Remembering master of the TV sitcom, James Burrows

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“This is Fresh Air, I'm Dave Davies. Today we remember James Burrows, one of the most respected and sought after directors of TV comedies.”

In over five decades, he directed more than a thousand episodes, episodes of Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frazier, Will and Grace, and many other sitcoms. Burrows died June 19th at the age of 85. A statement by the director's guild of America describes him as an incredibly generous colleague, sharing his wisdom and warm humor with all he worked with.

In a statement his family said Burrows understood that great comedy was never simply about laughter. It was about humanity, connection, and truth.

We're going to listen to Terry's 2006 interview with James Burrows in a few minutes.

“But first we have this appreciation by our TV critic, David B. and Kooley.”

James Burrows was born in LA in 1940, but didn't live there long. His family moved in New York when he was five. His father, Abe Burrows, had written for radio and television, but found his biggest success on Broadway, as a director and especially as a writer. Abe Burrows wrote the books for the musical's "Guys and Dolls", how to succeed in business without really trying, and can can. His son James became a director too, but went back to Los Angeles to do so. His big break was directing an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, after which James Burrows landed jobs directing multiple episodes of many popular sitcoms of the 1970s.

“Including the Bob Newhart Show, the Tony Randall Show, Laverne and Shirley, and Taxi.”

By the time he co-created cheers with Glenn and Les Charles, in 1982, James Burrows was considered the best sitcom director in the business, a title he maintained for decades. The reasons were obvious. James Burrows made one of the most significant improvements to the sitcom genre, since I love Lucy popularized the three-camera format of shooting before a studio audience. Burrows added a fourth camera, which allowed him to capture more close-ups and frame the action as naturally as he could. Burrows was a master at setting the tone for a new series, working with young actors to shape their characters and find just the right comic flow.

Over his career, he won 11 Emmy Awards and directed a staggering number of TV pilots, specifically 75. But it isn't just the quantity of premiere episodes directed by James Burrows that's so amazing.

It's the quality. He directed the introductory episodes of Taxi, Cheers, and Frazier, not just the original 1993 Frazier, but the 2023 remake as well, 30 years later. He also directed the first episodes of the Big Bang Theory, Nightcourt, Wings, News Radio, third rock from the Sun, Dharma and Greg, two and a half men, friends, and Will in Grace. And sometimes James Burrows stuck around for quite a while, for more than 200 episodes of both Will and Grace and Cheers and 75 episodes of Taxi. For me, the absolute best example of Jim Burrows' gifts as a TV director came in a 1979 episode of Taxi, written by Glenn and Les Charles.

It was an episode written to showcase Christopher Lloyd, who had guest starred in a previous episode as Reverend Jim, a hippie preacher from the '60s, who was laid back, confused, and dealing with a long history of recreational drug use. At the time, Reverend Jim was an outrageous character to introduce to a prime-time TV show, but Taxi already had triumphed by mixing types of comic styles that shouldn't have worked. Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Mary Lou Henner, Andy Kaufman, Jeff Connoway, Danny DeVito, all were part of the Brooklyn Cab outfit that was eager for Reverend Jim to join its ranks.

But to do that, he'd have to go to the DMV and pass a driver's exam, not just behind the wheel, but on paper. It's in that DMV office where Burrows helped shape what I consider the funniest scene in TV history. He allows the comedy to build it its own pace, and encourages the young Christopher Lloyd to steal the show as Reverend Jim. And most important of all, James Burrows places his cameras and frames the action to catch it all, not only intense close-ups of an increasingly frustrated Reverend Jim, but group shots, capturing the reactions of Jeff Connoway's Bobby, Mary Lou Henner's Elaine, and everyone else trying to help him take the test.

Have you ever experienced loss of consciousness, hallucinations, dizzy spells, convulsive disorders, painting, a period of loss of memory?

“Okay, that's it. He's ready for the test. I thought this was a test.”

No, no, no, this is the application. Oh man, oh shit, he's got him rough on the road.

Eventually, Reverend Jim gets a copy of the test, slumps in his classroom-style desk, and gets stuck on the first question.

