Daniel Radcliffe, Mariska Hargitay and the Happiest List on Earth

Summary

---

The Daily – Daniel Radcliffe, Mariska Hargitay and the Happiest List on Earth

Date: April 26, 2026
Hosts: Michael Barbaro
Featured Guests: Daniel Radcliffe, Duncan Macmillan, Mariska Hargitay, numerous international actors

---

Overview:

This episode explores the remarkable story of “Every Brilliant Thing,” a play centered on finding joy amid darkness; its journey from a small show to a global phenomenon; and the ways it touches audiences. Michael Barbaro delves into the play’s unique format with Daniel Radcliffe, hears from its creator Duncan Macmillan and actors from across the globe, and previews Mariska Hargitay’s upcoming turn in the role.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing “Every Brilliant Thing” and Its Impact

• [00:32-01:52] Michael Barbaro opens by reflecting on the heaviness of current times and the unexpected joy he felt after seeing “Every Brilliant Thing.”
• The play transforms small, everyday moments into “reasons to live” through a cumulative list started by the protagonist to help his mother, who struggles with depression.

Quote:

“A show that insists on creating a new kind of filter, a happier filter, a filter through which ordinary, everyday occurrences literally become a reason to live.”
– Michael Barbaro (00:47)

---

2. Daniel Radcliffe on Playing the Role

• [03:30-13:10] Daniel describes the plot: A boy makes a list of things that make life brilliant to help his depressed mother, leading to a life-long coping mechanism.
• The play involves open audience participation—Radcliffe moves among them, assigning roles, and breaking the barrier between actor and audience.

Notable Quotes:

“From the moment that it said, you know, the actor starts the show in the audience greeting people as they come in and assigning roles, I was immediately like, wait, what is this?”
– Daniel Radcliffe (06:36)

“The only thing you have to be to make the show work is kind. And if you're kind, the show flies.”
– Daniel Radcliffe (11:59)

---

3. The Communal Experience and Emotional Range

• [10:25-13:40] Radcliffe shares the liberating feeling of dropping celebrity pretenses, connecting person-to-person, and how real audience interactions move him and drive the performance emotionally.
• The show balances humor and the serious themes of depression and suicide, modeling how to talk about trauma from a place of healing.

Notable Moment:

Daniel recounts an audience member (as Mrs. Patterson) saying, “You were happy sometimes, but you were sad sometimes. And when you were sad, you used to work on your list. And when I'm sad, I still work on my list.” He broke down in tears on stage because of her sincerity. (11:05)

---

4. Universality and Enduring Appeal

• [14:56-16:42] The play resonates globally because it finds “the universal in the incredibly specific”—no matter the culture, the core desires for connection, love, and joy are shared.
• Barbaro and Radcliffe converse about the “religiosity of everyday joy,” and how observing and savoring simple pleasures becomes a survival tactic and a practice.

Quote:

“Maybe there’s no inherent meaning in life, but the meaning we pick up along the way about where we find joy and connection and love—that is the meaning that we create in it ourselves.”
– Michael Barbaro (16:00)

---

5. Global Voices: Actors from Around the World

• [19:23-35:33] Producer Alex Barron speaks with playwright Duncan Macmillan and actors who’ve performed the play in Kenya, Bangladesh, Korea, Egypt, the US, and Latin America.

Key Insights:

• Macmillan discusses his frustration with how suicide is portrayed in culture and the evolution of the show’s participatory, collective format.
• Actors share stories of performing in unconventional venues: a Navy ship, a tent in Kenya, living rooms, and more—often as a response to community trauma or need for healing.

Memorable Moments & Quotes:

“Doing the Navy shows is especially challenging... for the Mrs. Patterson scene because they look at you like, I am not taking part of my uniform off.”
– Greg Dragas (26:58)

“A lady held my hand and confessed she had been contemplating suicide until she saw the play. Just hold my hand like that and she said, the show changed her mind.”
– Mohsen Akhtar, Bangladesh (29:14)

“When the windshield wipers wipe to the beat of the song—which is just like, brilliant.”
– Daniel Radcliffe, recounting the list’s evolution (16:22)

• Actors recount how some audience members sought therapy or found renewed hope after seeing the play.

---

6. Mariska Hargitay on Taking Over the Role

• [37:14-43:02] In conversation with Barbaro, Hargitay expresses excitement and finds deep personal resonance in the role, referencing her own history and her mother (the late Jayne Mansfield).
• She connects the play’s healing, communal themes to her experiences creating a documentary about her family’s trauma.

Quote:

“In these pains is where we do connect, right? When somebody shares their history with you, all that makes you feel is compassion and love for them. And so that is what this play, I think, leaves us with...”
– Mariska Hargitay (40:44)

• Hargitay shares her personal "brilliant things" list, highlighting the transformative power of noticing little joys.

