Terry Gross (4:02)

And Lucy Liu, welcome to FRESH air.

Lucy Liu (4:05)

What a thrill to be here.

Terry Gross (4:07)

I'm so happy to have you. And I'll tell you, I was so moved by this movie. I read that you were kind of terrified when you first read this, the script for this. And I can understand why as we talk more about it. But what was it about that script that made you say, I can't really look away from this. I have to take this on?

Lucy Liu (4:29)

I think that this story is so devastating. And I also realize that there's nothing like this in our lexicon. We don't have a story about a family, an immigrant family, struggling with cancer or even mental health. And I wanted to highlight the love in this family. I think sometimes the the title of the article or things like that, it's very clickbait and not a way to humanize this woman and her son and to really talk about what happened behind closed doors. And I know for myself there's a lot of cultural stigma and there's a lot of fear about being seen in a true light, thinking that it would be judged or I guess you'll be shunned from the community. And I think that there's something about exposing that in a positive way that might help spark conversation for not just the AANHPI community, but for so many other cultures.

Terry Gross (5:39)

You mentioned an article because I said in the introduction that this is based on a true story. And the articles you're referring to are the articles after a crime happens and this mother makes this decision that really is such a hard one without giving it away. How did you find a way to humanize her after reading about the choices that she made in the end, as she faces terminal cancer and she also sees that her son is very disturbed.

Lucy Liu (6:14)

I think understanding that she had a fragmentation in the language, I Think when she was home and she was speaking Mandarin fluently with her son, you can see that there was nuance and poetry and love and in humor and when she was outside in the world, there's a vulnerability that she has. And I think that was a really important part of understanding how she was in many ways marginalized, and also that she did not have an advocate. I think the one thing that we see is when we start the movie, you know, you see the love between these two, a parent and a child. But also we have to recognize that she's coming from a place of grief and of loss because she lost her.

Terry Gross (6:57)

Husband several years before.

Lucy Liu (6:58)

That's correct.

Terry Gross (7:00)

I want to slow down a little bit, because when you talk about language, there are two languages here. We're talking about. We're talking about the literal language. She's an immigrant, and she speaks Mandarin Chinese, and she's here in the United States as an immigrant. There's that cultural thing as well. There's that cultural language in addition to the literal language, that she's isolated.

Lucy Liu (7:22)

She's very much isolated, but she also sequesters herself as well. And I think that is because there's a lot of judgment within the community. And I think that they are not as open, oftentimes to mental health services like therapists. And I mean, the extreme of that is western medicine, taking SSRIs or whatever it is. And our suspicion, there's just. There's kind of this. Even her own friend in the movie says, you know, when. She said when. When Irene, who's the character I play, says he's. He's getting better. You know, he seems to be getting better in therapy. Her own friend says, you sound like a foreigner. You know, so there is that. When I mentioned sequestering earlier, it's because there's really. Even with a dear friend, there's that feeling of, I guess, the stigma of, well, that's not how you do it. We've got herbal medicine. We've got other ways to exorcise literally this demon out of him. Or, you know, thinking that it's not a real diagnosis, not understanding that it's a medical thing, you know, and I guess steering it away towards. Towards superstition. And there's a lot of that in our community as well.

Terry Gross (8:48)

Language, as you said, plays a big part in this story. I want to play a scene that really goes a little bit deeper into the comfort that she feels speaking her own language. And also sort of a disconnect with her son over this. So the scene that I want to play. Irene and her son Joe are having dinner together. He has gotten in trouble in school, and she's tried to help, but she doesn't know what to do. And she's asking him questions in Mandarin, but he is answering in English. And then it all explodes. Let's listen.

Zadie Smith (9:27)

I heard you there in the hallway. You were there.

Terry Gross (9:34)

I heard you, and you were trying to.

Lucy Liu (9:39)

Hey, Ursa. Meeting Mommy.

Terry Gross (9:50)

We. We hear him get up and throw the chopsticks. At that point, he can speak Mandarin. He chooses not to in that moment. What's happening in that choice for him.

Lucy Liu (10:00)

And for her, I think there's just this void between them. There's this communication where she's trying to reach out and say, you know, if there's anything going on, you have to really think about, you know, your choices. And she's trying to communicate, but it's not really connecting. And I think that oftentimes happens in families. And he's also not really taking his medication. He's throwing it away. He's starting to become more paranoid, and his way of trying to protect her.

Terry Gross (10:37)

Is.

