Lisa Kudrow

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Before my guest Lisa Kudrow was famous, back when she was doing improv, she created a character, an actress determined to stay in show business no matter what it cost her. That character eventually became Valerie Cherish, the relentlessly optimistic actress who has been chasing her comeback since 2005. Here she is in the show's first season, trying to get the title of her new reality show just right. This is my comeback. All right, I'm going to take that again. So this is my comeback. Jane, I'm sorry. The camera keeps moving in and out. It's always going to be moving. Just keep going. Oh, I know. I know. It's just, I don't know if I should wait for it to settle or. That's right. Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. This one's always going to be moving because that one is stationary. Got it. Okay. Here we go. This is my comeback. You know what? I want to do another. That's Valerie at the beginning of a comeback she'll spend the next 21 years trying to pull off. Kudrow developed Valerie for HBO with writer and director Michael Patrick King, building a character who wants to be back on television so badly that she will endure almost anything. Demotions, humiliations, and writers half her age who barely hide with her. Now in the show's final season, Valerie finally gets what she has been chasing, the lead in a network sitcom. The catch? AI is writing the scripts. The role has Kudrow up for two Emmys this year, one for acting and one for writing. It's the latest chapter in a career that includes 10 seasons as Phoebe on Friends, whose finale drew more than 50 million viewers. She won her first Emmy for that role in 1998. Her credits run long. So here are just a few. Web Therapy, the improvised comedy she co-created, playing a therapist who conducts very short sessions online. Who Do You Think You Are, the genealogy series she executive produced for 11 seasons. And Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, a sequel announced earlier this summer. And Lisa Kudrow, welcome back to Fresh Air. Hi. Thank you. Nice to be back. Yes. You and Michael had this way of catching Hollywood just at moments of really big change. And we saw that throughout every season of the comeback over the last 21 years. And Valerie is finally getting what she wants for this particular season. She's got her own sitcom. She is the lead, but it is written by AI. Right. Tell me why you all felt like this was the perfect situation for Valerie to be in. How did you all even come to this? The premise alone offers so many layers and areas to explore. And, you know, there's a threat that everyone's responding to. And Valerie's the one who's, okay, no problem, because there'll be a camera on me, right? That's so interesting, right? Because the first season, the threat was reality television. And then the second season, it was really like the docudrama type series thing. Right. Premium cable, half hour, single camera, no jokes. Yeah. She's like a mixture of a lot of different people. It's someone that you came up with. It's someone that you came up with very early in your career. How did you come up with the idea? Well, she was nowhere near as fleshed out. In The Groundlings, I did a character monologue called Your Favorite Actress on a Talk Show. And Groundlings is the improv theater group here in Los Angeles. That's right. And so it was just that one character monologue. And she's on a talk. She's on Johnny Carson, who was still the host of The Tonight Show. And she hadn't been on in a long time. And it's just watching her try to spin everything. And act like she's in control. And then just the phoniness. That's the one thing that made me laugh about her on that, in that monologue that made me laugh. When she looks at the audience and she's saying, you know, the environment is real important to me. You know, so important. It really should be. And looks out at the audience and just says, people, please, please save the planet as a favor to me. I'll love you for it. You know, because I would see actors. Sort of acting like, well, everyone will do what I say. She also, especially in the first season, she almost felt delusional. No one knew what, how to take her. She seemed oblivious to how other people reacted to her. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Delusional is the word. That's how I saw her, too. And that's what made me laugh. And her immediate spin on things. You know, if anyone was insulting, she'd spin it like having a bad day, I guess. You know, like. Mm-hmm. Right. Not for me to worry about. And the thing is, after we did that, and I would run into people, actors and writers and people who, you know, watched the show and said, that must have been so hard to play that role. I mean, so painful. And I thought, what? Blink, blink. No. What pain? Yeah. And then went, why wasn't it painful? Oh, because she spun it and believed the spin. It wasn't. It wasn't just spin. She reframed the reality of it. There's something that she says in this third season. One of her producers says, you know, it was really hard to watch you be humiliated over many, many years. And she says, well, you can't be humiliated if you don't allow it. Something about like. You have to agree to be humiliated. And I never signed up for