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

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This is Fresh Air, I'm David B. and Cooley.

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'n'Granmas, 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 LA 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 to Me, and next month he joins the cast of John Ham's Apple TV series, Your Friends and Neighbors.

His films include The Notebook, the 2007 version of Hairspray, and Disney's Enchanted.

He also played Cyclops in the X-Men film franchise.

We're going to listen to Marsden's interview with Fresh Air's 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 is James Marsden.

Dude, that's why I know you're from your next meeting.

Oh.

I've been f***ing thinking that this is a hard time.

I didn't ask your name, forgive me.

Ronald, Ronald, and James, glad you guys did it.

Yeah, I was trying to pinpoint it because I was f***ing seeing you somewhere.

Yeah, but I've been in like so much stuff.

It's like, next man, Hairspray, and Enchanted and Westworld and stuff like that.

The Notebook.

Oh, you're in Westworld?

Yeah, yeah.

I know him from the Notebook.

He's in the Notebook?

No, what is he in the Notebook?

The other guy.

He's the other guy?

The guy she really should have gone together.

Oh, my God.

I haven't seen that movie in so long.

I didn't even...

I didn't realize.

That was a look at his socks over here.

It looked like it's a Sonic.

And I'm in that movie Sonic.

It looks like does he have Sonic socks?

Is that shit? You're in the movie Sonic?

Yeah.

That's the one with the new one with Jim Carey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was not a good movie.

That's a scene from Jury Duty with Ronald Gladden and my guest, James Marsden.

James Marsden, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you, Sam.

I'm 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?

I 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 Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stipnitsky

at 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 the sort of improvisational element of the show

and the sort of live theater part of the whole thing.

So I'm a big Christopher Guest fan.

I loved the Larry Sanders show.

I love obviously Kirby Enthusiasm and everything Larry David does.

So 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,

and also apprehensive because I didn't know if it was going to work.

And yeah, I had many reservations.

And the biggest one was the wildcard 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 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 hero's journey for somebody.

And what we're surrounding him with are this cast of bizarre eccentric weirdos

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 pull the curtain back and celebrate him as a human being.

And hopefully he was all about, yeah.

A show that was all about.

And hopefully he takes that in stride and no, but 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 amplify them or did you come up with a completely different character?

Like what did you base that person on?

To me, it was just the idea of lampooning the cliché entitled self-absorbed egocentric Hollywood actor was really exciting to me.

And 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 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.

Let's talk a little bit about the hero of the show, the real person, Ronald Gladden.

Like so much relied on this guy.

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 walk, I think, to probably choosing that one.

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 in stride and laughed it off.

And 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, I 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 an intricate and I remember thinking just sweating bullets.

It's just like, I don't think I'm ready for this.

I don't know if I'm going to be funny.

I don't want to be the one to blow the whole thing.

But all they told us was his name's 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 would, no one knew if he would even recognize who I was.

Yeah.

Well, he doesn't quite as first, right?

No, he doesn't take some kind of comedy goals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a great part of that clip where he basically,

you say, yeah, I was in Sonic and he's like, oh, that's a bad movie.

Like, 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 and sort of, you know,

brush it off and remind him that I was in other stuff.

And 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 Noah,

there's an actor named Mecky.

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 on 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 that's why you should be let off.

And before Mecky 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 like, I don't know if I necessarily recommend doing this.

Sure.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

No, no.

He was saying it's sort of like laughing, like not.

Yeah.

Don't do that.

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 forehead here.

Yeah.

And use it, you know, and that's the strategy that he goes for.

Yeah.

But it was really amazing because, you know, as much as you can prepare for something like this,

there's 20, maybe 30% of it that is just like you just got to be nimble and go with the flow.

And if you, 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 Enchanted.

This is a Disney movie that spoofs the idea of Disney princesses and prince charming like tropes.

And you play Prince Edward, you and Jacelle, 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.

Jacelle, 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, but so 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 a Patrick Dempsey's apartment.

He has a daughter and this is one you see her for the first time.

Jacelle!

Edward!

Whoa!

Could you, I'm sorry. Could you just be careful?

You.

You're the one who's been holding my Jacelle captive.

Just a stick, huh?

No.