His cabby friends are standing on the other side of the room, but he asks for help anyway, louder and more angrily every time. Christopher Lloyd is brilliant, and Burrows lets the scene build and flow. And listen to the studio audience, they're not just laughing, they're howls. What does he know white me? Slow down. Okay. Wow.

Wow. White me. Slow down. Okay.

“Yeah. I'm guessing you had your own favorite memories and favorite laughs from a sitcom directed by James Brown.”

From friends, from cheers, from Fraser, from Big Bang Theory, or from so many others. And that's the point, really. The legacy of James Burrows, no matter where you look, is bound to make you smile. David being coolie is our TV critic. Terry Gross spoke to James Burrows in 2006. He got a start in television directing episodes of the Mary Tyler Morcho, the Bob Newhart Show, and Leverne and Shirley.

But before that, he worked on some of his father's musicals. His father A. Burrows wrote the books for the musicals, "Guys and Dolls," had a succeed in business without really trying and hacked a flower. I was an assistant stage manager, or an assistant to the assistant on an ill-fated musical called Breakfast at Tiffany's, where I met Mary Tyler Morcho, Chamberlain with his stars. And I went on subsequently to stage management for my father on the production on the road and then in New York City in 40 carrots.

So I got to see my father who really wrote on his feet because he would write a scene and then when he would get in rehearsal he would change the scene just on his feet. And you began to see how fascinating he was. That's when I, you know, I kind of have his style of directing him a listener. I'm not necessarily a watcher.

And A would always, he would say to me when he went to a run through one of his shows or went to see one of his shows.

In the theater he would always walk behind the set. He wouldn't watch because he wanted to know that there was always noise happening on stage. He listened for the noise. He knew if there was no noise that he was in trouble. So I do that when I direct my shows.

So that, you know, that is the essence of the experience with my father. In subsequent years, a lot of his gift and a lot of his skills seem to come out of me at the strangest times. It's not like I, I learned him as much as, you know, they were like us Moses. I absorbed him and they kind of seep out of my skin in certain situations.

“So when you're directing a TV show, you're sometimes backstage and not looking at the action or at the monitor?”

Well, I don't, I never look at the monitor because it's about the shows I do in front of a light audience.

So it's about the play. It's about what's happening there. I've been doing it long enough to know that I don't have to worry about the camera shots because I know they'll all be there.

But a lot, you know, most of the time I watch the play because, and I make my writers watch the play or they can watch the cut on the screen. But they don't watch the quad split. A quad split is a, is a television screen that has the four cameras that I use to shoot the show on that.

And if they watch the quad split, they're always worried about mics and shots and shots not matching.

So I make all the writers watch the play because that's eventually what makes a hit show.

“So what made you realize that you wanted to switch from this stage to television?”

In the course of doing cactus flowers and 40 carrots around the country, we've worked a lot of dinner theaters, a lot of regional theater, dinner theaters, summer stock theaters. I would do these situations, these not situation comedies, comedies, odd couple barefoot and a park, even by spirit I did. I'm trying to say never too late, all these plays, the comedies that have been brought away and I do them with stars. And I had about eight days to stage the whole thing and I could get it done. I was, I was good at that.

And then one night I was at home after rehearsal. I turned on television. There was a Mary Tyler Moore show. And they were doing 20 minutes a week in front of a live audience. And here I was doing 120 minutes a week to get ready for a live audience. And I thought I could, I could do that. I thought I could translate my skills on stage to the skills required to do that television show because it was like filming a theatrical show.

So I wrote a letter to Mary Tyler Moore. As I said before, I had to connection because I was a stage manager on her first Broadway show, so she kind of knew me.

And Grant Tinker called me and he said, "We're interested in theatrical directors at MTM. Would you come out and do one show?" And I don't know what's faster than the New York second, but whatever it was, I said yes. And I was, that was the rest of his history. So you got started directing MTM productions like the Bob Newhart Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis. Yes. Yes. And yes. No. Were you at first like understanding other directors, did they let you just go out of it?

“Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to learn the technical stuff. So they brought me out here and you kind of have to observe.”

Being an observer is you sit in a stand and you watch a week of rehearsals. And the first three days are with actors and writers alone in the fourth day the cameras come in.