that. Right. Yes. So in the end, she kind of wasn't delusional. Right. Right. We. That. We knew that was the end of the Valerie Cherish story kind of early on when we were writing this third season. And we knew the third season would be the end. How come? Because then it's a trilogy and a show that was canceled after the first season. HBO canceled it. Yeah. That. And then it's brought back. And every 10 years, we're sort of chronicling this business. So it felt like now it's a trilogy. It's a complete piece. And we went. We went from cancellation to getting to complete an entire story spanning 20 years. So many of the actors returned. And there's something really comforting about seeing all of these people through time over 21 years. You've got Laura Silverman as Jane, the documentarian who's been pointing the camera at Valerie since 2005. And Damian Young as Mark, who's your husband. Even Lance Barber. As Paul E.G., who is the writer who made her life hell. What was it like returning to each other in that way? Almost like a school reunion, it seems like. Yeah. It's thrilling. It's thrilling every time. And you know how talented these people are. You know how good they are. You know how much they know these characters, too. So you just can't wait to see what they're going to do. I want to play a clip from this third season. In this scene, Valerie has finally gotten the network sitcom. She's always won it. And she's the lead. And the show is called How's That? And the secret has just come out, though, that her fellow cast members are learning that the writers on the show are actually AI. And the reactions vary. So here you are with the actors who are your castmates. Tim Bagley, Brittany O'Grady, Barry Henley, Zane Phillips, and Matt Cook, who speaks first. Let's listen. Come on, everyone. Everyone hates AI. I didn't sign up to be on an AI-written show. Yeah, should we be calling our agents? Please don't. Please don't. You know, if this gets out and the studio doesn't want it to, then I don't know. They could pull the plug on the whole thing. No. This information is top secret and even had to sign an NDA. Sarah, what's the big deal? You can't do a show without writers. And we're not. We have Al. Al. Is AI, though. Al's a bot? Yeah. Well. Is that why no one would ever give me his contact information? Well, okay. Guys, listen. Okay. We're the first. And the show's tested well. So I think we just take the material that you are given, bot or not, funny or not funny, and do everything you can to make it great. All right? We're actors. That's what we do. Right? That's right. It's our job to make things funnier. Uh-huh. But a lot of times when I do that, the writers get angry if I change a word. So many times I've made the writing so much better than it was. I've been told that. Yeah. And then I have to go back and do the words the way that they wrote it, and the audience doesn't laugh, and they look at me like I'm not funny. I knew the joke wasn't funny the whole week, but I can't say that. Right. Right? It's like, when they give me a line that's not funny, they say, Gabrielle, do it sexier. That's probably why it's been so fun here. It turns out there are no writers. It's just us. Yeah. I've been enjoying this. Yeah. You know, I don't think I ever liked a writer. Oh, I love that scene so much. I know. You know, it's so funny. It's like this show is just as much about the writers as it is about Valerie. Very much. Yes, but what I love about that scene is just like the anatomy of a mob. You know, that it starts with, what? It's AI? You lied to us? This is a betrayal? We're doing this without writers? That's not right. And then once it's like, well, if you say something, they might take the whole thing away. Oh, no. I don't want that. And then, you know, yeah, you know what? I don't like writers. And it's just like complete 180. That's what human beings do, I think. I also feel like it might be a little bit true, like the gripes that actors have with writers. Yes, how much, you know, they are sitting on the resentment that they have because they're not really allowed to have it on a set, you know, because the writers, the showrunners are in charge of a sitcom for sure. So they've always had to just swallow it. sit on it. And then the second they have an ounce of permission, it's, yeah, I don't think I've ever liked a writer. Yeah. Have you felt that before in your career? Well, sometimes, but I think here's the thing. They're casting it for someone who is going to make the most out of the writing. And then it becomes this kind of a dialogue without an actual dialogue about here's what we wrote. Here's what you did with it. So we have that in mind. As we continue writing and it just evolves into like finding the actor's voice with the writer's voice. Together, it's a collaboration. And that's when it works, I think, the best. There are several moments in this last season that feel very close to home. Like it feels uncomfortable because we just don't know where we're going yet with AI. In the same way, in the first season, we didn't really know where we were going to go with reality TV. Right. Everyone thought it was an extinction event, reality TV. And entertainment just expanded to include reality. It didn't destroy scripted television. It really didn't. You know, the other thing is