The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten

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Speaker 3 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Speaker 6 Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Speaker 7 I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 9 Ina Garten is not just a household name, she's beloved.

Speaker 8 With the help of her food network program, the Barefoot Countessa, not to mention all those viral videos, Gartin has 14 million cookbooks in print.

Speaker 8 Her success doesn't come from pioneering recipes or being in the foodie avant-garde.

Speaker 11 It's got more to do with a confiding, authentic warmth that tells you that you too can make cockovin or a roast tenderloin or some roast carrots even. Just follow the recipe.
You can do it.

Speaker 6 Her approach to food is classic and above all, accessible.

Speaker 8 I've known known her for a while and I must tell you that the person you see on TV is the one you get in person.

Speaker 8 Funny, unpretentious, a shrewd businesswoman, and a master of every chicken recipe known in the history of chicken.

Speaker 13 When she goes on book tours, she doesn't come to a bookstore.

Speaker 9 She sells out the Kennedy Center. She's pretty successful.

Speaker 8 A couple of years back, Inagarten published a book called Go to Dinners.

Speaker 10 and I asked her to join me on the program.

Speaker 15 Now, I have to start out by telling you the last time I had a famous cook on the show, I may have told you this, it was Jacques Popin.

Speaker 17 And on the radio, with my laptop in the kitchen, I made crepes with him.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 7 exactly, with my wife, Esther, laughing at me in the corner of the kitchen.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 7 we're not going to cook.

Speaker 5 We're just going to talk. We're not cooking.

Speaker 2 We'll cook in person. How's that? Exactly.

Speaker 5 I'd love to do that.

Speaker 2 Nothing worse than having your wife laughing at you.

Speaker 5 It's a daily,

Speaker 2 very smart wife laughing at you.

Speaker 6 An hourly occurrence.

Speaker 16 Now, you write in the preface to this book, early in the book, you said that when you were growing up, you had dreaded dinner time.

Speaker 19 Why was it dreaded? Was the food so terrible?

Speaker 5 What was your,

Speaker 7 was it your mom that was making dinner?

Speaker 2 My mother was making dinner. My father was a...

Speaker 2 ear surgeon. And my mother was very, I think now I might say that she would be diagnosed with Asperger's, didn't have relationships, and she had no interest in food.

Speaker 2 So she would get dinner on the table, but there was no joy in it.

Speaker 5 What was dinner on the table? What was it?

Speaker 2 Broiled chicken, canned peas.

Speaker 2 What would I say?

Speaker 2 She was a dietician by training and didn't believe in carbohydrates, so we never had bread or potatoes or polenta or anything absolutely delicious.

Speaker 2 I mean, we didn't even have frozen vegetables, we had canned vegetables. I particularly remember Harvard beets, one of my least favorite things in the world.

Speaker 2 And no child likes Harvard beets. You might develop a flavor for it, a taste for it afterwards, but not when you're 10.

Speaker 6 And it sounds like dinner was not a joyful time.

Speaker 2 It wasn't a joyful time. And my parents, particularly my father, was very stern taskmaster and would grill us about whatever was in school.
He would criticize us.

Speaker 2 So when dinner was over, I had a nice knot in my stomach. And they would always want me to eat faster.
So they would say, every time your brother takes a bite, you take a bite. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 I'd be like, I just can't.

Speaker 7 When is the first time you picked up a frying pan in earnest?

Speaker 14 It wasn't just when you got married later on.

Speaker 2 100% was when I got married. I was never allowed in the kitchen.
So my mother never taught me how to do anything. And I mean, she didn't see any joy in it.

Speaker 2 She felt that my job was to study, and it was her job to make dinner.

Speaker 2 And I think she wasn't comfortable with me being in the same room with her. So she would always say, you go study.
And so I was in my room my whole childhood. And I think I was pretty lonely.

Speaker 2 I think that that's why now cooking for friends and Jeffrey and doing the show, be my guest where I'm connecting with people is so satisfying.

Speaker 14 In other words, would you like to cook with people around, not

Speaker 12 by you're lonesome in the kitchen?

