Remembering Tim Curry

0:00This message comes from the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation. All U.S. citizens abroad may request an absentee ballot to vote in the 2026 election. Visit registerabroad.com to get started. This is Fresh Air. I'm David Beane Cooley. Tim Curry, the British actor who starred in the original stage and movie versions of the Rocky Horror Show in the 1970s, died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. In Rocky Horror, Curry played flamboyant extraterrestrial mad scientist Frank N. Ferder, who believed in sexual freedom and fluid sexual identities. The film, the Rocky Horror Picture Show based on the hit London Stage musical, became a cult hit. And in midnight movie showings, Tim Curry's aggressively outrageous starring role found a loyal new audience. 50 years later, the Rocky Horror Picture Show still figures

1:05in some local midnight screenings around the country. And a revival of the original stage musical continues its Broadway run through February. And though it was Tim Curry's most famous role, it was by no means his only one. He also played Pennywise in the original ABC mini-series version of Stephen King's It, an uptight professor in the TV series Kinsey, co-starred in the movie's Annie, Clue, and the Shout, joined the Muppets as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, and played King Arthur in the original Broadway production of Money Python's Spamalot. And he recorded several rock albums in the 1970s and scored one hit in England with I Do The Rock, a song that was very much of its time. And its time was 1979.

2:17In addition to singing, Tim Curry also went into the recording studio as an actor, providing voices for such animated features as the Rugrats movie and the Wild Thornberries. After he suffered a serious stroke in 2012, which confined him to a wheelchair, Curry relied on voice acting for the bulk of his roles, the remainder of his career. Terry Gross spoke to Tim Curry in 2005 when he was about to star in the Broadway musical Money Python's Spamalot, playing King Arthur. The show was directed by Mike Nichols. Here's a song from the cast recording. This is a self-help spoof called Find Your Grail. Find Your Grail.

3:19Life is really up to you, you must choose what to pursue. Set your mind on what to find. There's nothing you can do. You can do. How did you get the part of King Arthur in Spamalot? Sort of sideways, really, I guess. I've known Eric Idol a long time, one of the original pythons and he now lives in Los Angeles as do I. We see each other quite a bit. In fact, the summer before last, we were hoping to do a film together, which he had written and was going to direct, which was a kind of demolition of every

4:20Miramax movie ever made called The Remains of the Piano. That never quite happened because the money. It's a good title. I was going to play The Reverend Woopsie. Robin Williams was going to play Vanessa Reggrave in Howe's and I loved his lines, and stuff like, you, I haven't met you before, you shall have the tea cup when I go. No, no, you shall have the grand piano. No, no, you shall have the house. So that never happened, but he said, I think it looks like we are finally going to get to do the musical version of Montipiton and the Holy Grail. We're going to call it Spamalot. First of all, I thought that was just terribly funny. I also thought, oh, well, you know, I'll believe it when it happens. Then suddenly Mike Nichols was directing it and they put David

5:25Hyde Pierce and Hankers area and I and a couple of other people on a plane from California and we came into New York and we sat down and read it with a bunch of other people from New York, some of whom are in the play. It just went like gangbusters. I guess the next day I was going to be King Arthur. So Spamalot incorporates some classic Monty Python bits in it that I assume a lot of people in the audience probably know by heart. What kind of response do you get when you get to the classic parts? It's quite interesting because the audience always sort of contains some core of Montipiton fans who see stuff coming, you know, and react with great whoops of joy and then settle down to see it unfold. I mean, they're hugely welcoming and then they really want to see it happen.

