WWDTM: Sterling K. Brown, Nathan Lane, Brian Tyree Henry, and Vanessa Bayer

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet. Explore more at patagonia.com/slash impact.

Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz.

Speaker 3 I'm the man they call Bill Overa because my voice can soothe any sunbird.

Speaker 3 Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peters Sagal.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 1 It's the second week of our summer break, and even though I am recording this in advance, I can confidently say it's not working.

Speaker 1 We need more vacation.

Speaker 3 We must relax harder, more, more, more.

Speaker 1 While we redouble our efforts to expend zero effort, here are some of the wonderful things we actually put work into last year.

Speaker 3 In May, Peter and guest scorekeeper Alzo Slade were joined by actor Nathan Lane, the star of the hit sitcom Mid-Century Modern. It wasn't his first TV show, but it was his first one that lasted.

Speaker 1 This is not the first time you have starred in a TV show, though, but it may be the most successful.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 you know, in terms of a multi-camera show in front of a live audience, I've done a couple in the past that haven't been so successful. So this has been a great pleasure.

Speaker 1 Right. And

Speaker 1 so, what happened? Did you just have poor luck in the past?

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know how much time do you have.

Speaker 5 When I was a kid,

Speaker 5 I was cast in a show, a situation comedy starring Mickey Rooney and Dana Carvey called One of the Boys.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 And that was,

Speaker 5 I knew going into that, it was not going to last.

Speaker 5 And Dana still talks about it. He's still traumatized by Mickey Rooney,

Speaker 5 as we all were.

Speaker 5 And then I did a show with the creators of Frasier,

Speaker 5 and I thought that would be a good idea. They had won the Emmy five years in a row, and they pitched me an idea I didn't like, and then I pitched them an idea they didn't like.

Speaker 5 And then they came up with this idea that we wound up doing, in which I was going to play a famous opera singer who lost his voice in a freak accident and had to leave the opera world.

Speaker 5 And he went to live with his mother and sister at their winery in the Napa Valley.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 5 by the time the premise was,

Speaker 5 you were finished explaining it, people had left the room.

Speaker 6 That didn't go so well.

Speaker 1 So, this is exciting. The show,

Speaker 1 let's talk about Mid-Century Modern. Okay.
My understanding is that it was pitched to you. This is made by the creators of the classic and brilliant sitcom Will and Grace.

Speaker 1 And they came to you and they said, it's a gay golden girls. Is that correct? Is that how they pitched it?

Speaker 5 Yes. And I thought, well, that's kind of redundant.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 5 it was actually Ryan Murphy. I was working for Ryan Murphy doing this mini-series about the Menendez brothers, and he had read this script, and he had never done

Speaker 5 a situation comedy before, a multi-camera situation comedy.

Speaker 5 But he thought the script was was great and they had written it.

Speaker 5 I was told with me in mind. And so

Speaker 5 I read it and I thought it was hilarious. And

Speaker 5 that's how it all came to be.

Speaker 1 I'm going to confess something. I have been a fan of yours for decades, and I only found out this week that you are not, in fact, Jewish.

Speaker 1 And when I got over my shock,

Speaker 1 increased respect for you as an actor.

Speaker 1 I mean, do you enjoy talking about?

Speaker 5 I really, I'm, at this point, I'm an honorary Jew.

Speaker 1 I was about to say.

Speaker 5 This goes back to,

Speaker 5 you know, 1992, doing Guys and Dolls on Broadway and playing Nathan Detroit. And then, but once I played that part, it has certainly, I have played many, many other Jewish characters.

Speaker 1 I know it. I thought you were just coasting my children.
My favorite roles are chewing.

Speaker 1 I wanted to ask you quickly,

Speaker 1 when you were on the show last time, you talked about some odd jobs you had. But we were looking over your resume, and you are a Broadway legend.
I don't know how many Tonys you've won.

Speaker 1 You just rule that street. But I found out that you're...

Speaker 5 I've won three.

Speaker 1 Three.

Speaker 1 You keep counts. I don't keep count.

Speaker 1 One Tony for each panelist. Exactly.
But I found out that your Broadway debut

Speaker 1 was very surprising to me. It was a show called Merlin

Speaker 1 with... No.
No, it was not your Broadway debut. No.

Speaker 1 That's wrong.

Speaker 1 You actually get a point for that, Nathan.

Speaker 5 My Broadway debut was in 1982 at the Circle and Square Theater. I did a revival of the no-coward play, Present Laughter,

Speaker 5 directed by and starring George C.

Speaker 1 For Cuddles Scott?

Speaker 6 For those who remember George C.

Speaker 1 I remember him well, but that, yeah. But then, but so I'm sorry, that was not, but then you did Merlin with Doug Henning.

Speaker 1 Doug Henning was this, for those who don't remember, he was a very famous magician in like the 70s who was sort of famous for his sort of, shall we say, hippie aura. Would that be accurate?

