For Cameron Crowe, Being 'Uncool' Is A Badge Of Honor

Summary

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Fresh Air – "For Cameron Crowe, Being 'Uncool' Is A Badge Of Honor"

Date: October 27, 2025
Interview by: Terry Gross
Guest: Cameron Crowe, acclaimed writer/director (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire)
Main Focus: Crowe's new memoir, The Uncool, his experiences as a teenage rock journalist, family dynamics, the meaning of "cool," and his formative encounters with music, musicians, and critics.

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Episode Overview

In this thoughtful and warm interview, Terry Gross sits down with Cameron Crowe to discuss his memoir, The Uncool, which chronicles his journey from a sheltered Southern California upbringing to an improbable career as a teen rock journalist in the 1970s. Crowe talks about his complex relationship with his mother, his adventures interviewing music legends, learning hard truths about the rock world, and what embracing "uncoolness" has meant for his life and work. The conversation blends funny anecdotes with subtle reflections about coming of age, the power of honesty, and the bittersweetness of chasing art and truth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cameron Crowe’s Family and Early Life (00:15–07:20)

• Crowe’s Protective Mother:

  • Frances McDormand’s Almost Famous character is "uncannily" based on Crowe’s real mother, complete with her skepticism about rock music—even folk acts like Simon & Garfunkel. The script borrows direct lines from their family arguments.
  • Quote: "It just made me appreciate how sometimes real life is the best writer." – Cameron Crowe (03:23)

• Strategy for Gaining Independence:

  • To get his mother's permission to tour with bands, Crowe framed Led Zeppelin as “music based on Tolkien”—a literary, intellectual pursuit.
  • Quote: "If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a way in." – Cameron Crowe (04:16)

• First Concerts with Mom:

  • His mother took him to see Bob Dylan in 1964 before later banning rock altogether. At an Eric Clapton concert, she acknowledged: "Your music is better than mine." (09:15)

2. Breaking into Rock Journalism as a Teen (07:20–13:32)

• Navigating Age and Authenticity:

  • Crowe was much younger than the musicians but learned early that "the best response is no" when offered drugs, earning him respect as an observer rather than a hanger-on.
  • Quote: "They really talked to me. They really opened up. And that informed the life I was lucky enough to have..." (12:45)

• Bands’ Receptiveness to a Young Critic:

  • In San Diego—"not a primary market"—bands welcomed Crowe’s deep musical questions out of boredom with standard interviews.

3. The Impact of Rock Critic Lester Bangs (13:32–18:06)

• Lester Bangs’ Mentorship:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal is true to life: Bangs cautioned Crowe about befriending musicians and the dangers of being co-opted by the music industry’s machinery.
  • Notable Quote: "You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful." – Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs (15:46)

• On Being Unmerciful:

  • Bangs’ message was to "fight back" against the homogenization of meaningful music, using brutal honesty as a tool.

4. Staying a Journalist, Not a Groupie (18:06–20:11)

• Crowe’s Approach to Boundaries:
  • He recounts a moment with The Allman Brothers Band, gently reminded not to cross into the musicians’ domain:
    "It was like hands appeared kind of behind me and lifted the guitar out of my hands...I thought that was the most gentle way to teach me a lesson early on." (19:59)

5. Extended Encounters with Icons: The David Bowie Years (22:52–27:04)

• Bowie’s Request for a 'Mirror':

  • Bowie asked Crowe to “hold up a mirror” to him, granting deep, open access during a tumultuous phase.
  • Quote: "He said to me, hold up a mirror to me. I want to see what you show me." – Cameron Crowe (23:13)

• Bowie’s Self-Perception:

  • When asked whether Crowe was meeting David Jones or David Bowie, Bowie replied: "You're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you." (25:13)

• Bowie’s Managed Death:

  • Bowie’s parting with "Black Star" as a curated final statement confirmed what he once told Crowe—his death would be an event, something he "manage[s] and produce[s]." (26:05)

6. The ‘Groupie’ Question and Penny Lane (27:04–31:55)

• Penny Lane and the 'Band Aids':

  • The real Penny Trumbull inspired the character in Almost Famous. Crowe wanted to honor her agency and emotional depth without exploiting her story.
  • Quote: "Penny Trumbull was one of the ones that really opened up to me and told me what it was like emotionally to follow a band..." (28:15)

• Dark Sides of Backstage Culture:

  • Crowe describes a real incident where a road crew “traded” a young woman, an episode that pushed him to acknowledge both rock’s magic and its misogyny.
  • "That was the ugly side of things. And it was heartbreaking to watch..." (30:45)

7. The Meaning of "Uncool" (33:21–39:57)

• Lester Bangs on "Cool":

  • The episode highlights the famous "You are not cool" scene. Lester Bangs (Hoffman) tells Crowe, "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." (35:16)

• Crowe’s Takeaway:

  • The badge of ‘uncool’ is embraced as liberating, authentic, and foundational to great art—contrasted with posturing and “the industry of cool”.
  • On how the scene was filmed: "This is the brilliance of Philip Seymour Hoffman...he takes your words that you wrote in a quiet room and sends them into a whole other world of meaning." (39:19)

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Memorable Quotes with Timestamps

• On Real Life as Material (Crowe):
  "Sometimes real life is the best writer. And it was just lodged in my head forever as this classic thing that happened..." (03:23)

