‘Jury Duty’ star James Marden / Remembering Roy Book Binder

Jury duty is the prime video streaming series about one unwitting regular guy who becomes

“part of a staged fake jury, not knowing that everyone around him is a professional actor.”

Season 2 of Jury duty premieres today on Prime, but in a new setting, the corporate retreat of a fake hot-sauce company called Rock and Grand Muzz, which is in the midst of a corporate takeover. Again, one lone employee knows nothing of the ruse and is surrounded by actors. The new season is called "Jury Duty Presents Company Retreat." Today, we're going to listen to our 2023 interview with James Marsden, the most well-known

of the actors in the original jury duty. In that show, a regular guy named Ronald Gladden had agreed to participate in a documentary about the experience of being a juror in an L.A. courtroom. He doesn't know that everyone around him, the rest of the jury, the judge, the witnesses, is an actor who is improvising. They're all kind of odd and

“their behavior is unpredictable, even more so than in a regular reality show.”

Marsden plays a satirical self-absorbed version of himself, serving as an alternate juror. Marsden's other recent TV shows include Westworld and Dead Demi, and next month, he joins the cast of John Hamm's Apple TV series "Your Friends and Neighbors." His films include the Notebook, the 2007 version of Harrisbray, and Disney's in-chanted. He also played Cyclops in the X-Men film franchise. We're going to listen to Marsden's interview with

Fresh Air Sam Brigger. Let's hear a clip from the original jury duty. The potential jurors are sitting in the courtroom waiting area, and Ronald realizes that the man sitting next to him, his James Marsden. He's in the Notebook? What is he in the Notebook? He's the other guy.

Oh my god, I haven't seen that movie in so long. I didn't even touch it in real life. Look at his socks over here. It looks like it's a sonic, but I'm in the movie sonic. Yeah, that's the new one, Jim Carrey. Yeah, that was not a good movie. That's the scene from jury duty with Ronald Gladden and my guest James Marsden. James Marsden, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you Sam. Happy to be here. It's great to have you here.

So I just want to ask you first, when you heard about what the show was going to be about,

did you have any reservations about doing it? Only had reservations. Yes, I did. Of course, it was a very ambitious conceit. I was approached by my friend David Bernad, who is a producer of the White Lotus. We've done a couple of projects together before.

And he asked if I'd be interested in getting on a zoom with Liiznberg and Jean Stipnitsky, that the office, who I was a huge fan of that show. And he gave me sort of a basic one-liner idea of the concept of the show, which is basically, we're taking the Truman Show and we're dropping it in the middle of jury duty. And I said, "Okay, well, let's expound on that. What's my part? What am I doing?"

And I got excited about all of those sort of improvisational element of the show and this sort of live theater part of the whole thing. So, I'm a big Christopher guest fan. I love the Larry Sanders show. I love obviously curvy enthusiasm and everything Larry David does.

I was always looking for an opportunity to get in a room and play.

But something like this was so unique, so different and original. And I was enthusiastic about being a part of something like this, but also apprehensive because I didn't know if it was going to work. And yeah, had many reservations, and the biggest one was the wild card of this one human being who's being dropped into this situation that is all fake and manufactured.

And what that's going to be like.

“But I made it clear that it was important to me that I didn't want to be a part of a prank show.”

I mean, I was not interested in being cruel or mean spirited at all. And they said, no, we're not interested in doing that either. What we're doing is we're creating a heroes journey for somebody.

And hopefully carving out a path for him to become the leader at the end and have his 12 angry men moment where he inspires us all and unites us. And then we pulled the curtain back and celebrate him as a human being. And hopefully he's all about show what was all about. And hopefully he takes that in stride and know, but you know, who knows how he's going to react.

So the sort of unknown was appealing to me, but it was also terrifying. So when you were thinking about making this satirical version of yourself, did you think about things about yourself that you don't really like very much and amplified them

“or did you come up with a completely different character?”