Speaker 5 Absolutely. Marty Short on SCTV used to do an impression of him.

Speaker 5 He had a severe overbite,

Speaker 5 and he did not, he was trying to bring magic back to the magic profession. And so he did not refer to what he did as tricks, but they were illusions.

Speaker 5 And he was a lovely man, and Doug was,

Speaker 5 I don't know if you've heard, but he was a triple threat. He couldn't sing, act, or

Speaker 5 He was, but he was a lovely guy. And, you know, the first rule of musical theaters, don't do a show that's built around magic tricks.

Speaker 5 So, yeah, it did have a little bit of a run, but yes, it was...

Speaker 5 It was doomed from the start.

Speaker 1 And yet, here you are.

Speaker 5 And And when I remember having to tell, I had to leave Present Laughter and I had to tell George C. Scott that I was leaving the show to do this musical.

Speaker 5 So he knocked on my door and I opened it and he said to me, you're leaving me to do a magic show?

Speaker 1 This is going to be the outtakes for people that support public radio at a very high dollar number.

Speaker 1 I have mixed feelings about making you play that. I'd just rather hear more stories, but

Speaker 1 you know the rules. If you come in the show, you play a game, Nathan.
And this time, we've asked you here to play a game we're calling.

Speaker 1 Hey, stay in your lane, Nathan Lane.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 yeah, your name being Nathan Lane, as we all know, we were going to ask you about staying in your lane and other driving-related matters. Answer two questions.

Speaker 5 You're kidding, because you know, I don't drive.

Speaker 1 Well, I wondered about that.

Speaker 1 I wondered about that. This is the wrong game for me.

Speaker 1 It's like a Zen thing. An empty mind leads to success here.
Here we go. Who is Nathan Lane playing for? David Young of Phoenix, Arizona.
Finland is pretty serious about speeding tickets.

Speaker 1 When one guy was pulled over in 2023 for driving less than 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, what happened to him? A, the gas was drained from his car by police and he had to push it home.

Speaker 1 B, he was fined more than $100,000. Or C, he was forced to stand on a nearby corner for a whole day and hold up a sign saying, I am sorry.

Speaker 5 I think

Speaker 5 the last one.

Speaker 1 The sign he had to stand on.

Speaker 5 I think he was holding up a sign saying, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 In Finnish, presumably.

Speaker 5 In Finnish, exactly.

Speaker 1 No, he was actually fined more than $100,000.

Speaker 1 You see, Finland has this system where they have a sliding scale for moving violation fines based on your income, and he was really rich.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You both have two more questions and you have a lot of fans in this room so I think you're doing okay.

Speaker 1 We get news accounts every week about people using dummies to drive in the carpool lane. Are you aware of this Nathan? Perhaps you've seen it in California.
They always high occupancy.

Speaker 5 I always travel with dummies. Exactly.

Speaker 1 And one such person who tried that got himself into even more trouble when he got pulled over and the highway patrolman cave up to give him a ticket for driving in the carpool lane with a dummy.

Speaker 1 What did the man do to get himself in trouble? A, he claimed, that's not a dummy, that's where I hide all my drugs.

Speaker 1 B leaned over to the dummy and said loudly enough for the cop to hear, don't worry, I got this.

Speaker 1 Or C just quickly swapped seats and claimed the dummy was driving.

Speaker 5 I say he leaned over and said, Don't worry, I got this.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 1 All right, you have one more question. If you get this right, you win.

Speaker 1 If you don't like driving, you can take one of those self-driving taxis that are now cruising around Los Angeles and San Francisco. But you should be aware they come with a bit of a risk.

Speaker 1 What is that risk? A, the taxis are programmed to find the shortest route to the destination, which has led to them driving through houses, up stairways, and down into sewers.

Speaker 1 B, they periodically interface with your phone and take you to places from your incognito mode search history. Oh, no.
Or see the mobs of people who sometimes attack the cars and set them on fire.

Speaker 5 Okay, well I'm going to go with the arsonist and the audience.

Speaker 1 You're right. That's what's happening.

Speaker 1 So far, I should say.

Speaker 1 They haven't done it to any autonomous taxi with a passenger in it, but they have done it, and one of these days they might get carried away. Alzo, how did Nathan Lane do on our quiz this time?

Speaker 1 He got enough points to win the game and an honorary driver's license. Well done.

Speaker 1 Nathan Lane, I cannot tell you what a thrill it is for me to talk to you after a lifetime of being a fan. Nathan Lane is starring in Mid-Century Modern on Hulu.

Speaker 1 Nathan Lane, thank you so much for being with us today. What a pleasure to have you.

Speaker 1 When we come back, we've got panel questions you've never heard before. Plus, Tick Nataro and Sterling K.
Brown all included at no extra charge.

Speaker 1 That's when we return with more Whitweight Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.

Speaker 1 While we may be wasting our vacation by doom-scrolling the news, at least we're doing it while getting a tan.

