cautionary tale of a young student who became trapped by Italy's legal system. To others, she was a tabloid fascination, her every expression scrutinized and reinterpreted. In the years since her exoneration and return to the United States, Knox has worked to reclaim her narrative. In her first book, waiting to Be Heard, she focused on the details of her conviction. Her latest memoir, my Search for Meaning, goes beyond the events of her trial and imprisonment and explores the realities of reintegrating into society and rebuilding a life. Wrongful convictions have become part of Knox's life's work. She sits on the board of directors of the Innocence Center, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to freeing innocent people from prison. Yet she grapples with a question that continually follows her how dare she live when Meredith is dead? Amanda Knox, welcome to FRESH air.
- [01:57]
Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:59]
Amanda, you wrote your first memoir, Waiting to be Heard. I think it was a year after you were released from prison and you write that you thought it would be enough to set the record straight. Why hasn't it been enough?
- [02:12]
Oof. I think because the record is so convoluted. I think that so many different stories arose around this case and really a product was delivered by the prosecution and the media that that resonated with people even though it wasn't based on anything and it wasn't true. And that product really was this idea that women hate other women. It really came down to that. This idea that young women secretly hate each other and are constantly competing with each other and in certain situations will sexually assault and murder each other. And it was a lie. And it was. And it was. It's shocking to me that it wasn't seen for what it was at the time, but it was a story that resonated with people and I think continues to resonate with people. And I think that in a big way, it wasn't even about Meredith anymore. I think a lot of people really didn't care very much about her or the person who committed the crime. They cared about this idea of a young woman hating another woman enough to sexually assault and murder them. That was titillating and fascinating to people, and that was ultimately the story that made the rounds of the world and resonated with so many people.
- [03:30]
You and Meredith didn't know each other very well, did you? You all were brought together in Perugia through a study abroad program. What was your friendship like?
- [03:39]
Oh, thank you for asking that. It's true that I didn't know Meredith very well. I had only known her for a few weeks. That said, when you study abroad, you get to know people really quickly because you're both. Both of us were new arrivals to Perugia. We were both at the very same moment of our lives. You know, I was 20, she was 21. She was studying journalism. I was studying languages. And we both happened to rent a room in this beautiful little house overlooking the countryside. And it was perfect. It was that beautiful time of your life when everything is possible and you have every reason to expect to have beautiful experiences. And you. You know, I feel so horrible about how she has been misrepresented in the media as well. Like, the image of Meredith that was presented by the prosecution was of this, like, uptight, judgmental, you know, English girl. And that was not at all who she was. She was, you know, sure, she was a little bit more introverted than me, but she was very kind and very silly. And I remember thinking both that she was very sophisticated and elegant. And I think part of that was because she had a beautiful British accent, and I always was impressed by that. But other than that, like, she also kind of took care of me. Like, she was always asking me if I was getting home safe or who I was going out with, and just checking in on me and had this very big sisterly air. Like, one thing that haunts me to this day is we found this really cool little vintage shop, and she found this sparkly silver dress that she was very excited she bought because she wanted to wear back home for New Year Year's Eve. And of course, she never got to wear that dress. And it just haunts me to this day. Like, I was right there with her, she was so excited. And I don't even know what happened to it, you know, like so much of our lives, like in a big way, two very young women went to Perugia and one of them didn't get to go home. And one of them came home completely and utterly changed. And it's a grieving process for me, for both of us.
- [05:52]
Yeah. I mean, there, there is that sentiment out there that because Meredith is the one who lost her life, maybe you don't have the right, at least publicly anyway, to mourn your own experience. And I was wondering, have you or do you or did you ever struggle with that feeling yourself?
- [06:11]
I did, yeah. I think I've struggled both with survivor's guilt as well as with. Someone just pointed this out to me. It's like survivor's guilt by proxy, where other people are sort of enforcing survivor's guilt onto me. And I understand where it's coming from. Right. Like so many people only know me in the context of her murder and in particular through this very negative lens in the context of her murder. And so because they don't imagine me in the fullness of my human being, they sort of anything that I do, whether purposefully, publicly or not purposefully, publicly, like when I got married, I in no way intended for that to be a public event. I went out of my way to make it very, very private and to be very, very secretive and paparazzi showed up anyway. And then of course, I get the messages from people saying, you know, who will never get to get married, Meredith. And I just have that thrown in my face constantly, as if my life doesn't matter because she lost hers. And I think that that's because they're not capable of imagining me as a.