List Sample:

“Speed Racer. $6 million man. Bionic Woman. Jolly Ranchers... The smell of a baby's head... Your first time putting your feet in the ocean at the beginning of summer. Cherries... A full moon...”
– Mariska Hargitay (41:48)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening & Theme Introduction: [00:32–03:30]
• Daniel Radcliffe on the Play & Audience Interaction: [03:30–13:40]
• Discussion of Themes, Universality, and Personal Impact: [13:40–16:42]
• Global Montage: Performances & Impact Around the World: [19:23–35:33]
• Duncan Macmillan on Play’s Origin: [19:35–21:08]
• Stories of Personal Healing:
  • Navy performance: [24:56–26:45]
  • Bangladesh/audience saves a life: [28:29–29:14]
  • Celebration of one year therapy: [31:39–31:59]
• Mariska Hargitay Interview: [37:14–43:02]
• Hargitay shares her ‘brilliant things’ list: [41:45–42:51]

---

Notable Quotes

• “The only thing you have to be to make the show work is kind." — Daniel Radcliffe (11:59)
• “In these pains is where we do connect, right? ... That is what this play, I think, leaves us with, such beautiful empathy and compassion.” — Mariska Hargitay (40:44)
• “Experiencing the show should re-energize your faith in how brilliant people can be.” — Duncan Macmillan (34:52)

---

Tone & Language

• Uplifting, direct, conversational, and emotionally honest throughout.
• The episode balances gravity and levity, true to the tone of the play itself.

---

Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode shows “Every Brilliant Thing” is not just a play—it’s a participatory exercise in shared humanity, joy, and resilience, enacted with warmth and unpredictability in venues across the world. Through Radcliffe’s reflections, the voices of other actors, and Mariska Hargitay’s personal connection, listeners witness how simple acts of noticing and sharing “brilliant things” become radical acts of hope and community in the face of pain and isolation.

---

Transcript

[Apple Card Announcer]

Brought to you by Apple Card. Hey, you could be earning 2% daily cash back on that purchase. And that one and even that one. That's because Apple card users earn 2% daily cash back on every purchase, including everyday items they buy online or in store when using their Apple Card. With Apple Pay, not an Apple Card customer, you can apply in the wallet app on iPhone, subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa. Sign Salt Lake City branch terms and more at Apple co Benefits from the New York Times.

[Michael Barbaro]

I'm Michael Balbaro. This is the daily on Sunday. The general heaviness of this moment, the war, prices, the AI is not lost on any of us. We cover it every day on this show. Joy and relief, I think it's fair to say, are rare. But a few weeks ago, I found myself genuinely awash in both of those feelings. I had just left a theater in midtown Manhattan where I had seen something unlike anything I'd ever seen before. A show that insists on creating a new kind of filter, a happier filter, a filter through which ordinary, everyday occurrences literally become a reason to live. The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world, everything worth. The show is called every brilliant thing. It just opened up on Broadway starring Daniel Radcliffe. In it, Radcliffe asks us, the audience, to work together with him to tell the play's central story. One ice cream.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Two waterflights.

[Michael Barbaro]

Three more on that in just a moment. It turns out I was relatively late to the phenomenon of this show, which has become a kind of global antidote to pain. It's been translated into dozens of languages. It's been produced in hundreds of communities around the world, in places like Dublin.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

The list began after her first attempt.

[Michael Barbaro]

Tokyo Kano ga saisoni koto no walking.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

The list began after.

[Mariska Hargitay]

After her first attempt.

[Michael Barbaro]

Even on hbo.

[Duncan Macmillan]

The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything that was brilliant about the world, everything that was worth living for, number one.

[Michael Barbaro]

And so today we're gonna tell the story of this show, why it has resonated with so many people and what it tells us about how to live in dark Times. It's Sunday, April 26. Daniel Ratcliffe, welcome to the Daily. Thank you so much for having me. We're thrilled to have you. Thank you. So every brilliant thing, as you know, is a very complicated show to explain to somebody who has never seen it before. So when somebody asks you, Daniel Radcliffe, to describe the show, what do you say? Well, the plot of the show is I play a character who, when they were young Their mother was dealing with very, very serious depression and mental health issues. And so to, in an effort to sort of cheer his mom, he starts making a list of every brilliant thing that he can think of about the world. And brilliant in the context of the show and in British parlance is essentially everything that's good and wonderful. Yeah, everything that's, you know, wonderful, great, amazing, joyous about the world. Yeah. And just to give some examples, kazoos, period. Yeah, kazoos. Actually, really good oranges. Yeah, really good oranges peeing in the ocean. And nobody knows the awkward dance of negotiating whether it's going to be a hug or a handshake. Yeah. So then it's sort of about how the making of that list follows him into his teenage years and then becomes a kind of coping mechanism for him as an adult and a kind of really an extension of just how he sees the world in this sort of ever evolving list making process. My mind was fizzing ever since I was little. I'd wanted to understand why my mom had done what she had done. And here was a possible answer, or at least, you know, part of one. I am so sorry, professor, please carry on. I left the lecture. You're done.