Speaker 1 While we soak up the sun, how about you soak up some of our favorite moments from the past year?

Speaker 3 We don't broadcast everything we do. Some things we save because our parents never taught us to share.

Speaker 1 so here are some questions for our panelists that you've never heard before Joyelle this week the Chicago Sky WNBA team unveiled their new mascot sky the lioness

Speaker 1 replacing their old mascot which was what

Speaker 1 a duck

Speaker 1 not a duck

Speaker 8 Skye, I don't know, an elephant?

Speaker 1 Ellie the elephant.

Speaker 1 His signature moves.

Speaker 1 The signature signature moves were like spreading his legs in the subway and then explaining to the female team members how they should play the game. Don't talk to me like this, okay?

Speaker 1 Take me out to dinner first, Peter.

Speaker 1 A man? A man.

Speaker 1 The mascot for the Chicago WNBA team

Speaker 1 was a man

Speaker 1 known just

Speaker 1 as Sky Guy,

Speaker 1 who would appear on the court with a big, you know, mascot outfit with sunglasses, a really big jaw, a jetpack for some reason, and according to his official bio, five younger sisters who play basketball.

Speaker 1 Oh, I get it, right? As a man with sisters, he understands everything about their struggles and would like to speak for them.

Speaker 1 More proof that men shouldn't be able to vote on things.

Speaker 1 I'm just going going to keep every time he says duck, I say man shouldn't be able to vote.

Speaker 1 This is the wildest game of duck duck goose I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 I know what it is. No, wait a minute.
Hold on. This is stop.
Stop.

Speaker 1 We fully lost control. Hold on, hold on, hold on, everybody, everybody.
Everybody,

Speaker 1 everybody calm down.

Speaker 7 In Minnesota.

Speaker 1 Two things, two things.

Speaker 1 I know that here you call it duck, duck, gray duck. I know that.

Speaker 1 Remember, I lived here.

Speaker 1 That's all I did.

Speaker 1 Second lane, Shannon. Second layer hand is, do I have to pull this show over, boys? Pretty much.
Because I want to point out,

Speaker 1 like a real sky guy. Like a real sky guy.

Speaker 1 I was sky explaining that the Chicago Sky has finally decided that maybe as a premier women's basketball team we should not have a guy as our mascot and they've replaced it with Sky the Lioness inspired by the famous lions outside the Chicago Art Institute.

Speaker 1 It is of course a female lion because as everyone knows male lions basically just lie around all day while female lions hustle and defense and are totally selfless with the ball.

Speaker 1 And here's the thing:

Speaker 1 it's not going to be a sudden transition. The two mascots will share duties through the end of the season, at which point Sky the Lioness will eat Sky Guy alive on his own.

Speaker 1 Duck, Duck, Grey Goose, Duck, Duck, Ray Goose. No, Duck, Duck, Grey Goose is the adult version.

Speaker 1 Jeff, a day at the pool is going to be different now for children after scientists have proven that the kids do not have have to do what?

Speaker 1 Get out to pee.

Speaker 1 No, I feel it important to say as we are broadcast to many families listening together, yes, you still have to get out to pee.

Speaker 1 This is something I will say for absolute,

Speaker 1 my mother told me this when I was a little boy. Oh, you don't have to wait an hour before you get into the pool.

Speaker 1 After you eat. Exactly right.
You don't have to wait to swim after eating.

Speaker 1 You can eat all you want, jump off the diving board, have a sandwich on the way down.

Speaker 1 However, science does confirm that the pool water will turn blue if you pee in it. So.

Speaker 1 Wow, a lesson learned the hard way.

Speaker 1 Were you guys told this when you were kids? Yeah, but it was a full hour for me. It was only half an hour for you.
Well, actually, my mother, she was a Jewish mother, she worried. It was the next day.

Speaker 1 Zach, this week, the internet debated something called the Danny DeVito rule. Now that is a theory that the way to tell if a romantic comedy is actually good is it is good if it would work if what?

Speaker 1 If Danny DeVito was the romantic male lead and exactly right.

Speaker 1 So this is the test. This is the test.

Speaker 1 We all see these rom-coms and the handsome guy goes to great lengths to win the girl, right?

Speaker 1 But would it still be charming and not kind of creepy and scary if instead of like a heart throb, the role was played by Danny DeVito, right?

Speaker 1 So think of, say, Danny DeVito holding a boombox over his head outside his girlfriend's window from the movie Say Anything. Is that still adorable? Or does she get a restraining order?

Speaker 1 But not all rom-coms would fail the test. Pretty Woman still would work with Danny DeVito.
When Harry met Sally, absolutely. Titanic, yes, and Danny DeVito would have fit on the door.

Speaker 6 Is this a diss on Danny DeVito or a diss on the fact that most rom-coms suck?

Speaker 1 I think it is meant to be the last one.

