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The New Yorker Radio Hour
The actor Christine Baranski on “The Good Fight,” and Kurt Vile on Songwriting
00:30:19
Christine Baranski was a successful theatre actor who would never stoop to do television in the old days. But when she got the pilot script for “Cybill,” and had two daughters to put through school, she took the role of Marianne, the tough-talking best friend of Cybill Shepherd’s character. “Who goes to Hollywood at forty-two and becomes an overnight star?” Baranski asks the critic Emily Nussbaum. What made her such a sensation? “No one had seen that woman on American television” before, she notes, of her character, a badass with a Martini and an attitude. “Sex and the City” came later. Playing strong women seems to come naturally to Baranski; since 2009, she’s portrayed the capable, elegant Diane Lockhart, in “The Good Wife” and then “The Good Fight.” She talked with Nussbaum in a live conversation at the 2018 New Yorker Festival. Plus, Amanda Petrusich talks with the musician Kurt Vile, who performs his song “Pretty Pimpin” live.
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- [00:01]
Announcer
From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC studios.
- [00:11]
David Remnick
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Emily Nussbaum watches more TV than any 16 people I know. She's the New Yorker's television critic and she won the Pulitzer Prize for her work in 2016. So when Emily Nussbaum gets excited about interviewing an actor, you know, there's gotta be a good reason.
- [00:34]
Emily Nussbaum
I'm delighted to welcome Christine Baranski, who's not only a quadruple and probably more threat performer and a radical fashion inspiration, but my personal guide through today's political hellscape. In her current guise as Diane Lockhart on the wonderful CBS drama the Good Fight. And on Ms. Baranski's been microdosing her way through the Trump apocalypse, becoming appropriately unhinged in a series of the most amazing necklaces on the planet.
- [01:14]
Christine Baranski
Thank you.
- [01:15]
David Remnick
Baranski was already a stage veteran performing Shakespeare and winning Tony awards on Broadway when she suddenly shot to fame on television with the show Sybil. She played Marianne, a martini swilling best friend character who got most of the best zingers in the show. She danced with Robin Williams in the Birdcage and crooned with Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia. And she's been in top rated sitcoms from Frasier to the Big Bang Theory.
- [01:42]
Emily Nussbaum
Christine is a 15 time Emmy Award nominee. She's won two Tonys for the Real Thing and Rumors. And she has a house in Connecticut where she gets to go skinny dipping at night. So basically, she's living the life. Welcome, Christine Baranski.
- [01:55]
Christine Baranski
Thank you.
- [02:03]
Emily Nussbaum
We were talking backstage and we immediately went into a political rabbit hole. So rather than start with anything political, I'm gonna start with a clip from Mamma Mia.
- [02:12]
Christine Baranski
Now. You're so cute. I like your style and I know what you mean when you give me a flash of that smile Smiled by your only child. Well, I can d. Maybe we should all just sit around singing Abba song.
- [02:45]
Sybil (character)
You know.
- [02:48]
Christine Baranski
This is the first mamma mi. Of course, the second one just appeared this summer, which I thought was a public service because it. I mean, you go from thinking, God, this is really kind of silly and oh, God. And then I realized the world really needs a couple of hours to still believe. Life is joyous and people get along and there's sensuality and a belief in love and there's just a goofy innocence about the movie that's really, as I said, it Performs a function now.
- [03:21]
Emily Nussbaum
So I'm gonna show another clip and we're gonna jump right to the good fight. And this trip is called Trump Derangement Syndrome.
- [03:30]
Julius (character)
This is deranged. This is the Trump Derangement Syndrome. You're just as bad as you're accusing him of being.
- [03:36]
Christine Baranski
No, I'm just done with being the adult in the room. I am done with being the compliant and the sensible one standing stoically by while the other side picks my pockets while the other side gerrymanders Democrats out of existence. A 3 million person majority and we lost the presidency. A Congress that keeps a Supreme Court justice from being seated because he was chosen by a Democratic president.