Lucy Liu (10:39)

Really going off in a very different direction. He's becoming paranoid, and she's also becoming very paranoid. And so the two of them are trying to protect each other, but they're not really on the same wavelength.

Terry Gross (10:55)

We hear your accent there. You are speaking Chinese. You're speaking Mandarin Chinese. You spoke Mandarin until you were five years old, but you. You had a coach work with you in this film. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience as you were trying to really master the language and the importance for you to really get that tonal quality and the exactness of it?

Lucy Liu (11:21)

Yes. When I was living at home, we only spoke Chinese. So when I went to public school, I was under the age of five and really got dropped in to the immersion of public school and just trying to understand what was going on. And we're also very insular in our home, so we never really, you know, did anything except for maybe hang out in the alleyway, you know, in Queens and played or was just at home really, at that age. So understanding the struggle of, I guess, the fragmentation of not fully understanding. I mean, I went to school, I continued to go to school, but I really didn't have a grasp of, I guess, the bigger picture of what was happening and how everything was happening. And so when this project came up, it was really vital to make this authenticity sing. And I worked with this wonderful coach, Doug Honoroff, who's just a master at all different kinds of languages. And he really understood the nuance. And we went into the dialogue and we dissected the language and made sure that it was conversational when it was in Chinese. And also made the English very. I don't want to say stilted, but very clear, because I think when somebody speaks a different language, it's much more direct. There's not this nuance, let's say, of us, you know, going back and forth. It's more direct. So when it's. It's more direct, I think there's a vulnerability that shows. And that was something that I thought was very important to bring that humanity to Irene, to show that she was not able to really express herself fully when she was outside the home and also to, I guess, receive information from the therapist or from her own doctor when she was outside the. And I think that feeling of those gaps were really important to show how porous she was and how vulnerable she was.

Terry Gross (13:32)

What was it like speaking Mandarin for the first time in a movie? That extra component there, after not speaking it for so long?

Lucy Liu (13:41)

There's such a tenderness that you feel. I felt such a great depth of tenderness. And it just reminded me so much of, you know, the community and just the beautiful poetry of Mandarin and how some words just cannot be expressed in English.

Terry Gross (14:01)

Were there people that you patterned or you thought about as you were embodying Irene? Because you do transform in this film. And I feel like I'm getting a sense of a person. I mean, you don't seem like Lucy Liu, like I'm watching Irene. And Irene is an immigrant that is here and is experiencing all of these things. Your parents.

Lucy Liu (14:23)

Absolutely. I think that for me, I really had grown up in that environment of seeing my aunties or my mother or my parents and just living in that world of going to Chinatown, going to Flushing, you know, very immersed in that community and understanding, you know, that that's. This was just what it was and how it looked and how it felt. And I think what I really brought to, I guess, to Irene was not so much my parents as much as it was myself as a child, watching my parents. And it's a very different thing to see how my parents were at home or in Chinatown or in Flushing, and then how they were outside of that.

Terry Gross (15:12)

How would you describe it?

Lucy Liu (15:13)

I think it's as a child, when you are the one to advocate for your parents and to translate for your parents, when you become more fluid with the language, even though you don't have the experience to understand exactly what you're Translating it really changes the dynamic of yourself and your parents. So you become the parents in that situation, even though they're the ones who have the authority. So there's a very strange dynamic that occurs. And I think that a lot of people that are children of immigrants have experienced that too. And that's something that I wanted to imbue in Irene, that she was still very childlike when she was outside of her home and outside of her community.

Terry Gross (16:03)

You use this word vulnerability when you talk about the language in particular. And so I can't help but think about 5 year old Lucy stepping into the classroom for the first time. You only speak Mandarin and so everyone around you is speaking English. Do you remember when those pieces of yourself you had to let go, when English then became a day to day practice for you? And maybe what that was like? I mean, that's such a, such a moment of having to grow up at such a young age.

Lucy Liu (16:34)

It's funny because I've forgotten a lot of my childhood and I think it's probably because it was a lot of trauma of, you know, not feeling like you belonged or, you know, wanting to seem like everything was perfectly normal and not looking like everybody else. I think that was also, I guess, difficult, you know, because on television there was, you know, I Dream of Jeannie and the Brady Bunch and all those shows that really indicated, you know, what life was like outside of your own home. And I guess not having that in trying to aspire to something that you could never be or look like is a very strange, I guess, amalgamation of conflict, you know, as a child, not understanding, like, why don't I see myself on television?