Like, what did you base that person on? You know, to me it was just the idea of lampooning the cliche, you know, entitled self-absorbed egocentric Hollywood actor was really exciting to me. And I could, you know, I could do it as myself and hopefully by the end of it, everyone would know that I'm satirizing that character and it's not really me.

And there's something about playing someone who thinks that the world worships them when they actually don't at all and watching that person, you know, get humiliated, fall on their face, get embarrassed by the lack of enthusiasm in the room.

I mean, this James Morrison is always trying to get the conversation steered back to him,

because that's the only conversation he knows and it's the only conversation he's interested in. Right. Let's talk a little bit about the hero of the real person, Ronald Gladden. Like, so much relied on this guy. Like, either it could have been a terrible experience for him or like,

I mean, he could have turned out to be a horrible person.

“It was a real tightrope block, I think, to probably choose him.”

No, it was, I mean, there were a number of things that could have happened that would have torpedoed this whole endeavor. And we got really, really lucky with him, mostly with him, because he just is one of the kindest empathetic, you know, wonderful human beings that I've ever met. And he kind of took it all and striped and laughed it off and, you know, all the absurdity, the crazy things that are happening in the courtroom.

So they did an amazing job of finding him.

And then we got to know him on day one, right? When the camera started rolling and I had only had a few days of rehearsal, because I was finishing up party down at the time. And the other cast members had another week and a half of rehearsals, because it was very strategic on very choreographed.

Where do you sit? It's just intricate. And I remember thinking, just sweating bullets. I don't think I'm ready for this. I don't know if I would be funny. I don't want to be the one to blow the whole thing. But all they told us was his name is Ronald Gladden.

He's from San Diego. He's a solar panel contractor or something like that. And he's six foot six and have fun. And then, you know, the scripts say this. And this is what happens.

But you kind of had to be like water and flow. And pivot when you needed to because no one knew what he was going to say. No one knew if he would even recognize who I was. Yeah. Well, he doesn't quite as first, right?

No, he doesn't play some kind of comedy goal. Yeah. I mean, that's a great part of that clip where he basically, you say, I was in Sonic and he's like, oh, that's a bad movie.

“You must have wanted to crack up at that point.”

I did, but I knew that he just put a meatball right over a home plate for me to,

you know, it was like, this is amazing that he just said that.

And it gave me an opportunity to look as crestfallen as I could. So, you know, brush it off and remind him that I was in other stuff. It was a big movie and it did, you know. So it was perfect. I mean, it was really, there were moments where Ronald,

there were scripted moments that he seemed to be ahead of us on that he kind of led us to. Yeah. There's a moment in that opening sequence where we're in the waiting room where, no, there's an actor named Mechke. He's one of our writers as well. Brilliant improv artist. He plays Noah. He comes in and he says, hey, how do you,

I need to get out of this. I'm going on a vacation with my girlfriend. Any ideas of how you can get out of this. And it's scripted that Noah proposes the idea that it's a good idea to present to the judge that you're racist.

And before Mechke could get to that beat, Ronald proposed, hey,

“I saw this family guy episode where the guy says he's racist and tries to get out of jury duty with that.”

He also says, I don't know if I necessarily recommend doing this. Sure. Right. Yeah, no, no. He was saying it sort of like laughing like not. Yeah, don't do it.

Kind of as a joke.

Of course, he never expected this young man to actually use that tactic.

And you see the terror in his eyes when Noah gets up in the court here. And that's the strategy that he goes for. Yeah. But it was really amazing because as much as you can prepare for something like this, there's 20, maybe 30% of it is just like you just got to be nimble and go with the flow.

And if we want Ronald to take a left and he wants to take a right, you got to take a right turn with him and adjust. And that was exciting. And like I said before, absolutely terrifying at the same time. I want to play a scene from the movie in Chanted.

“This is a Disney movie that spoofed the idea of Disney Princesses and Prince Charming like tropes.”

And you play Prince Edward, you and Jezelle, who was played by Amy Adams, actually like live in an animated world, a very Disney world. And the minute you meet, you sing a duet together and fall immediately in love and you're planning to get married. However, your stepmother doesn't want you to marry.