Speaker 10 Okay, hold on, because there's entire industries and life itself based on men thinking women are hot or not. Right, right.
And so what women get this one little area of culture

Speaker 10 where they're allowed to think that the guy is cute and picture themselves making out with him. And now that's being threatened by Danny DeVito.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. McGee,

Speaker 1 they're not actually going to put Danny DeVito in the movies. I know.
I'm escalating the threat. I understand.
I just want you to know.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying,

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, like, let's...

Speaker 10 It's okay if the movies are garbage and just it's about the guy being handsome. I just want to like let women have one thing.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Jerry Maguire, you have me at. Hello.

Speaker 1 That was a very specific Danny DeVito.

Speaker 1 That was actually Danny DeVito as the penguin. Yeah, I got it, Adam.

Speaker 1 If you're listening to the show and feeling a little left out, come see us live. You can see us most weeks in Chicago at the Studio Baker Theater, and on September 18th, we'll be in St.

Speaker 1 Louis, Missouri at the Fabulous Fox Theater. For tickets and information, go to nprpresents.org.

Speaker 3 During a show in April, we had the chance to talk to two people we admire a lot: actor Sterling K.

Speaker 1 Brown, who was then starring in a new show called Paradise, and comedian Tig Nataro, who was starring on our panel.

Speaker 3 Peter asked Sterling K. Brown about his frustrating problem both with Paradise and his prior show, This Is Us.

Speaker 3 He couldn't really talk about the show without spoiling the big reveal.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's the same creator of the show, so I can say that Dan Fogelman created This Is Us, created Paradise,

Speaker 11 very talented man, love him dearly. But the whole time when you're talking about This Is Us, you're like, oh, it's a family drama, and it's got, you know, all the feels and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 11 But if you know the end of the pilot, you're like, wait a minute, all these people are related? You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 6 Sorry if I ruined anything for people that haven't watched this as yes, it's been out for a really long time.

Speaker 1 That's the us. Oh my god.
I didn't know who it was about. Yes, famously, I think I can talk about this.

Speaker 1 The pilot of This Is Us, this family drama, you're having all these different characters, and then you find out at the very end that you've been watching in different timelines, and some of these characters are the parents of these other characters who are now grown into adults.

Speaker 1 How nice. So, have you tried talking about what the twist in the new show Paradise is not? So, for example, it turns out that your character is is James Marsden's grown son.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 1 That would be, that would be.

Speaker 1 Have you come up with any tricks or like?

Speaker 11 Well, you know,

Speaker 11 to be the adult son of more white people, I think, would be going to the well.

Speaker 1 It's definitely not that.

Speaker 11 I usually just try to talk about the things that I can. The president dies in the pilot.
But most folks, and you see that in the previews.

Speaker 1 Right, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 And I say that that's the stick of the idea.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1 The whole audience going, which president?

Speaker 11 The president in the show.

Speaker 1 In the show, yeah. Everybody calm down.

Speaker 1 I have to ask you about another project you do.

Speaker 1 You do, and I believe you're coming back and doing it again, a podcast with your wife.

Speaker 11 Right? I do indeed. My wife and I, Ryan Michelle Bathet, we do a podcast called We Don't Always Agree,

Speaker 1 which pretty much. Spoiler.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it describes most marriages. But we've been married.
We just celebrated 19 years in March.

Speaker 1 Mazel Top.

Speaker 10 March, March, what?

Speaker 1 I want to write this down.

Speaker 1 So you had an episode where you talked about the fact that you did ayahuasca together. That is correct.
That is correct. Whose idea was that? And again, I mean the podcast.

Speaker 10 It was mine.

Speaker 11 The podcast is my wife's idea. Ayahuasca was my idea.
We're both what we like to call crunchy granola black people. So we don't really fit in the box of like typical sort of things.

Speaker 11 Like we like to do what they call white people stuff.

Speaker 6 You are on NPR right now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. I'm on NPR right now.

Speaker 1 That's good. That was really good.

Speaker 11 But the ayahuasca, we went to Costa Rica. It's one of the few licensed dispensaries of the medicine in the world.

Speaker 11 And I think we were interested in seeing, a friend of mine described it to me as it unlocks blind spots that you weren't aware that you had.

Speaker 10 And can you share what your blind spots were, please?

Speaker 11 The biggest blind spot in all sincerity is that we all sort of delude ourselves into thinking that we have some degree of control over what happens next.

Speaker 11 And really all we have control over is our response to what happens next. That's probably the biggest takeaway.

Speaker 1 You know what else is a way of finding out.

Speaker 1 Do you know what else is a way of finding out you have no control about what happens is being on stage with Teg Natar.

Speaker 1 I want to ask you one more thing, which is

Speaker 1 I love working actors, the guys

Speaker 1 and women who put in their time, and I love asking them about the odd jobs they might have done. Is it true that before getting into into acting, you were an intern at the Federal Reserve?

Speaker 11 Yeah, that's right. That's correct.

