Transcript
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (0:01)
Hey, listeners, it's me, Julia. We're back for season three of Wiser Than Me. We've got so much more wisdom to share from the legendary old ladies featured this season. You know, so many of our guests have written memoirs reflecting on their experiences. And by putting it all into writing, they've uncovered a better understanding of what truly matters. Jane Fonda calls it a life review and wisely says, to know where you want to go, you. You first have to understand where you've been. So brilliant. Right? That's why we've created a special Wiser Than Me notebook so you can kickstart your own life review and write down some of the nuggets of wisdom these women share in each new episode. We just added these groovy hardcover notebooks to our merch shop. To buy yours, head over to wiserthanmeshop.com today.
Nina Totenberg (0:55)
Lemonade.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1:00)
You know that movie 12 Angry Men with Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb? I just. I love that movie. It's one of the truly great American films. And it all takes place in a jury room. If you haven't seen it, watch it. I have only been under jury once. It was a very long time ago. I can't really remember exactly when, except that I had two little kids and my husband Brad was running a show and we were incredibly busy and self absorbed and a jury summons hit my mailbo and I thought, oh, Christ, I don't have time for this. And I figured I'd probably get out of serving because somebody was going to recognize me from Seinfeld, right? But, yeah, nobody recognized me or they didn't give a crap because I went through voir dire with a couple of hundred people downtown. And of course, I got selected for the jury, and I am so glad that I did. The jury that I was on with 11 of my peers was made up of actual serious citizens. And what I mean by that is, I mean, we all took our obligation very solemnly. It was sober, you know what I mean? I can't remember the exact makeup of the jury now, but it seemed like it was an actual representation of people living and working in Los Angeles. You know, it was something like a real estate agent and a nurse and a couple of city workers and me, an actor. You know, Los Angeles. On tv, you often see the beautifully polished grand locations where important things are being decided. But in reality, we're in downtown la, deliberating in a room that looked and smelled, you know, kind of like the dmv. The whole thing was impressively drab and still There was something just so touching about it. I found the whole jury experience to be incredibly moving. The lawsuit was about a woman who was suing her insurance company because they refused to pay for hospital stay and the medical procedure. The case was pretty technical, and it took a whole week for the two sides to argue it out. When we started to deliberate, the head juror was this middle aged stockbroker, I think, who turned out to live about a block away from me. And he was so good. He was very soft spoken, and he got everyone around the table to state their personal views of the case. And the thing that amazed me and actually amazes me still looking back on it, is that everyone stuck to the facts and nobody talked about themselves, right? Nobody wanted to bloviate and, you know, make speeches and so on. They had listened and they had things to say about the case. So we took our first vote, and I think it was 10 to 2 against the insurance company. But the two who had voted the other way actually just wanted to talk a little more about it. And pretty quickly on the second vote, we had a verdict in favor of the patient. No drama, no David E. Kelly TV series theatrics. This was just a humble, serious, restrained proceeding. So it wasn't exactly like 12 Angry Men. In fact, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said when she was a lower court judge that she would specifically instruct jurors not to behave like the jurors in that film. But Justice Sotomayor also said that seeing 12 angry men when she was in college was a big reason that she decided to go to law school. How cool is that? She said that juror number 11's speech about American justice was particularly inspirational to her. He's the only immigrant on the jury, played by George Voskovec. I won't do his accent, but here's what he says in the film. We, the jury, have a responsibility. This is a remarkable thing about democracy, that we are. What is the word? Notified. That we are notified by mail to come down to this place and decide on the guilt or innocence of a man we have not known before. We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. This is one of the reasons we are strong. But I guess right now, unfortunately, a speech like that seems terribly naive. I don't even know how to feel about justice or justices for that matter. The Constitution itself seems to be in danger, and Americans are losing faith in the judicial system so fast, it's dizzying. I know our system has never been perfect. God knows we continue to be in desperate need of reform and justice is unfairly applied, especially regarding wealth and race. But when I served on that jury, I couldn't help but feel hopeful that the system is working. Now I'm not so sure. So it's a good thing that today we're talking to Nina Totenberg. Hi, I'm Julia Louis Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. Now that I'm in the podcast game, I am more aware than ever of the power of the spoken voice. And I'm talking about the voice itself, the sound that goes into your ear and delivers what the voice is saying to the brain. I've realized that for me, there are a few voices that I have come to absolutely rely on, and I absolutely need Nina Totenberg's voice. The timber, the intelligence and reasonableness that she brings to her reporting of even the most outrageous injustice. Well, somehow what she says, and maybe just as important how she sounds when she says it, calms me, while I mean it also weirdly lets me continue to rage. And I do love a little rage. She was one of the founding mothers of NPR and has been on the air covering legal affairs, justice, and the supreme court for almost 50 years, which is actually longer than any justice has ever sat on the court itself. Her coverage has earned her every major journalism award in broadcasting, and she was the first radio journalist to have won the National Press Foundation's Broadcaster of the Year award. She's in the radio hall of Fame, for God's sakes. Even before npr, she was breaking national stories and paving the way for future generations of female journalists and just plain journalists. She has written beautifully about her relationship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her book, Dinners with Ruth. I am beyond excited to talk to a woman who is so much wiser than me. The extraordinary Nina Totenberg. Welcome, Nina Totenberg.