[Candon Jeanette]

Thank you so much.

[Michael Barbaro]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. But the way the play is done, it's this kind of amazing communal experience, like it should feel every night, like me and the audience are kind of making the play together. Right. So let's talk about that communal experience because on. Audience participation is a huge part of this show. It's improvised, but also kind of not entirely improvised before the show even begins, you are out there in the audience, you're walking around, you're talking with people, you're assigning them roles. You're looking for audience members to be in this play with you. So talk to me about that. Yeah. So there are sort of two levels to the audience participation in this show. There's one sort of quite a light lift for people where I give people a card that has a number on it and some words. And when I shout out the number, they shout out those words. Five roller coasters, six Super Mario, seven people falling over. And then there is five people who play very significant roles. The heavy lifts. The heavy lifts. And I. They are people that do not know that they will be doing that when they come into the theater that night. And I have to try and suss out who I would like to use and then if they would like to be used. We do, we do get you. Generally speaking, people are sort of fairly amenable to it. But we do get some absolute hard nos from people sometimes. I mean, it's fascinating that you decided to put yourself in the position of being rejected by members of the audience of having these kind of interactions at all. I mean, you're obviously a very well known actor, both from your movie work, famously waving the wand as a young boy, to your stage work. You won a Tony for your performance in Merrily We Roll along the musical. In my mind, you've got your pick of the letter. You can do anything you want. So what made you take on such an unusual play? Well, you know, I read the script and I from the moment that it said, you know, the actor starts the show in the audience greeting people as they come in and assigning roles, I was immediately like, wait, what is this? You know, there's nothing else that I've ever read that requires me to have this sort of relationship with an audience that I, you know, if anyone comes in with any preconceived notions of me or being sort of starstruck or whatever, I feel like that first half hour kind of breaks that down because you see me running around sweating like you see, you know, it takes any sort of illusion or romance out of me, I think, in any way. One of the barometers for me of the whole show was just how much moisture was on your sweater. Yeah, no, my dresser, Sandy said to me the other day, she was like, do you want an undershirt? And I was like, no, then I'll sweat more. I was like, I don't mind people seeing me sweat. It's very evident that I'm running around. People know why it's happening. It strikes me that the kind of interactions you have to go have in the audience every night, they may not be the thing that most famous actors would relish. I have to say, I think there's something incredibly liberating for me being able to do this. I don't get to be in a room in the way I am in the room for the half hour before the show ever. I don't get to walk into a huge crowded room of people with my hat off and no glasses and not trying to, you know, not trying to hide, which is normally my M.O. when I go through the rest. And actually being able to go into a room and just go out to people and say, hi, I'm Dan, so nice to meet you, thank you for coming. Here's what the show's about is it's just something I don't get to Do. There's a line actually in the show which one of the many lines that I relate to where I say I was not shy. I've been trying to stay constant level and there is something about. I think people think of me as being quite shy, but actually like, I'm really not. I love talking to people. It's just that talking to people and being not shy, you know, could have a different knock on effect in the rest of my life. Whereas actually this is an environment which is like I can be both myself and quite voluble and just running around. But also there's a certain amount like. Yeah, I don't know, it's hard to. No, I think. I think I hear you saying that you're getting as much out of these interactions as we are. 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And because sometimes people will amaze you. Just they genuinely say something that is so moving and so real and so unexpected that it moves me to the exact point where the character needs to be without me trying to have to work to get there. And now that you've been doing the show for a couple of months, do you have a single favorite interaction with an audience member so far? Yeah, I think, you know, we had. There's one of the characters in the show who is generally played by an older woman and Mrs. Patterson. Yes. That's the role that I think everybody who sees the play probably fixes on to a degree. And just to explain without giving away too, too much, Mrs. Patterson is a school counselor. Gives you in your darker, younger days some really important advice. And it requires you to go into the audience and ask someone to take off their shoe, remove their sock and use it as a sock puppet. Yeah. And they have to make some real editorial decisions. Yeah. I mean, what's. The first scene with Mrs. Patterson is quite structured and follows, you know, I generally. We hit pretty much all the same beats in it every night. The last scene is truly one of the joys of the show is that a lot of different things can happen. So there is a final scene with Mrs. Patterson where having grown up, I then call on her again to like, essentially comfort me in a moment of real despair. And that we had a woman the other day and she was. Was incredible. And I, you know, when I said to her, I asked Mrs. Patson, do you remember what I was like when I was a kid? And she said, you were happy sometimes, but you were sad sometimes. And when you were sad, you used to work on your list. And then she said, and when I'm sad, I Still work on my list. And I just, like, started crying. It was so beautiful and so generous of her to like, reach into her actual experience and talk to