- [04:01]
Julius (character)
That's not what happened.
- [04:02]
Christine Baranski
That is exactly what happened, Julius.
- [04:04]
Julius (character)
Okay, then take to the streets, man, the barricades. Because if that's what you really think, you've given up on the law.
- [04:12]
Emily Nussbaum
You.
- [04:12]
Julius (character)
You've gone well beyond any actually.
- [04:14]
Christine Baranski
You don't know. I have a Smith and Wesson 64 in my desk and I'm this close to taking to the streets. There's an uncanny synchronicity to this character. As I watch this, my eyes are welling up in tears as I watch this. It's so of the moment. It's just brilliantly written, but it really puts intelligent, liberal minded people who believe in the liberal democratic tradition and society and in their country, puts them in a workplace and lets them bump into each other and mix ideas and make intellectual arguments that are complex and not strident. But that this woman, this Diane character, for having fought the good fight all her life, being a woman who probably followed Hillary into through Wellesley and championed her and had to knock on the glass ceiling many times, and finds herself at this present moment living in a country where we're backsliding in terms of women's rights. It's a marvelous role to play and it's a marvelous show to be on because the writers just kind of take us into the belly of the beast and let us live in that world. And this past, this past season really had, especially Diane trying to, with her great rationality, you know, for seven years you saw her on the Good Fight. Being the grown up in the room or the rational one or the voice of reason, and to see that character not be able to cope, to see that woman say, I can't process this, I'm going crazy. I can't turn the TV off. But I feel like I have to be bear witness to this. It's very, very interesting. And I said to Michelle King, our head Writer last week I said, you know, we're going to have to just go right into this again, given what's happening. And she said, yep, we're, you know, that's where we're going to be in season three is following the women and.
- [06:33]
Emily Nussbaum
The Good Fight was supposed to be a show about Hillary being president. Instead it was a show about Trump being president, which obviously transformed the show.
- [06:39]
Christine Baranski
We shot that pilot the days before and the days after the election. And then of course, we had to rewrite the pilot because the presumption was Diane was going to retire because there are no more glass ceilings to break. And she got. She gets the house in the south of France and then she loses her money. But there was a speech at the very beginning where she's talking about, you know, there are no more glass ceilings to break. And it was written as a line thinking that Hillary Clinton was going to be the president. And so that line was taken out and we had to rewrite the episode. So now it seems like Diane got the house in the south of France because she didn't want to live in the United States.
- [07:28]
Emily Nussbaum
Every element of it just changes context. This seems like a good lead in to clip from Sybil. So let's go to a clip from Sybil.
- [07:39]
Christine Baranski
Champagne for everyone at that table.
- [07:44]
Sybil (character)
Champagne at lunch. Oh, we haven't had that since yesterday.
- [07:49]
Christine Baranski
Sybil, I have fabulous news. My prodigal son is returning.
- [07:53]
Sybil (character)
Justin is coming home for Thanksgiving. That's wonderful. I knew he'd come back.
- [07:58]
Christine Baranski
It's been three years, Sybil. Without a word. You remember the night he left? I'd just come back from that Save Our Furs benefit. He told me he hated my entire pampered, materialistic existence. Then he asked for $2,000 and left for Peru.
- [08:14]
Sybil (character)
Maybe being away three years changed his mind. Or maybe the money ran out.
- [08:19]
Christine Baranski
Cybil, I don't want to celebrate another 40th birthday without him. I want to prove to him that I'm not something he has to run away from. And I'm going to start by showing him the best old fashioned Thanksgiving we've ever had. Well, except for that one in Aruba with Ivana Trump and Richard Simmons.
- [08:34]
Sybil (character)
Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you bring Justin to my house? Everyone's in town, so I'm gonna make a good old fashioned Memphis Thanksgiving. I'm gonna use all four southern food groups. Sugar, salt, grease, and alcohol.
- [08:48]
Christine Baranski
It sounds tempting, but I can't.