Jezelle, so she pushes her down a magic well and she lands up in the non-animated gritty world of New York City. I mean, gritty in a Disney sort of way. But she meets Patrick Dempsey and starts having feelings for him. And she starts to like learn to appreciate her new world.

You've also jumped into the world to try to go find her. And here you finally have. And this is at Patrick Dempsey's apartment. He has a daughter and this is when you see her for the first time. Jezelle!

Edward! Wow! I'm sorry.

“Jezelle, could you just be careful with you?”

You, you're the one who's been holding myself captive. Just, let's take off. No! Have you any last words before I dispatch you? You have got to be kidding me.

It's strange words. No! No! These are my friends. Oh.

This is mortgaged. And rather, this is Edward. I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss. He sings, too. And I have begun to miss.

Pure and sweet waiting to complete my love's song.

Yes, somewhere there's a maid I've never met.

Who was made? Who was made? To finish? What's wrong? You're not singing.

Oh. I'm not. Well, I'm sorry. I was thinking. Thinking?

Before we leave, there's one thing I would love to do. Oh, name it my love and it is done. I want to go on a date. A date? What's a date?

That's my dad's James Marsden. Interesting. Just listening to the audio. Yeah, that's great audio. So you're doing like a prince charming voice there.

Like, what are you doing? I mean, we went back and looked at all the old snow whites. And the classic Disney princes and sleeping beauty. They all had this sort of voice. You know, it was like, like they loved the sound of their own voice.

And they loved the art. Yes, it was very, you know, back in the day in the 40s or whatever. They were just taught to speech. They had speech lessons and whatever. And with the singing, I mean, I know that was an acupalabit.

But when we actually recorded that song, I had vocal lessons from a coach who was taught operetta style singing. It was sort of Mario Lanza. You know, it wasn't, it was back in the older Disney movies. That's the kind of singing it was. It was a style of music or a style of singing that I wasn't that familiar with and had to get up to speed.

But yes, it was, you know, I thought Edward was someone who always,

every, every statement is as simple or complex as it would be.

Right, everything. I'll have a bagel. You know, and it had to have an exclamation point. And I just think there was such a fun to be had to just be this unabashed, romantic prince who just is in love with being in love.

He's in love with the idea of Giselle, and he's in love with his sound of his own voice. And just goes through, moves through life with just, you know, an optimism that's unmatched. And it was a lot of fun to play because obviously I'm wearing the big giant puppy sleeves and swinging the sword and the hair is flopping around and, you know, it's just the blast that really was so much fun. You know, you've had quite a few roles where you play like the past over romantic interest.

Like there's this movie and the notebook in particular, but you can even say like your character Teddy and Westworld. There's a little bit of that.

“Like why did you think that you've had those roles where you'd typecast, do you think?”

I don't know.

I mean, for a while, it became, it started getting more traction that I never intended, right?

I mean, there were roles in between all of those big projects where I wasn't playing the, you know, the guy who doesn't get the girl at the Simper, whatever, you know. But it just so happens to be the ones that came big successes. Where those roles were, you know, whatever the movies I was playing, you know, the guy who ends up kind of getting cuckolded or whatever you want to call it. And it started to look pathological, like I was choosing these on purpose.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not by design. It just sort of happened that way. So we didn't know in chapter would just be just a massive hit. The notebook became like, you know, this still to this day is incredible how the legs that that movie has. Yeah. You know, I just wondering, I think it's objectively clear that you're a very attractive person.

And I was wondering if you just like, in your life, do you ever have a realization of that? And that would mean that there would be sort of attention towards you, like maybe wanted attention or sometimes unwanted attention.

“Yeah, I guess there was a realization at some point.”

It's so funny though, because I was not that guy growing up. I really was not. I was goofy. I was, you know, I was the silly actor guy doing doing bits. I didn't know how to get a good haircut.