• On 'Cool' (Hoffman as Lester Bangs):
  "You are not cool... The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." (35:00–35:16)

• On Honesty in Criticism (Hoffman as Lester Bangs):
  "You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful." (15:46)

• On the Value of Uncool (Crowe):
  "I called the book the Uncool because it was the badge of honor that Lester put on me. You know, don't try and do it. Be whatever is real to you." (37:00–38:16)

• On Bowie's Selfhood (Bowie via Crowe):
  "'You're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you.'" (25:13)

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• Discussion of Mother and Family Life: 00:15–07:20
• How Crowe Tricked His Way onto the Road: 04:16–05:42
• Lester Bangs Advice Scene: 13:32–16:42
• David Bowie Interview Years: 22:52–27:04
• Exploring "Band Aids": Penny Lane: 27:04–31:55
• Iconic "Uncool" Conversation: 34:11–39:57

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Tone and Style

• The tone is reflective, candid, and subtly humorous—a blend of reverence for music’s transformative power and gentle skepticism about the cost of chasing coolness or celebrity.
• Crowe is self-deprecating and grateful, emphasizing luck, honesty, and the value of truly seeing people.
• Terry Gross is incisive, empathetic, and inquisitive, helping Crowe dig into both funny anecdotes and deeper societal questions.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rich behind-the-scenes portrait of Cameron Crowe’s unlikely rise, the eccentric and earnest people who shaped him, and his enduring affection for being "uncool." The conversation offers memorable moments about family, music, artistry, honesty, and the essential weirdness of growing up loving something too much to ever be "cool" about it.

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For listeners who cherish music history, coming-of-age memoirs, and thoughtful takes on pop culture’s mythologies, this Fresh Air episode is a rewarding, illuminating listen.

Transcript

[NPR Announcer]

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[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Cameron Crow is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla sky and Almost Famous for, for which he won an Oscar for best screenplay. It's the story of a 15 year old who in 1973 manages to become a rock critic and somehow get backstage interviews with important musicians. By the age of 16, he's published in Rolling Stone and even writes a cover story, as improbable as that may sound. It's based on Crow's own life as a teenage music writer. His new memoir, the Uncool, is about that period of his life and more, including his adventures and misadventures. Writing, writing about musicians like Greg Allman, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Page and David Bowie. He also writes about what life was like in his family when he was growing up and how reluctant his parents were to allow him to go on the road with musicians before he'd even graduated high school. Let's start with a clip from early on. In Almost Famous, the Cameron Crowe character William is about 11, listening to an argument between his mother, played by Frances McDormand, and and his older sister, played by Zooey Deschanel. The mother speaks first.

[NPR Announcer]

You've been kissing. No, I haven't. Yes, you have.

[Terry Gross]

No, I haven't. Yes, you have. I can tell.

[NPR Announcer]

You can't tell. Not only can I tell, I know who it is. It's Daryl.

[Terry Gross]

What you got under your coat?

[NPR Announcer]

It's unfair that we can't listen to our music.

[Terry Gross]

It's because it is about drugs and promiscuous sex.

[NPR Announcer]

Simon and Garfunkel is poetry. Yes, it's poetry. It is the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on pot. First it was butter, then it was sugar and white flour, bacon, eggs, bologna, rock and roll, motorcycles. Then it was celebrating Christmas on a day in September when you knew it wouldn't be commercialized. What else are you gonna ban? Honey, you want to rebel against knowledge. I'm trying to give you the Cliff Notes on how to live life in this world. We're like nobody. El.

[Terry Gross]

Cameron Crowe, welcome back to FRESH air. It's a pleasure to talk with you again.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thanks, Terry.

[Terry Gross]

Was your mother at all like the Frances McDormand character and how unusual she was and how opposed to rock and roll. Even Simon and Garfunkel, who she probably hadn't even heard yet.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, first of all, hearing that clip, it's uncanny how much Frances McDormand is my mother. I mean, the dialogue was straight out of our family. Family in our home. But somehow.

[Terry Gross]

I'm just going to interrupt by saying your mother died. I think it was last year.

[Cameron Crowe]

She died in 2019.

[Terry Gross]

2019. Yeah, September 11th.

[Cameron Crowe]

Born on the 4th of July and passed away on September 11th, two days before almost Famous, the musical, opened in San Diego. So it was a dramatic exit from the earth, from my mom.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So I didn't mean to interrupt, except I just wanted to express my condolences.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thank you so much. She was a huge character and completely inspiring. But listening to that clip, it just made me appreciate how sometimes real life is the best writer. And it was just lodged in my head forever as this classic thing that happened where my mom made us believe that she could tell if you've been kissing. And, of course, it was a stunt to get the truth out of us or my sister, in that case. But just hilarious how life kind of puts in front of you the best stuff to write about.

[Terry Gross]

With a mother who was so controlling in terms of, like, food and vehicles and not even listening to rock and roll or just kind of band in your house, you had to sneak it in. How did you manage to get away at the age of 15 and start going on the road with bands so that you can write cover stories about them?

[Cameron Crowe]

She was, you know, all about as a teacher and a counselor who had many great counselees who loved her so much. She always respected intellectualism. If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a way in. So to go on the road with Led Zeppelin at 15, I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as, like, music that's based on Tolkien. This is, like, lofty material that's, like, good for the soul. Ultimately, I think she. She said, because we loved the interviewer, Dick Cavett in our family, Go and take this journey. Put on your magic shoes. Call me every night, and don't take drugs. And that was my ticket out.

