‘Wonder Man’ star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II on cancellation and confidence

So, this summer is a perfect time to make sure your new diet is calibrated.

I'm Leila Faldzill, on up first, we unpack the three biggest stories every morning,

so you can stay informed and get on with your day in less than 15 minutes. Follow or subscribe to up first today, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Yaya Abdul-Mateen II. He's nominated for an Emmy for the Marvel Series Wonder Man.

“He plays Simon Williams, a struggling actor with a secret.”

He has real superpowers, and if anyone finds out, he doesn't just lose his career, he loses his freedom. Abdul-Mateen grew up in both New Orleans and Oakland, studied architecture at UC Berkeley, and worked as a city planner until a layoff sent him to the Yale School of Drama.

He booked his first major role in 2015, nearing 30, and since then, he's performed on Broadway

and top-dog underdog, been cast as Black Manta and Aquaman, Bobby Seal, and the trial of the Chicago 7, the lead in Candy Man, and won an Emmy for playing Dr. Manhattan in HBO's Watchman. Wonder Man made him's a lead in his very own Marvel series, and then two weeks after his

“Emmy nomination, Disney canceled the show a few months after a second season had already been announced.”

And Yaya Abdul-Mateen II, welcome to Fresh Air. What's up, what's up, thank you, I'm happy to be here. Why are you laughing?

You know, I don't really reflect back, so far, that far, and you know, when you first

you say I'm a name, and then you go through when you tell the story. And then, when you ended off, he said, "And he just lost his job." And now he's sitting in front of me, and he just lost his job, and I just thought that that was so so funny the way that I'm being talked about right now. But you know, I mean, there's so much to talk about, the thing about it is, when Marvel approached you,

you said, "I only have one Marvel dollar to spend." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You asked yourself whether Wonderman was the actual role that you were going to spend that dollar. I'm really curious, I thought that was a really interesting way to talk about entering the Marvel universe and being a part of something that's so big, how are you reflecting on it, now that you have spent that dollar, and you've gone through this journey on this show that

is highly respected. Yeah, so far, dollar world spent, for sure, look at the experience that I had, you know, and I got to put it out. Now, when I said that I was talking about fun and longevity, you know, I was talking specifically against a one-off. A role that is going to stand the test of time and not be a one-off. And at the same time, something that was worth my time and

“something that I enjoyed. That's what a dollar world spent would be. Now, when I flashed to present day,”

and I do reflect back, boy, of course, it was a dollar world spent. I got to make a fantastic show, and I got to play a fantastic character who many people related to. Wonderman is not a typical Marvel story. There's almost no action. It's a comedy, and it's a comedy about auditioning, shot like an indie film, and the hero's battles are with casting directors and in his own head. Your character Simon Williams, he's a working actor in Los Angeles, years in without a break,

when a reclusive director announces a remake of this cheesy 80 superhero. And Simon goes after the lead, and I actually want to play a clip to set up. So folks can know what we're talking about if they haven't seen it. Yeah. And in this scene, he's at his audition for Wonderman, reading his lines. Let's listen. Simon Williams, reading for Wonderman. The Embarrassed People and Believe, if a soul fails to turn right after death, it ends up in a

dark and treacherous place. Well, I've been to the void. I lived in that scream in silence. I know what it's like. I lost whatever part was left in me that makes a person, a person, until Barnaby called me out. No one else ever gave a damn. No one.

I'm asking you nicely. Just walk away. That's my guess. Yaya Abdul-Metin, the second,

as Simon and Wonderman. And Yaya Simon is an overprepare. He is always in his head.

But he gives this performance and has his audition that just flows them away. And I've heard you say that you kind of are the opposite when you're stepping into a role. You get the script, you get the lines down. But you step into that and then you allow yourself to surrender to the actual role. But there are particular moments where you learn to do that when you realize that you get no material really deeply. And then there comes a point where you just have to let all that go.

“Yes. And the secret is that you have to prepare in order to let go. And in order to let all that go.”