Speaker 2 I prefer to cook by myself.

Speaker 10 You do?

Speaker 2 And I do. Cooking's Cooking's hard for me.
I mean, I do it a lot, but it's really hard. And I just love having the space to concentrate on what I'm doing, so I make sure it comes out well.

Speaker 2 Cooking's hard. I mean, when you go to the butcher and you order a chicken, it's a different size every time.
It's a different kind of chicken.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, some chickens, they're allowed to add water to it. You have no idea what you're going to get.
So it's, I mean, just the simplest thing is chicken can be complicated.

Speaker 2 I do find it hard. I really,

Speaker 2 I'm not confident that it's going to come out well.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I have to say, I'm surprised when it does.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 maybe I have high standards.

Speaker 16 Do you remember the first time you made a dinner in earnest for you and Jeffrey?

Speaker 2 Well, probably as soon as we got married, because it wasn't like we had the money to go after dinner. So when we were engaged, before we got married, I remember going out and buying Craig Claiborne's

Speaker 2 the New York Times cookbook. and I went to what was it called it's a store like I think it was called Caldor and I bought entire set of kitchen equipment and

Speaker 2 I just was really excited about being able to cook but I remember within the first month I made a holla and I remember thinking that's what you're gonna start with

Speaker 2 but I did I just I really love things that challenge me that I think I can't do and then make them and show myself that I can do them.

Speaker 6 I get the feeling and this is far from your first book you've had many books before this but Go To Dinners is a book in a way made for Ina Garten back then.

Speaker 20 In other words these are in some ways the least intimidating recipes you can imagine.

Speaker 6 You're almost telling the reader you know darling I know you think you can't do anything.

Speaker 20 but even you can do this.

Speaker 2 It actually does come full circle, doesn't it? Because once I've learned how to cook, and then, of course, I got mastering the art of French cooking, both volumes, and worked my way through those.

Speaker 2 So I learned the French techniques from Julia Child.

Speaker 2 And I really believe in simplifying things. But what happened in the pandemic is we were also completely stressed.
We didn't know what we could do, what we couldn't do.

Speaker 2 I was making a recipe every day for Instagram so people could figure out what to do with those white beans that they had in their pantry.

Speaker 5 3,000

Speaker 10 white beans.

Speaker 5 Exactly.

Speaker 2 So many white beans and whatever they had. I was making recipes for my cookbook, for this book, and I was cooking lunch and dinner for Jeffrey and me every single day.

Speaker 2 And by sometime around May or June, I was like in bed with the covers up over my head. And I thought, I really need to simplify.
So it is true that I came full circle, but for a different reason.

Speaker 19 No, I've admitted this to you before, but I'm now admitting it to everybody who's listening.

Speaker 13 To relax, I don't cook.

Speaker 7 I watch cooking videos.

Speaker 10 I watch you.

Speaker 19 I watch Jacques Papin.

Speaker 13 I watch this Sechuan guy

Speaker 6 who's going 300 miles an hour, making incredible food, but I can't cook.

Speaker 16 Hold my hand and tell me what I need to know initially.

Speaker 14 If I'm having four people over, six people, whatever it is, what do I need to know?

Speaker 16 What do I not need to be nervous about?

Speaker 6 And what would you recommend I start with?

Speaker 2 I think there's one thing everybody should know how to do, which is a roast chicken. And I do it in all different forms.
I do it with potatoes and fennel. I do it in this book, I have a

Speaker 2 spring roast chicken or roast chicken with spring vegetables, things like asparagus. You can put almost any kind of vegetable in a roasting pan and a chicken on top of it and put it in the oven.

Speaker 2 It's the easiest thing in the world. And the only thing you have to do is make sure you don't overcook the chicken.
People get really nervous.

Speaker 14 So you think this is the easiest thing?

Speaker 6 This is the point of entry?

Speaker 2 Any kind of droast chicken. Or the chicken in a pot, which is just as easy as can be.
You put it in a big pot with chicken stock and vegetables, and then

Speaker 2 you get saffron to give it a little heat, and then Orzo, and you've got a whole dinner all in one pot.