And the fifth day you shoot the show. And for me with actors and writers, I kind of got that. It was when the cameras came in and it became daunting. So I watched for maybe two months straight. I watched the Newhart Show, then I went over to the Maritala Moore Show and I watched Jay Sandrichu to me as the true genius of this medium. I watched him and became very good friends with him. And so I kind of started getting knowledge of what to do with camera. How to figure them out. And then they assigned me to a show called Friends and Lovers, which was the Paul Sand Show.

And I would coach, I was Paul Sand's dialogue coach. I would help him run lines. But in a time when I wasn't doing that, I would watch cameras. And eventually they called me and they said, "We're going to give you a shot." And I figured it would be on the Paul Sand Show and all of a sudden it was a Maritala Moore Show.

“Do you remember that first show that you did? I do vividly.”

How did it go? What sticks out in your mind? Oh my God. Well, we read the script. It was a show where Lou Grant moves into wrote his apartment. So he's living above Mary, which means that he worked together and they lived together, which wasn't good for the relationship. And so we read the script around the table and it was a D-, it was awful. And I said to Grant, I said, "In the sea of Danish, I get a bagel." And it was literally, it was literally just, the show was awful. I mean, the initial reading, they made it better because you would rewrite the writers would rewrite all the time.

And so I had to go down, back in those days, you rehearsed immediately after you read. You just went down and started running scenes. And so I was dealing with a cast who hated the script too. And yet I had to run these scenes. And so I would do it. And I can't tell you, I invoke, check off, I invoke, Strinberg, I invoke Kaufman and Hark. I did anything to try to ease it for them to try to come up with some comic business.

And so I was working the first three days with the actors and cameras. And I guess we finally got to show them some sort of semblance.

And then the cameras came in and that was daunting enough for me. It was very difficult. I did it on my own. I didn't want any help. And on the fifth day, just before we shot, Mary Tyler Moore came over to me and they said, "We feel our investment in you has worked out." And that was even before I shot the show. And I couldn't have been higher figuratively. And we shot the show and it turned out all right. And Jay Sanders was there and helped me a little bit. And the minute that show was over, I got two new hearts and I got a Bob Crain and a Paul Sand and next year I was on the Phyllis Show. So I was on my way.

“Was the show as bad after the shot as it was when you were doing the reading?”

It was, it's a sea plush show. It's not a very good show.

I, this, in fact, described after me won an Emmy. So I, by the luck of the draw, by the luck of the draw, I got, I didn't get the, the Emmy show. I got an okay show.

And it might have helped me because of the amount of work I had to do in the amount of, the amount of talking and inspiring I had to do in hindsight might have really helped me succeed in there and impress the actors. Okay, so you start off at MTM in television and then you do taxi and about how many episodes would you estimate you did of taxi? I think I did 75. And you were there right from the beginning with taxi, right? I was there. It was after, you know, I kind of left MTM after about three or four years and started to go other places. I went on Laverne and Shirley where I had a ball.

Although that was, that was tough show and then I did a show with Ned Bady. I was all hired hand. I didn't do many pilots or anything like that. And then the boys from MTM at Weinberger, Jim Brooks, Dan Daniels and Dave Davis had created a show called taxi and they called me to direct it. And probably the most difficult show I ever did because the cast was so divergent.

The writing was so outrageous. The set was so gigantic and I, it was my first really big show where I was in charge from the beginning.

But it was like getting all these egos in the same room. There wasn't a room big enough. And it was, it was a struggle and yet I was heard. I, I got out there and I said what I wanted to say and I was heard. It was tough times to be heard, but I fought and the great thing about that show was that the producers of that show and head writers were Glenn Charles and less Charles. So I'd first met on on Phyllis and then they were brought in on taxi. So we start, we struck up a friendship. We were both handled by the same agent and he thought it would be good for us to do a show together.

“So I think about the third year of, of taxi we started to think about a show.”

But the taxi, if, if you go back and watch that show, there is some of the funniest television I think I've ever done. The standard out of that show is Reverend Jim, what does yellow light mean? Slow down. And that is, to me, one of the biggest last I had ever done on taxi. And so I have, I have fond memories of that show. It's also a great learning experience. James Burrow speaking with Terry Gross in 2006. He died last week at the age of 85.