So I prepare more than Simon. Oh, you do. He's an overprepare but you're an overover. Simon is overthinker. Simon is looking for the traps. I'm looking for the opportunities. So I'm different from Simon in that way. So I prepare. And that's the trick. So I do the homework. And then I'm not afraid to let go of the homework. The homework is there to support me, not to decide what it is that I'm going to do. Often when we're acting, we're acting

with other people and other factors that we're not aware of when we're doing our rehearsal process. So I like to walk the do the tight rope dance. That's what it feels like when I am putting myself out there with these words and with my characters and tensions. And when I legitimately don't know what's going to happen, it's more fun for me that way. It's more exciting. Hmm. Have you ever wanted a role as bad as Simon wanted wonder man?

Oh, let me think. There has to be a yes. There has to be a yes in there somewhere. I wanted to play both the character that played in the play called Top Dog underdog. I've been

wanting to do that for 20 years before I got a chance to do it, but I never did pursue it.

So I don't know if I've wanted anything. I can't think of anything that I've pursued in the same way that Simon pursued a wonder man. Because he was, he was doing some crazy things for it. But actors mean that actors we do all type of things. I was telling stories. I was lying on my resume to my Taylor story. I was lying on my resume, you know, back in 2012 talking about all the different skills and accents I could do and things like that. Oh, he first graduated

when I first came from acting school. No, no, this I hadn't gone to school yet. This was when I was just getting little jobs in the Bay Area little actor jobs. And I was over exaggerating. I had maybe played the ball goes two times and said, yeah, I could do that. So I put it on my resume. I may have done an accent in class one time. So I said, you know, that wouldn't do

“hard. I put that on my resume. You know, but that's what you got to do. You got to, you got to”

stack the cards in your favor. Well, I gave you the the goal to do it. You know? I didn't know better. And it was and it was just too much empty space on my resume. So I needed to figure out I needed to find things that I could do. So I could write it down. I think it would gave me the God, the empty space. That's what that's what gave me the God. Season one ends with us expecting to now see what Simon is going to be like, now that he has all the things that he has

been fighting and working toward. He is Wonderman. And they point to a pattern of marvel involving black led projects. There's Wonderman canceled despite your nomination for Emmy Blade dead after seven years iron hard armor wars. It's just a whole bunch. And the argument is that Marvel doesn't protect its black led projects. You kind of have rejected that. What do you see it? It's not that I've rejected that. I made the observation based off my experience.

When you look at the history of those projects and when you put them all together, there's no way around it does not look good. It does not look like good business.

“And it looks like it's certainly not favorable to it's black creators. That's what it looks like.”

I'd be ignorant if I didn't, if I'd be you know, willfully blind if I chose not to make

that observation. I'm always interested in the truth. And I'm always interested in what is true for me.

What did they tell you? I've heard things about viewership. What I would say is that if that is the case, then when it comes to black led projects, especially black led niche projects,

“I think they need a little bit more time to cook. Because I think black audiences”

usually find out and gravitate to the niche projects a little bit slower.

They're a little bit behind because they're not always, that's not what's always marketed to us.

And I think that it was one of those projects that needed a bit more time to cook if it was going to depend on the black audience to also give some buoyancy to the numbers of that show. Nevertheless, I will circle back and always come back to the point that I'm so thankful and blessed to have been able to be a part of something that was special, that is special. I'm getting so much love out there. And the reason why I think I'm getting so much love is because people are,

yes, they do feel for me, but what's actually going on is that they love that show. You know, people really enjoy that show. And I know what it's like to have one of my favorite shows be cancelled for it to finally end. You got to find a way to feel that, to feel that

“slot, to feel that void. So I think it's a sign that our show gave a lot of people, a lot of”

you know, joy and relief in some distraction, you know, in this world. And I do hope that I get another chance to step back into that one of my character. What were you looking forward to for season two? Because it's a slow burn that towards the latter half of the first season. Now we're along for the ride for him. It's expecting there to be. Yeah. You know, Simon was just getting used to fame, you know, and a little bit of notoriety and what he could do with it. You

know, we we follow Simon when he had this dream and we saw him finally get a little taste of

what he was after. I was always curious that I am curious about what a character like Simon

would do with it once he finally gets it. We saw the first thing that he did. The first thing that he did when it did something, you know, nobody went to go stand up for his friend. Okay, cool. Now, he's not that you've done that. What are you going to do with it next? You know, because we saw him be, uh, egotistical a bit. We saw him be self-centered and things like that. And so those things just aren't cured. Those things don't don't don't go away. Uh, neither does the nerves

in the anxiety and, you know, so there's a whole another chapter of Simon finally getting what he asked for. Um, and then learning how to deal with it. Yeah. You know, you grew up between New Orleans

“and the Bay and somehow you went to 13 different schools. I think so. I think I think a trash”

like that. Yeah. That's like changing schools every few years. Why did your family move so much?