Speaker 6 I have to ask you, I'm lucky enough to know Jeffrey, but I think for most people who watch you,

Speaker 6 they see Jeffrey at the end of your show and he'll be saying something like, this is the best soup I've ever had, or this chicken's unbelievable, or something like that.

Speaker 14 And you think to yourself,

Speaker 6 he can't possibly be this nice and this brilliant at the same time.

Speaker 2 He's just so appreciative. And I think it's one of the reasons why I love to cook, because if you cook for somebody who doesn't appreciate it, there's no satisfaction in it.

Speaker 2 I made him, one day I made him a cup of tea, and he said, oh, this is the best tea I've ever had. And I was like, Jeffrey, it's a cup of hot water in a tea bag.

Speaker 2 It was a particularly good tea, but I mean, still, he just, nothing goes by him. He really appreciates it, which I love.

Speaker 6 Now, you ran a store, you owned a store from 1978 to 1996, a long time, the Barefoot Contessa. And why did that hit the way it hit out in the Hamptons?

Speaker 20 It was an incredible success.

Speaker 2 You know, I... I thought of it as a party.

Speaker 2 I wanted, when you walked in the door, I wanted all of your senses engaged. I wanted you to smell something wonderful.
I wanted you to see a wonderful display of produce.

Speaker 2 I wanted to hear great music, but it was old-fashioned like Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra or whatever was fun to listen to. There were samples of things all over the store so you could taste things.

Speaker 2 And people would just come in just because it was fun. And I thought, if they're going to come because it's fun, they'll always come when they're hungry.
And I think that's what worked.

Speaker 2 It wasn't really about the food. It was about the feeling of being in the store.

Speaker 6 It seems impossible to imagine, but there was a time, Ina, that

Speaker 13 you were not as famous as you are now.

Speaker 7 You started publishing these cookbooks, and

Speaker 20 you were hesitant about doing a television show.

Speaker 6 I mean, you got offers, I think, more than once

Speaker 14 before you decided to go forward with it.

Speaker 5 What was your hesitation?

Speaker 2 I, you know,

Speaker 2 I didn't think anybody would want to watch me cook on TV, actually.

Speaker 2 Food Network kindly made me an offer, and I kept saying no, and they kept coming back. And

Speaker 2 there was someone there, Eileen Opatutt, who just kept saying,

Speaker 2 make me a better offer. And I kept saying to her, no, I just don't want to do this.
And she just kept coming back.

Speaker 2 And finally, I had heard about a show that somebody said was a really good cooking show. and it was Nigella Lawson's show.

Speaker 2 And unbeknownst to me, they went to London, found her producer, told me that they were coming to East Hampton like in two weeks. And I was like, whoa, whoa, I said I wasn't going to do this.
And

Speaker 2 Eileen said, just do

Speaker 2 13 shows, thinking,

Speaker 2 how hard could that be?

Speaker 2 And they arrived on my doorstep, and I thought, okay, let's see what we can do. And one of the things I think about in life is you got to jump in the pond.

Speaker 2 You say no to things without really understanding. Like I said, no to Instagram before I understood what it was.
And I kept saying no about TV. I was just like, I love writing cookbooks.

Speaker 2 I want to keep doing that. And I can't imagine being on TV.

Speaker 14 It always seemed to me that the most successful ones, there was some character involved.

Speaker 6 Now, Julia Child was a big character. She had personality traits that we could easily list.

Speaker 5 Graham Kerr did all kinds of people who've done it.

Speaker 6 How do you think about that in terms of the personality you put out there?

Speaker 10 Because I have to say, being lucky enough to know you, it seems like one and the same person.

Speaker 2 I am the same person you see on TV. I found a

Speaker 5 coach.

Speaker 2 who would teach me how to be on TV. And I have no idea why I knew this, but after one session with her, I thought, that's just awful.

Speaker 2 Nothing she said made sense to me, and I thought, I just need to be myself on TV. It's the only thing that works.
And I don't know why I knew that, I just knew it.