Here's one of the scenes from Episode 3 of Cheers with Ted Danson and Shelley Long, which Burrow's directed. Why are you so upset? You know, this week I have gone out with all the women I know. I mean, all the women I really enjoyed. And all of a sudden, all I can think about is how stupid they are. For my life isn't fun anymore. That's because of you.

Because of me? Yeah, you're a snob. A snob? Yeah, that's right. Well, you're a rapidly aging adolescent.

Well, I would rather be that than a snob. And I would rather be a snob. Well, good. Because you are. Say, I'm do yourself a favor. Go back to your tutsies and your rap parts. I'd hate to see the bowling alleys close on my account.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

“Are you saying that I'm too dumb to date smart women?”

I'm saying that it would be very difficult for you.

You think so.

“Uh-huh. Yeah, well, you know, I've never met an intelligent woman that I'd want to date.”

On behalf of the intelligent women around the world, may I just say... Coming up, we'll hear about Burroughs work on Cheers and Frazier. And later, Justin Chang reviews the new film The Invite. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air. ♪

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Listen to pop culture happy hour by the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air, I'm Dave Davies. We're remembering James Burroughs who was one of the most respected TV directors in the business. He directed over a thousand episodes of Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Frazier, Will and Grace,

and also the Big Bang Theory, third rock from the Sun, Mike and Molly and two broke girls.

Burroughs died last week at the age of 85. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2006. After Taxi, you left with a couple of the creators of Taxi, Glen Charles and Les Charles, and started Cheers. And on Cheers and on Taxi, you had the chance to direct characters from the very start, and therefore to shape them, to help shape them through your direction,

as opposed to inheriting characters on an already existing series. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to actually create a character from scratch,

“a character that you hope will endure for years in a series?”

Well, the first thing that has to happen has to be on the page. So, I am very careful when I select scripts, and when we talked about Glen, Les, and I talked about doing Cheers, we spent two months talking about these characters, and then the boys went off and wrote the script, and when a month later when I read it, it was, I said to the boys, you have wrote Radio Back to Television,

which is what they did. They wrote a really smart show that literally could have been a radio show, because there wasn't that much movement. It was all about attitudes, and all about intonations, and nuances, and stuff like that. Can I just stop you? That would be a terrible insult to a lot of people. If you said there are a lot of TV people, if you said to them, you've just produced this brilliant radio show,

we've just written a brilliant radio show. They would think that was a terrible insult because they were working on television, and sometimes when you say radio, to television people, it's like saying, you don't know what you're doing, you're blind, you can hear, but you're blind. No, if you watch that show, people cross occasionally,

norm comes into the bar, but you've got to listen to that show. It's all about listen. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. There's no eye candy in that show, there's no original,

I don't know if I've got originally the boys in the first draft had some kind of hurdle race in there

that we took out, but it was, they came in, they sat down,

“they told their stories, and that's what it is.”

You could have done that show on radio. It wouldn't have to worry about how the actors looked as long as their voices were good, but it was a television show. But when I meant brought radio to television, what it was smart, it was a smart show.

It was an upscale, smart show with jokes about Schopenhauer, an updike, and Freud, and Jung, and we didn't care if the audience knew who those people were. And there was a genius job, and so it was my job to shape this cast. You cast them, you cast these people individually, but you don't know what you're having to put them together.

So I always in pilots, I always will begin by sitting around a big table.

and we talked about where everybody came from their characters.

I carried a conversation on what Sam and Diane, and Norman Cliff, and everybody liked that, and we talked. And it's not only good for me, it's good for the actors, because they're going to want to talk anyway, and if I can do it now, and get them to talk,

and get them, they'll only grow into the roles more. So we spent half a day just sitting around, I'm probably a day sitting around talking, and then I went to work on it. And it was, you know, I did 240 at a, like, 275 shows, and I had a great time. I love that show.