Always looking for a better life. Um, always looking for a better school. You know, there was

six of us. So a lot of that sometimes was about trying to find whatever was convenient for my parents and like the best fit for our education and things like that. Was there ever a moment when you got tired of it? No, I didn't even notice it. You did? No, no, because there was so much love in my home. You know, so whatever now could be perceived at some type of instability or anything like that, I was, we were shielded from that. You know, uh, and my parents did a fantastic, fantastic job.

And like I say, when we went to different schools, we were looking for a better education. How do you think that experience shaped who you are being the new person all the time? Yeah. I mean, I think that it's made me, uh, more observant. I enter into new environment, so to quiet, you know, looking around and so to calculated and doing the math and all my surroundings. And then after a little bit, after a little while, you know,

I take over a little bit more space. Uh, now when I went to high school, I went to one high school. All right. And so high school was my first time entering into a space with the same students. What basically entering to an entering into a school just sort of on the same level as everybody else. So high school was really where I sort of socially, uh, blossomed like in the ninth grade. I've been sort of game a confidence and, uh, but what I did have by the ninth grade was my

individuality, you know, I was myself. I was just, I mean, you know, to that look like.

And the bag, yeah, and Oakland was, I think it was the last year of the year before, um, and I was at lunch with, with my best friend from high school, and then with another one of my friends, also from high school. And he said, yeah, yeah, I mean, you, he said, you was different. I said, what? He said, yeah, man, you know, your dad would drop you off on the motorcycle,

“and, you know, you would just, you would just different. And when I think back, I was like, you know,”

I think, wow, you know, I guess I was, but I was always myself. You have been called just

out the weird one. You see. When did I do that? Yeah, there was an interview where you said, I was a little weird. I was nerdy, but I also played sports and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I don't know why, why I use that word, but I was, I was, I was different, but you know, but I, but I, but I, but I liked myself. You know what I mean? Whatever it was about me that made me different. I didn't know it. I didn't know that. I was different. That's the thing. And I liked

myself. Everybody's different. You know, I was confident enough to, I didn't have the cool shoes. That didn't even feel like it fit my personality. You know, as I remember one time I wore, I got some Jordans. It was the first time I had like the cool shoes and I wore them to school, in the front of my arm and he didn't let me rest. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, point that me because I got, I got the new cool shoes on it. I was a little bit embarrassed, but, you know,

but I was always confident and who I was. That's funny to be embarrassed, right, by,

by wearing the latest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, because I wasn't that kid, so it's sort of, you know, it was as if I was trying on cool for the first time. People called your family the Black Brady by it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were the youngest. I was the youngest. Yeah, we had a mom, dad, the dogs, the, the, the, the station wagon. And what I like to say is we didn't have the, you know, the white picket fence we had the chain like fence, but, you know, it was ours.

You talked about having a stutter. Yeah, I started growing up. Yeah. Even, even to this day, I started most of the time. It can be intense if I, if I let myself get comfortable, you know, right now my brain is on. So I'm conscious to take my time and things like that, but if I wasn't worried about taking my time, then you would be able to tell, oh, he started. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So are there particular words? Yeah. Our words sometimes tend to give me, it just depends,

but say, I have this thing, right? I have two streams of consciousness going on, basically all the time. And I can feel a stutter on its way. And when I know when I'm about to stutter, then I switch over to the second stream of consciousness and I go, I go around the stutter and then I keep on going. When I'm at home and I don't feel like doing that, I just stay on my single stream of consciousness and I just stutter. I just let the stutter go and I just get through it.

“Yeah. It's always been that way for you. I think so. Mm-hmm. Yeah.”