[Terry Gross]

Don't take drugs is like the refrain of the movie, like, your mother's always calling, and anytime you call her, it's like, don't take drugs.

[Cameron Crowe]

Because it was about brain cells. It was about brain cells.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, you had to stay smart. Yeah. Yeah. Did you end up taking drugs? I'm sure you offered them all the time.

[Cameron Crowe]

I was offered drugs for sure. And I learned early on, Terry, that like, the best response is no, because the person offering you the drugs generally then says, smart kid. More for me. And that made me, I don't know, it made people know that I wasn't there to join the band, party with the band. I was there with a notebook full of questions based on loving music. And that really swung the door open.

[Terry Gross]

Was the writer aspect of being a music writer what your mother approved of? Because that is a more intellectual pursuit.

[Cameron Crowe]

Exactly. And it was true. You know, I really felt like the best of the music that we loved that did sneak into our family had its roots in wonderful writing. For example, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel. There was something about the song Mrs. Robinson that rubbed my mom the wrong way. And I think it was the way they said cuckoo.

[Terry Gross]

Totally.

[Cameron Crowe]

You got it. She thought it was sneering and she did. She pulled out the bookends album cover and showed us the pupils of Paul Simon and promised us that he was high on pot. And the funny thing is when the movie came out with that scene in it, I think it was on cnn. Somebody was interviewing Paul Simon and they said, you know, what about this movie Almost Famous? Holding up the bookends album cover, you know, Frances McDormand saying, they're on pot. He's like, we were. She was right.

[Terry Gross]

She's right. I think she's also right of being like a sneering song about middle aged women.

[Cameron Crowe]

Absolutely. So she saw clearly and it was inevitable, I think that music was going to come in, you know, underneath the door or through the window. Somehow the power of rock was going to find my sister and me. And it did. To this day, that's. That's our, our favorite language with each other, sharing music and the things that happen when music kind of takes over and transports you and gives you that feeling that. That you really can't get any other place.

[Terry Gross]

The first concerts you went to, including a Bob Dylan concert very early in his career, you went to with your mother. Yeah, that could be a very wonderful or a very embarrassing experience with both mother and child being uncomfortable.

[Cameron Crowe]

Oh yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Their child doesn't want to be seen as needing to be escorted by a parent. And the parent feels like 100 years old compared to all the kids that are there. What were those experiences like for you? I was just knowing that she hated rock and roll.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, well, Bob Dylan, you know, we were pretty young and he was appearing at a gymnasium at the college near where we lived in Riverside. California. And she had read something about this young protest singer that had something to say. And so she came to us and said, let's go see this protest singer. And brought a blanket for us to sit on the floor of the gymnasium. And we did see Bob Dylan in 1964, like right after he had written Times They Are a Change. And he was kind of a Charlie Chaplin type figure, I remember, like he just kind of like was a little jaunty and these loose fitting jeans. And he was funny and serious at the same time. And that affected us for sure. But real rock was banned for the longest time because it was, as she said, a vehicle for sex and drugs. And, you know, sometimes it really was. But I was able to go to another concert which was Eric Clapton, Derek and the Dominoes with her. And it was so electrifying that even she kind of understood what the power of rock sometimes could be. And after somebody sitting next to her offered her cocaine, which was striking to see, but she politely turned it down and everything. But when the concert was over, we were walking out and she said, you know what? Your music is better than mine.

[Terry Gross]

Wow.

[Cameron Crowe]

And that was my mom. She is a truth teller. So that was her truth. And that was another moment where the door swung open a little wider.

[Terry Gross]

When you were 15, writing about bands, the bands were older than you were. But looking back now, they were probably mostly in their 20s, I know, which is really young, really young. So what's your take on some of those musicians now, thinking of them as young people and not as older people?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, well, I thought they were, you know, seasoned adults at the time. And you're right, they were 22, for example. And being 15, you know, the distance between 15 and 22 is enormous. It's like a generation. But really we were all kind of young together and rock was young. There wasn't video assists and all the bells and whistles and dancers and stuff. It was really just a naked stage and people playing songs. The power of the songs was the power of the concert. And what I thought as a young guy led into some of these dressing rooms to glimpse how bands prepared for a show or how they struggled to figure out, you know, who was right in an argument about how to play a song. I started to see a dynamic that was so human that it was kind of beyond what I had been able to see as a high school student. For example, when my mom had skipped me two grades and later three, I didn't have a lot of friends. But somehow, because you were much younger.

[Terry Gross]

Than your Fellow students, your classmates.

[Cameron Crowe]

But then, you know, somebody like Kris Kristofferson deigns to give me an interview and tries to sneak me into a bar where I'm underage. And then when we get caught, he says, well, I'll sit out here in this big red leatherette chair and I'll do my interview with you. As fans and people stream by, he treated me like an adult and talked to me about the power of movies and music and all this stuff that ended up speaking to me so strongly later. But as a young guy, you're kind of in this position where, you know, this person is allowing me to ask them whatever I want to about music that I love. It was a blissful time, and I still love writing about it.

[Terry Gross]

So how did you manage to convince anybody that at the age of 15, still in high school, that you were worthy of being taken seriously, that your opinions were informed enough and deep enough, went deep enough to be a spokesperson for whether this album was good or not to be worthy of talking to a band?