That's me, that's my baby. And I was there from the beginning for the cast, and I was there at the end, and they trusted me. And we, you know, after a while, we knew what worked, and what didn't work, we didn't have to less spend a lot of time,

and stuff that didn't work, and we, you know, we could make the stuff work that worked really quickly. Cheers for a shot in front of a live audience. Do the, do the laughs help the actors, and, and does it ever work against the show,

in other words, like, because the actors can't, like, pick up, and say the next line, until the laughs fade. And of course, the audience at home isn't in the studio audience, so the timing, do you think the timing when you're watching at home

“is any different than the timing when you're in, in the theater?”

Well, laughter is communal, so it really helps to, to have an audience, because movies are so much better. I try to go see comedies in a theater rather than try to watch them at home in the movies, because you just, it's really tough to laugh at home, or I'll get the family in to watch, and then you can all laugh.

But it's, in fact, it's in its communal, so those were true laughs, and you can tell their true laughs, 'cause you can see the actor's eyes glint upon chairs. You can see the glint in their eyes, the excitement and hearing such a big reaction to something they've said,

and they had to wait to be heard. And sometimes they wouldn't wait on have the back up and say, you know, let's go back a little bit, and so they would be heard. But those are true laughs that show was a truly funny show. Well, okay, it was say you had a backup because they were in her,

or say you want another take because it didn't work.

What happens when the audience is hearing the joke the second time,

and their laughter is not going to be the same the second time around. They've already heard the joke, they've already laughed at it. But yeah, they've left it that joke, but then you go the second time so that you can get the reaction of the other person to that joke, and then you can hear the other line from the person,

because they have previously said it into a laugh and you didn't hear it. So that's why you have to do that. But you'll use the first take of that joke because the laughter was so big.

“So do you ever use the laughter from one take and roll it for a second take?”

Yeah, when you cross take, you'll take the laughter from the first take and play it over the reaction in the second take. Right, right. You have to do that. Otherwise you couldn't make sense of the show of people saying lines into laughs.

You have to hear every line. So we didn't do that a lot. Back in the cheers days, we only ran the scene twice. I would back up occasionally if somebody said something in the left, but we didn't run the scene twice like we do now.

We ran the cheers. Seans only once and then I would go back if we missed something, or we wanted to change one joke, I would go back and just shoot a piece of the scene again. And on well in grace, we do every scene twice. And in between each scene, the writers rewrite some jokes.

Really? Yeah. So the audience gets to hear. It gets to see two different versions of the scene. Yes.

If you're going to do a scene twice, it really helps to change jokes. It was that typical that the writers are on the set. It's typical for you. It was a typical for other shows. Oh, yeah.

And each sitcom, you've got to see what. I mean, if you're not on the set, you don't know whether to show bombs or not. You've got to be there. It's either you're for you. It's your funeral, but you've got to be there.

And you've got to fix what doesn't work. Because that's going on the air. And you don't want something that's no good going on the air. So you're better fix it. James Burrow, speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 2006.

We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. This is fresh air. You know, every day on up first NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast.

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And how does this new movie compare to others in the franchise? We get into it on NPR's top-culture happy hour. Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. And we're listening to Terry's 2006 interview with TV director James Burroughs,

who directed over a thousand episodes of Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Fraiser and other sitcoms. He died last week. No, we were talking about Cheers. And of course, after Cheers, you worked on the Spinoff Frasier. And you directed lots of episodes of that.

You were there right at the start. Why was Frasier the character that you all decided to spin off? We didn't. I did not spin them off. David Angel, Peter Casey and David Lee, who were the producers of Cheers from years,

had talked to Kelsey about doing a spin off. So they wrote the script. They spun them off. They asked us if they could. And we said, "Sure."

And they wrote a brilliant script.

They, they, their genius in that script was taking an actor who had this incredible ability,

which Kelsey has. And taking Frasier, making him sound alone. Because he had to be the center and taking David Hyde Pierce's Niles and making him Frasier. So that was brilliant on their part. And the tone of that show was brilliant too.

The so much more upper crust than Cheers. Because other than Martin, the father, there was no other Sam Alones or norms or cliffs on that show. They were all upper crusts marked people. And they did a brilliant job. And I directed the pilot, which was huge.