- [07:26]
Real human being to refresh people's memories. You were a 20 year old college student studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, when you and your then boyfri, Raffaele Sollecito, whom you'd known for a week before Meredith Kercher's murder, you both were accused and later tried and convicted, and the both of you all spent four years in an Italian prison before being acquitted on appeal in 2011. And then two years later, both of you were retried and then definitively acquitted in 2015. And right now you're still fighting a slander case, which we'll get to a little bit later. But you wanted to reach out to the prosecutor in this case. You all became pen pals more or less, and ultimately met this man, was instrumental in spreading the false narrative about you and was ultimately instrumental in your conviction. How did it come to be and why was it important for you to connect with him, to convince him of your innocence?
- [08:28]
I guess for me, for a long time he was the boogeyman, right? Like he was the big scary man who was making decisions to ruin my life. And I was scared of him. I didn't understand him. I also was constantly asking myself, I think that the question that haunted me most, that I was attempting to discover the answer to, was why? Just simply why. Like I've had I don't know how many panic attacks because I was plagued by this, not understanding why this thing had happened to me. And it wasn't. I knew that it wasn't an easy answer, right? Like it wasn't just an evil man sitting in his prosecutor's office, you know, putting his fingers together like Mr. Burns and chuckling about how he was putting an innocent girl in prison. That was not what was happening. I knew that to be true, or at least I assumed that to be true because I tend to think that most people are not psychopaths. And I didn't think that he was a psychopath. And it didn't explain even why so many people believed him. And so there had to be something more to it, it had to be more complicated. But I couldn't figure it out. Like I couldn't understand how this man looked at a 20 year old girl with no history of violence, no history of criminality, no motive to commit this crime and said that's the person who's responsible for sexual assault and murder. Like that woman is responsible for a man's crime. And I couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't understand why this had happened to me. And so I spent years thinking about it and trying to understand it until I realized that I could just frickin ask. I could just ask.
- [10:20]
You wrote him.
- [10:22]
I wrote him. And you know what? So many people advised me not to. Like, including your family, including my family, including everyone in the innocence movement. They were all saying it's a waste of time. Prosecutors never apologize. They never realize that they were wrong. It's a waste of time. He's never going to admit fault. He's never going to. I think the thing that they were afraid of was that I was looking to this person for my well being. I was. I needed this person to be okay and they didn't want me to need him to do something to be okay.
- [10:53]
There was a chance that you wouldn't get it right.
- [10:55]
Exactly. And so they were afraid that I was in some kind of. Of Stockholm syndrome situation. But. And in a way, for a little bit there, I think I was like, I originally reached out to him thinking, I want to understand him. I want to know who this man is. I know he's not really a boogeyman, so who is this man? But also, if he could only see who I really am, maybe he would realize that he was wrong. And if he realizes that he's wrong, maybe he'll tell other people that he was wrong, and then my life will be much better.
- [11:26]
Amanda, what kind of things that you write to him to try to show improve your humanity?
- [11:32]
The thing that I tried to do was imagine what Giuliano and I could.
- [11:39]
Agree on, because that's his name, by the way.
- [11:42]
Yes, sorry, his name is Giuliano. Giuliano Mignini. But at the time, he was Dottor Mignini, Dr. Mignini. And I reached out to him and I told him that I wanted to know him outside of this adversarial system where we were pitted against each other from the very beginning. And my step one was find common ground. What could he and I have in common? And at first he was resistant. At first he didn't know whether or not it was even legal for him to talk to me. Like, he's still a working prosecutor, has no idea. It's unprecedented for a defendant to reach out to a prosecutor. And it wasn't until I did a very public talk in Italy, acknowledging that he was someone who had genuine noble intentions in his prosecution of me, even if he was wrong, that he responded to me. And immediately, I think he was immediately just kind of shocked and impressed that I was willing to see him as a human being, which, I don't know, it just goes to show what kind of echo chamber that he was living in. Again, like he's lived his entire life being fighting people and being very adversarial. And so someone approached him in this very non adversarial way, someone like me, who had every reason to hate him and to fear him. And he was moved by that and almost immediately moved. We ended up corresponding for two years about everything under the sun, the case, but also our lives.
- [13:25]
Has he ever said he was sorry?