You know, I didn't. I didn't care what I was wearing. I just, you know, would have had my shirt on and side out and mismatching socks. And it just, you know, in Oklahoma is like, the girls want to like, Jock, who's the quarterback of the football team is six foot two corned fed boy. And I was like, this 145 pound tramp who just was like,

Yeah, you know, I can do a good Mike Myers, you know. It's not the sexiest thing in the world.

I just never looked at myself that way.

Until I turned about like 17 and started coming into myself. And I started hearing it back from other people. Like, you know, I remember this girlfriend of mine Leslie in high school. And she was like, my, my pal, like we were buddies. And then when I got to senior to high school, she was like,

What happened to you? And I'm like, what do you mean? You're actually kind of hot now. So it's like, wait, what? What does that even mean? Right. And I wasn't the guy who was getting the girl in high school.

“And maybe that's why I was attracted to those roles.”

But I did realize at some point that, you know, if you accept that as, you know, something that's part of your nature and can be an absolute asset in this business, then embrace it. And don't lead with it. Don't rely on it as a crutch.

And just treat it like it's a bonus, you know. And I remember this acting coach once. I think it was an acting coach who came through Oklahoma once. I took his class and he said, he looked at me and he goes, You don't need to be thinking.

It's just something like marquee good looks, you know, superstar. He's like, you need to be thinking Jim Carrey because you look the way you do. But you need to be something else on the inside. And I was like, yeah, actually, I relate to that way more. But, you know, you could weaponize it a little bit in Hollywood.

You can just be like, all right, the hey, this is a good thing. It's going to snare me some good roles. And then I'm going to show that I'm, there's, you know, then more than meets the eye with my performance or with my take on it.

And I never wanted to be the guy who's just cast as the good looking dude

in a letter jacket. Well, James Marston, it's been really great having you on. Thanks so much for being on fresh air. Thank you for having me. James Marston, in 2023, speaking with fresh air's Sam Brigger.

jury duty company retreat, which premieres today on Prime Video.

“Next, we remember blues singer, guitarist, and captivating storyteller Roy Bookbinder.”

We listen back to our 1987 interview with him. And Justin Chang reviews the new film Project Hail Mary. I'm David Bean Kooley, and this is Fresh air. This message comes from Sports in America with David Green. The world of sports is filled with stories that go beyond the highlights of the game.

Join former morning edition host David Green for Sports in America from WHY and PRX. A weekly show featuring in-depth conversations with star athletes, coaches, parents,

and the millions of fans whose lives are touched by the game.

Here about the personal and transformative moments that make fans want to stand up and share each week on Sports in America with David Green. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

“Roy Bookbinder, the raccontour and acoustic musician known for playing southern blues”

and hillbilly music, died March 3rd at the age of 82. Known as the Travelling Man, or the book, he picked up the guitar after a tour of duty in the US Navy, purchasing it in Italy. Once in the US, he became part of a folk and blues revival in New York's Granted Village. He sought out and became a student and then a friend of blues and gospel musician Reverend Gary Davis.

Bookbinder also went south to track down one of his favorite performers, Pinky Anderson, who had played for decades in medicine shows. Bookbinder's debut album Travelling Man was released in the early 1970s on a Delphi records to critical acclaim. Soon after, he took to the road for years in an air stream motorhome,

traveling to major blues and folk festivals in the US and Canada, and he also toured in Europe. He shared the stages with Bonnie Rate, BB King, Doc Watson, and more. In the late 1980s, he made nearly 30 appearances on Nashville now on Cable TV's The Nashville Network. He released more than a dozen albums overall.

Some on his own label, Peg Lager Records. In 1987, Roy Bookbinder brought his guitar to fresh air to visit with Terry Gross, play music, and tell some great stories. Roy Bookbinder, welcome to fresh air.

“Before we talk, can you get us started with the song?”

Or can. Call me a dog when I'm gone. It's old black dog when I'm gone. But when I get home with a $10 bill, it's daddy where you've been so long. I've been all around Kentucky, and the state of old Tennessee.

Tell me a dog when I'm gone. It's old black dog when I'm gone. When I get home with a $10 bill, it's daddy where you've been so long. My daddy was a gamble in Maine from the state of old Tennessee. He told me to bet all of my money.