me that sort of honestly. And the joy of doing this show is that you were exposed on a. On a daily basis to people's brilliance and their kindness. And actually, that's what I say to people a lot when I'm asking people to join in the show. I say, you don't have to be funny, you don't have to be clever. If you are those things, that's a great bonus. The only thing you have to be to make the show work is kind. And if you're kind, the show flies. That's beautiful. It's a really. It's a beautiful thing to be on the receiving end of. A lot of the show is genuinely funny at its core. The show is quite serious. It's a quite serious exploration of depression and of suicide. And I wonder how you get the quotients, right, the quotient that needs to be serious and sober and honor that weighty subject and the frequent amount of. Of joy and laughter and comedy that's happening. Yeah, I mean, there is something about trying to model the behavior of somebody who has been through something very traumatic and has dealt with depression, talking about it from a place of now being okay, or have certainly, you know, have worked on themself enough to be able to talk about it and laugh and see the funny side, even in these dark moments, that I think there's something kind of hopefully healing about it. I think that's the beauty of the play, is that those things do sit in alongside each other and that there is hopefully something really cathartic, hopefully in this show. It occurs to me that to be a very young actor living a life in the spotlight, needing to disguise yourself as you go about your life, could make a person sad from time to time. And your industry is filled with people who, having lived in the public light as much as you have, really struggle to make it through to adulthood. And so as I watched this role, I did wonder how much any of this at all feels relatable to you. I don't think there's anybody that could get to 36 years old without having either felt that kind of profound sadness themself or known people who have experienced that. And actually, in some ways, like the helplessness of not being able to lift someone that you love out of their depression is, you know, just as hard as being depressed yourself in a lot of ways. It's always very hard for Me to figure out how much of what I have felt in my life is directly because of fame or without it. I've only ever lived this one way, so I can't separate where what's inherent within me is separate from the facts of my life. There's a line in the show which says, one of the brilliant things on the list is reading something which articulates exactly how you feel about something, but lack the words to express yourself. Whenever you do find something like that, that says something about the world that you would like to have said yourself, but would never have been smart enough or brilliant enough to. That's. So there's this. There's Swiss Army Man. There's a couple of things that I've done that truly are that to me, and this is one of them. So there's a kind of existentialism about the show, which is that, like, you know, maybe there's no inherent meaning in life, but the meaning we pick up along the way about where we find joy and where we find connection and love, that that is the meaning that we create in it ourselves, is something that I think, I believe a kind of religiosity of everyday joy. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. And being like that is that being its own reward and the finding of those things being meaning in and of itself. This show draws a very. A very direct line between happiness and the ability to notice new, wonderful things. And I do think that it's sort of a practice that we all. When we were in rehearsal, Duncan encouraged us all to, like, write new, brilliant things down on the wall in case we saw something that, in fact, one of them has ended up as one of the last ones we read in the show. Maddy, our head of our props department, wrote down when the windshield wipers wipe to the beat of the song, which is just like a brilliant. It is a brillian. And I think that it has become sort of a practice of if you just have this frame of sort of seeing the world through the brilliant things that you kind of touch on a daily basis. It has, you know, for me at least, it's been something that I have found a real positive way of sort of moving through the world. Daniel, this show, I'm not breaking any news to you, has been a big hit on Broadway with you in it, but it's been a big hit a lot of places, all over the United States, all over the United Kingdom, South America, Korea, Bangladesh, Kenya. As a person who's lived inside the show, why do you think it has been able to have the kind of impact it has in so many different places. No, I mean, I think it's one of the kind of brilliant. God, it's so hard. Sorry. It's so hard to describe the show without using that word. I had the same thing when I was promoting Weird Al the movie. I just kept saying the word weird all the time. Anyway, so it is one of the. I think the extraordinary things this show manages to do is it finds the universal in the incredibly specific. There is something beautiful about how actually similar we all are and how we all want basically the same things, which is connection, love, and joy. Yeah. You know, I'm in the show until late May, and then it's carrying on with Mariska Hargitay. And I'm so happy that the versatility of the monologue will be able. I hope it has a long life here in New York, and I hope it continues to have a life around the world as it has up until this point. And hopefully, you know, the visibility of it being on Broadway can sort of extend that further and further. Yeah. I mean, the thing that I experienced is that everybody who left that theater was in a state of joy, however ephemeral. I was in a state of joy that makes them happy. That kind of face hurt. Smiling. Oh, my God. Amazing thing. And. And for that, I want to thank you. You're more than welcome. Thank you for coming and watching it. Thank you for coming into the studio and having this conversation. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. After the break, we're going to hear from people from around the world who helped make this show the sensation that it's now become. We'll be right back.

