Most of the people I talk to have public lives. That means they probably have a well-worn personal narrative that they churn out for interviews. Conversely, many of us may have a one-sided relationship with these public people based on that narrative or their work. We often create assumptions about a public persona that are based on either fantasy or preconceived judgments. I have them about most of my guests too. I am a fan and I am also judgmental. I go into the conversation with those assumptions and judgments and very quickly realize how limited they are. I am almost always wrong and almost always pleasantly surprised and excited that I am wrong. They are just people. We are just people.
When I interviewed Lorne Michaels, I went into it thinking he was some kind of all-powerful gatekeeper of show business. I came away thinking he’s a good guy who works in a building and loves what he does. I thought Kristen Wiig might be difficult to interview because she’s intensely private and had not spoken about her personal life in much detail. We had one of the more insightful conversations I can remember about fear and anxiety. When I interviewed Paul Thomas Anderson I was convinced he was some kind of mysterious, dark, brooding genius. Turns out he’s extremely friendly and laid-back, almost a goofball. When I interviewed President Barack Obama I thought it would be like interviewing a president, but he’s just a guy who happens to be a president.
When guests come into the garage with their narrative, I have to find a way around it. I wait until it falls away or I find something else engaging to talk about. If this doesn’t happen immediately, it almost always happens around twenty minutes in. When they forget that they are talking into a microphone.
I have no idea what is going to happen when I talk to a guest. I’m not sure where the conversation will go. I don’t have a plan other than to talk, to connect. I know I don’t want to be talked at or through. I don’t prepare in the same way other interviewers prepare because I don’t see myself as an interviewer. I am a conversationalist and a somewhat needy one at that. I obviously know a bit about my guests, but other than what they have accomplished and where they come from, I keep myself in the dark. All I want out of any talk is for it to find its own groove. I want something to come up that enables us to engage authentically in that moment. Then I like to chase that moment, use it as a portal into who they are. Who anyone is in a moment isn’t always about information or what’s being said. It’s about feelings, memory, spontaneously thinking aloud, finding common ground, being surprised because of new revelations, and being open. I listen. It took me a long time to learn how to do that. I make myself available and open in the moment.
It’s always nerve-racking to talk to people and I almost always think it will be difficult. I am intimidated by some of my guests, sometimes because I’m a big fan and sometimes because they are just intimidating. When I talked with Judd Apatow, we talked about the feeling of dread we both deal with every day. It’s the feeling of being on guard against some kind of impending doom, waiting for a punch to come from out of nowhere, even though it never comes. That’s how it feels most of the time when I have these conversations. It’s like I’m cornered and my only chance at survival is to talk my way out of it.
I am not afraid to share and even overshare about myself in conversation. This isn’t something people being “interviewed” are necessarily prepared for. It throws them off. Now it’s not all about them, and they have to engage on a personal level. This isn’t a system I’ve devised or my method. It’s just who I am emotionally. I need to be heard and seen. I need to put myself out there to know I exist. That was really the whole intention of the podcast. There were no expectations. I just knew I had to keep putting myself out there or I would fade away.
I had no idea the conversations would be so life changing for me and I certainly didn’t anticipate them being that way for other people. I don’t think I even considered what listeners’ reactions would be. There was no way for me to anticipate the range of emotional reactions I’ve received. People from all over the world tell me the podcast helped them through a dark time, made them feel less alone, helped them get sober, helped them identify problems they had, helped them with the people in their lives, inspired them, moved them to tears, saved their lives. The effect of listening to an uninterrupted, long-form conversation with emotional ups and downs, depth and lightness, humor and sadness, is an essentially human experience. Hearing creative people talk about life’s struggles and their creative process not only humanizes them but also makes listeners realize that they are just people trying to do something with their lives and, like the listener, are confronted with every obstacle available in the process. Sharing how they move through those obstacles helps others.
In a way, WTF is one long, ongoing conversation with many participants, many voices. This book is a thorough representation of that continuing dialogue, with shared viewpoints, differences of opinion, and profound insights about common themes in our lives. To be honest, I don’t listen to my conversations after I have them. My producer does. So, reading these conversations, seeing them intertwined and complementing each other, was not simply like hearing them again. It was like being able to really feel what is being talked about and savor it. When people speak candidly and it is transcribed, the effect is visceral and immediate. When I read these pieces for the first time, it felt like I had never heard them before, and they moved me in a way I couldn’t experience in the moment when I was having the conversations. I hope they hit you the same way.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron
GROWING UP
“The Smaller Place It Came From”
I had my adventures and misadventures growing up, but it’s the varying mixture of what I did or didn’t get from my parents that really leaves a mark. The relationship we have with our parents explains how we engage with the world and other people.
Sometimes bad experiences can lead us to a place of self-realization or, at the very least, give us a great story. Sometimes our childhood experiences take a lifetime to process, if ever. These stories define us, they haunt us, but they also can liberate us.
I am positive I did not grow up properly. Does anyone, really? Something is definitely off. There are obviously many reasons for whatever emotional flaws I have as an adult, and I can trace most of them to my parents. I have grown into a place of gratitude rather than resentment toward them because it is essentially those flaws (and my struggle with them) that make me who I am. It is not really sympathetic or attractive to be actively mad at your parents after a certain age. You have to let it go at some point. It was fifty for me.