Speaker 11 I was an economics major when I was in undergrad, and I thought that that being an intern at the Fed was going to be something that led to me doing some sort of investment banking thing or what have you.

Speaker 11 And really what it led me to, Pete, was knowing that I was bored to tears working at the Federal Reserve.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 11 Something else, yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you ever find yourself, you know, since like financial policy is so much in the news, whipping out of, well, you know, as a former employee at the Federal Reserve, I can comment.

Speaker 11 I try to comment as little as possible.

Speaker 11 Most people don't want to hear from actors about most things, so I just try to keep staying my light.

Speaker 1 Said the guy with a podcast.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 Sterling K.

Speaker 1 Brown, it is a personal pleasure to be talking to you, and we have asked you here, in fact, to play a game that this time we're calling a retirement paradise so your show as we've discussed is about a community called paradise very mysterious so we're going to ask you about a community that claims to be a paradise and isn't mysterious at all jimmy buffett's latitude margaritaville retirement communities

Speaker 1 answer two or three questions about what sounds like really a terrific place to be and you will win our prize for one of our listeners bill who is sterling k brown playing for irene chan of san Francisco, California.

Speaker 1 All right. All right, Irene.
Here we go.

Speaker 1 Here's your first question. The Margaritaville retirement community calls itself your home in paradise.

Speaker 1 And down there near the eastern coast of Florida, they offer a wide variety of amenities, including which of these A, the hangar workshop where residents are invited to, quote, trick out their golf carts, B, Jimmy Buffett karaoke, which happens every night,

Speaker 1 or C, a nude beach.

Speaker 11 All right, I think if you're in a retirement community, you're not trying to drop trowel.

Speaker 11 So then the first one was tricking out the golf cart. It is Florida.
It's golf courses.

Speaker 11 That seems like it's going to be the answer.

Speaker 1 And it is, that's right. Yeah,

Speaker 1 like a lot of retirement communities,

Speaker 1 because they're sort of self-enclosed, people ride around in golf carts instead of cars. And as you can imagine, drunken golf cart driving is a persistent problem down there.

Speaker 1 All right, here's your next question. You got one right, let's go for two.
Margaritaville prides itself in being a place where people, quote, 55 and better

Speaker 1 can, quote, grow old but not up, unquote. And that explains why their monthly newsletter once contained what exciting phrase.

Speaker 1 A, Bert took over the DJ booth for Trap Music Night.

Speaker 1 B, party starts at four and ends when you pass out. Or C, look at all the fun our residents had at the QVC watch party.

Speaker 11 This one,

Speaker 11 I'm believing B makes the most sense. The party starts at core and ends when up.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure they might have said that at one time, but the one we saw was the fun at the QVC Watch Party.

Speaker 1 The line to get in, the QVC watch party, went down the block. Now, this is all right, because there's one one more to go if you get this right you win everything.

Speaker 1 Now the founder of course was the late Jimmy Buffett quite a remarkable guy with a remarkable career and he found his musical success relatively late in life.

Speaker 1 In fact After years of trying and failing to be successful in music, he was just about to quit it and go into what business when he did finally have his first hit record. So what was he going to be?

Speaker 1 A, a marijuana smuggler. B, he was going to go into private equity.
or c he was going to go into the catholic priesthood

Speaker 1 the audience is all yelling a marijuana smuggler

Speaker 11 live clear um

Speaker 11 i gotta go with the crowd baby it's go a yes yes it is a

Speaker 1 He says

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 when he was living out of Florida and he was just about to buy a Boston whaler to bring merchandise to the beach at night when his third album became a big hit and the Jimmy Buffett we know and love was born.

Speaker 1 Bill, how did Sterling do on our quiz?

Speaker 3 Two out of three, she reached paradise.

Speaker 1 Sterling K. Brown is an Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor whose new show is Paradise, which you can stream on Hulu Now, or catch it Mondays on ABC starting April 7th.
Sterling K.

Speaker 1 Brown, what an absolute joy to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1 You're the best.

Speaker 1 When we come back, we hear from Saturday Night Live veteran Vanessa Bear and the voice of Smokey the Bear. We'll be back in a minute with more Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you so much. So, as we've said, Bill and I and the rest of the crew are on vacation.

Speaker 1 And what better way to celebrate our time off than by listening to something that happened the last time? we had time off.

Speaker 3 Every time I listen, it's like I'm not there all over again.

Speaker 1 In February of this year, for the first time ever, both Bill and I took the week off. Without either of us there,

Speaker 1 is it even the same show?

Speaker 3 It's like the ship of Theseus or some other thing that a Stone College freshman thinks is profound.

Speaker 1 Here's Guest host Tom Papa and guest scorekeeper Chiokia Anson talking to actor and SNL alum Vanessa Bayer along with panelists Rachel Feinstein, Peter Gross, and and Shantira Jackson.