[Greg Dragas]

Foreign.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Hey, you could be earning 2% daily cash back on that purchase. And that one. And even that one. That's because Apple card users earn 2% daily cash back on every purchase, including everyday items they buy online or in store when using their Apple card. With Apple Pay, not an Apple Card customer, you can apply in the wallet app on iPhone, subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa, Salt Lake City branch terms and more at Apple Co Benefits.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Hey, I'm Joelle.

[Apple Card Announcer]

And I'm Juliet from New York Times Games.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

And we're out here talking to people about games.

[Apple Card Announcer]

You play New York Times games? Yes, every day.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Do you have a favorite connections? It just makes you think.

[Apple Card Announcer]

I feel like it gives me elasticity.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Create four groups of four.

[Mohsen Akhtar]

Hmm.

[Michael Barbaro]

This is actually a pretty cool game.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

What's your favorite game?

[Michael Barbaro]

Do a crossword.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

The crossword.

[Michael Barbaro]

I do it with my brother. We get Thursday sometimes, but I don't think I couldn't do Thursday on my own.

[Apple Card Announcer]

I feel like I'm learning. I feel like I'm accomplishing something.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

I like the do do, do do do do do do. When you finish it, my family does wordle and we have a huge group chat. Like my grandma does wordle.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Your grandma does wordle?

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Oh, every day.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Yeah.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Do you have a wordle hot take? You should start with a word that's

[Michael Barbaro]

strategically bad to make it more fun.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

All of these games are so fun because it's like a little 5 to 10 minute break.

[Apple Card Announcer]

I love these games.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Yeah. New York Times game subscribers get full access to all our games and features.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Subscribe [e-mail] games for a special offer.

[Duncan Macmillan]

Like this was never the point. It was to end on Broadway with a show like this.

[Michael Barbaro]

Over the past couple of weeks, my colleague, producer Alex Baron spoke with the creator of Every Brilliant Thing and a few of the hundreds of actors who have performed it.

[Duncan Macmillan]

I'm Duncan macmillan and I wrote the play Every Brilliant Thing. This is a show that was written. I was asked to do a sort of scratch night thing at a small London theatre and the idea is you do a sort of one off piece of work and it's never seen again. And so I wrote this 20 minute monologue for Rosie Thompson, who's this actress, wonderful actress to do, but had the whole shape of the show but it had none of the audience interaction. She was asked to do it again at another small theater and then another one. I was asked to read it at one place and then at another place and then other people started reading it. Phoebe Waller Bridge was one of them. Jarvis Cocker read it like it was this really fun thing. I couldn't see how to turn it into a full length play and I was sort of really reluctant to do so. I'd got kind of bored and angered, I suppose, with depictions of suicide and depression as sort of poetic inevitabilities or glamorized or stigmatized. It's much more of an everyday thing that I think we can all probably relate to if it's said properly. And then I went to see Johnny Donohoe, who's a UK comedian.

[Michael Barbaro]

I've got a chair because I got my guitar strap

[Duncan Macmillan]

rock. And the way he uses crowd work is quite unique. He is so warm and trustworthy and he sort of loves you. If you're good, we'll throw sweets into the audience, which is helpful.

[Mugambi Ndiga]

Thank you.

[Duncan Macmillan]

I thought, oh, if it can be more like this. I'm up for that. Like, you keep the integrity of it being a monologue, but you also. You do it in a way which is inclusive and collective and about the audience. So Johnny started doing it in 2013, 2012.

[Michael Barbaro]

That week was tough. I had to go and see the school counselor who was actually just Mrs.

[Duncan Macmillan]

Patterson from the sixth grade. There's stuff in there that is purely him. Mrs. Patterson taking her sock off. Now, I'm gonna ask you to be

[Michael Barbaro]

Mrs. Patterson, but I don't want you to worry.

[Duncan Macmillan]

Cause you don't have to do much.

[Michael Barbaro]

In fact, you just stayed up.

[Duncan Macmillan]

I'd written that there was a sock puppet and you're given a sock puppet. And he was like, I can get them to take their sock off. And I was like, that's never gonna happen. And he was like, I can make them take their sock off. What she would do when you arrived is she would first take off one shoe. And then she'd take off the sock. The feeling was, let's show a collective experience where we're all crying together, we're all laughing together, and sharing in the truth of that hopefully quite a worthwhile and maybe even healing experience. I probably should know it off by heart by this stage. Okay. Yeah, I got it. The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. 1.

[Candon Jeanette]

Ice cream.

[Duncan Macmillan]

2.

[Greg Dragas]

Water fights.

[Michael Barbaro]

3.

[Mugambi Ndiga]

Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch last program.