Have you any last words before I dispatch you?

You have got to be kidding me.

Strange words.

No!

No!

No.

These are my friends.

Oh.

This is Morgan and Robert.

This is Edward.

I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss.

He sings too.

And I miss I have begun to miss.

Pure and sweet waiting to complete my love song.

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

Who was maid?

Who was maid?

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, I name it my love and it is done.

I want to go on a date.

A date?

What's a date?

That's my cast, James Marsden.

It's so interesting just listening to the audio.

Yeah, that's great audio.

So you're doing like a sort of 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, they loved the sound of their own voice.

They loved the actors.

Yes.

It was very, you know, back in the day in the 40s

and whatever, they were just taught to do speech.

They had speech lessons and whatever.

And with the singing, I mean, I know that was an acapella bit,

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 Lonza.

You know, it wasn't because 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 statement is as simple or complex as it would be.

I thought he was ever saying anything much complex,

I mean, too complex, but it had to be a proclamation, right?

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 puffy sleeves

and swinging the sword and the hair is flopping around

and, you know, it's just a blast.

It really was so much fun.

You've had quite a few roles where you play

the past over romantic interest.

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 typecast, do you think?

I don't know.

I mean, for a while, it started getting more traction

that I had ever intended, right?

I mean, there were roles in between all of those big projects

where I wasn't playing the guy.

That doesn't get the girl or the temper, whatever, you know.

But it just so happens to be the ones that became big successes.

Where there's ones with the roles where, 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, this is not by design.

It just sort of happened that way.

We didn't know.

And Chandler was going to be just a massive hit.

The notebook became like, you know,

still to this day is incredible.

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, did 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.

I didn't, I didn't care what I was wearing.

I just, you know, would have my shirt on inside out

and mismatching socks.

And it just, you know, in Oklahoma's like,

the girls want to like,

jock, who's the quarterback of the football team

is six foot two, corn fed boy.

And I was like this 145 pound shrimp,

who just was like,

you know, I can do a good mic 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 I sort of 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 year of high school,

she was like,

what happened to you?

And I'm like, what do you mean?

She's like, 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 it can be an absolute asset in this business,

then embrace it.

Right.

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,

he's just like,

marquee good looks 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,

hey, this is a good thing.

It's going to snare me some good roles.

Right.

And then I'm going to show that there's, you know,

the more than meets the eye with my performance or with my take on it.

And I never wanted to be the guy who was just cast as

the good looking dude in a leather 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.

Marston starred in the original jury duty.

And he's now one of the producers of season two.

Jury Duty Company Retreat,

which premieres today on Prime Video.

Next, we remember blues singer, guitarist,

and captivating storyteller, Roy Bookbinder.

We listened back to our 1987 interview with him.

And Justin Chang reviews the new film, Project Hail Mary.

I'm David B. and Cooley.

And this is Fresh Air.

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Roy Bookbinder.

The rack on tour and acoustic musician,

known for playing Southern Blues and Hillbilly music,

died March 3rd at the age of 82.

Known as the Traveling Man, or the Book,

he picked up the guitar after a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy,

purchasing it in Italy.

Once in the U.S., he became part of the

Folk and Blues Revival in New York's Greenwich 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, Pink Anderson,

who had played for decades in medicine shows.

Bookbinder's debut album Traveling 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 U.S.

in Canada, and he also toured in Europe.

He shared the stages with Bonnie Raite,

BB King, Doc Watson, and more.

In the late 1980s, he made nearly 30 appearances

on Nashville Now, on cable TVs the Nashville Network.

He released more than a dozen albums overall.

Some on his own label, Pegleg 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.

And before we talk, can you get us started with a song?

Sure 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.

When I've been all around Kentucky,

then the state of old Tennessee.

Call me a dog when I'm gone.

Lord, Lord, 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 gambling man

from the state of old Tennessee.

He told me to bet all of my money

on a jack of that douche and a trade.

Old Piggy Roy.

See that dream?

It's come in,

carrying my baby away.

It's going all far to leave me.

Ain't 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.

Like dog blues.

Performed by my guest Roy Bookbunder.

You know, I think there are a couple of traps

that some white and northern performers have fallen into

when performing Southern-based music.