[Cameron Crowe]

I'm just laughing because so much of it was just where I lived. We lived in San Diego, and San Diego is not a primary market. San Diego usually happens at the end of a tour after a band or an artist has been in, you know, San Francisco, Louisiana. New York, big reviews. They had to worry about San Diego. It's like a. It's surfers, you know, so they would just be partying early for the end of their tour a lot of times. And so here's a kid that comes to the door with a notebook full of questions based on the music that nobody was really asking them about. In the hands of an older journalist, here's some guy with an orange bag full of cassettes, like, ready to talk to you about your album Aqualung. You know, they're like, get that kid in here. Come on, we're bored. Let him ask us those questions. And so many of the bands were just nice to me because they were bored in San Diego. And I gotta tell you, going back and listening to a lot of those interviews, because I kept everything. They really talked to me. They really opened up. And that informed the life I was lucky enough to have later as a writer and a director in movies, because I knew how people spoke. I transcribed all my interviews myself. So I knew that people don't talk elegantly, but they can pour their heart out in half sentences. So it was really one big magic carpet ride of learning about people. And it started early. I'm a lucky guy.

[Terry Gross]

So Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lester Bangs in Almost Famous. And I want to play a scene where he gives you some very interesting advice. But first I want to explain who Lester Bangs is. I mean, he was a really eccentric guy and such strong feelings and unwavering in his confidence, in his opinions about what was great and what was garbage.

[Cameron Crowe]

Oh, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And he pretty much became a cult figure, you know, and died young.

[Cameron Crowe]

Sadly, yes.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So when you start writing for Cream, he gives you some advice. So this is a scene between Patrick Fugate, who plays your surrogate in the film, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Lester Bangs.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

Once you go to la, you're gonna have friends like crazy, but they're gonna be fake friends, you know? They're gonna try to corrupt you, you know, and you got an honest face, and they're gonna tell you everything. But you cannot make friends with the rock stars. Okay, friend? You're gonna be a true journalist. No, a rock journalist.

[Terry Gross]

First.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

You'll never get paid much, but you will get free records from the record company. Nothing about you that is controversial, man. God, it's gonna get ugly, man. They're gonna buy you drinks, you're gonna meet girls. They're gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs and. I know it sounds great. These people are not your friends, you know? These are people who want you to write sanctimonious about the genius of rock stars. And they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.

[David Biancooli]

Right?

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

And then it just becomes an industry of cool. I mean, I'm telling you, you're coming along at a very dangerous time for rock and roll. That's why I think you should just turn around, go back, you know, and be a lawyer or something. I can tell from your face that you won't. I can give you 35 bucks. Give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath. An assignment.

[David Biancooli]

Yeah.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

Yeah.

[Cameron Crowe]

Hey.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful.

[Terry Gross]

Unmerciful. Honest and unmerciful. And I think that was true of Lester Bangs, absolutely. Were you capable of being unmerciful?

[Cameron Crowe]

Intermittently. When I listen to that, it takes me right back to when I first met him. He said almost exactly those words. And can you imagine being 15 or 16 and somebody enters your life who speaks that kind of truth with that kind of passion and treats you like an equal?

[NPR Announcer]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And unmerciful isn't something you usually strive to be in your life. But as a critic, you have to be honest. And sometimes that means unmerciful. But that's still a Harsh word to use for a 15 year old who's starting in a very harsh business.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, let me give you the context. His stance when I met him that day was, it's over. You know, it's gone. That passion, that thing, that flame that is true rock, true music. It's over. They've taken it over. So I was like a straggler to something that was like a flying saucer and had left to him. So he's telling me it's over, but here you are. And just watch out because they'll try and corrupt you too. And I'm warning you right now because they already ruined rock. It was like a lot of information. But his thing about unmerciful was you gotta fight back. You have to fight back in the homogenization of something that is important to you. And that's why he used that strong word. And he was sometimes not unmerciful. Sometimes he was very kind. He was kind to me, for example. But he was a politician for the soul of rock. And to me, he was legend instantly for that and many other reasons.

[Terry Gross]

Lester Bangs also warned you about not making friends with musicians or publicists. You probably really wanted to be the musician's friends, but did you try not to be? Like, how did that work out for you?

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, I think generally I was able to witness people that would come through a tour or backstage, and you could tell the people that were there to party and act, act like they're a rock star, too. And that person would leave the room and you'd hear how they were talked about by the bands and you just go, wow, okay, well, I get it. You know, I don't play an instrument, so I'm not going to be in a band or try to be in, in this band. But generally I thought, like, be the guy that's there to document it. And when you're done, go home, don't stay out or try and, you know, hang out in the hotel rooms. Go back to your room and transcribe the interview. I remember something, Terry, that happened early on. I was on the road with the Allman Brothers Band, and I loved the Allman Brothers Band. And they were staying at the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles. And I was covering them for Rolling Stone. And after their show at the Forum, they all came back to this kind of communal room to party and jam. And so there's Greg Allman playing you this blues song, Come In My Kitchen, and I'm just loving it. He's like eight feet away and there's some people singing, and there's another guy playing guitar over there. And there was a guitar right next to me. And, you know, I only knew two chords, but I picked up the guitar and I started to strum, and I was thinking, this is cool, man. I am like jamming with the Allman Brothers Band. And it was like hands appeared kind of behind me and lifted the guitar out of my hands. Almost like a hand from heaven is just coming to, like, relinquish the guitar from my grasp. And I just felt like, oh, that's cool. I'm in heaven. And there goes the guitar.