- [08:50]
Sybil (character)
Oh, come on. The whole family's gonna be there and you're part of my family. Did I mention there'll be alcohol?
- [08:56]
Christine Baranski
I'd love to, darling, but I want Justin all to myself this weekend. I'm even gonna cook all his favorite health foods. One question. Is it still correct to call it brown rice or is it rice of color?
- [09:14]
Emily Nussbaum
You know, I watched all these old Sybils, and I have to say, it is a very surreal show to watch because it is a real time capsule of the period. Like, even. Like the.
- [09:22]
Christine Baranski
Look at the hair.
- [09:23]
Emily Nussbaum
Yeah.
- [09:24]
Christine Baranski
Oh, my God.
- [09:27]
Emily Nussbaum
What was that like the first year that you were making Sybil? Because there really was this complete. And also. Actually, I was wondering, because you came as a. As a. Largely as a stage actress, and television was in a very different stage.
- [09:38]
Christine Baranski
Oh, God. Yeah. And there was still that conflict of, you know, if you did television, you were giving up the theater. I mean, now it's. Everybody's doing everything, and actually, everybody wants a job on television because it's. There's so much great writing on television. But at that time, I was seriously conflicted. And I was in my early 40s by then, and I had just. Except for some films, I was really a theater actress and defined myself that way. Plus, they weren't shooting shows in New York for the most part. All, especially sitcoms were shot in la. And I had two children, and I didn't want to raise them in la, so I just kept turning down pilots. And then they approached me about this, and the character was meant to be a kind of ab fab Joanna Lumley type. And I was doing the math on how much it would cost to educate my two daughters. And it seemed like the theater was not going to provide that kind of income. So I began to seriously consider it. But it was a really tortured decision. And my manager, who's here today, she'll tell you. I mean, I. She really had to talk me into it. And the night before I left, I almost called her in the middle of the night to say, I just don't think I can do it. It's too big a step, and I'm going to. I decided not to move the children to la, but that we would try my commuting back and forth. But it was a huge, for some reason, a huge psychological jump for me to go to Hollywood and to do a sitcom that said if ever there was a sitcom that was right for me to do at that moment in time, it was that role. And in that show, Chuck Lorre wrote the pilot. And I did accept it on the basis of the pilot, which just I thought this character, there's, you know, she's just got those great, you know, whip smart one liners. And the one line that sold me on the whole project was when Sybil just out of the blue says, you know something? You know what's amazing, Marianne? And my response is, they make vodka from wheat. There's something there about that writing that I think I can work with this. And I told Chuck that. And he later confessed it's not a Chuck Lorre line. It's his writing partner, Lee Aronson, who's a recovered alcoholic. But anyway, yeah, that character, within 13 episodes, I won an Emmy for that. And to that I attribute, you know, I give it over to Chuck Lorre and the writing of that character. No one had seen that woman on American television. They'd seen Ab Fab, but she was the first out of the gate. Sex and the City came later. But the woman with the martini, who was sort of a badass in her outfits and her attitude, that was the first of its kind. And, boy, it changed my career. Those were really hard years. I hated living alone in a hotel. I missed my kids so desperately. But it's why I'm here. It's why I had a relationship all those years with cbs. There was a turning point in my career. And who goes to Hollywood at 42 and is an overnight kind of star in that way that you become a star because of television? I mean, I was a well known theater actress, but not a celebrity, not a star. No.
- [13:25]
Emily Nussbaum
You talked about your long relationship with cbs. I'm wondering how people are responding to what's going on with Les Moonves.