[Mariska Hargitay]

4.

[Erica de la Vega]

El color verde.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

5, 6.

[Duncan Macmillan]

I started the list on the 9th of November 1996.

[Candon Jeanette]

I started the list on 11-9-19.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

I started the list on 9th November 1996.

[Mugambi Ndiga]

I started the List on the 9th of November 1980. 87. My name is Mugambi Ndiga and I performed every brilliant thing In Nairobi, Kenya. A director I work with reached out. She said that there was a. A mental health summit that was coming up and they wanted a big finisher. And so she found this play a brilliant thing. I don't think anyone had expected what was coming. You know, first of all, we're not in a theater. We're in a tent. Chairs on a concrete basketball court over which they'd put a tent. I came out before the play began. I was saying hi to everyone. I was giving out the numbers. And they were like, aren't you supposed to be getting on stage? And I'm like, I actually am on stage right now. It's begun. It's begun. Just, you know, take this. And when I call out that number, just call out the Number no one had any idea what we. What we were doing. And when the play began, just a couple minutes in, they were locked in. You know, I call out number one, and. And someone goes, ice cream. And they're like, oh, someone else has a piece of paper. 2, 3, 4. Okay, I know what's going on now.

[Candon Jeanette]

It's almost like a dance that we have, you know, with the other. The audience members.

[Erica de la Vega]

The one that didn't want to play with me in the beginning, want to play in the middle of the play.

[Greg Dragas]

I think it's just solidified for me, really, the importance of community. Hi, my name is Greg Dragas.

[Candon Jeanette]

Hi, my name is Candon Jeanette.

[Greg Dragas]

And I performed every brilliant thing in Virginia.

[Candon Jeanette]

And I have performed this wonderful show with Virginia Stage Company. And a gazillion different places, we switch off who performs.

[Greg Dragas]

Basically, it's just who's available at the time.

[Candon Jeanette]

I performed the show on the USS George H.W. bush.

[Greg Dragas]

Make sure they got the whole name in there.

[Candon Jeanette]

An actual vessel, a Navy vessel, which is, like, mind blowing to think about

[Greg Dragas]

the operations of the US Navy. Don't just stop because you're putting on a play.

[Candon Jeanette]

There's like, people are marching, there are

[Greg Dragas]

forklifts driving around behind the audience. At one point, an alarm went off, alarms going off. And I thought, should I be worried?

[Candon Jeanette]

People are coming up the gangway.

[Greg Dragas]

Like, I'm trying to deliver my lines in meaningful way.

[Candon Jeanette]

My goal always is to capture them, to connect, you know, eye to eye contact.

[Greg Dragas]

You know, you can tell during a show if an audience is with you or not.

[Candon Jeanette]

And in that space, getting through to them wasn't a hard thing.

[Greg Dragas]

And especially one like this, where the lights are totally up and they're right there in front of you and you're interacting with them. Yeah, it felt like a good. It felt like a good show. I remember learning as we were going in to do these shows on the aircraft carrier, that apparently there had been one week where three crew members had taken their own lives just on that ship.

[Candon Jeanette]

This has been more than once where we've come in and performed the show because there's either been a spike in the number of suicides, or someone has just, you know, lost their life to suicide. And it's more of a fragile environment, and it's more of a. It's more of a need to really get that message out there.

[Greg Dragas]

The Navy shows that we've done do strike me as some of the most important that we do.

[Candon Jeanette]

We have partnered with local organizations that will come out to our show. So we'll have our show and we will also give out resources and connect to people who can continue that conversation after we're done.

[Greg Dragas]

I'm sure there were folks that were probably not super comfortable with what we were doing, but for those that are more willing to participate, there's opportunities there. Doing the Navy shows is especially challenging for the Mrs. Patterson scene because they look at you like, I am not taking part of my uniform off. Maybe they don't know if they're even allowed at that time to take their part of their uniform off.

[Erica de la Vega]

In Miami, I can tell you that nobody uses socks. We have to ask for scarves. Can you use your scarf?

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

There was a lot of worry about, will the audience, especially when they play Mrs. Patterson, taking their shoe off and putting a sock on their hand, be able to take on the role without feeling uncomfortable? I'm Taebyo Jong. I was in Every Brilliant Thing in Korea. Our Korean audience is on the shyer side, and as an actor myself, I'm on the more introverted side too. So we actually prepared socks on our end in case someone would be unable to take off their own socks. I don't think there was anyone who asked for that. Everyone, although they are shy in that moment, was so eager to help the actor out. When they participate without hesitation, those moments are memorable.