And I think I directed about 20, 25 episodes. They did a great job. And they had a great actor in the lead and a great cast. I want to play a short scene from the pilot, which you directed, of Frasier. And this is a scene from early in the episode, Niles and Frasier at a coffee shop.

And Niles is suggesting it's time to find a convalescent home for their father to live in. We have a problem.

“And that's why I thought we should talk.”

Is it dead? Right. So one of his old buddies from the police force called this morning. You went over to see him and found him on the bathroom floor. Oh my God.

It's okay. He's fine. What is his hip again? Frasier, I don't think he can live alone anymore. What can we do? Well, I know this isn't going to be anyone's favorite solution.

But I took the liberty of checking out a few convalescent homes. For him. That was a home. He's still a young man. Well, you certainly can't take care of him.

You're just getting your new life together. Absolutely.

But besides, we were never Simpati Co.

Of course, I can't take care of him. Oh, yes, of course, of course. Why?

“Because dad doesn't get along with Maris.”

Who knows? I thought you liked my Maris. I do. I like her from a distance. You know the way you liked the sun.

Maris is like the sun. Except without the warmth. Well, then we're agreed about what to do with dad. Bowden acres. We care so you don't have to.

It says that. Well, it might as well. All right, I'll make up the spare bedroom. Oh, you're a good son, Frasor. God, I am all right, I.

Two cat-based primos. Anything to eat? No, I seem to have lost my appetite. I'll have a large piece of cheesecake. It's a scene from the pilot of Frasor directed by my guest James Burrows.

And, you know, great scene, great series. One of the things that's really interesting to me about that scene and about like, you know, the early. Frasor is that Niles sounds completely different than he did later on. He is not talking with that, you know, kind of a feat-clipped style of speech that he developed later in the series. I did not notice that.

I always thought that he was-

There was no other word described Niles than a feat for me, because he was a personification of Frasor. And a Frasor was certainly a feat on cheers.

I guess I-

“Well, you know what Niles was a minor character.”

If you talk to the boys, originally Niles only had one scene in the pilot. And he was an afterthought. They thought the strong relationship would be to a new father and son. And then because of David, that part expanded rapidly. And thank God, because it was a wonderful relationship.

No, you know, a lot of people thought that Niles and Frasor were really two gay men cast as brothers. You know, I mean, that the brothers was just a cover that- This is a story about really two gay guys. Did you feel that way when you were directing it? Oh, yeah, it's a husband and wife, those two.

Aha, they are. They're a couple. They're a couple. And it's great.

I never thought gay as much as a married couple.

They talk like a married couple. A snobbish married couple. And a feat married couple. So, I totally agree with that. Now, unwilling grace, they're really easy gay character.

And it was among the first really popular gay regular characters on sitcom and on broadcasts.

“Were there issues about how broad to make the character?”

And you know, have a character should be depicted? Well, you know, the genius of that show is described. Is that Max and David wrote a script? Where there's a love affair between a woman and a man that can't be consummated? So, the dialogue is brilliant in that script and very smart.

So, you have a gay man who you don't play gay, which gives you the liberty to play gay with the other character. What Jack Jack can be incredibly outrageous because will is not. Well, you know, he gives you credibility. Mainly among the gay community.

Because I think if will wasn't on the show, we would get notes. We get letters from the gay community about how Jack's portrayed, how that character's portrayed. But because of will that allows us to do that.

So, I always thought of the show as a really funny show that happens

to have two gay characters in it. And I firmly believed that, you know, the pilot was through the roof when we ran it in front of an audience, they loved it. We shot it, they loved it. And I went to the network and I said, "Please don't put us on a,

don't put us off the sign field. We cannot survive there." Because people are not going to watch us. Please put us somewhere where we can kind of sneak in the town and people can, you know, find this eventually.

Because there's no reason to watch this show. And then I wanted, there's a kiss in the pile between Will and Grace. And I wanted that in there because I felt that if we could convince the part of the country that doesn't appreciate gays or does not like gays or has some problems with gays, if we could convince the part of the country that maybe Will will take the super drugs

and get over his gainess and marry Grace. And if we let them think that they'll get together, that they may be tuned in to watch the show because they've heard how funny it was.

And then once they're in there and see how funny it is, they're never going to leave.