Speaker 6 When you look at your body of work, you have this great

Speaker 6 ability of being so sweet and likable, and then you kind of have this subversive kind of cutting comedy.

Speaker 1 I guess my first question in real life, are you as sweet as you look?

Speaker 12 Oh, I mean, you could ask Rachel

Speaker 12 to an extent.

Speaker 12 I think I am sweet, but I do love to gossip.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

Speaker 8 She's very lovely and warm, but she'll get into it.

Speaker 1 Vanessa has never clutched pearls around me once. I've never seen her clutch her pearls.

Speaker 6 It seems that your whole family has a really great sense of humor when I've heard you talk about your family, and especially

Speaker 6 they were especially helpful getting you through challenges when you were younger. Was that something that just came natural, or did that come out of the challenges?

Speaker 12 I think that me, you know, particularly when I was a teenager and I had leukemia, I think my family really, their senses of humor were like really,

Speaker 12 really came out. And I think it made us all kind of funnier because we learned that that was sort of a, you know, a thing that put us at ease, it put everybody we knew at ease.
And so I think it

Speaker 6 made everyone funnier. Right, just to just to kind of get through it.

Speaker 6 And it's funny, I've heard you tell stories about how you start off just trying to like protect yourself and be strong, just all of you just to get through it but then when you when the skies started clearing and it seemed like you were going to be okay you didn't really stop uh taking advantage of some of the goodwill that people had towards you

Speaker 11 i'm pretty sure i earned some like stuff forever

Speaker 12 yeah i i would you know the the big term in my family was dropping the l bomb like you know my dad came out of the speeding ticket because he said that i was sick this was like year i was done with treatment and stuff.

Speaker 12 Like, yeah, using it, you know, I feel like if you survive something like that, or honestly, if you survive anything, you should get perks forever.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 At least like a Starbucks gift card.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 6 What did you get out of when you were a teenager?

Speaker 12 Well, the huge thing was gym class.

Speaker 1 But also, I will say, To this day, you cannot climb up a rope and touch the top of the rope.

Speaker 1 It's like one of her biggest flaws.

Speaker 1 And I have to live with that.

Speaker 1 That's a trade-off, yeah.

Speaker 6 I've never heard about your audition for SNL.

Speaker 12 What was that like? You know, I got myself into such a good headspace before my SNL audition. And I'm like, I'm just going to enjoy this.
It feels like it's going to lead to positive things.

Speaker 12 I mean, I'm a real big optimist. You can tell by the way I'm telling the story.
But I just was... So excited to be there.
And I was like, I just want to be so present for this.

Speaker 12 Sorry to sound like, oh, we get it. But like, I want to be so present for this.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and did you know when you were done that you had, in fact, nailed it?

Speaker 12 I, well, I was told they're not going to laugh, so don't be offended if they don't laugh. Nobody laughs, right?

Speaker 12 They did laugh. I remember after my first character, they laughed, and I was like, whoa, I didn't even think this was possible.

Speaker 1 What was the character? Was it the Bar Mitsva kid?

Speaker 12 No, I did a different little boy who is really into rocks.

Speaker 1 I love that there's multiple.

Speaker 1 Multiple little boys. Incredible.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 He was really into rose quartz.

Speaker 1 And they laughed right away.

Speaker 12 Yeah, they laughed right away. And then they called me back a week later and I met with Lauren and I was told I would hear within the next day.
And then, so my parents stayed up all night.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's great. We didn't hear.

Speaker 12 And then like a week later, I got a call from a producer.

Speaker 1 Vanessa Bear, we've asked you here to play a game we're calling... It's a Golden Jubilee.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 6 You're helping SNL celebrate their golden 50th anniversary, but they're not the only one turning 50 this year.

Speaker 6 Answer our three questions about other things that started in 1975, and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of their choice, on their voicemail.

Speaker 6 Chioki, who is Vanessa playing for?

Speaker 2 Liz Ward of Austin, Texas.

Speaker 6 All right, here's your first question.

Speaker 6 Jaws turns 50 this year and wouldn't be nearly as iconic without John Williams' memorable two-note theme. When he first played it for Steven Spielberg, what was the director's response?

Speaker 6 A, he got so scared he fled the studio in terror.

Speaker 6 B, he reminded Williams that they were only paying him per note, so he better step it up.

Speaker 6 Or C, he said, quote, that's funny, John.

Speaker 1 Really, what did you really have in mind for the theme of drugs?

Speaker 12 My guess is C.

Speaker 1 You're right, C.

Speaker 6 That was fast with confidence.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 6 here's your next question.

Speaker 6 50 Cent turned 50 this year, and almost as famous as his music is his feud with fellow rapper Ja Rule.

Speaker 6 Things got so heated at one point that 50 Cent did what?

Speaker 1 A.

Speaker 6 Convinced Ja Rule to invest in this super cool and not at all shady thing called the Fire Festival.