Terry Gross (17:23)

Do you remember feeling that as a child as you were watching tv?

Lucy Liu (17:27)

I remember thinking like, why can't I just get into that get smart world? Just. I thought that there was, I didn't really understand that there was. Were laugh tracks. I thought that there was. There was so much more entertainment and lightheartedness outside of the home. And I really wanted to fall into that world and just walk right into that TV set.

Terry Gross (17:47)

Wait a minute. So you thought like, oh, everyone's having a great time in these other houses. They've got people laughing at them.

Lucy Liu (17:53)

Yeah, they just are just, you know, people are just amused. And you know, to me I really thought that comedy was, you know, the way to someone's heart.

Terry Gross (18:02)

You tell this story about seeing how people treated your mother. I think there was a particular story where you all were in a store and you saw her being disrespected and that kind of really told you something or taught you something about how you wanted to live your life and be treated.

Lucy Liu (18:20)

I think as a child, seeing that, you know, that she was kind of treated in a way based on her fragmented English and also based on what she looked like, based on what we looked like, it was really infuriating as a child to see that. And I think there was a helplessness and a feeling of wanting to stand up for your parents, but then also feeling like you didn't have a voice.

Tonya Moseley (18:49)

We're listening to my conversation with Lucy Liu. Her new movie, Rosemead, explores parental love, mental illness, gun violence and the weight of immigrant family expectations through the lens of one mother's impossible choices. We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.

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Tonya Moseley (20:13)

This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Tonya Moseley. Let's get back to my interview with actor, director and visual artist Lucy Liu about her new film Rosemead. Inspired by true events and set in California's San Gabriel Valley, the story follows a terminally ill Chinese American mother who discovers her teenage son has developed a dangerous fixation on mass violence.

Terry Gross (20:38)

Let's get into your career, Lucy. We talked a little bit about how at a very young age you knew you wanted to be an actor. You wanted to actually step inside of the TV and be with those families, which I find remarkable because at the time when you were growing up, you didn't see many people who looked like you on television and in movies. Where do you think that knowing came from?

Lucy Liu (21:02)

Without a map to follow, I don't know. But I feel like, it was like an angel on my shoulder. And I think the person that I could connect to was this. It was an. Well, I know now that she was an actress, but I thought she was a real person that worked in a laundromat. And it was a Calgon ad, and she would say, calgon, take me away. And that was the person that I really thought, oh, I see myself. So there's somebody in that set that looks like me, you know, and so it's pretty funny to think about that now. But, yes, it was something that I really was just dreamed about and I didn't. I mean, the fact that I'm even here at NPR is just a dream come true.

Terry Gross (21:45)

Well, it was something that was your desire, but there were also people who saw it in you. Is it true that someone saw you, like a scouting agent or someone saw you, discovered you on a subway?

Lucy Liu (21:57)

There was a manager on a subway. They gave me his card, and I was, of course, very suspicious because we've lived this very insular life, you know, and who's this person giving me this card?

Terry Gross (22:08)

And how old were you? About.

Lucy Liu (22:09)

I was a teenager because I was going to high school at that point and taking the subway by myself. So I was definitely in high school at that point. And I remember. I mean, we only had Yellow Pages back then. So I called the Better Business Bureau to find out if this person was real, and it turned out he was real.

Terry Gross (22:29)

What did he say to you when he saw you?

Lucy Liu (22:30)

He just said, you have an interesting look, and I feel like you might, you know, be very successful doing commercials or something. Give me a call. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what he said. And then I did call him. He did send me out on, you know, some interesting auditions, and they were real. I got it. I ended up getting a commercial for school supplies back in the day. But there were some. Also kind of some sketchy auditions as well.

Terry Gross (22:56)

Like what?

Lucy Liu (22:57)

I remember going into a. Like a. An audition where the person seemed a little bit off. And, I mean, luckily I have that kind of New York common sense. Wherewithal, where I was like, I'm not comfortable being here, and I left.

Terry Gross (23:11)

You have also talked about how, you know, your counterparts, they would go on, like, 10 auditions a day, and you might have 10 auditions a year.

Lucy Liu (23:20)

Yeah.

Terry Gross (23:20)

And what those auditions were like and how you kind of, in spite of the fact that you were only getting a few, could bring your whole self knowing that there was a really big possibility of rejection.