- [13:31]
He has admitted that he could have been wrong. He has admitted to me that I am not the person that he thought he was prosecuting, that if someone were to ask him to prosecute this case again today, he would not because he knows that I am not capable of committing such a crime. But at the same time, he really maintains that at the time that he was trying the case, he truly believed what he was prosecuting. He truly believed the story that he was spinning. And I believe him that he truly believed it.
- [14:13]
Amanda, you have learned, as you've been talking about over the years through your criminal justice reform work, a lot of things about the system, but also just how common your interrogation experience is and was you spent more than 50 hours in a room questioned in Italian. Those who have never experienced interrogation, I mean, will likely never quite understand it, how one can actually say things that they didn't do or accuse others of things while under interrogation. But can you describe what it was like for you?
- [14:48]
Absolutely. First of all, it was the worst experience of my life. Worse than being convicted was being in that interrogation room. Because I had never been. I had never been brought to the brink of my own sanity like that before, and never again to this day. I was questioned for hours and hours and hours into the night so that I was sleep deprived. Some of it was just what you would generally call bullying. Someone contradicts you, someone talks over you, they yell at you. I got slapped. Like, there was general, just, like, abuse and overpowering that was happening.
- [15:33]
And was this all in Italian? Were you all speaking all in Italian? And how good would you describe your Italian at that time?
- [15:41]
I did not speak fluent Italian. No. I was very elementary level. I certainly could not defend myself an interrogation. And I think part of the problem was also that I wasn't sure if they were mad at me or were not understanding me because I was not speaking fluent Italian or because they were, in fact, suspecting me. Like, I could not interpret what was happening to me. I'd never even been in a situation where I had been in trouble before. Like, I'd never had to sit down with the principal and talk about being in trouble like that. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. So I was very much in a very new experience after, in the immediacy of discovering that my roommate had been murdered. So I was in a state of shock already. And I'm in a room with authority figures who I'm relying on for my safety and who I'd been raised to trust and obey. And they are yelling at me. They are contradicting me. They're telling me that what I'm saying doesn't make any sense. They're telling me that I'm lying. But then on top of that. So these are all, you know, these bullying tactics are very effective at getting people to falsely confess. But on top of that, they lied to me.
- [17:03]
What was the biggest and most egregious lie?
- [17:05]
The biggest and most egregious lie was that they knew that I was present when the crime occurred. They knew?
- [17:13]
That's what they told you?
- [17:14]
That. Yes. They told me that they had incontrovertible proof that I was present at my house when the crime occurred, that I had witnessed the crime. And that was incredibly destabilizing for me because that was not what I remembered. Like I was at my boyfriend's house the entire night. I kept insisting, that can't be true, that can't be true. But they insisted that it was true and they knew for sure. And so the next lie on top of that was that because I was present and that I had witnessed this crime, I had trauma induced amnesia. They insisted that my brain didn't remember the truth precisely because I had witnessed to the crime and therefore was traumatized and my brain had been making up an alternate reality that I thought I was remembering staying at my boyfriend's house when in fact I was at my house when the crime occurred.
- [18:11]
And you believed it? You started to believe that?
- [18:14]
I started to believe it because after hours of insisting upon my innocence and that wasn't true and that I wasn't lying, I started to question myself. Like I was so again, like I was suggestible in that moment because I had just been like, there's only so long you can argue with authority figures before you. At least for me, I started to question myself. It's classic gaslighting. They found a text message on my phone that I had sent to my boss, Patrick Lumumba, the night of the murder. He had told me that I didn't need to come in for work at the pub. I had texted him back, sure, have a good night. See you later. And the police interpreted my text message to him as me making an appointment to see him the night of the murder. They were convinced that they had me dead to rights, that I had let this man Patrick into my house and that he was the murderer and that I was covering for him. And then after hours of berating me and telling me that this was true, I started to question myself and give. Given what they were suggesting to me. I tried to piece together an idea in my mind of what could have happened that night. And what ultimately came out was an incoherent sort of patchwork of images of like, me meeting my boss Patrick outside the basketball court and me being in the kitchen. And I never, like, told them that I witnessed him doing anything like I could not imagine it. My brain could not bring myself to do it. But it was enough. Just that was enough for them to say, okay, we're going to arrest him.
- [20:00]
Our guest today is Amanda Knox. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley and this is FRESH air.