- [13:32]
Christine Baranski
I think Leslie Moonves was loved and highly respected. It's infinitely sad what's happened. I will miss him. I had a. When Les took over the network, I was beginning my second season of Sybil. So I was at a photo shoot and this man came up to me and he said, christine, you don't remember me, but I used to hand you your paycheck at Playwrights Horizons back in the early 80s. And Les was in the production office at Playwrights Horizons and handed me a paycheck for about, oh, I don't know, $125 a week. So we go back that far. And, you know, I said to him, well, you're paying me a lot more now, aren't you, Sybil? Long happy relationship working with cbs. It is shocking, but that's where the culture is, and it's a clarifying moment in our culture. And I think it's going to be Messy before it gets better. But I will miss less.
- [14:40]
Emily Nussbaum
I was wondering with you and your daughters who are lawyer like, have you had, when you've had conversations about what's going on, do you find there to be a generational difference between you and your perspectives on some of these issues or is that not so true?
- [14:52]
Christine Baranski
Only slightly? Well, yes, I did get into one conversation with my daughter about men's behavior and how I was raised. I was raised, you know, in a Catholic background in all girls Catholic high school. And it was just instilled in us as young women that men were that way, that they couldn't control themselves after a certain point. I mean, I literally was told if you let a man touch you anywhere below the neck, he might turn into a uncontrollable wild animal. And it's your responsibility if you get pregnant. You have to control the, you have to control the narrative. And I told this to my daughter and she said, no. No is no at any point, at any point in the evening if you, you know, no matter what's going on. I said, that's interesting. That's just not the way I was raised. I would never go to a man's room late at night. I just assumed that he might very well behave badly. So there's that difference. But it's how we were raised. But I'm proud of my daughters. I think they're very savvy about their feminism and they're not strident but they're clear headed about it and pragmatic. And one of my daughters did get a law degree and she was really agonizing whether or not to go to law school. It's such a huge commitment. And I said, look, you can rail against the world, but if you want to change things, you've got to know how the system works. And becoming a lawyer, as Diane did, you figure out how the system works, however flawed it is, and then you figure out how to change it. But you know, blogging and you know, railing against the machine with a lot of hyperbole, a lot of screaming isn't going to get us there. And I think at this moment in time for women, it's the most important time to be clear headed rational as well as passionate and angry. Channel the anger in an intelligent, clear, forward moving way.
- [17:03]
Emily Nussbaum
It's so hard to talk about this stuff because I always find myself feeling all those emotional feelings and wanting to escape from it all. You went to Oxford to study, right?
- [17:13]
Christine Baranski
I did. My other daughter, Lily got a graduate degree at Wolfson College at Oxford. In anthropology. And when I took her there to help her move in, I was just utterly captivated by Oxford. And one of my deep regrets in my life is that I did not have a real college education, an academic experience in that way. I went straight to Juilliard, which, although it was a prestigious acting school, was trade school. You know, I learned the craft of acting, and I'm happy I did, and that was my great passion. But I've always longed to go back to school and use more of my brain and my intellect. So there's a summer course called the Oxford Experience, and next year I'm signed up for the Duke of Wellington. One a week, and then the Meaning of Life the following week. So I'll do two weeks next week.
- [18:12]
Emily Nussbaum
The Meaning of Life, just as a subject matter.
- [18:15]
Christine Baranski
Yeah, why not?
- [18:16]
Emily Nussbaum
Not like the Monty Python film.
- [18:17]
Christine Baranski
No, no. Just the Meaning of life in one week at Oxford. You should have me back next year. I'll have all the answers, you know, a whole situation. So this is it.
- [18:32]
Emily Nussbaum
Thank you so much to everybody for coming, and thank you to Kirstine Barans.
- [18:44]
David Remnick
Christine Baranski speaking with the New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum in 2018. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, with more to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Kurt Weill was a founder of the rock band the War on Drugs, but he left the band shortly after its debut to make records all of his own. His albums with his backing band, the Violators, include Childish Prodigy, Smoke Ring For My Halo, and last year's record, Bottle It In. He's sometimes been characterized as slacker rock, but he takes songwriting extremely seriously.
- [19:51]
Kurt Weill (musician)
Loved you all a long, long while look down into a deep dark well Called all your names they echoed down for miles and miles and all that other mystical. Well, never you mind.