Speaker 6 B, bought 200 front row tickets to a Ja Rule concert so he'd have to perform to an empty arena.

Speaker 6 or C bought the URL jaule.com and made the home page just say more like ja fool

Speaker 12 my guess is B

Speaker 1 you're right B

Speaker 1 that is really rough what a tough that's so funny that he did that I know so mean

Speaker 1 so mean

Speaker 6 all right here's your last question okay Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married for the second time in 1975, with Taylor saying, quote, we married once again, back where we belonged, where we always belonged.

Speaker 6 What did she say 10 months later?

Speaker 1 A,

Speaker 6 quote, these have been the most beautiful 10 months of either of our lives.

Speaker 6 B, quote, were you to look up love in the dictionary, certainly you'd see a picture of Richard and me or C,

Speaker 6 quote, we can't be together.

Speaker 1 Happy day.

Speaker 1 You're right, C. Oh, Justin.

Speaker 1 The couple divorced shortly afterwards.

Speaker 6 Chioki, how did Vanessa Beer do on our quiz?

Speaker 1 She got all three right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Nice job.

Speaker 6 Vanessa Baer is an actor and comedian who's celebrating SNL's 50th anniversary. Vanessa Bear, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 7 This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification. Interior Designer and CIDQ President Sia Vash Madani explains why good design is so much more than looks.

Speaker 13 Good design is never just about aesthetics. It's about intention, safety, and impact.
Being NCIDQ certified means you've qualified to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

Speaker 7 Learn more at cidq.org slash NPR. This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification.

Speaker 7 Interior Designer and CIDQ President Siavash Madani describes his fundamentals of interior interior design.

Speaker 13 I think interior design is about responsibility. It's not just the way a space looks or the way a space photographs.
To me, better design means functional, safe, accessible, and inclusive design.

Speaker 7 Learn more at cidq.org/slash npr.

Speaker 3 In April, guest host Karen Chi talked with actor Brian Tyree Henry, star of the TV show Atlanta and Apple TV's dope thief. But

Speaker 3 ask him about his greatest role ever.

Speaker 8 Brian, I wanted to ask, you've been nominated for an Oscar Atonian and Emmy, so my next question was, how does it feel to achieve the pinnacle of cinematic success?

Speaker 8 By which I mean voicing Smokey Bear?

Speaker 11 To be honest with you, it feels like the role I was born to play.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 11 I truly love going to national parks shirtless as often as possible.

Speaker 11 So I feel like it was a method acting gig.

Speaker 8 Okay, wait, going off of this, though, I did have a question. Mary, Kiss, Kill, Smokey Bear, Paddington Bear, and Winnie the Pooh.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 11 Mary, I would say Mary

Speaker 11 Smokey for the benefits.

Speaker 11 You can get it to any national park you want, so clearly.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Mary

Speaker 11 Kiss, I would kiss Paddington because, you know, he deserves it.

Speaker 11 And he'll taste like marmalade. So that's that.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 11 And you got to kill Winnie because put your pants on.

Speaker 8 I have another question, which is that you've been in Transformers, The Eternals, and Spider-Man.

Speaker 8 These are all huge franchises, and I wanted to rewind all the way back in time and ask, do you remember what your very first role was?

Speaker 11 Yes, embarrassingly enough, I was Santa Claus in my preschool production.

Speaker 11 I don't even know what this play was about, but I remember I had like a cotton ball beard, you know, when they glued this beard together.

Speaker 11 And, you know, all the parents were there, and I was the final part of this Christmas play. And I'm playing Santa Claus, I have Mrs.
Claus with me. And we've been rehearsing all week.

Speaker 11 And literally, as it comes to me, I pull my beard down and go to my teacher off the side of the stage and I go, what's my line?

Speaker 11 Which in a photo that my mother captured, you can see this woman full of rage going, Merry Christmas, Brian.

Speaker 1 And here I am now, a tawny indeed.

Speaker 8 Well, now when you do witted Oscar, you have to start off your speech by saying, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 1 Mary, what's my line? Yeah.

Speaker 8 Going off of that, I wanted to ask, you've been a part of so many iconic projects, both on stage and on screen. What are you most recognized for when you're out in the world?

Speaker 11 I believe there's a black person on this panel. Did I hear you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's me.

Speaker 1 I'm here.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Wait, wait, don't tell me. It's this guy.

Speaker 11 A paperboy. It always, I mean, I can be in places where there's a population of 300 people and somebody is going to scream paperboy at me.

Speaker 11 But it's changing.

Speaker 11 It's changing.

Speaker 11 I went to my local grocery store not too long ago because, yes, I like to buy my own groceries everywhere.

Speaker 11 And this woman was like, hey, I just want you to know that I just want to know, are you the actor from Dope Thief? And I threw my arms around her. I was like, thank you.
Thank you so much. Yes, I am.

Speaker 11 Thank you so much.

Speaker 11 So it's all shifting, but Paperboy is usually the thing that.