Lucy Liu (23:33)

I think rejection was on my resume. You know, it should have been, like, rejection takes it pretty well. I think that there was so. There were so few auditions that I really didn't know how to get better. And so I think, you know, because when you audition, you really need to know how to the rest, understand what you're doing. You know, there's a certain way to, I guess, introduce yourself. And because I kind of was very raw and unpolished, maybe that worked in my favor. You know, I think the unknowing of it, the naivete and the. I mean, really the sincerity of going in and just like, doing your best and not having any expectation was. Was really a saving grace for me.

Terry Gross (24:18)

Being a shy little girl, I mean, describing yourself as shy, how did that girl learn to survive? Built on rejection?

Lucy Liu (24:26)

Like, you know, I guess I didn't even remember that I was shy until I found those report cards that my mother had saved for me. She gave me this manila envelope. I think it was during the pandemic.

Terry Gross (24:40)

Oh, just a few years ago.

Lucy Liu (24:41)

Yeah, not that long ago. And I looked at them. I was sort of, you know, shredding all these things and getting rid of all these things that had come from Los Angeles because I had, you know, lived there for so long. And then I looked at them, and I was so surprised because that was somebody that had forgotten. And in some ways, it's kind of sad, you know, that I forgot this little girl that didn't have a voice. And I also felt like, wow, not just, you know, look how far I've come, but, wow, this poor child. You know, she must have felt so completely confused in these classrooms to not be able to even, you know, participate and have a conversation, because everything was like, she doesn't talk. She doesn't participate. She's too shy. You know, she needs to really, you know, step up. I just. I don't know who that was. And remembering that is sort of a shocking thing to feel like, wow, I really left her behind.

Terry Gross (25:42)

When did you start to feel like that you weren't anymore?

Lucy Liu (25:46)

When I left for college, that's when it really started to find my own voice and literally my own footing, because I was out of the house and I was in my own room. And I think that it was the first time I really didn't have to, you know, compare myself to where my family was and where I was, you know, because you didn't want to be too far away from them. But I think being in college, being as far as I was out of the house, was really helpful, and it helped me find my individuality and I think more of my interiority as well.

Terry Gross (26:19)

Lucy Liu, thank you so much for this conversation.

Lucy Liu (26:22)

What a pleasure it's been. Thank you for having me on the show.

Tonya Moseley (26:26)

Lucy Liu stars in the new film Rosemead. Our film critic Justin Chang has spent a lot of time this year watching movies at festivals, in theaters and on his couch. And he says that contrary to what popular opinion or gloomy box office headlines may tell you, 2025 has been the strongest year for movies in a long time. Here's Justin's list of the best films of the year.

Justin Chang (26:53)

Anyone will tell you that these are tumultuous, borderline apocalyptic times for the film industry. Box office is down, the threat of AI looms, Billionaires and tech giants are laying waste to what remains of the major Hollywood studios. I'm not entirely sure how to square all this bad news with my own good news, which is that I saw more terrific new movies this year than I have any year since before the Pandemic. True, most of those movies weren't from here, but all of them played in US theaters in 2025, and all of them are well worth seeking out in the weeks and months to come. The best new movie I saw this year is Sirat, a breakthrough work from a gifted Spanish filmmaker named Oliver Lache. It's a nail biting survival thriller set in the desert of southern Morocco during what feels like the end times. It's a little Mad Max, a little Wages of Fear, and all in all, the most exhilarating and devastating 2 hours I experienced in a theater this year. Seurat also features the year's best original score, composed by the electronic musician Kang Ding Ray. The second film on my list is One Battle after Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's much loved, much debated reimagining of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland. An exuberant mashup of action thriller and political satire, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best and funniest performances as an aging revolutionary drawn back into the field. He leads an ensemble that includes Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina hall, and the terrific discovery Chase Infinity. In this scene, DiCaprio's character, Bob Ferguson, calls up someone from the French 75, the underground movement he was part of years earlier. Unfortunately, he can't remember the elaborate series of passphrases needed to verify his identity.

Actor in film clip (28:59)

Look, look, maybe I can. Maybe I can give you some information and then you give me some information.

Zadie Smith (29:03)

All right?

Actor in film clip (29:04)

We'll just share a little information. My name is Bob Ferguson. I don't know if you've ever heard.

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Of me, all right?