“So, are you really glad you've been able to have a career in TV?”

I've been blessed. I did in 1981 I tried a movie. If I had tried it in '91, the movie probably been more successful, because I would have had much more self-esteem than I had in '81. This is before cheers. I didn't like the process because it took two years to get a result.

I didn't like the hours. I'm not a guy who's meticulous with how the set looks and doing each scene three times so that you can then cut it. I'm a guy who likes to do it live in front of an audience. And I have been blessed to be able to work in this medium that I don't have to work anymore. I didn't have to do Will in Grace.

I'm financially sound, but I do it because I love it. I do it because Will in Grace makes me feel 20 years younger. I've been in the business about 35 years, so I just turned 25 last year. And I love laughing. I love to hear the laughter.

and shows that may not be as extraordinary, but we're so wonderful like news radio,

“which I did the pilot of and third rock with Johnny Liskow.”

And I've had these wonderful shows and it just... I'm going to go on next year. I'm not when Moon Grace is off the air. I'm going to try to find another show because I have so much fun doing it. James Boros, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you so much for all the great programs that you've given us. Thank you.

And thank you for some questions I've never been asked before.

TV director James Boros, speaking with Terry Gross in 2006, Boros died June 19th at the age of 85. Boros played a fictional version of himself in the HBO series The Complex, starring Lisa Cudrow. In his last appearance in May, his character is asked to direct a pilot of a show written by AI, and he makes a plea for the creativity and unpredictability of human script writers. Surprising only comes from a group of writers, huddled in a corner, beating themselves up to beat out a better joke.

OK. No, no, no, no. It's the chubby guy who's a secret alcoholic. It's the gay guy who despite all the work he's done still hates himself a little.

“Are the funny woman who has been invisible for way too long?”

They turn all that pain into a joke.

And Val, those broken, beautiful souls are what made something great.

Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film The End Vite. This is Fresh Air. This week on Consider This in New York, Big Primary Wins for congressional candidates backed by New York City Mayor's Ron Momdonny, a Democratic Socialist. Does his brand of politics offer a new blueprint for Democrats?

For far too long, we haven't been able to answer what we're fighting for, only who we're fighting. And now, we have the answer. So Ron Momdonny, on Consider This, listen on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of protesters say a 16-year-old was shot and killed in self-defense. When you come in shooting, I don't think it's that much of a surprise when you get shot back.

But is that the truth? Analog telling you nothing. Our years-long investigation digs deep into what really happened. Listen to We Keep Us Safe on the Embedded Podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air.

In the new comedy The End Vite, Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde play a San Francisco couple who spend an evening getting to know their upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton.

It's Wilde's third directorial effort after her earlier films book smart and don't worry darling.

The End Vite opens in theaters this week. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review. In the Annals of Movies about Bickerson Couples spending an ill-advised evening together, Olivia Wilde's The Invite falls somewhere between two poles. No, it isn't as good as who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe.

Michael's Skalding 1966 adaptation of Edward Alby's classic play. But it's significantly better than carnage. Roman Polanski's annoying 2010 film of the Yasmina Reza play, God of Carnage. All these movies have a tricky needle to thread.

“How do you open up a story for the screen when the story is claustrophobic by design?”

How do you get an audience to feel the tension and heat of marital rage without driving them toward the exit? In the case of the invite, Wilde and her screenwriters will McCormick and Rashida Jones are working from proven material. This is a remake of a Spanish staged to screen adaptation, The People Up Stairs, which was released in 2020. It's already inspired remix, set in Italy, Switzerland, France and South Korea. In this new version, Wilde plays Angela, who lives in a San Francisco apartment with her husband, Joe, played by Seth Rogan.

The film unfolds over a single evening. Their 12-year-old daughter is away at a sleepover, and Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors, Pina and her boyfriend, Hawk, over for wine and Sharkutri. The knives come out even before the guests show up. Angela is a ball of nerves, anxious to make a good impression. Joe, by contrast, couldn't care less what they think, and he means to confront them about their very noisy sex life,

which has woken Joe and Angela up at odd hours of the night. Wilde is a terrific director of actors, herself included, and she and Rogan are all too persuasive as a long married couple, who know just how to push each other's buttons. Rogan is especially strong. The boisterous good vibes that once powered many a jet-appetal comedy have hardened into a shell of middle-aged discontent.