Speaker 14 I have to say, though, I'm watching you cook, and there's a move that you do.

Speaker 6 All of a sudden, a stick and a half of butter goes into the pan, and you look up both with mischief in your eyes and a little guiltily and say, Yeah, but it makes a lot of brownies.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 2 Do you know what?

Speaker 5 Go ahead.

Speaker 2 Do you know what I believe? I think we should eat real food.

Speaker 2 And if it's delicious,

Speaker 2 it's worth cooking for. My favorite expression is, if you eat

Speaker 2 a low-fat diet, it's not that you live longer. It just seems longer.

Speaker 5 Isn't that true? Now,

Speaker 10 we have some questions sent by email to you.

Speaker 16 This comes from Julie Wilson and Maureen Tipping in Comer.

Speaker 6 Northern Ireland. And this question is for my neighbor, Maureen.

Speaker 7 And me, Julie, we're tuning in from Comer, which is a small village just outside of Belfast.

Speaker 16 During COVID, our neighborhood came together into a really lovely, supportive, and fun community.

Speaker 17 We went from being neighbors to being friends.

Speaker 14 This Christmas, we would like to co-host a party for our street.

Speaker 14 Our village is famous for potatoes, so we're really keen to know if Ina has any ideas on how to transform the humble spud into a delicious party food hors d'oeuvre.

Speaker 13 A potato hors d'oeuvre.

Speaker 16 And keep in mind, you're giving potato tips to Ireland.

Speaker 5 That's a tall argument. Exactly.

Speaker 2 That's really daunting. You know what I would do is I'd make potato latkes.
I think that would be great.

Speaker 5 Wow.

Speaker 6 And you have a great recipe for that, I should say.

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 2 And what you can do is you can prepare them in advance, put them on a sheet pan, and reheat them in the oven, warm them in the oven.

Speaker 12 Sounds delish.

Speaker 5 Is that a good one?

Speaker 6 From Alex Lewin in Berkeley, California.

Speaker 8 Dear Ms.

Speaker 13 Gartin, about 10 years ago, I read a short story in Harper's about which I remember nothing, not the title, the author of the plot, except for a scene in which a character fishes a bay leaf out of a bowl of soup and flicks it away, and he tells his dining companion, bay leaves are BS.

Speaker 6 Ever since then, I've been nagged by the question, are bay leaves BS? Whenever I put them in anything, I can't tell what effect they have.

Speaker 10 Am I using them wrong?

Speaker 13 Also, is it true that they should be kept in the freezer?

Speaker 2 Okay, I really don't know the answer to this, and I will say that I always also wonder whether a bay leaf makes a difference.

Speaker 2 And there are a couple of things that I use bay leaves in, and I've always wanted to make them without the bay leaves to see if it made a difference, and I never have. So I'm not sure.

Speaker 17 This is, can I just say this is called making news?

Speaker 7 Inegarten calls bullshit on bay leaves.

Speaker 17 Now, these are questions from New Yorker Instagram.

Speaker 6 What to make for two people while still making it feel like a holiday and a special meal?

Speaker 17 This is from Teresa Nobrey.

Speaker 2 You know what's really great is

Speaker 2 roast pork loins because they're very small and you can marinate them and roast them really simply, serve them with like a potato and apple and fennel puree and some shaved Brussels sprouts.

Speaker 2 It would be a great holiday meal and it's not like cooking a whole ham.

Speaker 6 I have a very important question to ask.

Speaker 15 When did Brussels sprouts go from being, as in my childhood, disgusting to in

Speaker 6 my adulthood, it's like, I can't wait to get more Brussels sprouts.

Speaker 5 What happened?

Speaker 2 What happened was, and I actually started this at the store in the 80s. I started roasting Brussels sprouts instead of boiling them.
And they were so good because they're like crispy and

Speaker 2 they're more like French fries. They're fantastic.
So then I started, thought, well, if you can roast Brussels sprouts, maybe you can roast butternut squash.

Speaker 2 So we started roasting butternut squash and string beans. And I mean, we roasted everything.
And the best part is it's the easiest thing in the world.