Speaker 1 Were you at, was it the grocery store? Was it Irwan? Was it the red grocery store?

Speaker 1 Close! Close!

Speaker 1 Close!

Speaker 11 It was Sprouts! Holy man!

Speaker 1 How dare you! How dare you!

Speaker 1 Irwan!

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 8 All right, Brian Tyree, Henry. We've actually invited you here to play a game that we're calling BTH Meet BTS.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 8 You are Brian Tyree Henry, BTH, so we're going to ask you about one of the biggest bands in history, BTS.

Speaker 1 So answer three questions about the K-Pop icons and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners.

Speaker 8 Bill, who is Brian playing for?

Speaker 3 Britton the Tri-Night of Round Rock, Texas.

Speaker 11 Bless your heart for thinking I don't know any of these answers, but let's go.

Speaker 8 Okay, here's your first question. After forming in 2010, BTS became one of the biggest bands in the world.
They're so popular that which of these is true?

Speaker 8 A, they were the only band that Pope Francis had on his iPod.

Speaker 8 B, the crowds at BTS concerts are so loud that the noise is faintly detectable from space.

Speaker 8 Or C, almost one in 10 visitors to South Korea go there for BTS-related reasons.

Speaker 11 I'm going to say the last one, one in 10 go to Korea.

Speaker 8 NPR reported that BTS adds $5 billion annually to South Korea's economy.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 11 What can K-pop do for you?

Speaker 8 All right, Brian, here's your next question. BTS thinks a lot about their lyrics, so much so that they do what before recording them.
A, run them by a women's studies professor.

Speaker 8 B have their official fan account send out definitions for any particularly big words. And C, make sure they sound just as good screamed out loud or whispered to yourself alone in your bedroom.

Speaker 11 Well the last one I do myself, so that's

Speaker 11 I'm gonna say the second one about having someone look up the words that seem

Speaker 8 do you want to guess again?

Speaker 11 I only want to be on games that gaslight me like this one. Thank you.

Speaker 11 Okay,

Speaker 11 the third one.

Speaker 8 Listen, I'm going to give you one more guess.

Speaker 6 Merry Christmas.

Speaker 11 Okay, the first one.

Speaker 1 That's correct.

Speaker 8 All right, here's your last question. Fans were worried about the future of BTS because all South Korean men are required to complete a year and a half of military service before the age of 28.

Speaker 8 So as BTS neared their deadline, the government got involved.

Speaker 1 How?

Speaker 8 A, they negotiated a special two-year truce with North Korea to make sure BTS would stay safe.

Speaker 11 That's all it takes.

Speaker 8 B, they passed a special law allowing anyone to defer their service as long as they're in a hit K-pop band.

Speaker 8 And C, they amassed a, quote, strategic BTS song stockpile.

Speaker 11 Refer their service?

Speaker 8 That's correct.

Speaker 1 I got it.

Speaker 8 After a bit of deferring for a world tour, all of the BTS members have since enlisted. So, Bill, how did Brian do on our quiz?

Speaker 3 Brian, you did great. You get him all right.

Speaker 1 You're a winner.

Speaker 8 Brian Terry Henry is starring in Dope Thief on Apple TV Plus. Brian, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, you express it.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Tell me.

Speaker 1 That's it for our Vacation 2 Vacation Harder Edition.

Speaker 1 Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WB Easy Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Speaker 1 Our tour manager is Shane Adonald, BJ Leaderman, composed of our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dormbross, and Lillian King.
Our vibe curator is Emma Choi.

Speaker 1 Technical directors from Lauren White, our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse.

Speaker 1 Our senior producer is Ian Schillog, and the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Tell Tell me, that's Mike Danforth.

Speaker 1 Thanks to everyone you heard, all our panelists, our guests, and of course, Bill Curtis. And thanks to all of you for listening.
I am Peter Sagal.

Speaker 1 We'll be back next week, revivifying with a new sense of well-being.

Speaker 1 This is NPR.

Speaker 7 This message comes from Vital Farms, who works with small American farms to bring you pasture-raised eggs. Farmer Tanner Pace describes what makes a pasture-raised egg unique.

Speaker 9 Before we first started with Vital Farms, I thought, you know, an egg's an egg, not a big deal, but it's hard for me to even eat an eggs that's not a Vital Farm egg.

Speaker 9 Now, Vital Farms eggs are usually brown to lighter brown in color. And when you crack a pasture-raised egg,

Speaker 9 You have to hit it harder than what a person thinks just because the shell quality is so good.

Speaker 9 And basically, when that egg cracks in the skillet or bowl, that yolk is almost kind of an orange shade.

Speaker 9 And that is part of what I love about a vital egg is just the shade of yolk. I love pasteurised eggs because you can see the work and the pride that the farmers have and have put into these eggs.

Speaker 7 To learn more about how Vital Farms farmers care for their hens, visit vitalfarms.com.