[Terry Gross]

Now.

[Cameron Crowe]

It's like, don't jam with the Allman Brothers Band, particularly when you only know two chords. And I thought that was the most gentle way to teach me a lesson early on.

[Terry Gross]

We need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. My guest is Cameron Crowe. His new memoir is called Uncool, and it follows roughly the same period of time as his movie Almost Famous, which is about being like a teenager still in high school, touring with bands and writing about them for Rolling Stone and other magazines. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Act. I woke up this morning the head.

[Cameron Crowe]

Them states were blue.

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[Cameron Crowe]

Producer of Wait, Wait, don't tell me. Here's a great way to get the perks of being an NPR producer without doing any of the work. Join npr. With npr, you get extended interviews, inside looks at your favorite shows and more, all while supporting NPR and never having to pull an all nighter. Or if you work on one of the news shows, an all morninger, sign.

[NPR Announcer]

[e-mail] hi, this is Molly CV Nessberg, digital producer at Fresh Air.

[Terry Gross]

And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.

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[Terry Gross]

Write the weekly newsletter, and I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

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[Terry Gross]

An exclusive, so [e-mail] fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. You follow David Bowie around for, you know, off and on for a year and a half and wrote a piece, you know, was it a cover story?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, it was a cover story in Rolling Stone. It was also the Playboy interview and I did some other stories for like, Cream and some other publications. It was, it was a David Bowie factory I had going for a while because he wasn't talking to anybody else. I mean, you know, life, life puts you at a crossroads and you go one way and it turns into 18 months. With David Bowie, I had no assignment. He said to me, hold up a mirror to me. I want to see what you show me. So, like, spend some time around me. Ask me anything you want. I want to see the mirror that you hold up. And that's what I did. I'm not sure he appreciated totally the mirror that I held up to him, but he did know that it was an accurate portrait of, of what he was going through in those 18 months, which are kind of referred to as a lost weekend, when he was living untethered in Los Angeles and not sure if he was going to become a movie actor For a while, he fired his manager. And he was just kind of learning what was going to be next and trying to reinvent. And he was playing around with this character called the Thin White Duke. And one day he, he put 12 pages of an autobiography in my hand and signed it and said, I wanted you to have this. And it was called the Return of the Thin White Duke. He never finished it. It's 12 pages. It's striking. And this was the time David Boy was trying to figure out what was coming next. And I was lucky enough to be around and I asked him all kinds of stuff. And he was both warm and engaging, steely and brilliant and.

[David Biancooli]

Lost.

[Terry Gross]

Well, you know, that kind of fits in a way with the fact that he had so many characters that he embodied. And when he said to you, I want to see the mirror, you hold up. Do you think he didn't really know who he was? In some ways?

[Cameron Crowe]

It's so funny that you asked that. I asked him at one point because his real name was David Jones, right? So I asked him at one point, am I meeting David Jones or am I meeting David Bowie, the creation? And he said, you're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, wow.

[Cameron Crowe]

I know, I know, I know. He even. I asked him at one point, I was like, how do you think you're going to die? Do you think you'll die on stage? Because Ziggy Stardust, one of his characters, I think, was based on somebody who had died on stage. And he said, no, no, no, I don't think that's going to happen to me. I think my. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but he said, I think my death will be an event, something that I manage and produce and make my own statement. And that is exactly what happened.

[Terry Gross]

Remind us how he died.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, he died of cancer at a young age, and he knew he was dying, didn't tell anybody except a small group of collaborators. And he did this album, Black Star, which is his statement about the death that was coming. And it's profound and it's managed, and it is an opportunity that he did not throw away. And he also said in one of the songs, you know, I can't give you everything. So he kept a lot for himself. I think he found a life where he was in love and living in New York, and he loved his family. And the mirror that I held up to him, Terry, was a glimpse of a time when he almost died and wasn't looking after himself and involved in drugs. And too many of his friends, he said, were drug dealers. And he's lucky that he made it out alive.

[Terry Gross]

One of the things that you portray in the movie Almost Famous is the teenage girls and young women who followed the bands and partied with them afterwards and went to their hotel rooms afterwards. And people would call them groupies. But the leader of the group of girls and Almost Famous says, we're not groupies. We love the music. That's why we're here. We're Band Aids A, I D E S. And, you know, we're here to help the band because we love their music. The name of the character in the movie, the leader of these girls, is Penny Lane. That's what she was Known by. It wasn't her real name. In your memoir, she's also using the name Penny Lane, but her real name is Penny Trimble. In the movie, she's a main character played by Kate Hudson. In your memoir, she gets a paragraph in which you talk about her importance in the band world or the groupie world and her importance to you, but that's it. Are you trying to protect her privacy by not saying more?