Architecture was your major at UC Berkeley and you've talked about how you took drama classes to help you ever overcome your stutter. Yeah. So that you could do your presentations for, yeah, that didn't work. It didn't work. I didn't work at all, but I found, you know, acting. And I didn't stutter when I

acted. I never stutter with a script ever. What do you think it is about the drama and the drama

class that really allowed you to be in that space? I'll rehearse the words. So it's just really all muscle memory. I know you don't know any different, but it sounds like it's a lot of work. It's it exhausting. Having the two, I mean, we all have double content as to a certain extent. Is that exhausting? Yeah. It's a little bit of work, but, you know, it helps me to articulate myself better and things like that. One needs to care. You know what I mean? You know, who knows?

I do what works for me right now. It helps me to communicate better. You know, I don't want to be on TV and on my interviews, just stuttering all over the place and making a mess. You know.

“But it's also kind of amazing because I've heard other actors who have also, I think James”

Earl Jones talked about. He had a stutter. Yeah, but stuttering is frustrating. For example, if I were to stutter right now, um, sometimes you just wouldn't be able to hear anything. I just wouldn't be able to say the word. You may have radio silence for about eight seconds. And I'm not even making sounds. Other times, I sound like the car engine trying to start. And that's when I'm being stubborn and just trying to push it through, you know, uh, and I don't feel like

Our guest today is actor-yaya of dual-meteen the second. We'll be right back after a short break.

I'm Tonya Mosley and this is fresh air. The midterms are coming. And if you think the new cycle feels intense now, just wait until the fall.

“That's why summer is a perfect time to make sure your news diet is calibrated. I mean,”

our teen has, on a first, we unpack the three big stories every morning so you can stay informed and get on with your day in fewer than 15 minutes. Follow or subscribe up first today wherever you get podcasts. How did we get here? That's a question we have been trying to answer a lot here at NPR. We are exploring global histories on throughline, where hearing from national security experts on sources and methods, where watching the markets with planet money, you can support this work across

all our podcasts within PR plus. Find out more at plus.npr.org.

This is fresh air. I'm Tonya Mosley and my guest today is yaya of dual-meteen the second.

He's nominated for an Emmy for his lead role in Wonder Man, a Marvel comedy about a struggling actor who's hiding the secret that he has real superpowers. Abdul-meteen the second grew up between New Orleans and Oakland, the youngest of six studied architecture at UC Berkeley and worked as a city planner in San Francisco until a layoff sent him to the Yale School of Drama. Since then, he starred in several television productions, which include starring as Black

Manta and Aquaman and Bobby Seal and the trial of the Chicago Seven. He won an Emmy for playing Dr. Manhattan and HBO's Watchman and earned a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut and top dog underdog. This year, he also starred in and served as executive producer of Netflix's Man on Fire, stepping into the role of John Creasy, a part Denzel Washington made iconic. Your father was born John Ford, but changed his name to yaya of dual-meteen when he

theverted to Islam. What does your name mean? John. Just like my father, it means John. So yaya is the is the prophet John and Abdul-Meteen is a servant of a farm God. Your dad was Muslim, but your mom was Christian. He's Christian. Yes, she is Christian. How did that play out in your house growing up? We knew God. We were introduced to God in two different ways. Sometimes we go to the mass gym. Sometimes we fast. Before Ramadan, we would pray with my father five times a day.

Another time we go to the church and we sing in the choir and we had our own little children's choir at home and things like that. What it did for me was it gave me a reverence for God and appreciation for God and I know how to get to Him in my life because I had parents that gave

“me that example of respecting God and that's what that did for me. You were a young man just stepping”

out in the world when your father passed away. I was 21 or I was in the college. How did that change or impact at all? Your thoughts about your future, your trajectory? Boy, how much time you got?

I always felt like I had everything I needed. I had a great relationship, you know, with my father

and that I was blessed to have had a father in my life. It wasn't until later on in life, you know, in my mid and late 30s that I realized, oh, I lost my father when I was very young. You know, as I see other 21 year olds and 25 year old, 27 year olds and I understand the importance of having a father and I see where I lost my father. Then there was sort of a secondary agreement process because, you know, as a man, I'm going through different things and I was like boy,

I wouldn't really like to talk to my father right now. But I am still very, very, very blessed to have

“been given a great father who's lessons are not far from me. Was your dad artistic?”