- [20:08]
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- [20:44]
Amanda Knox
Amanda, the slander charge that you're currently fighting actually stems from your false accusation during your interrogation against Lumumba that he was somehow involved in it. He was arrested but then released. But your defense has maintained that you were coerced, as you are telling us now. Just this past January, Italy's highest court upheld that slander conviction. Is this something that you're going to keep fighting?
- [21:12]
Yes. If there is a legal avenue for proving my innocence, I will pursue it. It was not my decision to go arrest Patrick Lumumba. He was arrested in the middle of the night by police based on a crazy, incoherent statement. He was kept in prison despite the fact that he had an ironclad alibi that came out immediately. Even after he was released, the police held his pub. They closed his pub down as part of the investigation, even though it had nothing to do with the murder and it caused him to incur incredible financial losses. So he had to sell his home in Perugia to pay for those losses. And on top of all of that, there was the psychological trauma of being, like, ripped from his family's arms in the middle of the night, which harkened back to a trauma that he had had in childhood where his father was kidnapped in the middle of the night and he never saw his father again. So, like trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma. This man has been through hell.
- [22:09]
Have you all ever spoken?
- [22:12]
You know, we actually spoke recently. I had never really had a chance to speak to him directly for years and years and years. He reached out to my attorney and said that he wanted to talk to me because he was writing a book. And I sent him an email just explaining to him, like, you know, Patrick, here's what really happened, and I in no way intended to falsely accuse you. If anything, I was brainwashed, and I immediately retracted my statements. And I was so sorry, and I'm so sorry for everything that he had been through, but I really did not mean to do any of that. And I tried to and take it back as soon as I possibly could, within hours, and he just wasn't interested. He wasn't interested in hearing it. He wasn't interested in talking about it. He just wanted me to pay him money. And I think that I'm disappointed by that. I mean, he had the same experience of being arrested and mistreated by the police. And I don't think police should be allowed to lie to people and create false realities around them, because it is when you distort reality around them that someone starts to question their own sanity and they are made accomplices to police misconduct.
- [23:33]
Amanda, I want to talk a little bit about your time in prison, because you talk quite extensively or you write quite extensively about it in great detail, including you're a celebrity in there. I mean, there were women in.
- [23:47]
That's a word.
- [23:48]
Well, I mean, just the reality of it was you were getting letters and gifts, and others were not getting those things. You also were educated. You were a college student. How did you end up using that to survive in prison? But also, I mean, it sounded like you were also making yourself abuse.
- [24:09]
After my conviction, I really settled into this idea that this was my world. It was a very small world. It was very contained, it was very controlled, and it was populated by all of these women, by comparison to me, were very unlucky. They were abused, they were neglected, they were impoverished. I think I was the only person there who had all of my teeth. The level of need and poverty that I encountered in that environment stunned me. I did not know that there were people who could not read an analog clock or that didn't know that the earth was a sphere. And these were the people that were my community. And I was also the famous one. I was the one who was getting constant letters. So many of these women were just forgotten by everyone, including their own families. And so I looked at them, and I thought, God, I am so lucky. And. And one way, you know, a very important way to survive prison is to be useful because it's an environment where there's a lot of need and not a lot of resources. And I realized very quickly that I wasespecially after a year in prison, and by that time, I was fluent in Italian I was able to function as a translator. So lots of the women that were imprisoned were not Italian, were not fluent in Italian, had no idea what anyone.
- [25:45]
Was telling them, where were they coming from? Were they from nearby countries or United States or what?
- [25:52]
A lot of people from various African nations, also Eastern Europe. But, you know, there was a couple Chinese women that were in there at one point, and I was translating for them by like taking. I just happened to have this English to Chinese dictionary because I'm a language nerd. Because there were no translators. There were no translators in the prison. So I ended up being the unofficial translator for everyone and every language. And then. And the other thing that became my sort of unofficial job was scribe. Everyone really thought that my handwriting was very beautiful. And when you are someone who is in prison, especially if you're feeling lonely and are looking for some attention from some male counterpart, wherever he may be, you wanted to appear pretty to them. And the way that you could appear pretty is by having pretty handwriting.
- [26:45]
Did you write their letters to kids?