that if you also look at 2005, there were sitcoms, 22 episodes, and every network had them, multi-camera sitcoms. And you need a lot of writers, like between 10 and 15 writers in a writer's room. For those. By the time we did season two, there were way fewer multi-camera shows. And there were a lot of single camera comedies. So now you don't need 12 writers. You need six to 10, maybe, or less. So it's cut in half. 10 years later, we're doing this. And what we're saying with AI is you need one writer. AI. Yeah. You're the youngest of three. You grew up in a suburb of LA, the San Fernando Valley, Tarzana. What was your place in the house? My place? As the youngest? Well, usually like the least competent person, right? I mean, that's the way it is. I'm the youngest by six and eight years, you know? So I was sort of an only child at times because they're out and away. And it's the 70s also. So it was different, right? It was. Yeah, you'll be fine. All right. Do whatever you want. I ate, you know, baked M&Ms and Doritos for breakfast on the weekends. And that was great. Conan O'Brien, who's your longtime friend, you all met very early in your careers when you were just starting out here in Los Angeles. He said when you were on his show, he described you as, quote, someone with a Victorian sense of morality, which I thought was a really interesting way to describe someone. And accurate. Well, first off, what does that mean? You know, yes, I was very much like that. And still, is that what he was saying? Maybe. But that felt like the safest way to be. Did you ever have a wild streak growing up? No. No. No. You were pretty straight-laced all the way through. I think so. But, you know, I was funny, but not a class clown, because they were annoying. They got in the way of the lessons. Right. And your morality was like, we need to be good students, quiet in class. Yes. I like structure. Yep. So you would make people laugh, but you weren't the class clown. What kind of things would you do to make folks laugh? Do you remember? Yeah. I imitated Lily Tomlin, Edith Ann, that character on Laugh-In. Yes, I would do that. I'd go to slumber parties. And to me, it was like doing a show, because I'll do that. And then I would lip-sync. I'd lip-sync songs, and then have everyone do it. And I was like a cruise director. Is that where the seed came for you in acting? When did you really understand that, I like this, this attention? Well, maybe it was attention, because I was the youngest, or I don't know. But it made people happy and engaged, and we were all doing something together. And, you know, I mean, my family was funny. My dad's hilarious. My brother and sister were really funny. So I would take their material, which was, you know, too mature for anyone else my age, but that made me kind of something. But it was so great to make people laugh. That was the best thing ever. You have talked a lot over the years about your dad and his work. He studied cluster headaches, and he founded the first private headache clinic in the Western. Part of the United States. A lot of what he found it back then is still part of standard treatment today. But when you were a little girl, did you have an understanding of it from the start? Yeah, he was an internist. And then in 1971, he switched to just treating and researching headache. So I was eight. So yeah, I was old enough to understand what he was doing. And as I got older, also, you know, because he lectured. All over the world about headache. And so he would write his lecture and do it to me, because he wanted to make sure it was all understandable. So I'm maybe like 13, 15. You know, I don't remember how old. He proposed a hypothesis for, you know, the potential mechanism of cluster headache. And so he wanted to make sure I could fully understand it. Because if you understood it, Then neurologists will definitely understand it. And I remember him saying to me, you have to understand that right now, you are one of the few people on the planet who understands more about headache from listening to all my talks than a lot of doctors. You went on to Vassar, studied biology, initially thought you were going to be a doctor. Right. But you still had this little bit of something in you that loved acting, that felt like you still wanted to kind of do that thing. But you still graduated with a degree in biology. Yeah, I didn't still love acting. Oh, you didn't? In college. High school and college, it was absolutely never. Oh, why did that change for you? Because I thought, all right, now you have to be an adult. Like, that's a fun thing. But that's, you know, I've seen. Actors on TV and, you know, I've heard about all their divorces. Do you know? And I thought, that's not the adult you want to be. Okay. And in college, I just, I fell in love with biology and thought, yeah, yeah, I want to be a doctor. And so when I went to college, yeah, I just pursued that evolutionary biology. There was this new controversial field called sociobiology. Mm-hmm. Which was what? Yeah. E.O. Wilson. And it was about the interaction between biology and the environment to produce behavior in all animals, including human beings. And the including human beings was controversial, which I didn't understand. Why? We're animals, too. So that was really exciting to me and fulfilling a sort of, you