And I'm thinking, for instance, that some people seem to have

almost lost their own voice when they sing.

If 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 Dotton's first record came out.

I said, OK, 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 when I was 18

the first time I joined a Navy ran away to see

and moved to Virginia.

And I've been headed south ever since.

And I've been lucky to have been associated

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, Pink Anderson.

And he's someone that probably a lot of our listeners

aren't familiar with, tell us a little bit about him

and then I'll ask you to do a song by him.

Pink 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 Chief Sunderclouds Medicine Show

up until about 1959.

When I met him, he was retired, had a heart attack

and didn't tour at all.

And when I met Pink, he was not in great shape.

But me and my friend Paul Jeremiah started to visit him

and 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.

Pink Anderson's music, he was a carnival performer

and his songs were white, black, and blue.

You know 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 minstrel 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

as what a find.

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 songs.

It 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 chickens

and anything that he could see.

That pop-eyed man that said he runs so fast

that his feet never stayed in a row.

Well, the freight train passed

didn't matter how fast he'd always get on board.

He was a Traveling Man.

Certainly was a Traveling Man.

He was the most Traveling this man

that ever was in Atlanta.

Travel everywhere known for many miles around.

But he didn't get called

and he never got worked till a police shot him.

You know that the police shot that man with a rifle

and bullet went through his head.

People they were coming from miles around

just to see if that boy was dead.

They'd tell a grand down south where his mama lived

when she was all upset with tears.

She walked up and opened up the coffins

and lived without food.

I'd disappear and he was a Traveling Man.

Certainly was a Traveling Man.

He was the most Traveling this man

ever in Atlanta.

Travel everywhere known for many miles around.

He didn't get called

and he never got worked 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 at the rash school

I had to go was about two miles in a quartile.

He got there and got his water

and he started back, stumbled and fell down.

He ran back the house got himself

and he was a Traveling Man.

Certainly was a Traveling Man.

He was the most Traveling this man

ever in Atlanta.

Traveled everywhere known for many miles around.

He didn't get called

and he never got worked till a police shot him.

Now listen, this boy was out on a Titanic ship

the day it was sinking down.

He was standing out by the railing

had his head hung down.

When that boy jumped overboard

everybody said he was a fool

but about two minutes right after that

where he was shooting dice and liver pool.

He was a Traveling Man.

Certainly was a Traveling Man.

He was the most Traveling this man

ever in Atlanta.

Traveled everywhere known for many miles around.

But he didn't get called

and he never got worked till a police shot him down.

Old picket Roy.

Police called the Traveling Man

at last and they had him up to hang one day.

Did you remember all that man?

Just what did he have to say?

He begged the Traveling Man

that they were about their heads,

about their heads and prayers.

And then he crossed one leg

and he winked one eye

and it went up through the air.

It was a Traveling Man.

Traveling Man.

Did Pink Anderson teach you that one?

Well he didn't directly teach it to me

but I watched him play it.

He actually 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.

Oh, he went nuts.

When I went down there,

I was sitting on his front porch.

That's a long story.

I don't have time to tell you 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 down and 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.

This is a dead end street

and you're carrying clothes.

He said, you've been to college.

I thought I was pretty smart.

I told him I've been looking for him for 36 hours.

He asked me if I owed him money.

I said, no sir, I owe you money.

He says, you do how much?

I said $50.

He says, give it to me.

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, was it a hit?

I said, you 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 says, you know the most songs of mine?

You can almost play right.

I said, yeah, he says, well, I'm giving him to you.

They're yours now.

You just tell people, pink enters and born

and getting ready to die.

And Spartanburg South Carolina used to pick a get-torn thing.

Roy Bookbinder in the Fresh Air Studios in 1987.

More after a break, this is Fresh Air.

This message comes from Babel.

Babel's conversation-based language technique

teaches you useful words and phrases

to get you speaking quickly about the things

you actually talk about in the real world,

with lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts

and voiced by real native speakers.

Start speaking with Babel today.

Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now

at Babel.com slash NPR.

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Let's talk a little bit about Reverend Gary Davis,

who you also met.

And I think this was before he had become rediscovered.

He had already been rediscovered.