I don't know that he was artistic at all. He was an intellect. He was definitely an intellect, love to read and the opinion on the world and was quite reserved, which I am that way, you know, patient, slow to speak, you know, hardworking. My mother is the artistic one. You know, my mother when I was doing plays, she was inspired to do plays out in the Bay Area. She did the whiz. She did a play of the whiz. She was inspired by you. Yeah, she was inspired. Well, I was

probably grown up inspired by her and then she was later on a turn inspired by me. My mother is the character in the household. I'm not the character in the household at all. Is it true that your

Yeah, I want to be an architect. That's why I want to college to study it. Yeah. Was it in the back of

“your mind during that time period acting as well? No, actually, I didn't even know if that was possible.”

I didn't ever even thought about that. Somebody, I'll keep your story short, but a team made a mind, you know, dared me, dared me to take an acting class. Which type of team may? I was on the track team at Berkeley. Yeah, and one day we were at practice, you know, making fun of the coaches and things like that on the team build an exercise and I got up in front of everybody and did an impersonation, everybody was laughing. The next day, they were still talking about it.

In my team made, he dared me to take it the other class. I was looking for easy class to take it, not auditioned and took the class. It didn't take it seriously. In the sense that I did all the work, but I used to be late to class and, you know, things like that, I wasn't the best

representation of what a top student should be. But I always knew my lines. I rehearsed for real.

“I don't know how present I was, but when it was my turn to work, I always put in the work and I always”

took the work seriously. I didn't take the attendance the most seriously. And after that semester, the teacher, she told me, I just ran into her in the building one day and she said, "Hey, she said you're really good and I hope you take some more classes." I wasn't necessarily intending to, but I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that. Maybe I will." So the next class that I took, I found something that I thought would be a good opportunity to work on my starter.

And then that just put me deeper into this world. Your deep in this world, but you still,

you graduate with an architecture degree and you work for the City of San Francisco

as in the city planning department. Yeah. The mayor's office of housing. Yeah. What was your job? I was a program coordinator for a project called the SF Hope Initiative. I believe it's been almost 15 years. You still remember it? Yeah. Yeah. The youth SF leadership academy. Youth SF leadership

“academy, I think that's what it was called. Yeah. But I was a program coordinator. My job was to”

was to pair young people with architects and with city planners and six of the housing projects in San Francisco that were undergoing a redevelopment process. And so I was teaching, well, facilitating the program that taught architecture and city planning, curriculum, to the young people, so that they could work with the planners to get educated feedback on what they wanted in their neighborhoods. Were you enjoying the job? Absolutely. You got laid off, though. Yeah. It was like 11 months.

11 months later, you get laid off. People are losing and losing jobs. What up with that? What up with that? We, you know, every time I do it, it turns into something better. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I wanted to with this one, go and turn it to. Well, I mean, you got a whole slew of projects. So yeah. So you get laid off and you give yourself three years to become an actor or you'd go back to study. Yeah. I was going to go get my masters and planning and probably working politics.

You decided to go to grad school for it. You ended up at Yale School of Drama. That is a prestigious acting school. It's one of the best in the world. It's for serious actors. When you went there, did you have a specific dream of the type of actor that you wanted to be? Not necessarily. I just wanted training. I knew that actors from that school were working on Broadway. That was really because by then, all the acting I had done was in theater. So I was like, well, okay, well,

what's the, how far can you go in theater? Well, you can go to Broadway. So, you know, I was hoping to get enough training to go and do Broadway. And then you'll see what happened. Happens next. Yeah. Let's take a short break. My guest is Yaya Abdul-Metin II. He's nominated for an Emmy for his lead role in the Marvel series Wonder Man, a Marvel comedy about a struggling actor hiding real superpowers. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is fresh air.

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language of the United States. Then the administration moved to cut funding for classes that teach it. Do we matter? Do we matter? Listen to NPR's co-switch podcast and the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air and today I am talking with Yaya Abdul-Meteen

the second. He's nominated for an Emmy for Playing Simon Williams in Wonderman, a Marvel

comedy about a struggling actor hiding real superpowers. You've been inside some pretty complex and dynamic stories that allow us to self-reflect. I'm thinking about the Watchman which it's a 2019 HBO series that you want an Emmy for, congratulations. And it's said in a world where superheroes are real and you played what seemed like the most ordinary person in it. Cal, who was a stay at home, has been married to a detective, played by Regina King. And then

comes the twist that Cal is actually secretly Dr. Manhattan, the one true super being in the world, a blue got like man who experiences past, present, and future all at once. And I want to play a scene a really powerful one where you use that power to give your wife something impossible, a conversation

with the grandfather she never got to meet, played by Louis Gosset Jr. Let's listen. That's cold.