know, a creative need I had. What changed? What changed was after I graduated, a couple things. I mean, there's a weird thing that I can't explain. You know, I'd come home from on break and be driving around L.A. and I'd hear, you know, a commercial for a sitcom. And it just sounded like, well, that's a horse of a different color. Like, it's so broad and it's not funny. But there's a laugh track. And I'd think, oh, that's pushing it so hard, hitting it so hard. And then, ugh, why don't they throw it away? Lisa, remember to throw it away when you do it. That was just a thought that would come in your mind. It would come in my mind. And I'd think, wait, why do I have to do that? That's not what I'm going to be doing. And the big motivation also, my brother's best friend is John Levitz. I grew up with John Levitz. I graduate from college. He gets on Saturday Night Live. And, oh, it's not just this thing that happens to a magic few. Mm-hmm. I'm really feeling very strongly, you better do this now. You're only 22. And And you have no responsibilities. It's, I imagine, a pretty selfish endeavor to pursue acting. And now's the time. And don't have any regrets later. Our guest today is Lisa Kudrow. She's nominated for two Emmy Awards for the final season of The Comeback. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Lisa Kudrow. She's nominated for two Emmys for acting and for writing for the final season of The Comeback, the HBO comedy she co-created with Michael Patrick King. Her credits run long, so here are just a few. Web Therapy, the improvised comedy she co-created, playing a therapist who conducts very short sessions online, Who Do You Think You Are?, the genealogy series she executive produced for 11 seasons, and Romy and Michelle's high school reunion. A sequel announced earlier this summer. Lisa, one of the more fascinating parts of your career is your search for understanding your family's history. And your father's parents came from Belarus. Right. And your grandmother told you a story at a very young age that stuck with you for a very long time. What did she share with you? She was babysitting, and I missed my parents, or they were out of town, and I missed them. And I said, don't you—all of a sudden, I remember. Oh, she's a person. When do you see your parents? And she said, I can't see my parents. My parents died a long time ago. I said, how? And she started crying. And she said, they were murdered. They were murdered by Hitler. And I was like, who? I think I was six or seven. And I didn't understand who that was. That was a first. That was the first time you had really heard that. Yeah. But it stuck with you for the rest of your life. Yeah. Because then my father explained, you know, the rest of the Holocaust or, you know, what happened there. Also, I think I was too young. To know and understand. I think I was under 10. And I would watch—World at War was a documentary series, and there was one on the Holocaust, one episode. And I watched it. And that was rough. I didn't know children could ever be murdered. Like, no one would ever intentionally hurt. I thought children were always protected and safe. So that was eye-opening. Decades later, you're in Ireland shooting a movie, and you come across this British series that is a genealogy series, and it just captivates you. And so you brought that series here, the U.S. version. And your story was the very first. The very first story that you all did. That we shot. That you shot. Yeah. I want to play a little from your episode. And it aired on NBC in March of 2010. And in it, you travel to Poland and to Belarus to uncover the fate of your great-grandmother who died in the Holocaust. And in this particular scene, you travel to the town where her family lived, and you walk around and remember your grandmother's description of the landscape. Let's listen. This is what I pictured. This is exactly what I pictured. It's unbelievable. I feel connected to the smile that would come across her face when she'd say it was so beautiful. And I'm so happy that she got to grow up here. And it's so pretty. And I'm also so happy that she got out and her sisters got out. And I'm sorry for everybody else. My grandmother learned from Yuri what happened here. It's a huge loss. It's her whole family. It's her mother who she loved. And she'll never see her again. She could have at least dreamt about seeing her one day or coming back to visit and being able to breathe in this air and be here again. And that's gone, too. That's my guest, Lisa Kudrow. And who do you think you are? What a trip to take. And that's a weighty moment to stand on the land that you know that your family lived and breathed. And you found things that you weren't even prepared to know. Right. That's right. But the thing that was heartbreaking to me is how beautiful, all open, you know, pastoral, you know. And, and, and. She lived in a tenement in New York. Like, nothing went the way she thought it was going to. When she came here. When she came here. Yeah. Like, sometimes had an onion for dinner. You know, it just was not what she thought it was going to be. Anyway. Yeah, I thought I was going to look for Yuri, who was a cousin who I was told was hiding in the woods and witnessed everyone getting shot. Because, yeah, the Nazis had these actions. These death squads