[Cameron Crowe]

A little bit. I've talked about Penny quite a bit. Penny Trumbull is open book. She always said at the time when she got older, she wanted to use whatever money she'd saved to put together an old folks home for old rock stars up in Oregon, which she did with a little bit of the money that she made, which wasn't that much, to be able to use her story. In the movie, we wanted to give her something which she definitely used for exactly that. So she loved music and behaved exactly that way. I was pretty young at the time, and so for Penny and the Flying Garter Girls, who was like her clan, you know, who would fail at not getting emotionally involved with the bands, her thing was like, watch out, they all would fall for some of the guys and get their hearts broken, whatever. But Penny Trumbull was one of the ones that really opened up to me and told me what it was like emotionally to follow a band and to crave that experience of being in an empty arena after you'd seen the show that meant so much to you and you could still feel the spirits in the air of that empty arena. That's my favorite scene in Almost Famous, when Kate H. Judson is dancing in the. In the Garden of Trash Left behind where Stillwater has played. And that's what I was left with, not trying to protect them. I think, you know, I've written about it and you get the emotional carnage that can happen. That's an Almost Famous. But I always felt that Penny Trumbull was an open book and was, you know, a friend as well as kind of a, you know, flamboyant figure who was true to her words. She loved music.

[Terry Gross]

But there's a scene in Almost Famous where Stillwater, the fictional band that your fictional surrogate is following.

[Cameron Crowe]

I love that. My fictional surrogate.

[Terry Gross]

So the members of Stillwater basically trade some of the girls to another band for $50 and a case of beer.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

That is so condescending and so dismissive and so misogynist.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Was that based on something real? And what does that say about the way the band sometimes saw the girls and young women who followed them around.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, not, not everybody was.

[Terry Gross]

And went to their hotel rooms with them after the show.

[Cameron Crowe]

No, I know. I was horrified when I saw that that was a road crew traded one of the women who had been following the band around. And I felt that that was kind of a dark cloud that was passing over this thing that I felt so lucky to be covering and be given a backstage pass to see, et cetera. That was the ugly side of things. And it was heartbreaking to watch. But, you know, I felt at the time like this was a glimpse of the thing that I'd seen in movies sometimes, like in a movie, like Carnal Knowledge that Mike Nichols had made. This is like emotionally violent. And it frightened me what people were capable of. I didn't see it a lot. I saw it sometimes. And I think that's probably something that wasn't unique just to the world of rock. People mistreat people. And I found it really powerful. And when it came time to write about it in a fictional sense later, I did.

[Terry Gross]

Let me reintroduce you here because we have to take a short break. My guest is Cameron Crowe, whose new memoir the Uncool, is based on the same period of his life as his film Almost Famous, which he wrote and directed and won an Oscar for best screenplay. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air.

[NPR Announcer]

I'm Rachel Martin. If you're tired of small talk, check out the Wild Card Podcast. I invite influential thinkers to open up about the big topics we all think about but rarely talk about. Tune in this fall to hear Mel Robbins, Malala Yousafzai and Brene Brown talk about everything from grief and God to ambition and forgiveness. Watch or listen on the NPR app, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. When someone you love is diagnosed with cancer or another serious illness, all you want to do is help. But where do you start? On the Life Kit podcast, we have tips for you. Your agenda should be I'm going to.

[Terry Gross]

Be with you and be totally present to whatever comes up.

[NPR Announcer]

Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts for different ways to offer support. New Zealand is undergoing a huge experiment to try to save its endangered wildlife by killing animals that aren't native. And everyday New Zealanders are getting involved.

[Terry Gross]

Though it is a bit gross, sometimes just thinking about is a bit gross.

[NPR Announcer]

Flightless birds, sneaky predators and high tech traps. Listen now to the Sunday story on the upcoming first podcast from npr.

[Terry Gross]

I want to talk with you about the title of your book, uncool and about what cool means or what people think it means and what cool signifies in your movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs, the rock critic, is giving you advice again. And his advice is always very astringent and coming from a very skeptical or cynical point of view, usually with good reason. And so he's talking with you about wanting to be cool and what that really means and why you are not cool. So here's Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Lester Bangs and Patrick Fugate playing your surrogate.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

Oh, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you as they want you to get drunk and feel like you belong. Well, it was fun because they make you feel cool. Hey, I met you. You are not cool. I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't. Because we are uncool. While women will always be a problem for guys like us, most of the great art in the world is about that very problem. Good looking people, they got no spine. Their art never lasts. Then they get the girls who are smarter.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, I can really see that now.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

Because great art is about guilt and longing and, you know, love disguises sex, and sex disguises love. Hey, let's face it. You got a big head start.

[NPR Announcer]

I'm glad you were home.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs]

I'm always home. I'm uncool. Me too. You're doing great. The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. Is it my advice to you? And I know you think these guys are your friends. If you want to be a true friend to them, be honest and unmerciful.

[Terry Gross]

So that was Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs. So, did you want to be cool? And what did cool mean to you? And I just want to start by saying, too, that Lester Bangs ended up personifying cool for a lot of rock critics and people who were devoted to reading rock criticism because he went his own with such confidence and was so skeptical of the rock star machinery.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yep. He. Terry, he. He said cool in a way that I think Philip Seymour Hoffman caught. Which is like, cool. You know, it's like. It's like the posturing, the. The derisive way of saying cool. Because that way of cool means you're trying to be cool.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, you're cool.

[Cameron Crowe]

You're posturing. So I was always trying to figure out what cool was because as we spoke about earlier, my mom skipped me too many grades. I got my high school diploma in the mail because I graduated as a junior. And the attempt to be cool or even cool was never going to pay off if you're younger than everybody else. But what Lester was saying was exactly that when you're posturing, you're never there.