I like she's supposed to be blue. I recently made some changes in my life. I'm about to make a few more, which is why I wanted to speak with you. Mr. Reeves, our lives have become entangled in a most profound way through someone known to both of us, but the future is uncertain than my ability to influence events is limited. In order to ensure an optimal outcome, I would like to form an alliance. You're a team that would meet. You are

“put it justice. Be hero. Ah, that's what this is all about. Will be put on a mask, uh? No.”

This is about Angela. Angela? You're granddaughter. I don't have a granddaughter, but you had a son. He had a daughter, which makes her your granddaughter. Oh, that's how it works out, huh? I met her in Vietnam. We are in love. Soon we will marry and move to Tulsa, where she'll be a police officer. Everybody else, you want to go to Tulsa? I'm not sure she knows yet.

But I suspect it's because she senses it is where she comes from. Do you want me? Nothing. But Angela does. She wants her help. She doesn't even know I exist.

“That is because you choose to let her be ignorant to your existence. Oh, you don't want me in her life?”

She does. I know the moment I first see her, I sense profound emptiness and loss. I know because she says over and over again that she doesn't want a family yet it is clear through her actions that it is, all that she wants. That was my guest. Yeah, yeah. I'll do a little meeting in the second with Luis Gossett Jr and Watchman. I have a question I want to ask you about it, but I'm also very curious about your

reaction to it. You turned really reflective listening to that piece.

Yeah, I don't watch it. Yeah, you've never watched it or you haven't. Maybe you have watched it once.

“Yeah. So I don't remember it. So now I'm, I want to listen to it. I'm remembering it.”

Uh-huh. And I'm remembering, oh, that was a really good show. And I'm also proud of him. I don't think it's myself. I'm not proud of myself, but I'm proud of the work that that young man did to make some of those choices and to stick with that and that and that performance. Your old self. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking about myself. I'm thinking about my, about myself when I was younger as a younger person in the, in the, in the, in the preparation for that, um, because it, it, the risk was to, it, I could have been very boring. Well, that's the thing about it. Yeah. Yeah. Part of it is because he is holding the past, the present and the future at once. Yeah. So there is no emotional core there. You had to play that.

Yeah. You had to strip something from yourself in order to play that. Yeah. Do you remember that conscious choice that you made?

So he's everywhere at the same time. So he's not able to be in the, to be in the moment and sometimes in the moment is where some of the most beautiful things happen.

And so he doesn't get to feel the individual moment. Is it true that when you took the role of Cal, you didn't even know who, who would you really be playing? No, I didn't have that on faith. They sort of said trust me. It'll be worth it. Tell me how you found out about it. People started to whisper on that. We were well into shooting and Dr. Manhattan hadn't shown up, but there was like he has to show up at some point. Who is it? I think it's him. I don't think it's me because I don't. Why would it be me? I'm, um, I'm

Because just for folks who haven't watched the show. Uh-huh. You're playing. Your playing can't, your cousin. That's a normal guy.

“That's what I signed up to be his show. I signed up to play Regina Kings Husband and eventually I get pulled into the office up here in the late”

Damon Lendilov. He wanted to have a meeting and he let me know that I was Dr. Manhattan. I said, okay, I should have asked for more money. That was your reaction, huh? Of course, no, my reaction. You know, I said, okay, well, I've really got to get in shape. And then I said, I should have asked for more money. That was my more humorous side. I wasn't so serious about that. Many of your roles like man on fire. Their reprisals, they're previously played by iconic actors like Denzel Washington. How do you get to a place where you hold your own where you let all the noise of what people expect?

It's the same with Marvel characters. There's so much expectation on these characters because people live with them for years and years to drown out that stuff and say, I'm going to make this my own. Well, the cool thing about having a solid upbringing and going to 13 different schools is that I get a lot of time to develop my own sense of self.