- [20:12]
David Remnick
Kurt Weill, that's his real name, by the way, has also appeared on the comedy Show Portlandia and HBO's animated series Animals. He played a singing squirrel. In the fall of 2018, he joined Amanda Petrasich on stage at the New Yorker Festival.
- [20:32]
Amanda Petrasich
You were a Clue on Jeopardy.
- [20:33]
Christine Baranski
Last year.
- [20:34]
Amanda Petrasich
This is one of my favorite Kurt Weill facts.
- [20:37]
Kurt Weill
Well, college Jeopardy.
- [20:38]
Amanda Petrasich
Well, it's kind of a weird. It's kind of a weird clue. The clue was the Violators assist this pretty pimpin rocker in his foul work.
- [20:47]
Kurt Weill
Yeah, it was like, that was a real. He's the Riddler. Like, how nobody could even understand even if they knew the answer, they'd be like, wait, what?
- [20:58]
Amanda Petrasich
It was A complicated Claire. Nonetheless, I would imagine being a Jeopardy Clue has to be some sort of milestone. That's gotta be super weird. Who was the first person who told you?
- [21:09]
Kurt Weill
You don't know her.
- [21:15]
Amanda Petrasich
You grew up one of 10 children. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in your family?
- [21:21]
Kurt Weill
Yeah, it was pretty annoying. No, it was pretty cool. But it was like, no space, you know, for, like, the boys room had five boys in it. Because of that, I can, like, sleep through anything and I can just tune in and out whenever, you know, whenever people are talking, I can, like, be listening or not.
- [21:43]
Amanda Petrasich
And now you yourself have got two young daughters. How would you characterize yourself as a parent?
- [21:50]
Kurt Weill
Father of the year? No, it's awesome having kids. And they're still pretty, pretty young and they're really into music and reading and. Yeah, they're total brats in the best way.
- [22:05]
Amanda Petrasich
Do they like your songs?
- [22:08]
Kurt Weill
Yeah. Like the one, my oldest, Awilda, she listens intensely to words. And the youngest, Delphine, she'll go straight to a piano or guitar and just start playing.
- [22:18]
Amanda Petrasich
So when did you start writing songs?
- [22:22]
Kurt Weill
Well, I started playing a string instrument, like a banjo, when I was 14. I probably started writing songs right around then, but I made my first cassette when I was 17. I would put out a tape or a CDR, but I would call it my album, as if it was like, really, really, you know. But they didn't really become real albums until I was 28.
- [22:41]
Amanda Petrasich
But did you make your own cover art for CDRs? I used to do that for mixed CDs. Well, so the banjo was your first instrument and that's kind of what you learned to write on?
- [22:53]
Kurt Weill
Yeah. My dad wished I was, like, a bluegrass musician. So like a year before, maybe when I was 13, he hung it over my head. Later, he's like, we were going to get you a guitar for Christmas, but you were really bad this year. So the next year he's like, I could get you this banjo. And I wasn't sure, but then he worked for septa, like, drove trains and a conductor. He basically was going to buy the banjo off this conductor, and the conductor played it over the phone. You know, the telephone, not the cellophone. And it sounded really cool through the telephone. So I was like, all right. But I kind of just treated it like a guitar. I just strum it. But, yeah.
- [23:35]
Amanda Petrasich
Who are some of your favorite songwriters?
- [23:38]
Kurt Weill
So many. Let's see. You know, there's like, the classics, of course, like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and then there's like Townes Van Zant.
- [23:47]
Amanda Petrasich
Well, you had the chance to open for Neil Young last time.
- [23:50]
Kurt Weill
John Prine. Yes, I opened for Neil Young recently. It was pretty funny. I was terrified. There was like 80,000 people. And I just kind of. Just kind of. Kind of like what I'm doing now, but with the guitar in my hand. I came out real cocky. I was like. I was like, joke singing, like some kind of Stevie Nicks thing. And then I was like, I got the crystal vision. Then I was like, did you get.