Not long afterward, Hawk, who's nothing if not direct, tries to either diffuse or exacerbate the obvious tension in the room.

“It took you a while to come to the door and it sounded like you were arguing.”

No, I just want to be honest, we were at the door before we rang, and we could hear you were fighting. We were fighting. We were fighting.

A bit of a contentious environment, and here's what I understand if that's repellent to you.

No hard feelings, you don't really mean completely understand. We love a contentious environment. We love it. Well, really, it's fine. You had the jackpot then, my friend.

As the couples get to know each other, we get to know them too. And we come to understand the roots of Joe and Angela's unhappiness.

“Joe was a once promising indie rock artist, whose career flamed out after one big hit.”

He now teaches music at a Bay Area Conservatory, and his sense of failure is eating him alive. An Angela hasn't made much use of her art school degree, apart from renovating and redecorating the apartment, her soul creative outlet these days. Peanut and Hawk are a model coupled by comparison, which makes them irritating and amusing in equal measure. Hawk lays on the flattery in the new age sensitivity, awfully thick,

and Norton, not for the first time, expertly blurs the lines between charm and charm.

Peanut is a psychotherapist and sexologist. And at first, she might seem to veer toward a hot-blooded Euro-saductress caricature. But Cruz is too vivid to be reduced to a stereotype. Peanut is ultimately the one character the movie refuses to mock. She's too comfortable in her own skin, and too ruthlessly accurate in her assessments of Joe and Angela's troubled marriage.

“While previously directed, the enjoyable teen comedy booksmart, and less successfully,”

the domestic dystopian satire, don't worry darling. In ambitious movie, that ultimately proved less interesting than it's much publicized behind the scenes, shenanigans. It was smart of wild to scale back with an intimate chamber piece like the invite.

Though here, as and don't worry darling, her stylistic ticks sometimes get the better of her.

Early on, Joe and Angela's arguments are almost drowned out by the score's frenzy, cello strings. And while there's a bit too fond of using the apartment's many, many mirrors, to isolate the characters visually, as if we needed reminding of how fragmented their relationship has become. Peanut and Hawk have their own ideas about how to help, and it's worth seeing the movie yourself to discover what they are. Suffice to say that the title "The Invite" has more than one meaning.

It's disappointing, though not surprising, and the film pulls back from those ideas. After dangling a more audacious outcome, the invite retreats to a zone of emotional safety. One that's poignant in its own way, though it also feels like a missed opportunity. The movie could have been, dare I say it, a little wilder. Justin Chang is a film critic at the New Yorker.

On Monday's show, Chris Everett and Martina Nevera, Tolova. They were tennis champions, the two biggest stars of their generation. They were friends, they were rivals, and after retiring, they got cancer at the same time. Now they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary. I hope you can join us. [Music]

Freshers executive producer Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Chorock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Julian Hertzfeld, Deanna Martinez, and Charlie Kyer. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Filis Myers and Marie Baldonato,

Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth. They are a challenger, Susan Yacundi, and Abelman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies. [Music]

Support for NPR comes from the station. And from Bloomsbury, publisher of Courage Can Save Us by Marine Corps veteran and Social Entrepreneur Rye Barcott, a call to Courage and Public Service for America's 250. Available wherever books are sold. And from Uma, now offering my phone, a modern home phone service for families who want a screen free experience

with parental controls like trusted circle and quiet hours.

The fatal shooting of a teenager at a protest in Seattle has gone unsolved for six years.

“This is open in your faith to how are there no answers.”

Our investigation has uncovered new evidence and witnesses who say they've never talked to police.

Did police ever call you? Not once.

“Listen to Weeky Bus Safe, a new true crime series on the embedded podcast from NPR.”

You've got a lot of ways to get news and a lot of podcasts in your feed that take a long time to get to the point.

Here and now any time gets to the heart of the day's big story, all in about 20 minutes every afternoon. Get smarter and expand your world fast. Listen to here and now any time on the NPR app or wherever you listen to podcasts.