- [26:47]
I would write their letters, yeah. Their little love letters. Sometimes they got a little frisky with the love let. They would just dictate to me and I would write down. But sometimes they would say, but Amanda, you're better at saying this than us. Say this in like a really sexy way. And I was like, no, I'm just. You dictate, I write.
- [27:04]
You know, this makes me think about. I mean, I mean, when you arrived In Italy, you're 20 years old, you're just coming into your femininity, your sexuality, who you are as a woman, you and Raphael's relationship. You know, you had just gotten together a week prior and. And you have all of these labels put on you on who you are as a sexual being. I thought it was really, really interesting that you talked about how you came fully into your self awareness of your body and your sexuality in prison.
- [27:37]
Yes. I'm so glad you brought it up because it is a very human thing to have a sexual identity, to have an intimate identity. And I was being vilified and punished this perceived sexuality. And so I absolutely was in conflict with my own sexuality. Also, like you bring up, Rafaele and Raffaele is a deeply romantic person at heart. Like, we hit it off immediately, in part because he was a nerd, and I love a good nerd, but also because he was just so sweet and romantic with me from the get go and. And even while we were surviving this insane struggle together, he was ready to continue to pursue a romance with me. Even while we were in prison and on trial. And because I was being so punished for my sexual identity, I I resisted it and I broke it off with him in prison because, in part, I was feeling like the reason I was even in there was because I was a sexually active young woman. And then over the years, I first of all realized that my life might be spent a great portion of it inside these prison walls and that an intimate life, a sexual life, was a part of being human. It wasn't something to be ashamed of. It wasn't something to repress. It was just one of the things that makes life worth living.
- [29:33]
Let's take a short break. Amanda. If you're just joining us, my guest is Amanda Knox. She's written a new memoir titled Free My Search For Meaning. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.
- [29:46]
Tanya Moseley
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- [30:14]
Amanda Knox
Today you write in the book about your life as a child growing up in the Pacific Northwest and the Seattle area, roaming free in the wilderness and being in the woods exploring. You're just kind of like a it sounds like an outdoor kid. You know, you just like to explore. And the confines of prison, of course, is the opposite of that. What is your relationship to space now outside of of prison?
- [30:40]
That is one of the sort of unresolved. I should probably go to therapy for this kind of thing. I'm very claustrophobic. I've actually always been claustrophobic. So that ended up becoming even more aggravated in prison. But at the same time, at the same time, it was almost like an exposure therapy because your perspective of your space makes all the difference. So if I was literally sitting in my jail cell, I had options. I could stare at the barred door or, you know, there were two doors to our cell. One of them was a barred door, but even worse was the solid steel door that was closed at nighttime. So it was just like this solid metal door that I could not open. There wasn't even a handle. There was no way that I could open that door if I looked at that door, I would lose my mind. So instead, I looked out my window, and yes, there are bars on my window, but beyond those bars was a hilltop with a bell tower. There were fields that if you looked close enough, you could see bunnies scampering across it. And just the ability to pivot and change the perspective of, like, change the frame of what you are focusing on. It didn't mean that door was not there. It meant that it wasn't the only thing that was there. I've tried to take that, like, framing idea with me outside of the prison environment, because, you know, even when I came home and I found myself in my childhood bedroom in a way that I was in another prison cell because I could, you know, look out of my window when I was in prison. I couldn't even do that when I first came home because there were paparazzi standing outside, like, right outside of my house, pointing their cameras at my windows. And so we had to have all of the windows closed and I. And, like, shuttered and draped. And I remember feeling really claustrophobic, like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I thought I was going to come out of prison. And now I'm even. I'm feeling even more trapped. I can't leave my house. I can't leave my room. I can't open the windows. I can't. I can't. Like, I was struggling with panic attacks.
- [32:50]
And I'm also thinking about just even being in your childhood room after four years, you know, many, many years of dealing with something and becoming a whole different person. One of the things you do in is you sort of break yourself up into different people. It's like the Amanda before you arrived in Italy, the woman that I think you call foxy Noxy, like your doppelganger. Not even you. And then the woman that you were post. Once you came home, was that ever a struggle with interacting with your family? Because the person that they knew when you left was a person that was different when you came home.