[David Biancooli]

And.

[Cameron Crowe]

And he said that they had done that to music. They had made music a lifestyle posture, not the thing that's ripped from the soul of everyone from Van Morrison to, you know, the guys who made Louie Louie. That's real. And everything else is just cool. And I thought, wow, so many of the musicians and the writers and the people that I came to love were not cool. They couldn't even be cool. It was like a lost pursuit. But they found each other through music. They found each other through this thing that gave you that feeling of being understood. So I called the book the Uncool because it was the badge of honor that Lester put on me. You know, don't try and do it. Be whatever is real to you. And that might be cool, but the distinction between the two was pretty clear. When he first started talking to me, it's like he. He was kind of a rumpled genius who did not look at himself as cool, which made him, to me, legend.

[Terry Gross]

Well, also, he was saying, like, I'm uncool. You're uncool. You're not part of, like, the Rockstar tribe.

[Cameron Crowe]

Exactly.

[Terry Gross]

So don't fool yourself. And maybe he was also implying you should be honored. You're on my team.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, exactly. And I gotta tell you a tiny story, because when I wrote that scene, when Lester, an almost famous, says, you know, we are uncool, and I met you, you're not cool. So I had this kind of scene written in my head of, like, victory. You know, Lester would say, you know, we are uncool. You know, that's who we are. And when it came time to film the scene, this is the brilliance of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who Lester, I think, would have loved playing him. Philip Seymour Hoffman said, like, what if we do this scene? Like, we are the only two people awake in the world, me and the character William Miller. And I'm gonna tell him quietly who we are. We are uncool. And it was that time, as a director where you go, thank God I have, like, this person playing this part who takes your words that you wrote in a quiet room and sends them into a whole other world of meaning. And that's one of the other reasons why I used the title the Uncool, because it reminds me of, like, the lineage of Lester and what he told me. And it ended up in the hands of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Who landed it in a way that Lester truly meant as a gift to me, not as a warrior cry.

[Terry Gross]

Cameron Crowe, it's really been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thank you. Really enjoyed this.

[Terry Gross]

Cameron Crowe's new memoir is called the Uncool. The new season of the Diplomat, starring Keri Russell, is now streaming on Netflix. Our TV critic David Biancooli will have a review after a short break. This is FRESH air.

[NPR Announcer]

A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story, but right now you probably need more on up first from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes because no one story can capture all that's happening in this big crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the UPverse podcast from NPR. In the US national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show, Sources and Methods, NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home, listen to Sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cameron Crowe]

Every day a lot happens in the world of politics, and every day the.

[NPR Announcer]

NPR Politics Podcast is here to makes sense of it all. We're your daily companion, giving you the.

[Cameron Crowe]

Updates and news you need to stay informed. Listen to the NPR Politics podcast on.

[NPR Announcer]

The NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Terry Gross]

The Diplomat, the Netflix drama series starring Keri Russell as a career American diplomat and ambassador to Britain, has returned for its third season. One of its prominent guest stars from season two, Alison Janney, who plays Vice President Grace Penn, has been promoted this season on screen and off. Janney is now a series regular, and this season she welcomes a new guest star, Bradley Whitford, her former co star from the West Wing. He plays her husband. And our TV critic David Biancooli, says it's a fabulous example of stunt casting. Here's his review.

[David Biancooli]

The Diplomat is one of those rare TV series that manages to get even better every season. Season one, introducing and establishing Keri Russell as diplomat Kate Wyler was really strong and impressively intelligent. It had to be if it was to work. Any one of the characters who populate the Diplomat, the politicians, the support staff and advisors, even the spouses and significant others, would in most environments be the smartest person in the room. Except, as with the classic NBC series the West Wing, they're all in the same room. This means the arguments had to be equally strong on both sides, and the jokes and snide comments had to crackle and pop. Check and double check. Kate's push and pull relationship with her husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell, was the highlight of season one. Season two upped the ante by reaching deeper into the West Wing bag of tricks and hiring Alice and Janney, who played C.J. craig on that show, to play Vice President Grace Penn on the Diplomat. And the season two cliffhanger, a brilliant one, had Hal telling Kate that he had just been on the phone with the president, informing him that his own vice president had been involved with planning a covert attack on a British military vessel. And when the president heard that news, he dropped dead of a heart attack. So now we're at season three, and suddenly Vice President Grace Penn is about to experience the orderly transition of presidential power. Except it's not so orderly. Janney's vice president, like Russell's diplomat, was in London when the President died, which makes the transition more difficult. So does the fact that Kate recently had made moves to oust Grace from her job as vp. So their relationship at this point is at best tenuous. But what saves Kate, with both the team in London and their American counterparts patched in from the Situation Room arguing about what to do next, is that she's still the most informed and level headed person of all. Much as the next president may hate.

[Terry Gross]

That, we can't put the president on the plane. We have here.

[NPR Announcer]

What?

[Terry Gross]

It doesn't have the comms package. We're scrambling 747. Nine thousand. It's in Washington.

[NPR Announcer]

Fourteen hours until she's back.

[Terry Gross]

More like six.

[NPR Announcer]

No, not okay. We need to swear her in, like, now.

[Terry Gross]

And not on foreign soil.