“And I really meant that earlier when I said, I like who I am. That's enough for me. So if I can find something”

interesting to do, who cares what anybody else thinks. I like myself. I like my work in a healthy way. And that gives me enough confidence to go and pursue what it is that excites me with the opportunities that I say yes to the opportunities that are in front of me. That allows me to get the ghosts of the past out of the room and to do what it is I have to do. That's interesting to put it that way, the ghosts in the room. Is there a way that you center yourself? Do you not watch the previous ones

or not watch that much? Because it's nice to know what the fans love. So if I can give the fans a sense of something that they are tuning in for, then good. I just like to do it in my way. You know, I don't want to do it and they don't want an imitation. And they want what they know. You know, but it's my job since I since I'm not Denzel Washington. I make it my job to know what it is that they liked about that performance. Oh, okay. Well, you like one you like him. And so

that's I'm never going to do that. But what else do you like? What do you like about him? What you

like is soul. You know, you like the gravitas and the soul. Okay. Well, are there opportunities

“for me to imbue this character with some gravitas and with a sense of soul that is authentic to me?”

If there's a yes, then I build that bridge. And as that becomes one of the bridges between myself and the audience. You weren't able to go to the Emmy where you won the award for the Watchman because it was during the pandemic, but you'll be able to go to the Emmy's this time around. Oh, yeah, I'll be in the building. But the Wonderman. What are you? What are you most excited about? You know, just seeing it if I'm being honest, you know, after I won, I did wish that I was there,

you know, if I'm being honest. And so now I'll get to go and I'll know what it's like to be there and that'll be cool. And if I mean Steve Correll, then that'll be real dope. For real, what is it about Steve? Oh, I grew up watching the office. I've watched every episode, so many times. I know every single episode of the office, every single episode of the office. And yeah, I used to be screaming at the top of my lungs watching the office. So I'm not going to

sit up here and act like I'm way too cool for school and things like that to not ask for a picture and to not, you know, see what he looked like. No, I won't be weird and I won't fan out, but I would love to meet Steve Correll to say what's up. Well, I'll be looking at your Instagram to see if you got that picture. Just have a look at the chance right here. Yeah, yeah, I'm dual

routine the second. This has been such a pleasure. It has been, thank you very much.

Yeah, yeah, of dual-meteen the second. He's nominated for an Emmy for the Marvel series Wonder

film critic Justin Chang reviews the new film Teenage Sex and Death at Can't Me Asma.

“This is fresh air. History is intriguing, but unlike the present, it can feel far off.”

On NPR's throughline, we bring it back to life and put you in the middle of it. Go inside the stories from then that shape the world we live in now. Find NPR's throughline wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bulls Eye, Stavros Halkis, the stand-up comedian podcast host and actor talks about what it was like to discover a passion for joke talent. Feeling like I was getting good at stand-up and feeling engaged in something. That was the

first time I enjoyed learning. It's Stavrosy Baby. Find Bulls Eye and the NPR app at maximum fund.org

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air. In the new movie, Teenage Sex and Death

“at Can't Me Asma, Hannah Inbinder plays a young queer director who's trying to reboot a popular”

series of slasher movies from the 80s and 90s. The film also stars Jillian Anderson. Teenage Sex and Death at Can't Me Asma is now playing in theaters and our film critic Justin Chang has this review. The 39-year-old director Jane Shonbrun has a wild imagination, but a consistent theme. They're fascinated by the media obsessions that shaped some of us as young people. Perhaps even offering us a sense of refuge and belonging that the outside world could not.

Shonbrun's 2021 debut, we're all going to the world's fair, was an eerie experimental horror film about a teenager caught up in an online role playing game. Then came the 2024 drama I saw the TV glow. About two teens bonding over a buffy style TV series, which Shonbrun, a transgender filmmaker, turned into a stealthy commentary

on trans-experience. Now we have Shonbrun's third feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Can't Me Asma.