Actor in film clip (29:08)

I was part of French 75 for years, years and years, all right? They used to call me Ghetto Pat, Rocket man, stuff like that. Only problem is I. I fried my brain. Since then, man, I. I have abused drugs and alcohol for the past 30 years, man. I'm a drug and alcohol lover and I cannot remember for the life of me or the life of my only child the answer to your question.

Justin Chang (29:37)

Number Three is Caught by the Tides, an unclassifiable hybrid of fiction and nonfiction from the Chinese director Jia Zhanke. Drawn from a mix of archival footage and newly shot material, it's a one of a kind portrait of the myriad transformations that China has gone through over the past two decades. At Number Four is another structurally bold Chinese title. It's called Resurrection and it's a bit like an Avatar movie for film buffs. Placing us in the head of a shape shifting protagonist, the director Bi Gone takes us on a gorgeous dreamlike odyssey through various cinema genres, from historical spy drama to vampire thriller. My number five movie is the year's best documentary, My Undesirable Part one, Last Air in Moscow from the director Julia Loktive. It's a sprawling yet intimate portrait of several Russian independent journalists in the harrowing months leading up to President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a portrait of anti authoritarian resistance, it pairs nicely with my number six movie, the Secret Agent, an emotionally rich, sneakily funny and continually surprising drama from the director Kleber Mendoncefilo. Set in 1977, it lays bare the personal cost of dissidents during Brazil's military dictatorship. At Number Seven is the German drama Sound of Falling. Although not a horror film exactly, it qualifies as the best and spookiest haunted house movie I've seen this year. Directed by Masha Shalinsky, it teases out the connections among four generations of girls and young women who have passed through the same remote farmhouse. At Number eight is April, from the director Dea Columbegashvili, a tough, bleak but utterly hypnotic portrait of a skilled ob gyn trying to provide health care for women in a conservative East Georgian village. It may be set far from the U.S. but the difficulties these women face would resonate in any setting. My number nine movie is the Zambian film On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. Directed by Ringano Nyoni. It's a subtly mesmerizing drama about a death that takes place in a middle class household, setting off a chain of dark revelations that threaten to tear a family apart. And finally, my number 10 choice won the Palme d' or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. It Was Just An Accident is a shattering moral thriller from the Iranian director Jafar Panaki about a group of former political prisoners who are given a rare chance at retribution. In the past, Panahy has been a prisoner in Iran himself, and earlier this month, the government sentenced the director in absentia to a year in prison. I hope that Panahy never sees the inside of a jail cell again and that his movie is seen as far and wide as possible.

Tonya Moseley (32:55)

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. Coming up, we hear from writer Zadie Smith. She has a new collection of essays. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.

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Tonya Moseley (34:08)

See return policy@carvana.com this is FRESH AIR WEEKEND. I'm Tonya Moseley. Here's Terri with our next interview.

Terry Gross (34:18)

My guest Sadie Smith is probably tired of hearing this next sentence, but here goes. She published her first novel, white Teeth, in the year 2000 when she was 25. It was a critical success and an international bestseller. Just a couple of months ago she turned 50. So instead of writing from the point of view as a young writer, she's writing from the point of view of a middle aged woman who is, in addition to being a writer, a wife and a mother of two. Age and the new generation gaps, including between millennials and Gen Xers, are among the subjects she reflects on in her new collection of essays, Dead and Alive. She also writes about being raised by TV watching nine hours a day and all the warnings about the dangers of children watching TV and how that compares to children today being raised in the social media era with so many warnings about exposing children to social media and YouTub. The essays include book reviews, reflections on the visual arts, speeches and reflections about many aspects of life. Zadie Smith, welcome back to FRESH air. So do you find it objectionable at this point to say she published her first novel when she was 25?

Zadie Smith (35:33)

No. I mean, you know, it's definitely aging. But I'm always incredibly grateful for the girl who wrote that book because she enabled my entire life. So I like to hear about her.

Terry Gross (35:44)

Good. Okay. Let's start by talking about age. What subjects had the most interest for you at age 25 when you published your first book compared to now when you're publishing your book of essays at age 50?

Zadie Smith (36:01)

I don't think it's changed that much. I think I'm always interested in time. I'm always interested in, for lack of a better term, like our existential experience, like our experience on this earth. I'm always fascinated by culture of all kinds. And that hasn't really aged. Like, I sometimes I think it's a bit embarrassing how much I keep up with, I don't know, music or new books or I have a kind of voracious appetite for that kind of stuff. That's the privilege of my life, I guess I had the opportunity to continue to be interested.