On a stack of bad dudes and a tray. Go pick it Roy. See that train? It's coming. Carry in my baby away.

It's going all far to leave me.

And never coming back my way.

And it's old black dog when I'm gone. Lord Lord, it's old black dog when I'm gone. But when I get home with a $10 bill, daddy where you've been so long.

Perform by my guest Roy, a bookbinder.

“You know, I think there are a couple of traps that some white Northern performers have fallen”

into when performing Southern-based music. And I think, for instance, that some people seem to have almost lost their own voice when they sing. They're singing black-based music. They get a completely different voice and try to sound like an older black man from the south. And I wonder if it was ever hard for you to find your own voice in your singing.

Well, I started out with very little and it's growing. I remember when Bob Jones first record came out. I said, okay, I'm going to be a singer. If he can get away with that, I'm going to get away with this. And back in the early '60s, I moved south and I was 18.

The first time I joined the Navy ran away to see him and moved to Virginia. And I've been headed south ever since. And I've been lucky to be an associate with some great masters of the industry. Some of them knew they were masters and others didn't. Well, you spent some time trying to track down one of the musicians who you like most, Pinky Anderson.

And he's someone that probably a lot of our listeners aren't familiar with. Tell us a little bit about him and it'll let you do a song by him. Pinky Anderson was from Spartanburg, South Carolina. He made two records in 1929 that was that. He disappeared from the recording industry.

He spent his entire career working medicine shows. Little carnival deals throughout the south. He worked with Chiefs Under Clouds Medicine show up until about 1959. When I met him, he was retired. He had a hard attack.

And didn't tour him at all. And when I met Pinky was not in great shape. But me and my friend Paul Jeremiah started to visit him.

“We, you know, one point we realized the worst thing about his health was he was starving to death down there.”

And he started to play again. And we took him out on tour once before he died. It was quite a deal. Think Anderson's music. He was a carnival performer.

And his songs were white black and blue. They were mixed up by the song that I'm going to do next. Traveling man has become my theme song.

And it's a song that everybody in the folk field always identified with Pink Anderson.

Knowing that he probably didn't write it. But it's a song that goes back to menstrual shows. And it was probably a song written by a white man on Broadway. Like so many times you get a song from a New York writer on Broadway. What was Tin Pan Alley.

And it filters down to the rural community. And then it's found by some folklorist. What a fine.

“It happened throughout the history of country music and blues.”

Can you do a song for us from Pink Anderson? This is the old traveling man's song. Came a long way. Well, it just wanted to tell you about a man named Boone. His home was down in Tennessee.

He made his living. He was stealing check-ins and anything that he could see. That's a pop-eyed man.

He said it was so fast that his feet never stayed in a row.

When the freight train passed, didn't matter how fast. He'd always get on board. He was a travel in man. Certainly was a traveling man. He was the most traveling this man that ever was in that land.

Traveling everywhere known for many miles around. But he didn't get cold and he never got work till a police shot him. You know that the police shot that man with a rifle. But it went through his head. People they were coming from miles around just to see if that boy was dead.

They'd tell a grand downside place. My much lived and she was all upset with tears. She walked up and opened up the coffins and lived. But that fool had disappeared. He was a traveling man.

Certainly was a traveling man. He was the most traveling this man ever in that land. Traveling everywhere known for many miles around.

He didn't get cold and he never got work till a police shot him.

You know this boy went down to the spring one day. To get himself a pale of water. The distance that the grass cool had to go was about two miles in a car. He got there and got his water and he started back. He stumbled and fell down.

He ran back to house got himself another buck and got the water for a touch to ground. He was a traveling man. Certainly was a traveling man. He was the most traveling this man ever in that land. Traveling everywhere known for many miles around.

He didn't get cold and he never got work till a police shot him. And I listened. This boy was out on the Titanic ship. The day it was sinking down.

He had his head hung down. When that boy jumped over board. Everybody said he was a fool. But about two minutes right after that boy he was shooting. That's in Liverpool.