- [24:19]
Amanda Petrasich
A chance to meet Neil?
- [24:20]
Kurt Weill
I met him multiple times, but only for a split second. And the best time was a couple times before I got backstage. It was the first time I saw him with Promise of the Real. And these kids, Willie Nelson's sons and other kids, they back him up really good. And I weaseled my way backstage with my wife Suzanne, and she egged me on to say hi. And so I did. And I was like, oh, Neil, I've seen you, like 10 times, and it's always amazing, but this was the best by far. Down by the river, which was like 30 minutes long. It's like you were underground in outer space at the same time. It was unbelievable. And he was like. He was smiling all nice. And then when I said that, he was like, oh, yeah, we can go in outer space whenever we want. And then. And then I got. I got a picture with him that was cool. Every time I see him, it's where he just played a show. And even if we have friends in common, it doesn't matter because you're just like, ah, I'm still a fanboy. But this last time, his bandmates, I'm hugging all them. In between, they're all passing around a jazz cigarette. I'm usually scared to do this. I used to love it as a kid. And then I can't. It's harder to deal with it, but I'm trying to. But anyway, I grabbed it from the drummer, and me and my wife tried it out for the first time ever. Nah, just kidding. But then, anyway, they came off the stage and we're feeling really weird, and everybody's sort of just around him. And then he's just about to get away, as he usually does. And then I was like, well, I should just give him the Sadie cd, which is my friend's that we have. He knows who the Sadies are. And usually I'm just. It's just. It just makes more sense than being like, hi, I'm Kurt Weill again. So I was like, I'll just give him this Sadie cd. So I literally jumped down and I was like, hey, Neil, you get the new Sadie's. And then everybody was like.
- [26:15]
Christine Baranski
And they all.
- [26:18]
Kurt Weill
And like his manager, Elliot Roberts, he's a legend, but he's old now. And he was like about to check me like a hockey player. But then I got it. To him though.
- [26:31]
Amanda Petrasich
There is a, I think a dryness and a kind of absurdist humor to a lot of your lyrics that I just find so sort of intoxicating and beguiling. Some of it recalls. I mean, you mentioned Dylan, you mentioned John Prine, I think to lyricists and writers who do this really well. A line like, girl, you gave me rabies. And I don't mean maybe. Yeah, well, I mean, how do you sort of think about lyrics in relation to rhythm or in relation to melody and kind of where does the lyric writing for fall within your songwriting process?
- [26:59]
Kurt Weill
Well, and I don't mean maybe. I plagiarized from like Bo Diddley or other people, you know, they always say. Or other bloops people they say and I don't mean maybe. And then they don't alignment with me. And then the girl you gave me rabies. That's a true story. So.
- [27:18]
Amanda Petrasich
How did you get rabies, Kurt?
- [27:20]
Kurt Weill
From a girl?
- [27:23]
Amanda Petrasich
I'm not this. I'm not buying this. Well, is this like rabies the new mom? The kissing species? I figured, why don't we hear some music?
- [27:38]
Kurt Weill
Okay. All right.
- [27:52]
Kurt Weill (musician)
Save this morning. Didn't recognize the man in the mirror. Then I laughed and I said, aw, silly me, that's just me. Then I proceeded to brush on strangers teeth. But they were my teeth and I was weightless, quivering like some leaf comin the window of a restroom. I couldn't tell you what the hell it was supposed to mean. Cause it was a Monday, not Tuesday. Tuesday, not Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Then Saturday came around and I said, who that stupid clown block in my bathroom? Sing buddy. With sports and all my clothes I got say pretty pimping.
- [29:09]
Christine Baranski
Yeah.
- [29:17]
David Remnick
The musician Kurt Weill. He spoke with Amanda Petrasich who writes about music and culture and much more for the New Yorker. I'm David Remnick and that's it for this week. I hope to see you next time.
- [29:44]
Announcer
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