Terry Gross (36:32)

You mentioned time. You write you're basically obsessed with time. What is that obsession like? What is it about time? What aspect of time?

Zadie Smith (36:42)

I would have assumed that everybody's obsessed with time.

Terry Gross (36:45)

I am, I'll tell you that.

Zadie Smith (36:47)

I don't think I've ever met anybody who isn't. So I always find it strange when people think of it as particular to me because that's I thought that's just the way people went through life. But that's another thing about writing. You find out the things that are actually peculiar to you. That's always the question you're trying to get on the page, like, is this normal? Do you feel this? And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no. So maybe my preoccupation is stronger. And I'm sure it just has a quite boring Freudian origin, which is the very large age gap that my parents had. So I suppose as a child, the question of time was on my mind in a way it might not be. If both your parents are 24, you.

Terry Gross (37:26)

Know, how big was the age difference?

Zadie Smith (37:29)

30 years? Yeah. My mother was 20. My father was 50. Yeah.

Terry Gross (37:34)

So growing up with parents with that age gap, did it make you reflect on things like, you know, in movies, when the male star and the female star who fall in love are 30 years apart? That often appears not to be a good look anymore.

Zadie Smith (37:52)

I mean, it was never a good look. I'm the product of a completely inappropriate relationship, for sure. But I guess my concern as a child was more that it was just. I mean, my father's been dead a very long time, but it was the nature of time travel. You know, I was living with someone who went to see Casablanca in the cinema, who saw Ella Fitzgerald sing live. And I was also living with someone who was only 20 years older than me, who'd come from a completely different world, a different island. So it was like space and time travel in my house. It was, you know, interesting.

Terry Gross (38:27)

What brought them together?

Zadie Smith (38:30)

Oh, I mean, who knows? My theory is, in the 70s, you could really hate someone and be married to them for 12 years, and now you could be madly in love and not make it that far. It was, as they say, a different time.

Terry Gross (38:42)

I like the way you write about generational conflicts, and so I want to talk a little bit about that. How did you feel about your parents generation versus your generation? Like, what were the gaps that you saw? Though your family's a little bit unique because Your father was 30 years older than your mother, and your mother was from Jamaica and your father from England.

Zadie Smith (39:08)

Yes, we had two generations in the same house. I mean, three, including me. Like, generational discourse is nonsense, really. That's kind of what I'm trying to write about. What amused me about it recently is how vicious it's become. And I wanted to try and think about the reasons why, and I think they're perfectly valid. But when I think of myself as a child and my mother's generation and my father's. You know, obviously there are things in both that as a teenager you find absurd or you roll your eyes up. But I think the absolutely key difference is structural and economic in that I did not think of them as eating up my resources, ending the planet, or making my future impossible. So that made it possible to look on their foibles, whether it was free love in the 60s or a certain kind of patriotism or whatever, with a gentle eye, because it wasn't existential. So to me, it makes complete sense that the discussions feel more angry or violent now, because they should do. If you are young and feel like you cannot rent an apartment, you cannot make Your life. You cannot buy a house, you cannot start an apprenticeship, you cannot get a job. Why would you not look above you and say, you know, f you? That makes complete sense to me.

Terry Gross (40:34)

You talk about how the binary of young versus old is crazy. Why do you think that?

Zadie Smith (40:40)

I mean, again, just as a structural fact, you know, other discourses, gender discourses, racial discourses, make way more sense because you are on the side of a almost absolute division. Of course, in gender, it's not absolute. In race, more or less, if you are black, you're not gonna become white. If you're white, you're not gonna become black, barring some miracle. But if you are young, you are absolutely going to become old. So it would seem to me not really worth making an absolutely vicious discourse out of something that you were about to enter literally before you know it. Right? That's the one thing that I know now that I didn't know at 20 is that you become 50 in the blink of an eye. And anyone listening to this who is my age will know that to be true. There's no reason for anyone who's 20 to know that I didn't know it, but it is true. And so that means to me that a certain amount of care around the issue of age should be practiced on both sides, because it's one of those deep delusions that you don't realize you're in until it's too late.

Terry Gross (41:42)

One of the things that keeps changing is language. Every generation seems to come up with new coinages, new expressions, and those are coming in and going out of style very quickly now because, I don't know, time is moving so quickly, technology is moving so quickly. So as a language person, what are some of the coinages from your generation or words and expression that you chose to use at the time and still use now, or still or no longer use because they're just so out of date.