He was a traveling man. Certainly was a traveling man. He was the most traveling this man ever in that land. Traveling everywhere known for many miles around.

But he didn't get cold and he never got work till a police shot him down.

The day it was sinking down will pick it right home. The police caught the traveling man at last. Then they had him up the hang one day. The jury man now all has that man. Just what did he have to say.

He begged the jury man that they would bow their heads. Bought their heads in prayer. And then the cross won the leg. And it went one eye. And it went up to the air.

He was a traveling man. [Music] Traveling man. Did Pink Anderson teach you that one? Well he didn't directly teach it to me but I watched him play it.

Right.

Yes we played it in a different key.

“Was he surprised to see you tracking him down and wanting to learn his songs?”

If he'd only recorded two songs he must have been pretty obscure in musical terms. So he went nuts and I went down there. I was sitting on his front porch. That's a long story. I don't have time to tell the whole thing.

But he came down the street and I walked up the street towards him. I was playing the guitar on his step. I looked at him. I said you must be pink Anderson. He said how do you know that?

I said lady in the house said you went to the dry cleaners this morning. And this is a dead end street and you're carrying clothes. He said you've been to college. I said some. I thought I was pretty smart.

I told him I've been looking for him for 36 hours. He asked me if I would have money. I said no sir. He said you do how much? I said $50.

He says give it to you. So I gave him a $50 bill. He looked at it, snapped it twice, put it in this pocket. Then he inquired how did it come to be that I had owed him this small fortune. I told him I made a record of one of his songs.

He said wasn't a hit. I said you'd be the judge. We became real good friends. He told me before he died.

“He says Roy that's what he always called me.”

I said pink. He said you know the most songs in mind you can know Roy. I almost play right. I said yeah, he says well I'm giving him to you. You just tell people pink Anderson born and getting ready to die.

Spartanberry South Carolina used to pick a guitar and sing. Roy bookbinder in the fresh air studios in 1987. More after a break, this is fresh air. Support for fresh air comes from W.H.Y. Presenting the pulse, a weekly podcast about health and science.

Each episode is full of great stories and big ideas. Fueled by curiosity and wonder. Can you learn to listen to your intuition? What should electric cars sound like? Why can it be so hard to get an accurate diagnosis?

How do fungi communicate? Check out the pulse available where you get your podcasts. Let's talk a little bit about Reverend Gary Davis who you also met. I think this was before he had become rediscovered. He'd already been rediscovered.

He was my famous when I met him. He was living in a little house to make a queen.

“What's some of the strumming or finger picking style that you learned from him?”

Reverend Davis, he had a number of styles. He had a simple little style. He did candy man and he did the cocaine booze. And he did dealia. And then he'd get a little more complex.

And his blues, like the hesitation, blues. Nicolies and Nicolina diamonds a dime. That was for the children in one of mine. He was one of his other styles. And they had an instrumental style where he'd imitated the piano and played ragtime pieces.

Which was really fascinating to the young guitar players that came around. There's a lot of interesting things going on in there. It took a lot of time for some of us to get it, some longer than others. Most blues musicians have many stories to tell about getting ripped off while they were on the road. I wonder if that was any worse for Gary Davis since he was blind and it would have been...

Oh, that much easier for people to take advantage of. He was taking advantage of a lot when he was singing on the streets for many years in Harlem. He'd lose guitarism. What have you?

First lesson, Reverend Davis told me we got to our first room in the house out in somewhere near Chicago.

He says, "Now Roy, you've got to understand."

“He said, "When a strange city and a strange house here, and I don't like the house much."”

I said, "Well, how come?" He said, "They're not taking care of this house." I said, "Well, how do you hit blind man?" I said, "How do you know that?" He said, "Well, the door nods the loose. I checked it on the way in." He said, "When you go to sleep the first thing you do, he says, "You take out your knife."

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a knife about 12 inches long. About a heart attack. He says, "You take a knife and you put it under your pillow." He said, "And you get your pocket book." He reached down his long jaws and pulled out his little leather purse that kept all his money in.