Speaker 2 You put whatever vegetable it is on a sheet pan, olive oil, salt, and pepper, and into the oven.

Speaker 7 So on asparagus, too, you're pro-roasting rather than steaming or boiling?

Speaker 2 A hundred percent. I think it brings out the flavor, it caramelizes the sugars in it, and it's much more delicious.

Speaker 7 Perfect.

Speaker 6 Now, this is not exactly a food question.

Speaker 13 How many scarves do you own?

Speaker 5 You always have one on. Soup almost

Speaker 5 a lot.

Speaker 2 I have drawers and drawers of scarves. She's absolutely right.

Speaker 2 I have them everywhere. I just love having a scarf around my neck.
I just think it feels good.

Speaker 2 David, I was just thinking to myself, can we just do this again tomorrow?

Speaker 5 I'm going to do it all. It's so much fun.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 13 Ina Garton, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 So much fun to talk to you, as always, David.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 8 I spoke with Ina Garten in 2022.

Speaker 14 Her recent book is a memoir called Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

Speaker 8 Be My Guest with Ina Garten on the Food Network is in its fifth season.

Speaker 6 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, more to come.

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Speaker 21 This is Irick Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office.

Speaker 21 It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. Let's try and do that.

Speaker 21 We've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in.

Speaker 21 If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done.

Speaker 5 This American Life, every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 I'm David Remnick, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Speaker 17 The movie Baby Girl opened on Christmas Day.

Speaker 9 A pretty bold choice because elf, this is not.

Speaker 8 It's a movie about an affair between a CEO played by Nicole Kidman and a much younger man at a company.

Speaker 12 And it's steamy.

Speaker 10 That might be the euphemism of choice.

Speaker 6 And the New Yorker's Alex Barrish just profiled the director of Baby Girl, Alina Rain.

Speaker 5 And he spent some time educating himself, as one must, in the great tradition of erotic thrillers.

Speaker 11 Welcome, Alex.

Speaker 5 Thank you, David.

Speaker 15 Now, Alex, what made you want to talk to Alina Rain?

Speaker 18 Well, I'd actually read about Baby Girl when it was just entering production, and the premise sort of grabbed me immediately.

Speaker 18 I feel like there's been all of this conversation in recent years about the state of sex on screen, concerns about power differentials and the workplace and age gap relationships.

Speaker 18 And here was someone who was sort of throwing herself directly onto the third rail of all of that.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 13 And what's the basic premise beyond the age difference is?

Speaker 18 The basic premise is that Nicole Kidner is playing this CEO of a robotics company, this woman called Romy, and Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson, a young British actor,

Speaker 18 is an intern at the company.

Speaker 18 Looks to kill.

Speaker 21 Looks to kill.

Speaker 16 Right, so it's an affair between the CEO and an intern?

Speaker 10 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 5 It is the most extreme.

Speaker 17 HR departments everywhere.

Speaker 5 The HR department nightmare, yes.

Speaker 3 I wanted to automate repetitive tasks and give people their time back by limiting power-hungry personalities. You think that's what I am?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 5 I think the opposite.

Speaker 3 You think I don't like power?

Speaker 5 I think you like to be told what it is.

Speaker 18 And, you know, the idea is that she is in this happy marriage, but she has these desires that she dares not even name to her husband. And this young man proves to be the outlet for that.

Speaker 18 And initially, there's the kind of flirtation in the office, and they're easing into it. And then he sort of tempts her into this kinky affair.

Speaker 10 Possibly the most famous cinematic orgasm of the last five years.

Speaker 18 Oh, yes, it is a

Speaker 18 long close-up on Nicole Kidman's face. It's pretty remarkable.
They take their time.

Speaker 5 Congratulations.

Speaker 18 Yes, that scene is very intense and deliberately so. It was actually the last day of shooting.
They saved it for the end.

Speaker 18 And when I talked to Helena, she wanted to wait until everyone trusted each other, knew what they were about. The scene itself is kind of funny and awkward.

Speaker 18 Deliberately, they're defining this dynamic. They're figuring out what the other person likes.
They're testing these boundaries. And then something clicks.
And the take is unflinching.