[Mohsen Akhtar]

We wanted to enter their own space where they feel safe. Hello, I am Mohsen Akhtar and I performed in Every Brilliant Thing in Bangladesh. I have performed in living rooms, cafes, offices and libraries, and even hospitals. When this issue is explored in a private setting among friends and family, through this performance, everyone can begin to understand and empathize with one another. And after the show, of course, they feel that, that we have a common ground somehow and I am maybe part of their lives. Like after one performance, a lady held my hand and confessed that she had been contemplating suicide until she saw the place. Just hold my hand like that and she said. She told me the show changed her mind. The very next month, she organized a performance in her own drawing room for her friends and family.

[Erica de la Vega]

Display gave me miracles, give me interactions that are unforgettable and give me hope. Hi, my name is Erica de la Vega. I have performed Every Brilliant Thing in more than 20 cities in the United States. I've been in Panama, Chile, Canada, Republica, Dominicana, El Salvador, Yatemala, a guy in Washington D.C. when I finished the play, he couldn't stand up and leave and my producers, like, sat down with him and tell me what's going on. We are here Erica is over there. She's gonna take some pictures. Like, what's going on? And he told her that he was thinking about taking his life the day before, but something tell him that go to a play. He went alone and. And he didn't believe what he was experiencing. I spoke with him and we took a picture and we were very worried, you know, that month after that, I was performing in Miami, and he sent a message to my producer, and he said to her, hi, I'm traveling to Miami and I want to take some friends to the play.

[Mugambi Ndiga]

When we did the restaging in 2024, one young person came to me and said, I came for the show last year and there was. We had mental health support. If someone wanted to talk to someone after the play, they could go into a little tent and talk to someone. And she did. And that started her journey in seeking therapy. And when she was coming for the play a year later, she said, I'm coming to celebrate one year of therapy.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

I'm Tommy Schoeffler. I performed every Brilliant thing in Juneau, Alaska.

[Michael Barbaro]

After the show closed, I was actually

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

inspired to enroll in my college's master's program in counseling. So I actually finished another master's degree in mental health counseling.

[Michael Barbaro]

So I'm actually moved to where I

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

am now working in counseling.

[Mohsen Akhtar]

I had many hugs from long hugs, sometimes from strangers who are not strangers anymore after the show. I'm Nanda Muhammad. I performed every billion thing in Egypt and the Arab world. I have a lot of beautiful memories with the audience during this show. One time, a woman was playing Miss Sara. She's the school counselor. In the original production, it was Ms. Patterson with me in Our Virgin, the name is Ms. Sara. And we improvised together. She was asking me some questions and I was improvising with her. And at the end, she said, but you are very intelligent and very clever, and you are so courage and you need to move on. She was so sincere and genuine when she was saying that. And then I said to her, honestly, I feel that I can't move on. She said, do you remember your list? So I said, no, I don't remember anything. And she started to yell the numbers. She said, 1, 2, swimming. She was like, 3.

[Candon Jeanette]

Staying up late, past your bedtime and being allowed to watch tv.

[Greg Dragas]

Four people falling over.

[Mohsen Akhtar]

Five, six, seven. And when she couldn't remember the rest of the numbers, the audience was saying it themselves.

[Mugambi Ndiga]

Mountain Dew, Michael Jordan, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

[Mohsen Akhtar]

Bengali flower called Hijab. And they were all together shouting all the lists. And I was looking like, oh, my God, they, they have it. They finished. Was very beautiful. I can't. I will never forget her.

[Duncan Macmillan]

I think if I heard about this play and thought, oh, it's a show about, you know, if you just. If you only look at the bright side of life, you'll be okay. That's not what I'm trying to say at all. What I really believe in is the power of people and the power of actual genuine commitment, connection with human beings. And I believe in asking for help when you need it and giving help when asked for it. Experiencing the show should re energize your faith in how brilliant people can be.

[Greg Dragas]

The list began her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant.

[Mariska Hargitay]

So

[Mugambi Ndiga]

began after

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

her first.

[Michael Barbaro]

After the break, my call with the actress who's about to take over this role on Broadway, Mariska Hargitay. We'll be right back.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Brought to you by Apple Card. Hey, you could be earning 2% daily cash back on that purchase. And that one and even that one. That's because Apple card users earn 2% daily cash back on every purchase, including everyday items they buy online or in store when using their Apple Card. With Apple Pay, not an Apple Card customer, you can apply in the wallet app on iPhone, subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa Salt Lake City branch terms and more at Apple co benefits.

[Michael Barbaro]

In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals. And I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan an upstanding citizen. But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand.

[Joelle (New York Times Games)]

Alan.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Murder me.

[Michael Barbaro]

What the hell was Alan thinking? From serial productions and the New York Times. I'm EM Gessen and this is the idiot. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Hello.

[Michael Barbaro]

Hey, Mariska, Michael Barbaro here.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Hi.

[Michael Barbaro]

Thank you for doing this.