He always traveled with some money.

He said, "You put that inside your pillowcase." He said, "Somebody comes for you pocket book. You know where your knife is. You go to sleep with your hand on your knife and he goes to sleep." Next morning, about 5.30.

And the morning, the Reverend Dave was screaming, "Good got the mighty Lord have mercy." That could mean anything. As a Reverend Dave, it was what's the matter?

“I mean, I was in Dreamland, getting woken up like that.”

He was in his 70s, old blind man, and he was hysterical. I said, "What's the matter?" He says, "They've done got my pocket book." I said, "Oh, Lord have mercy." And we're crawling around the room. He's screaming, "Who got his pocket book?

Had somebody get in this room?" He knew that door wasn't good. Didn't you hear nobody? The heart was beating a mile a minute. I'm searching all over this room. Finally, I found his pocket book under the bed.

I said, "Reven Davis." He says, "What Roy?"

That's what he always called me.

I said, "I found your pocket book. All the money's in there. Don't worry." He said, "Good got the mighty way." It was my pocket book. I said, "You got to remember something when you go on a road."

He says, "What's that?" I said, "You went to sleep real late and you would tie it."

“And I think you put your pocket book underneath your pillowcase”

and your knife inside your pillowcase. You got it mixed up and your pocket book fell behind your pillow, onto the floor. Oh, he had a fit. Give me that pocket book.

Where's my knife? Put all this stuff away. Can you play us a song that you learned from Reverend Gary Davis? Uh, yeah. Let me play a song that I wrote in the style of Reverend Gary Davis.

Great.

It was a song he always did called "I'll be alright some day."

I loved that song. I always wanted to learn how to play it. I finally figured out the basics of it and came out with a little arrangement. And I decided I really couldn't. I didn't feel comfortable singing the words that he wrote for it.

It was one of these biblical epic. See, had some that went on for 15 minutes. And we came out with this. It's called, "I'm going home some day." If my road is rocky,

and my journey's rough, If I stumble in, I fall. Well, I pick myself up. Keep marching forward, and I drive these blues away.

I've been a gambling man. I've been a cheap. I've often lost my way. I've seen the darkness want to see the light

trying to start a brand new day. Yes, I'm going home. I'm going home. I'm going home some day. Temptation cast aside, won't take no devil ride.

I'm going home some day. Wind is blowing hard. Rain is coming down. And I can't keep myself warm. But I keep searching for better days.

Any sheltered port from the store. I'm going home. I'm going home. I'm going home some day. Temptation cast aside, won't take no devil ride.

I'm going home some day. I'm going to see my mother. I'm going to see my father. I'm going to see my baby brother too. And when I get there,

I won't have to worry. I'll know just what to do. I'm going home. I'm going home. I'm going home.

I say. Temptation cast aside, won't take no devil ride.

Great song.

“Roy Buckbinder, visiting the fresh air studios in 1987.”

He died March 3rd at age 82.

Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Ryan Gosling film Project Hail Mary. This is fresh air. This message comes from sports in America with David Green. The world of sports is filled with stories that go beyond the highlights of the game. Join former morning edition host David Green for sports in America from WHY and PRX.

A weekly show featuring in-depth conversations with star athletes, coaches, parents, and the millions of fans who's lives are touched by the game. Here about the personal and transformative moments that make fans want to stand up and cheer each week on sports in America with David Green. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

“Ryan Gosling played an astronaut eight years ago in the Neil Armstrong drama First Man.”

He returns to space in the new science fiction adventure Project Hail Mary. But this time he's playing a scientist on a lonely mission to save Earth from destruction. The movie was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller of the animated Spider-Verse series, and it's based on a novel by Andy Weer author of The Martian. Project Hail Mary opens in theaters this week, and our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

Project Hail Mary is about an astronaut who finds himself abandoned in outer space, where he bonds with a cute alien who tries to help him save Earth from climate change. I hate to describe a movie as a mashup of this and that, but sometimes there's no way around it.

This film is basically the Martian meets ET by way of interstellar.