- [33:31]
Yeah, absolutely. I think all of my family was really. Was fighting to get Amanda home again. Right. Like, they had given up so much of their lives and upended everything. Everything came about saving Amanda. And I think there was a level of disappointment when they realized that, yes, they had gotten Amanda out of prison, but they hadn't actually saved Amanda. Because the girl who I was, who had never had anything bad happen to her, who trusted everyone and who was always optimistic and always, you know, that person died in Italy, and she had to be grieved and I don't think my family was ready for that. I wasn't ready for that. That. And I think another thing that I had to realize too was that my family was also not the same after everything that had happened because they had gone through an experience that I did not have access to. And they were changed in ways that I didn't expect. And so there were some rough, rough periods. I talk a little bit in the book about how there was this period where all of these emotions that I hadn't really allowed myself to feel in the prison environment because they were luxuries. Like, to feel anger is a luxury in prison because anger renders you vulnerable, honestly. And then finally, once I was outside, I had the luxury of not needing to protect myself as much. And then the floodgates opened and I was so angry. I was so angry. And everything made me angry. Everything was a trigger. And it was. I was a very difficult person to be around. And like, I remember having a conversation with my sister about the movie about Tonya Harding and how she was just like, ugh, I'm not gonna watch that movie. Not, you know, I don't care to learn any more about that or, you know, something like that. Like, it was just a very sort of dismiss and like, I don't know a thing about Tonya Harding. But the fact that like, she was dismissive about it just like triggered me and I was like, well, how could, like, you don't know the story of Tonya Harding. Like, how do you know? Maybe she has a legit. Like, maybe she went through something and you don't know. Like, I was just. I was seeing my experience echoed.
- [36:14]
You told us earlier that so much of you doing this work for yourself to understand what the meaning of your life means and to be free comes from being a mom. You have a three year old daughter and have you thought about her Future? Her at 18 or 20, making the decision to go out and explore the world and how you will handle that? What wisdom and lessons will you share with her?
- [36:37]
Mm. I have a three year old daughter and a one and a half year old son. Yeah, yeah, and he's a cutie. But Eureka is at that wonderful age where she wants to know everything and she wants to know why. And part of that has been, you know, my story. She wants to know about when mommy went to Italy. And I thought a lot about how I would talk to her about this story. But I've realized that, yes, I 100% believe in transparency and honesty and I should always answer my daughter's questions with age appropriate honesty and not treat this story as like this weird, taboo aspect of my life and our lives. But even more important than that, I think that children see what we do more than they listen to what we say. And I feel really confident that I can show my daughter that stuff will happen to you that is painful and out of your control and inevitable, but it doesn't define you and you can find your way through it. All of us go through something and I want her to see deep down that that is not the end and that is not all. And that in fact, that is just the beginning. And I feel so confident that I can do that for her and I can be there for her.
- [38:09]
Amanda Knox, this was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
- [38:13]
Thank you.
- [38:14]
Amanda Knox's new memoir is Free My Search for Meaning. After a short break, TV critic David Biancooli reviews the studio, a new Apple TV series co created and starring Seth Rogen. This is FRESH AIR. In a new 10 part Apple TV comedy series, Seth Rogen stars as the newly appointed head of a long running Hollywood movie studio. Last week I spoke with Rogen about the new series which is called the Studio and today our TV critic David B. And Cool offers his review. Biancooley says the more you love movies, the more you'll love this ambitious, entertaining new comedy.
- [38:54]
Narrator
The Studio is a comedy about people who make movies made by people who make and love movies with a target audience of people who also love movies. You don't need to get all the inside jokes and references or even recognize all the cameos and guest stars to enjoy this new Apple TV series. But the more you know about films like Chinatown and Goodfellas and Barbie and Birdman, the more you'll laugh. Among the five creators of the studio are Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who also serve as co directors. Rogan is in front of the camera too, as the lead character. He plays Matt Remick, a mid level executive at a century old Hollywood institution called Continental Studios. In the opening episode, Matt is pulled aside by the big boss played by Bryan Cranston, who offers him a promotion.
- [39:47]
Bryan Cranston
Patty's time has come and gone and I'm seriously considering you to replace her.
- [39:53]
Seth Rogen
Oh my God, yes. Yes, I'm the guy. I'm the guy for the job.
- [39:57]
Bryan Cranston
Why are you? Tell me that. Why are you the guy?
- [39:59]
Seth Rogen
Well, I've worked at Continental for 22 years. I bought the original specific script for MK Ultra, which as I'm sure you know, spawned a franchise that's made us over $3 billion for the.
- [40:09]
Bryan Cranston
Renee, where the. My green juice? You want a green juice?