that would murder people. Anyway, so I was looking for Yuri and found out that his name wasn't Yuri. His name was Boleslaw. And I went to Poland looking for him, thinking, I'm not going to find him. Because we had heard that he died. You know, he was trying to pass as not Jewish in Poland. And. Yeah. Jews were getting killed after World War II in Poland still. So, you know, I'm not going to find anything. And I'm given a phone book. Like, okay. All right. That's his name. How old's this phone book? Really? I don't know. Same number. All right. I'll call. Someone answers. And I say, you know, I'm looking for Boleslaw. Yes, that's my grandfather. Oh, is he. How do I say? Alive? Or dead? Yeah. Awkward. Here? It's like, yes, he's here. And you should come and see him. And then I just had this moment of, wouldn't it be great if he just married, had kids, and nothing extraordinary happened, but he got to just have a life? Yeah. And then he is alive. He did get married and managed to live a peaceful existence behind the Iron Curtain. And you got to tell your dad. And what a gift to your dad. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, they got to Skype or, you know, see each other again after so many years. Has that experience shifted the way you thought about yourself? You know, learning all of this history about yourself and your origins? Yeah. There's different levels of things I learned about myself. But, I mean. The one thing that I learned was how important it was to bear witness. You know, as we were walking, and Tamara, who's the expert there, was explaining, yes, we're walking on the road. This is the road toward the vegetable pit where the executions happened. And I didn't realize, oh, we're going there? Like, I'm walking to their death. I hesitated. I stopped walking for a split second because I didn't want to go. And then realized, no, I got to keep going. And also, bear witness. That's what this is about. This isn't about me and my feelings or even my family, exactly. It's about you have to bear witness. There are still people who think this didn't happen. If you're just joining us, my guest is Lisa Kudrow. For an Emmy for the final season of The Comeback, which she co-created and stars in. We'll be right back after a break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guest today is award-winning actor Lisa Kudrow. She's up for two Emmys for the final season of her HBO series, The Comeback. And she's currently shooting a sequel of Romy and Michelle's high school reunion. I want to transition to Friends with the few moments I have left with you. I'm sorry about the loss of Matthew Perry. Thanks. I know that you, for lots of different reasons, didn't watch the show. You started watching it after he passed away. Yeah, because it was too much about me before. I didn't want to watch me. And then after Matthew passed away, there were so many, well, there's always a marathon anyway. So luckily, there was. There was a marathon to watch. And I was so happy to see Matthew then. And so funny. And it was, yeah, it was a great way to sort of process him not being here. And then really enjoyed how much he made me laugh and then how much everybody made me laugh. And even myself. Yeah. What did you notice about yourself? That sometimes, yeah, it was funny. Sometimes. Oh, my gosh. That was good. No, but I mean, okay, for the most part, I enjoyed what I did. And then there were times where it's like, well, I mean, that you should have your license taken away. You know, that's not, don't do that. What are you doing? Anything in particular that made you cringe? He's her lobster. I have it locked, loaded. It's ready to go. E, playing with a voice. Yeah. What about you singing? You know, what about your songs and your guitars? I love those songs. Yeah. Those songs make me laugh. Yeah. Those are really, really funny. I want to play a scene from the third season of Friends. This is Phoebe and Ross, played by David Schwimmer. And as she explains to him, who's a paleontologist, that she doesn't buy evolution or gravity. Let's listen. That's fine. Go ahead and scoff. You know, there are a lot of things out there that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true. Such as? Like crop circles. Or the Bermuda Triangle. Or evolution. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Nah, not really. You don't believe in evolution? I don't know. It's just, you know, monkeys, Darwin. You know, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy. Too easy? Too. The process? The process? The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms is too easy? Yeah, I just don't buy it. Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, like the air we breathe. Like gravity. Oh, okay. Don't get me started on gravity. You, uh, you don't believe in gravity? Well, it's not so much that, you know, like, I don't believe in it. You know, it's just, I don't know. Lately, I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed. She was ditzy, but also deep. To play that combination of those two things together, I mean, it takes a very specific way that you were able to nail. There's also a lot of, there's the chemistry there. You can even hear it. You can even hear it, even with us, without us watching it. Oh, yeah. That was the best part of that part of my life. Everyone's so good. And, I mean, the trick is just like, you know, at first it was a lot of work being Phoebe. Given. In what way? To be a person and justify what they're saying. Mm-hmm. So it sometimes took a lot of work. But by season three, you know, I was really nervous. I was nervous because I wasn't doing the work anymore. And I felt like, I don't think, is this the character even? I don't know what I'm doing. When we came back from hiatus. And LeBlanc had said, what's. Matt LeBlanc. Matt LeBlanc said, what's going on? And I said, I'm not doing the work. I'm not being Phoebe. And he said, no, you have her down. That's why you're not working as hard. Because she's in you. You got it. And I went, oh, okay. I can imagine. I can imagine getting a role like Friends. It's a role of a lifetime because it's one of those roles where the show itself becomes a part of Americana. And so you're always connected to that. So there's the blessing part of it. Did you ever have another relationship with it, though? Constantly being called Phoebe, being referenced, people coming up to you, probably just saying lines and wanting you to repeat those lines, stuff like that. Well, my first response is always, I have zero complaints about Friends or anything. I don't know what to do with it because every part of it was just the relationship with the other actors. We had fun. That is so rare. And real honest respect, mutual respect. It was a really good relationship that took some work, and we did the work. You know, it was great. Well, part of it is you all spent 16, 20 hours a day with each other. Right, especially in the beginning. But we made sure we did. We did. We played poker together while we're waiting for the run-through or while, you know, any downtime, we spent that time together on set. And Jimmy Burroughs helped also. And, you know, we just lost him, so that's heartbreaking. But Jimmy Burroughs is a legendary director and creator. He did Cheers. And before that, his first job was Mary Tyler Moore Show. Iconic. And then directed some, the Bob Newhart Show. And Will and Grace. He did every one of them. So he did the first 10 episodes of Friends. He did the pilot and the first 10 episodes. And, you know, it was his idea that Warner Brothers give him the Warner Brothers jet, private jet, and he flew us to Las Vegas, just us, no boyfriends, girlfriends, none of us were married yet, showed us the first episode on the plane on the way to Las Vegas, and gave us each $200. And then he took us to Spago and said, pay attention, this is the last time the six of you can be out in public like this and not be recognized. And I remember everyone going, oh, and I thought, maybe, I don't know, I mean, how does he know? Right. Well, how does he know? Because he's been around and he knows. He knows when he has a success. It's going to work. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. But, yeah, everything about it was great. But sometimes people will stop me and say, oh, sing Smelly Cat. I don't want to do that. I really don't want to do that. Right, right. Your son, you were pregnant with him the last season of Friends. And he's now on The Comeback. And you all. You all filmed The Comeback on the same soundstage that you all filmed Friends. That's right. Are you sentimental like this? I didn't have a choice but to be sentimental about all of that. Yes. And at times it was a little overwhelming. I mean, we're wrapping up The Comeback and Valerie Cherish in the same space where, along with the Friends cast, we said goodbye to that experience. So that was a lot. And my son is there. Yes. On top of it. It's the first time he's acting in a union anything. And he was great, too, I have to say. I was really proud of him. And in that same space. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to see what Romy and Michelle is about this next. Yeah. You guys shot it already? Yeah, we're done. You're done? Oh, I know what it's about. I can't wait for it. Oh, my gosh. Can you give us anything about it? Well. You know, Michelle's always just happy. And they get invited to a wedding and Romy decides, oh, no, we forgot to get married. We should have found love. Maybe we're not lovable. So that's what sets us off on the journey that is Romy and Michelle, too. Okay. That's a good tease. Yeah. Lisa Kudrow, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was really fun. Award-winning actor Lisa Kudrow, she's nominated for two Emmys. for the final season of the HBO series, The Comeback. And she just finished shooting a sequel to the 1997 film, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. After a short break, critic-at-large John Powers reviews the Paramount Plus series, Diara from Detroit. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Diara from Detroit is a Paramount Plus series that stars Diara Kilpatrick as a Motor City school teacher who keeps getting herself and her friends to go to school. Now, in its second season, the show is a favorite of our critic-at-large John Powers. He says the show uses freewheeling comedy to take us places we haven't been before. Because so much of television takes place in generic locations, I've always loved shows that are rooted somewhere real, especially if that somewhere is a place we rarely see. The Baltimore of The Wire, the Tulsa of The Lowdown, the Albuquerque of Granada, and the Breaking Bad in Pluribus. The small-town Minnesota and North Dakota of Fargo. Such shows have a richness of texture and feeling that you get when a story isn't merely set someplace, but seems to grow from its very soil. Few shows announce their roots more clearly than Diara from Detroit, the smart, deliriously ambitious comic mystery series that's currently in its second season on Paramount Plus. Created by its star, Diara from Detroit, Diara from Detroit, Diara from Detroit, Diara from Diara Kilpatrick, a Detroit native. The show is at once a mystery, a rom-com, a vision of women's power, a portrait of black Detroit, and a cornucopia of good jokes. No show on TV makes me laugh out loud nearly so often. Kilpatrick plays Diara Brickland, a hard-working, underpaid Detroit schoolteacher whose slick lawyer of a husband is divorcing her. Season one followed Diara's search for a hunk named Chris. That's Shannon Wallace. whom she thought ghosted her after a torrid and soulful one-night stand. Working with a Scooby-Doo band of friends, she eventually finds Chris and rescues him from abduction. But not before traveling through the Motor City underbelly with its missing children, strip clubs, and criminal gangs. As season two begins, Diara is discovering that maybe Chris isn't the man for her after all. To distract herself during summer vacation, she channels her inner Nancy Drew and agrees to find a pushy old geezer's stolen armoire. It's actually a desk. Before she knows it, she and a slightly different band of friends are faced with shootings, threats from the cops, an insanely thuggish street gang, and a treasure map from Prohibition Days. And in the midst of all this, Diara finds herself roiled by the sound of her biological clock tick-tick-ticking. That sound gets louder when she bumps into an arrogant, old boyfriend in a diner. Niftedly played by Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan fame, he pitches a clumsy bit of woo. We should try again. For real this time. Hear me out. If it gets romantic again, that's a plus. Or we can get modern. Co-parent, you can use my sperm. I mean, your ass ain't getting any younger. Wow, Royce, I will actually stab you in the throat. Your egg reserves go down every six months after 35. Why do you even know that? Old ladies have a. Oh, baby, shut up. If you wait too long. You don't know? What are you talking about? Baby, if you wait too long, you will give birth to Morgan Freeman. At school, Diara is so gung-ho that her fellow teachers derisively call her Captain Extra. I'm inclined to put that name on Kilpatrick herself, as a compliment. Not only does she create a black heroine unlike any I've seen on TV, she surrounds her with extraness. Scads of characters, locations, twists, songs, pop culture gags, and sex. At its best, Diara from Detroit has some of the liberating, gleefully obscene craziness of an early Alma Dovar film. What makes it great isn't its serviceable mystery plot, but the fun stuff fizzing around it, like Diara and her friends cracking jokes about Martin Luther King's womanizing. While Diara drives the action with her likable energy, every episode brims with entertaining people. This starts with Diara's friends, like her. That's my colleague, Mr. T. That's Brian Terrell Clark, a gay teacher who shuns romantic commitment. And the perky businesswoman, Aja. That's Dominique Perry, who preaches celibacy until she meets a star football player. From Diara's flamboyantly earthy cousin, Requiba, to the tubey movie director called Film School, to the respected, socially conscious black business leader, who's actually a crook, Diara from Detroit offers a vision of African-American culture that's not just a show, but a reality. which means that for all its humor, the series also has darker currents. There's a section of town so scary that Diara and her friends won't enter. A police department that black people know better than to trust. Drug-dealing white supremacists clearly up to no good. The show's most haunting character is Diara's longtime friend, Danger, beautifully played by John Chaffin, who was forced into crime as a child, and would like to straighten his life out, but keeps facing obstacles not of his own making. If Diara's the upbeat heart of the show, Danger is its wounded, struggling soul. Now, it might be a bit much to say that Kilpatrick, whose half-brother Kwame was once mayor of Detroit, has served up a love letter to her hometown. But the show clearly aims to rebut the widespread image of the city as a sad metropolis with a dying autoimmune, and a black underclass so downtrodden that its most famous rapper is a white guy. Diara's Detroit is not a lost cause. Far from it. Like the Harlem in Colson Whitehead's wonderful, just-finished trilogy of novels, it celebrates a resilient, churning vitality that America rarely gets to see. John Powers reviewed Diara from Detroit, now in its second season. Tomorrow on Fox News. On Fresh Air, national security writer Joby Warwick tells the story of Carlos the Jackal, the world's most notorious terrorist in the 70s and 80s. He became so famous for his brazen attacks and playboy lifestyle that once, when he was releasing hostages from a hijacked plane, several asked him for autographs. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moseley.