[NPR Announcer]

On the plane. Is the plane America? The plane is not America. Then when we hit American airspace, that's.

[Cameron Crowe]

Still 12 hours from now.

[NPR Announcer]

The embassy is right. It's American soil.

[Terry Gross]

It's not.

[NPR Announcer]

People come to the embassy and claim asylum because it's American soil, and then they don't get asylum because it's not American soil.

[Cameron Crowe]

She's already president. She was president the moment he stopped breathing.

[NPR Announcer]

You don't want to explain the 25th Amendment to North Korea. You want to publish a picture of of her with one hand in the air and another on a Bible? You have to do it here. I'm okay if you don't talk. She's right. We need to do this within the hour.

[David Biancooli]

Deborah Kahn, who created the Diplomat, won an Emmy as part of the writing team for the West Wing in 2003. She also wrote for Homeland, one of the best TV series ever. At dramatizing two opposing or shifting points of view. So the complexity of the diplomat isn't surprising, but it is impressive. She even has Alex Graves, a veteran director of the West Wing, directing this new season's first two and final two episodes. When the writing and the direction are this excellent and the actors every bit as good, scenes just soar, the silences are as powerful as the dialogue, and every conversation is bound to shift the interpersonal dynamics, often profoundly. As Kate helps Grace prepare for her swearing in ceremony, adjusting Grace's outfit in the bathroom mirror, Grace takes the opportunity to confess and Kate takes the opportunity to mend fences.

[NPR Announcer]

I killed him. Not your husband.

[Terry Gross]

No.

[NPR Announcer]

I killed a good man and a great president. That's not what happened. Of course it is. He heard what I did and his heart halted. You can just agree with me. You don't have to kiss my ass. You're the one who accused me of a terrorist plot. I never said that. That's right. You accused me of botching a terrorist plot. I said I would have done the same thing. And yet you were trying to replace me with you as vice president. You were replaceable in your current role. You are not. You didn't kill the president, ma'.

[David Biancooli]

Am.

[NPR Announcer]

You made a tough call. In hindsight, nobody likes it. You included.

[David Biancooli]

After Grace is installed as president, her husband Todd, played by Janney's former West Wing co star Bradley Whitford, is flown to London and is reunited with her in the London embassy. They exchange a hug and swap disbelieving expletives. But it's not a private moment. Kate's husband Hal, who greeted Todd and escorted him to where Grace was waiting, stuck around so he could talk to the brand new president about his own spouse.

[Cameron Crowe]

Kate Al Wiler Ambassador's wife. Top 10 first lady.

[NPR Announcer]

They put her in the ambassador's office.

[Cameron Crowe]

Sitting here.

[Terry Gross]

Palace.

[NPR Announcer]

I'll show you the corner where their husband sits and tries not to look diminished.

[Cameron Crowe]

Holy. Holy.

[NPR Announcer]

I don't know.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[NPR Announcer]

I'll get out of here. I'm so sorry.

[Cameron Crowe]

I just need half a second. I need to make sure you understand that my wife is your vice president.

[NPR Announcer]

Every misery you've suffered at our hands has been me, not her.

[Cameron Crowe]

Her.

[NPR Announcer]

Play for your job. That was my idea.

[Cameron Crowe]

She hated it from the jump.

[NPR Announcer]

The call to the president she knew nothing about. She would never have allowed it. She is the fiercest advocate you will ever have, and she is effective.

[David Biancooli]

Bradley Whitford, as the new first gentleman isn't around much. He vanishes after the first episode. But comes back strong, very strong for the final ones. When he and Janny share scenes, they're lovely even when the characters are fighting. Meanwhile, Kate's husband Hal is this season's secret weapon. Rufus Sewell from the man in the High Castle makes him likable even when he's being extremely difficult, which is often. I adore this series for its intelligence, its wit and its confrontations, but most of all, I love its unpredictability. All eight episodes of season three are available now, and there are unexpected developments the entire way. All I'll tell you is the cliffhanger. This season is one I never saw coming. When you get there, I hope you'll be as knocked out by it as I was.

[Terry Gross]

Our TV critic David Biancooli reviewed the new season of the Diplomat, which is streaming on Netflix tomorrow on Fresh Air. Our guest will be Judd Apatow. His new book, Comedy Nerd, is filled with never before published photos, handwritten letters and early script drafts. He'll share some related memories, including the childhood obsessions that led to comedies like the 40 Year Old Virgin and Freaks and Geeks. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram NPR Fresh Air Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Siviness. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

[NPR Announcer]

It's tempting to try to maximize your productivity. Cross everything off your to do list as fast as you can so you can finally rest. But getting more efficient is not going to lead to this moment of peace.

[Cameron Crowe]

Because there'll always be more.

[NPR Announcer]

Bestselling author Oliver Berkman on why Changing youg Approach to Life Starts with facing your mortality. Listen to the TED Radio Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. America's global role is shifting fast. On sources and methods, we explain how and why. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. I've talked to spies. I've reported from war zones, I've interviewed ambassadors, generals, presidents. Want to understand what is happening around the world and how it affects us? Join me and my fellow reporters as we break it down for you. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cameron Crowe]

You care about what's happening in the world? Stay informed with NPR's State of the World podcast. In just a few minutes, we take you to stories around the globe. You might hear the latest developments in world conflicts or about what global events mean. For the price of your coffee, listen to the State of the World podcast from NPR.