- [40:13]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, I'd love one.
- [40:14]
Bryan Cranston
Two green juices now.
- [40:17]
Amanda Knox
Yes, sir.
- [40:18]
Bryan Cranston
Sorry. Continue.
- [40:20]
Seth Rogen
Film is my life. Ever since I came to the studio as a kid and went on the tour, being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted.
- [40:29]
Bryan Cranston
That is adorable. All right, well, listen, I honestly just have one strong reservation about you.
- [40:36]
Seth Rogen
Oh?
- [40:37]
Bryan Cranston
I've heard you are really into artsy, fartsy filmmaking, that you're obsessed with actors and directors liking you rather than being obsessed with making this studio as much money as possible.
- [40:53]
Seth Rogen
Me?
- [40:54]
Bryan Cranston
Yeah.
- [40:55]
Seth Rogen
That could not be further from the. I am as bottom line oriented as anyone in this town.
- [41:02]
Bryan Cranston
I believe you.
- [41:03]
Seth Rogen
Great. Good.
- [41:04]
Amanda Knox
Good.
- [41:05]
Bryan Cranston
Because at Continental, we don't make films. We make movies. Movies that people want to pay to see.
- [41:14]
Seth Rogen
Yes.
- [41:16]
Narrator
Once Matt takes the top job, the rest of the series has him negotiating the tricky terrain of Hollywood films. He has to try to woo or fire or control such passionate directors as Ron Howard, Olivia Wilde, and Martin Scorsese, and work with lots of temperamental or demanding talent, from Ice Cube and Greta Lee to Zac Efron and James Franco. Every episode features some delightful guest star turns and funny cameos, but also boasts some invaluable co stars. Specifically, Catherine O'Hara plays the studio head whom Matt replaces. And Matt's core team of subordinates includes Kathryn Hahn and Ike Barinholtz. They're all hilarious, and the entire season has an arc to it. Movies that are planned or being shot in the early episodes of the studio end up at the end, being honored at award shows or promoted at industry conventions. And the episodes, like the characters, move freely and fluidly through Hollywood at from streets to restaurants to hotels and even make a stop in Las Vegas. And it's the way the studio moves through these spaces and captures these performances that is the most audacious and most rewarding aspect of this outstanding new comedy series. One episode is built around the quest to film an entire extended scene in one unedited take and shows how difficult that is while making fun of it at the same time. Time. Yet all of the studio, every single frame, is shot that way in a series of lengthy extended takes captured by a single camera. If you've seen the recent Netflix drama series Adolescence, and if you haven't, you should. You know how gripping and hypnotic that style can be. Well, it works with comedy, too. And when pros like Cranston and Han and Rogan are going all out at the end of a very long uninterrupted scene. It's exhilarating to watch. In the final episode, for example, Bryan Cranston commits to physical comedy in a way he hasn't even tried since Malcolm in the Middle, and he's great. People like Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese delight in playing with their own images here. Curb your enthusiasm. Style. Seth Rogen and James Franco get to play opposite each other again a quarter century after Freaks and Geeks and obviously enjoy themselves. And the studio gets some killer comedy performances from some unexpected contributors Zoe Kravitz, for example, and Anthony Mackie. The studio owes a large debt, of course, to Robert Altman's The Player, the 1992 movie about Hollywood that Altman began with a famously long and involved unbroken tracking shot. If you're really into movies, you could also cite such films as Birdman and Whiplash, and the music on the soundtrack to the studio nods to them as well. And if you're really into tv, you might even note the surface similarities to Action, a Fox series about Hollywood exec that aired the same season as Freaks and Geeks. But the studio, with all its influences and guest stars and creative gimmicks and approaches, also manages to pull off the hardest and most important trick of all. It's a comedy series that is reliably, relentlessly laugh out loud funny.
- [44:42]
Amanda Knox
David Biancooli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the Studio, starring Seth Rogen, now streaming on Apple tv. Tomorrow on FRESH air, Syria may be on the verge of a new era of unity, or it may descend into anarchy and the outcome will affect the Middle east and the U.S. syria's transitional president founded the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, but he's now preaching inclusivity. We'll talk with Robert Worth of the Atlantic about his reporting from Syria. I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram at nprfreshair. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Annmarie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel Turner, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly CB Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Moseley.
- [45:48]
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