[Mariska Hargitay]

I couldn't be more excited about it. There's nothing that I'd rather talk about

[Michael Barbaro]

right now than this.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Than this. This is something beautiful and brilliant and just feels like a big, huge gift that landed in my lap.

[Michael Barbaro]

And just to explain, in a few weeks you're set to take over the central role in every brilliant thing. This is your first time, correct me if I'm wrong, on Broadway.

[Mariska Hargitay]

This is my Broadway debut.

[Michael Barbaro]

I mean, I just wanna say letting your first appearance on Broadway be a high wire act, one person, audience interaction extravaganza is bold.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Exactly. Well said.

[Greg Dragas]

Well said is bold.

[Mariska Hargitay]

It's bold, Michael, but it's so up My alley. Why?

[Michael Barbaro]

Because for those who know you through TV, primarily as Captain Olivia Benson from Law Order SVU, and by the way, when I was watching, you were a detective. So congrats on the promotion.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Michael Barbaro]

This might seem like a pretty unusual career turn, and so I want to understand why you think it's up your alley, how you decided to do not just Broadway, but why this show.

[Mariska Hargitay]

I am very different than Olivia Benson, and I love humans, and I love to connect with humans. And I think, you know, this is what human beings need, is community. So I want to be in community. I want to give community. I think that there are ways that I am much more like this person. I see parallels to my own history in this play, and very excited to just explore that.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, I want to talk about those parallels to your life that you just mentioned, because I just saw the documentary that you made about your mother, Jane Mansfield. The documentary is called My Mom Jane, and it's a really bracing, brutal, candid journey of self discovery because your mother died when you were three years old, and it seems like you've spent a lot of your adult life trying to understand this mother that you never really knew.

[Mariska Hargitay]

And.

[Michael Barbaro]

And after seeing the film and seeing every Brilliant thing, I started to see so many parallels to the character in Every Brilliant Thing. Am I being too much of a dime store psychologist here?

[Mariska Hargitay]

No, not at all. I am so drawn to themes of healing and renewal. You know, my movie was about our. It's a family film, right? It's a movie about our collected pain and the universality of family trauma. And I have had some profound conversations with people after the film because of what it brought up in them, Right. For me, I made a film about my family, about my mother, right? And you'd think, like, wow, that has nothing to do with me, right? And yet that's not the takeaway of the film. The takeaway is mourning and identity and love and pain. And in these pains is where we do connect, Right? When somebody shares their history with you is all that makes you feel is compassion and love for them. And so that is what this play, I think, leaves us with, is such beautiful empathy and compassion, and again, the resiliency and the triumph of the human spirit.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, so to end, which brilliant thing from the show's very long list of them speaks to you, Mariska Hargitay, the most?

[Mariska Hargitay]

There's just so many for so many different reasons. And what was so fun is, as I started preparing for the play, you know, I made my own list of brilliant things.

[Michael Barbaro]

Ah. Can you tell me one from your own personal list? If I can pry.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Oh, my gosh. I have it right here. How about this? Are you ready?

[Michael Barbaro]

Yes.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Speed Racer. $6 million man. Bionic Woman. Jolly Ranchers. Things monogrammed with my name on it. Pasta with butter and cheese. Wearing a tutu. Starfish. The smell of a baby's head blowing bubbles out of a wand. Gardenias. The first summer jump into a pool. Your first time putting your feet in the ocean at the beginning of summer. Cherries. A coffee with heart put in the foam. A full moon. You know, when my husband hands me my coffee in the morning, there's just these little moments now that are so sacred. I have a new lens right now, so I'm going into something that is so joyful, even though the premise of the play, there's so much pain there. And yet, isn't that the way life goes? We laugh, we. We cry. And life is hard. But it's also so joyful, if you can see it.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, Mariska, we will not only be rooting for you, we will be in the audience at some point to watch.

[Mariska Hargitay]

Thank you.

[Michael Barbaro]

And to figure out if you're any good at it.

[Mariska Hargitay]

I hope so.

[Michael Barbaro]

Today's episode was reported and produced by Alex Barron with help from Tina Antolini. It was edited by Wendy Doerr. Our production manager is Franny Carr Toth. The episode contains original music by Diane Wong, Alicia Ba Itoub, Dan Powell, Leah Shaw Dameron, Marion Lozano and Rowan Yamisto, who also engineered the episode. Special thanks to Hannah Ahn and Minju Pak. That's it for the Daily on Sunday. I'm Michael Balbaro. See you tomorrow.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Brought to you by Apple Card. Hey, you could be earning 2% daily cash back on that purchase. And that one. And even that one. That's because Apple card users earn 2% daily cash back on every purchase, including everyday items they buy online or in store when using their Apple Card. With Apple Pay, not an Apple Card customer, you can apply in the wallet app on iPhone, subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa, Salt Lake City Branch terms and more at Apple Co Benefits.