Zadie Smith (42:17)

I mean, it's one thing I particularly love is language transformation. And I live in a neighborhood where slang of all kinds is how everyone speaks. It's fascinating. So I get updates practically weekly on what. What the word for cool is, or what the word for a hot person is, or, you know, it transforms, it feels like monthly. I love all of that. I think the one that irritates my children most is that a lot of British people of my generation, and maybe particularly ex ravers, I used to love raving. And a lot of people in this country did. We have the habit of saying tune whenever a good song is anywhere. And that is mortifying. To my children. And I think many children tune spelled C H O O N. So I try not to say that in public.

Terry Gross (43:02)

Is that a British thing?

Zadie Smith (43:04)

It's very British. Yeah, yeah.

Terry Gross (43:05)

Oh, okay. Cause I haven't heard of that one.

Zadie Smith (43:07)

No, no, it's British and for the club crowd.

Terry Gross (43:09)

Yeah, I know. Like my father used to always use the words like lady, gal, dame, and then intolerable. Yeah, I know. But lady is back now. Like ladies. That's. Oh, we're at the. Many women use to describe themselves now.

Zadie Smith (43:27)

No, I like lady, actually.

Terry Gross (43:28)

Yeah, yeah, I'm okay with it. But it has a different meaning than it did. Like when my father's generation was using it. It was very condescending, I thought at the time.

Zadie Smith (43:38)

Right. I mean, the creativity of street level language is something that I just find endlessly thrilling. It's a little sad as you get older as a writer because you can't include it. Like the kind of slang and street language that is in my early novels is antique now. And so you have a choice. You can continue writing about that period. But I could never write the language my kids bring home.

Terry Gross (44:04)

I think children tend to grow up in a different world than their parents did. Technology has changed, language has often changed, the environment has changed. Like my parents, they didn't live to see 9 11, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the COVID lockdown, or the first or second election of Donald Trump. And those are really like world changing events.

Zadie Smith (44:29)

And sometimes one life can cover enormous change. Like with both my parents. My father's standing in the ruins of Dachau and then he Suddenly. It's the 80s and you know, he's got a little car and he's buzzing around a neighborhood in Willesden with a Jamaican wife and three children. That's a transformation. Or my mother. From a tiny, tiny village in absolute poverty to the same strange corner of northwest London in this completely other circumstance. You pass through ages, historical moments, political moments. It's not easy for anyone to keep moving. And sometimes it's also, as I get older, there are things which pertain to age which I'd be happy to hold onto rather than pretend that my mind and thought are the same as a 24 year old's forever. That would be, in my view, a kind of bad look. Like your mum dancing at a party.

Terry Gross (45:22)

You mentioned your father at Dachau. Was he a soldier helping to liberate it?

Zadie Smith (45:27)

Yeah, he liberated it. Yeah. I mean, when I say so, he was 17, so that's another extreme imaginative Jump right. To imagine a 17 year old doing such a thing. When I was 17, I was just smoking weed. I didn't do anything. So these are extreme differences. Yeah.

Terry Gross (45:44)

Did he talk to you about it?

Zadie Smith (45:47)

Not really. I mean, when he was very old and dying, I interviewed him about it a bit and I wrote about that a little bit. But whatever he saw over there, he really didn't want to discuss. I know it's the old cliche, but I think the trauma was lifelong.

Terry Gross (46:03)

You write about being raised by tv. What did you get from TV that got you to watch TV nine hours a day? And where did you find the time? You had to go to school, right?

Zadie Smith (46:16)

I went to school, but I was, I guess, a bit of a latchkey kid. Cause my parents were working. So from 3:30 it was anybody's house. And I did. I watched a tremendous amount. I mean, it's the early 80s, right. So TV is still relatively new and. And I just loved it. I still really profoundly love television. I have to kind of keep control over it. But when you're in a household of two such peculiarly different individuals out of two alien histories. And then thirdly, you're in a country which you know is your home, but many people in it don't seem to think it's your home, you're kind of looking for clues, like what is going on?

Terry Gross (47:04)

When you say that, do you mean because your mother's Jamaican?

Zadie Smith (47:07)

Yeah, I mean, it's still a period. Like for my mother when she first arrived, I mean, when they married, they went on honeymoon, they couldn't get a room together in Paris, she would try and get a room in England. And you know, when you turn up at the door, they're like, oh, no, sorry, I was wrong about that.