Oh, he was, I'm famous for not met him.

He already was living in a little house in Jamaica, Queens.

What's some of the strumming or finger picking style

that you learned from him?

Well, Reverend Davis, he had a number of styles.

He had a simple style like he did candy man

and he did the cocaine blues.

And he did deal ya.

And then he get a little more complex in his blues

like the hesitation blues.

Nickel is nickel and a dime is a dime.

I was full of children in one of mine.

He was one of his other styles

and he 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 was 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.

And I wonder if that was any worse for Gary Davis

since he was blind and it would have been that much easier

for people to take advantage of.

Well, 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 somewhere near Chicago

and Reverend Davis was getting ready to go to bed.

He says, now Roy, you got to understand.

He said, we're in 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 mind me?

And I said, how do you know that?

He said, well, they're doing all 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 his pocket and pulled out a knife

about 12 inches long, about out of heart attack.

He says, you take your knife and you put it under your pillow.

He said, then you get your pocketbook.

And he reached down his long jaws

and pulled out his little leather purse.

He kept all his money in.

And he always traveled with some money.

He says, you put that inside your pillowcase.

He says, somebody comes for your pocketbook.

You know where your knife is.

You go to sleep with your hand on your knife

and he goes to sleep.

Next morning, about 530 in the morning,

Reverend Davis was screaming, good God,

the mighty Lord half mercy.

That could mean anything.

I said, Reverend Davis, what's the matter?

I mean, I was in Dreamland,

get woken up like that.

I mean, he was in his 70s, the old blind man,

and he was hysterical.

I said, what's the matter?

He says, they don't got my pocketbook.

I said, oh, Lord, have mercy.

And we're crawling around the room.

And he's screaming, who got his pocketbook?

Had somebody get in this room?

He knew that door wasn't good.

And didn't you hear nobody?

My heart was beating a mile a minute.

I'm searching all over this room.

Finally, I found his pocketbook under the bed.

I said, Reverend Davis, he says, what, Roy?

That's what he always called me.

I said, I found your pocketbook.

All the money's in there.

Don't worry.

He said, good God, the mighty way it was my pocketbook.

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 were tired.

And I think you put your pocketbook

underneath your pillowcase and your knife

inside your pillowcase, and you got it mixed up

and your pocketbook fell behind your pillow

onto the floor.

Oh, he had a fit.

Give me that pocketbook.

Where's my knife?

Put all this stuff away.

Can you play us a song that you learned

from Reverend Gary Davis?

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 someday.

And I loved that song.

I always wanted to learn how to play it.

I finally figured out the basics of it.

It 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.

He had sung it, went on for 15 minutes.

And we came out with this.

It's called, I'm going home someday.

If my road is rocky,

and my journey's rough,

if I stumble in,

now I fall,

will I pick myself up,

keep marching forward,

and I'll drive these blues away.

I've been a gambling man,

I've been a cheat,

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 someday.

Chemptation cast aside,

won't take no devil ride,

I'm going home someday.

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 storm.

I'm going home,

I'm going home,

I'm going home someday.

Chemptations cast aside,

won't take no devil ride,

I'm going home someday.

Going to see my mother,

going to see my father,

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.

Chemptation cast aside,

won't take no devil ride,

I'm going home someday.

Great song.

Thank you.

Roy Bookbinder 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.

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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 Weir, 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 pleaser 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,

a wakens 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 Ava 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 Erid

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 translation software.

In this scene, Rocky,

that's the gifted puppeteer James Ortiz

doing the voice and movements,

encases 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're coming up.

Far and muddy. Detected.

Grace and Rocky, big science.

How to kill astrophages together.

I keep going this way.

This room is boring.

Science, paper, paper.

It's a very good slam.

What does that sound here, question?

Amazing, amazing.

Rocky wanted to be human technology.

You're a man.

Well, I wasn't expecting company.

Was I?

Like the Martian,

Project Hail Mary was adapted

by the screenwriter Drew Goddard

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.

But Project Hail Mary was directed

by the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller,

who specialize 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 spiderverse 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 preordained,

that the larger stakes pretty much evaporate.

It's as if the filmmakers had cooked up

an 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's 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 Cooley.

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