It draws its title from a fictional slasher movie called Can't Me Asma, which was a big hit sometime in the 1980s and, like Friday the 13th, the Nightmare on Elm Street and countless other horror touchstones of its era has spawned an increasingly rudderless series of sequels. Shonbrun recaps the history of the Can't Me Asma franchise in a dazzlingly witty opening credit sequence that I want to watch again slowly, one frame at a time. It's the work of an artist,

who knows how to spoof and embrace pop cultural phenomena in astoundingly meticulous detail. Hannah Einbinder, from the comedy series Hacks, stars as Chris Williams, a 29-year-old independent filmmaker, who's writing and directing a Can't Me Asma reboot. She's hoping to persuade Billy Presley, who starred in the original movie, to reprise her role in the new one. Billy is something of a recluse. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a remote

lakeside cabin on the very grounds where Cat Me Asma was shot. In this scene, Chris isn't

a nearby cinema, watching a scene from that first film. When Billy played by Jillian Anderson

with a southern accent and a fabulous aura of old Hollywood glamour, approaches her in the theatre. I feel like there's about to be a Trump scare. Hi. I'm Billy Presley.

“You must be the writer, director. Yeah, hi. You came out of nowhere, right? I didn't know you were”

in here. I'm sorry. I saw you and I wanted to scare you. It's only fair, right? You've already seen me. Teenage sex and death at Cat Me Asma is frequently funny as a satire of contemporary filmmaking. Sean Brun takes knowing aim at the industry's obsession with sequels, reboots, and origin stories. It's overuse of trauma as a horror trope, and it's often performative approach to inclusion and social justice. The original Cat Me Asma, which featured a gender-fluid killer laying waste to a

summer camp, has since been accused of transphobia. The criticism that Chris, who approaches cinema through a queer academic lens, wants to correct in her own project. More than once though,

in the movies, we respond to sex and horror on a pure visceral level. True to its title, Teenage

“Sex and Death is fascinated by the connections between what excites us and what scares us.”

It's no surprise when Chris and Billy begin to explore their own growing feelings for each other. Their sex scenes are played for some raw humor. Anderson has been an LGBTQ+ icon for decades, since her days on the X-files. But there's also a genuine warmth and tenderness here that builds on the actor's natural chemistry. Both characters it turns out have had their own physical and psychological hang-ups about sex, and the movie's most bracing element is the way

it lets them confront those issues together. In Chris's case, that means exploring the voyeuristic

and violent fantasies that drew her to the Cat Me Asma movies in the first place. There's a

“slie paradox at play here that I think more than a few horror aficionados will relate to. A”

boodwars slathered in blood can suddenly become the safest of spaces. Shownrun is a madly ambitious talent, deconstructing the nature of genre one moment, and channeling an uneasy lynching mood the next. At times they run the risk of stretching the film's many, many ideas past the point of redundancy, and there's one set piece, a killing spree from

Cat Me Asma, ironically set to a hit 90 song, that for many will be the movie's gory highlight,

though I checked out of it pretty early long. Perhaps I was impatient to get back to Chris and Billy, two characters that shown run in the actors clearly love to pieces. It's the highest complement

“I can pay on binder and Anderson that somewhere out there, their performances, are already captivating”

a new generation of pop culture obsessives. Justin Chang is a film critic at the New Yorker. He reviewed teenage sex and death at Cant Me Asma. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with Professor Daniel Lieberman about what evolution reveals about dieting and weight loss or with actor Jason Seagull about playing a psychotherapist and the series shrinking, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of fresh air interviews. You can also

watch some of our interviews on our YouTube page. This is fresh air. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers recommendations on what to watch read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at wh-y-y.org/freshair. Fresh air is executive producer Sam Bricker. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stannishewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Rober Schorock,

Ann Marie Boltonato, Lauren Crenzall, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nucundy, Ann Abalman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. They a challenger directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tommy Musley. Okay, so you're driving to work or you're on a walk or you're at the gym or whatever and you just need to clear your head. That's the perfect time to hit the play button on NPR's All Songs Considered.

It's not the news, it's not work or whatever else is weighing you down. It's just a good time with good friends and great tunes. Listen to All Songs Considered every Tuesday in the NPR Music podcast. How will a historically unpopular president navigate a midterm election season that may leave him with a lot less power? Stay caught up on the latest news with Trump's term, the podcast, where we curate NPR's coverage of President Trump and short episodes focused on a single story.

Follow Trump's terms on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.