Terry Gross (47:20)

Was your father white?

Zadie Smith (47:21)

Yeah, my father was white. So you're kind of strange and you feel strange. And I think for me, tv, it was like a clue, like what. What is going on? And also it was a. I used to play like a lot of people of my generation, you know, spot the black person. I was watching TV to try and find us anywhere and always completely thrilled to find anybody. So that also involved a lot of, you know, old movies, a lot of American television. It was just a way of situating myself in the world, I think.

Terry Gross (47:57)

What shows made the biggest impression on you?

Zadie Smith (48:02)

Some of it's painful now. I was reading someone a few days ago talking about the Cosby show, which of course is now forever stained. But for me, sitting in Willesden watching this, they seemed to be Rich, like rich black people in a big house somewhere. I didn't know where it was even. And he was a doctor, was he? That was all fascinating to me. I'd never seen anything like it. I had all kinds of crazy ideas about America as a consequence, as you can imagine. I now know the Cosby show was not an accurate representation of the great majority of black life at that point in America.

Terry Gross (48:34)

And of Bill Cosby.

Zadie Smith (48:35)

And of Bill Cosby, of course. But shows like that, it was all fascinating to me. Anything American.

Terry Gross (48:41)

Now that you're 50, recently turned 50, are there new issues that you're facing in life or new ways of thinking about the future than when you were younger?

Zadie Smith (48:56)

I mean, there's decrepitude, like you can't see me, but I'm speaking to you with an eye patch on because I've got macular degeneration. So had an operation on my right eye. So there's that feeling of vulnerability. I've been so lucky. Again, rarely ill, rarely having any physical difficulties. So there's that shock of like, oh, yeah, here it comes. This reminder of your human weakness. So there's that trying to work out what kind of a sick person you're going to be. Are you going to be the kind who talks about it endlessly on the radio? Are you going to be the kind who just soldiers on bravely and barely mentions it? I don't know. You find out. I always love that line of Salman Rushdie. He says, our lives teach us who we are. That's how it is. Like you can have all kinds of ideas about who you are, but your life shows you. So I kind of finding out as I, as I go along, am I.

Terry Gross (49:52)

Right that you fell out of a window by accident?

Zadie Smith (49:55)

Yeah, but that's not something I ever would have, you know, chosen.

Terry Gross (49:58)

No, no, it was an accident. But people thought it was a suicide attempt.

Zadie Smith (50:01)

They did, they think, they thought it was suicide.

Terry Gross (50:03)

How did you fall out of a window?

Zadie Smith (50:05)

I was smoking a cigarette, which is one of the many life shortening activities I participated in over the decades. Yeah.

Terry Gross (50:12)

And how did that lead you to be falling out the window?

Zadie Smith (50:16)

Because my mum had kind of laid down the law and said, no more smoking. So I was trying to do it surreptitiously and it went wrong.

Terry Gross (50:24)

Were you injured? Was it the first floor?

Zadie Smith (50:27)

I was badly injured, yeah. I broke my right leg very, very badly. Like the whole femur smashed in half and I had all kinds of smaller fractures. And I mean, it's still a thing. Like people tell me, I limp when it gets cold and it certainly gives me pain sometimes.

Terry Gross (50:46)

Were you depressed enough at that time that people had reason to suspect that it was suicide?

Zadie Smith (50:53)

Yeah, I was very, very melancholy and quite isolated, I guess. I, I read a lot. I stayed at home a lot. I smoked too much weed, which can make you very depressed, right?

Terry Gross (51:07)

Did the depression subside over time?

Zadie Smith (51:10)

I think I have my melancholies. You know, that's a permanent part of my way of being, so you get used to it. I find writing pretty cathartic. I don't say it ends melancholy or depression, but it does articulate things that otherwise would just kind of sit there and bother me. So it's a way of getting things out that I do find quite helpful. But the melancholy is not going anywhere at this point. This is part of me and life is melancholy. It would be strange not to feel melancholy about it. There's a lot of sadness.

Terry Gross (51:47)

Yeah. Well, I regret to say our time is up. I want to thank you so much. It's great to talk with you again.

Zadie Smith (51:54)

Thank you.

Tonya Moseley (51:55)

Zadie Smith's new collection of essays is called Dead and Alive. She spoke with Terry Gross. Fresh air weekend is produced by teresa madden. Fresh air's executive producer is danny miller. Our managing producer is sam brigger with terry gross. I'm tonya moseley.

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