That's a handy way of summing up its appeal, but it also points to its very real limitations. I had high hopes for Project Hail Mary, but it's the most derivative and carefully manufactured crowd-bleaser I've seen in a while. It doesn't feel like storytelling, so much as mechanical engineering. Somewhere millions of miles from Earth, an astronaut named Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, awakens from a year's long coma to find himself all alone on an unmanned spacecraft.

The two other astronauts on board are dead, and Grace has temporary amnesia, with no idea who or where he is. It's a fairly chilling premise on paper, but from the start, the movie plays the situation for laughs. Grace flails and falls all over the place, gravity is in full effect. But although Gosling is a nimble physical comedian, I had trouble buying his performance. Grace might be all alone in space, but he seems to be mugging for the camera, as if he knew there was an audience watching him.

In time, Grace's memories begin to return. In regular flashbacks, we see him back on Earth, teaching middle school science. He's approached by a government official named Eva Stratt, a terrific Sandra Huller,

“who wants to recruit him for a top secret mission called Project Hail Mary.”

She knows that years ago, Grace was one of the most important molecular biologists in the US.

Long story short, the sun is being devoured by aggressive microbes called astrophage. If nothing is done, the resulting global cooling will wipe out a huge chunk of Earth's population over the next few decades. Grace was chosen to join a crew of astronauts who would venture into deep space, seeking a solution to the astrophage problem. Now, with his colleagues dead, he really is Earth's last hope. Before long, the movie's ET component kicks in.

Grace meets an alien from another spaceship who looks a bit like a crab made of sandstone, and whom he nicknames Rocky. Rocky's home planet, Eric, is also being threatened by astrophage, and in time he and Grace become friends and team up to save their respective worlds. That isn't easy since Rocky and Grace don't speak the same language,

but Grace devises a clever communication system using laptop voice translations software. In this scene, Rocky, that's the gifted puppeteer James Ortiz doing the voice and movements, in case of himself in a protective airtight ball, and comes aboard Grace's ship. Hi Grace. You're in a ball.

So Rocky, no dying, Grace, atmosphere, I come up. Oh, you come up with that. Far in front of me. To take him. Grace and Rocky, big science.

I keep going this way. This room, boring.

Ryan, favorite, favorite, good slam.

What this out here question?

“An ace of ace of ace, Rocky wouldn't be human technology.”

Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty. Why wrote them mad? Well, what was it expecting? Company was added.

Like the Martian, Project Hail Mary was adapted by the screenwriter Drew Gaud.

From a novel by Andy Weir. But any comparison between the two only makes the Martian look better.

“In that 2015 film, the director Ridley Scott let the comedy rise naturally from an inherently tense and suspenseful story.”

The Project Hail Mary was directed by the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who specialized in zippy irreverence. I've loved many of their earlier comedies, from 21 Jump Street to the Lego movie. And also their work as producers on the mind-bending spider-verse films. Here, they've made a buddy comedy about saving the world. And although Rocky and Grace's bond has a lot of charm and moments of deeper connection,

it's also more than a little exhausting. The tone of the story is so flippant, and the emotional beats so pre-ordained,

“that the larger stakes pretty much evaporate.”

It says if the filmmakers had cooked up in elaborate world-threatening scenario, just so that our protagonist could go off and have a close encounter of the therapeutic kind. You could say something similar about interstellar. But Christopher Nolan's film had an operatic power and a crazy conviction that compelled you to believe in it. Project Hail Mary feels glib and earthbound by comparison.

It has a couple of strikingly shot set pieces, including a harrowing visit to another planet that might hold the key to survival. But the movie, for all its wondrous production design, doesn't have the hypnotic visual power of the best space epics.

It never clues you in to what Grace must surely, on some level, be experiencing,

the terrifying vastness of outer space, and the fear of never being able to find your way home. Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling. On Monday show, actor Riz Ahmed on his new prime video series "Bate" playing a British Pakistani actor auditioning to be the next James Bond.

He's also a writer and creator on the series. And he stars in a new film adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hope you can join us. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. and Coolie.