Speaker 18 It is three minutes long, and originally she wanted it to be even longer. She had hoped for an 18-minute orgasm scene, although she was quickly called back to reality.

Speaker 6 Nicole Kibmens expected to get an Oscar nomination for Baby Girl, am I right?

Speaker 5 How unusual is it for an erotic thriller to get an award, you know, an Oscar or award?

Speaker 18 Very. I mean, you know, Glenn Close was nominated for Fatal Attraction back in the day, but she didn't win, and that was sort of at the peak of the genre's power and popularity.

Speaker 18 But as you said, this role really is a showcase for Nicole Kidman's range, and she won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival.

Speaker 18 She has some momentum behind her, so we'll see if voters are ready for it now.

Speaker 13 Now, what makes an erotic thriller as opposed to a movie that just has a sex scene or two?

Speaker 18 I mean, if you look at the ones that came out in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, I feel like the Hallmarks are these very Baroque, over-the-top plots, mostly to justify the sex.

Speaker 18 And also, the idea that the danger and the sex are inextricable from each other. You You know, the erotic and the thriller have to go hand in hand.

Speaker 18 The point is that that's why it's exciting until it decidedly is not.

Speaker 9 It's anything but domestic sex.

Speaker 18 Yes, exactly. I mean, Michael Douglas, you had the kind of erotic thriller hat trick of disclosure, fatal attraction, and basic instinct.

Speaker 18 He was the man for the job, they decided. And he said at the time that the ideal audience reaction is, I laughed, I got turned on by the sex scenes, and I got scared.

Speaker 6 All right, so in the pick three sweepstakes, your contemporary pick is baby girl for erotic thrillers.

Speaker 11 What's your next pick?

Speaker 18 Basic Instinct. We have to go there.
It's sort of the apex of the genre. It was released in 1992.

Speaker 18 It's directed by Paul Verhoeven, who's really the master at this, and he has Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, so great cast.

Speaker 18 She plays a novelist whose boyfriend is stabbed to death with an ice pick in circumstances that are very similar to a novel she herself has written.

Speaker 18 And he's the detective on the case who wisely decides to fall in love with it.

Speaker 6 And it was the leg crossing that launched A Thousand Ships.

Speaker 18 Indeed, yes, very polarizing for a reason.

Speaker 22 You like playing games, don't you?

Speaker 2 I have a degree in psychology. It goes with the turf.

Speaker 23 Games are fun.

Speaker 5 You think it's a good movie? I think it's a great movie.

Speaker 18 I think it holds up.

Speaker 18 It is absurd. It is over the top, but it knows what it's doing.
I think it's playing with the tropes in a fun way.

Speaker 13 With you there, now your third pick is one of controversy.

Speaker 9 What is it?

Speaker 18 Eyes Wide Shut. The Stanley Kubrick film.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 18 Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman once again back in the erotic thriller space.

Speaker 11 Now, for for those unlucky enough not to have seen Eyes Wide Shut 25 years ago, what was it about?

Speaker 5 It's about a lot.

Speaker 18 It is about a lot. And, you know, I think audiences at the time didn't quite know what to do with it because it was marketed as a conventional erotic thriller.

Speaker 18 And it will not shock you to learn that Stanley Kubrick's take on this genre is a little more esoteric.

Speaker 18 But Tom Cruise is playing this doctor, Bill Hoford, whose wife, Nicole Kidman, confesses to fantasies about another man.

Speaker 5 And he spirals as a result of this information. I think it's fair to say.

Speaker 18 And a friend of his tells him about a secret party. He sneaks in and finds out that it's an OG with dangerous consequences for those involved.

Speaker 1 May I have the password, please?

Speaker 1 Fidelia.

Speaker 1 That's right, sir.

Speaker 1 That is the password for admittance.

Speaker 1 But may I ask, what is the password for the house?

Speaker 5 For the record, you and our esteemed colleague Richard Brody are aligned on this film.

Speaker 18 It's a rare occurrence, and I think it means something.

Speaker 5 What does it mean, do you suppose?

Speaker 18 You know, if two divergent critical sensibilities can find something to admire in this film, then maybe it should be vindicated by history.

Speaker 8 Nicole Kidman starred in Icewisehut 25 years ago, and now here she is in Baby Girl.

Speaker 9 What keeps bringing her to these films?

Speaker 18 I mean, Nicole Kidman is a very prolific actress.

Speaker 13 Did you ask her about this?

Speaker 5 I did, yes. What did she say?

Speaker 18 She said that Ryan had given her something that no one's given me. And I don't know that it's the genre itself.
I think in this case, it was Helena. You know, she's obsessed with Adrian Lyne.

Speaker 18 She's obsessed with Paul Verhoeven. You know, she was in a Verhoven film herself.

Speaker 18 She has an idea of what it takes to be in these roles, but she also realized that those films had a lot of sexism in them and there were these problems.

Speaker 18 And she wanted something that played with all of those tropes, but was also true in its depiction of sexuality and a little more aware of the roles and responsibilities and the archetypes that women are expected to fulfill.

Speaker 18 It's taking this stuff and it's twisting it and making it a little more modern.

Speaker 10 So, with all the attention that's being given to Baby Girl, are we in for a renaissance, God willing, of erotic thrillers?

Speaker 6 I hope so.

Speaker 18 I mean, I think, you know, we,

Speaker 18 those movies were ridiculous at times, you know, often. No.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 18 But they also, in their willingness to really go for broke, I think they had the chance to show us something fun and something real.

Speaker 18 And it'd be nice if people took a few more risks in their filmmaking.

Speaker 7 Alex, thanks a lot.

Speaker 5 Thanks, David.

Speaker 8 Alex Barrish is an editor for The New Yorker.

Speaker 11 And Baby Girl, starring Nicole Kidman, just opened.

Speaker 16 You can find Alex's profile of the director, Helena Rain, at New Yorker.com.

Speaker 8 I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 4 That's our program for today.

Speaker 18 Hope you had a great holiday.

Speaker 16 We'll see you in the new year, whatever that may bring.

Speaker 3 The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbis of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.

Speaker 3 This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer.

Speaker 3 with guidance from Emily Botine and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parrish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.

Speaker 3 The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.

Speaker 23 My name is Madeline Barron. I'm a journalist for The New Yorker.

Speaker 23 I focus on stories where powerful people or institutions are doing something that's harming people or harming someone or something in some way.

Speaker 23 And so my job is to report that so exhaustively that we can reveal what's actually going on and present it to the public.

Speaker 23 You know, for us at In the Dark, we're paying equal attention to the reporting and the storytelling.

Speaker 23 And we felt a real kinship with The New Yorker, like the combination of the deeply reported stories that the New Yorker is known for,

Speaker 23 but also the quality of those stories, the attention to narrative.

Speaker 23 If I could give you only one reason to subscribe to The New Yorker, it would be

Speaker 23 maybe this is not the answer you're looking for, but

Speaker 23 I just don't think that there is any other magazine in America that combines so many different types of things into a single issue as The New Yorker.

Speaker 23 You know, like you have poetry, you have theater reviews, you have restaurant recommendations, which for some reason I read even though I don't live in New York City.

Speaker 23 And all of those things are great, but I haven't even mentioned like the other half of the magazine, which is deeply reported stories that honestly are the first things that I read.

Speaker 23 You know, I'm a big fan of gymnastics, and people will say, Oh, we were so lucky to live in the era of Simone Biles, which I agree.

Speaker 23 We're also so lucky to live in the era of Lawrence Wright, Jane Mayer, Ronan Farrow, Hatrick Rad and Keefe. And so, to me, it's like I can't imagine not reading these writers.

Speaker 22 You can have all the journalism, the fiction, the film, book, and TV reviews, all the cartoons just by going right now to newyorker.com/slash dark.

Speaker 22 Plus, there's an incredible archive, a century's worth of award-winning work just waiting for you. That's newyorker.com/slash dark.

Speaker 1 And thanks.