6:31I mean, happily, they're not talking along with it because that would, you know, that would need a spanking. But they love it and they see it coming and they are thrilled to see characters and sketches that they recognize. You knew the mighty Python material and the audience knows a lot of the mighty Python material, but do you know a lot of the early Nichols in May? I do. I do. I was always a fan and so it was sort of very interesting for me to work with him and he has a first of all, every note that you ever get from Mike is preceded by that was wonderful. That was wonderful, one small thing. So you're given this enormous sort of sense of entitlement and then something tiny and completely accurate is lodged

7:38like a little sort of Navajo arrow in your brain. And what his great note, I think, because I was playing it pretty broadly at the beginning because so much of it is like something that we in England called pantomime and sort of is part of Vortavill, really. And his first note and recurring note to me is, yes, that's great. It's very funny. Now, let's make it true. And I think that is great gift to this material is that he's given it a great big sort of beating Arthurian heart. And that's an extra dimension that you just sort of don't expect. And of course also makes it so much more interesting to play.

8:40Let's get back to Terry's 2005 interview with Tim Curry, the star of the Rocky Horror picture show at age 80. In Rocky Horror, he played Frank and Furter, a mad scientist from another planet, self-described as a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania. In this scene, he welcomes to his remote castle a stranded couple seeking help. They're played in this 1975 film by future stars Barry Bostwick as Brad and Susan Sarandon as Janet. Brad and Janet have entered the castle soaking wet and Frank and Furter's assistants have stripped them down to their underclothes, as Frank looks them over wickedly.

9:43Wice. Wice? Oh, shall we? Well, nice. And what charming underclothes you both have. But here, put these on. They'll make you feel less subordinate. Vulnerable? It's not often we receive visitors here. Let a learn of them horse battalion. Hospitality. All we wanted to do was to use your telephone, damn it, a reasonable request, which you've chosen to ignore. I don't know, grateful. I'm grateful. Come on, forcefully, well, you are Brad. Such a perfect specimen of manhood. So, dominant. You know, like so many other of your fans, I first saw you in the Rocky Horror picture show in the 70s. And when you see somebody in a movie for the first time, it's sometimes hard to tell how good they are. You don't know, is this all they can do? Do they do other things too?

10:44Is this what they're really like? Or how much are they acting? And so, I saw you, I guess it's probably like the late 80s in Wice Guy, the TV series. And you played a kind of Phil Spector-ish, brilliant but crazy record producer. That's right. And a great, really terrific performance. And that's, I think this one I really got the picture. Wow, he's really good at doing all kinds of things. That's so nice. I mean, it's sort of important for me because, you know, that first performance that sort of introduced me to everybody was so out there. And so. I'll say, yeah. So kind of outrageous that, you know, I was a very quiet boy for a while, you know, just to to make sure that people got it, that, you know, that wasn't necessarily who I was. Was that because of my first movie, you know? That was your first movie.

11:45Yeah. How did you get the part? I got the part because I used to work a great deal at a theatre in London called The Royal Court. And I guess they have a little theatre upstairs with seats about 60 people and I did breakfast there and I did a sort of, uh, Roger Kippling show there and, uh, and I guess the next show that I did a dreadful musical, a Marxist musical called Give the Gaffer's Time to Love You with a director who kept saying, Barry, the second act just simply isn't Marxist enough. And that, of course, never even opened to the critics, but the next show coming in with this other musical called The Rocky Horror Show. And, um, and originally I played Frankenford as oh, he was German. He was Dr. Frankenfuittor and everything was very interesting. And so stupid. Um, and then one day I heard a woman on a bus saying, do you have a high synth

12:49time or a high synth in the country? And I thought, yes, she should sound like the queen. So, he should sound like the greed. So, um, but that's how it happened. And it just started in this tiny theatre, you know, and it just took off like a sort of rocket. Did you like the kind of cheap horror films that it, in part, parodied? Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it, Richard's brilliance really was just, you know, it was, it was really like reaching up a hand into the zeitgeist and just grabbing, you know, horror, 50s horror movies, um, Soundra D, um, comic books and 50s rock and roll and just hurling them all together. Um, with the, you know, some fishnet tights thrown in. And the fishnet tights really, you know, came from a brilliant

13:52costume designer called Sue Blaine, who I'd worked with before actually, um, in a wonderful theatre in Scotland called the Glasgow Citizen Theatre, where we did a production of the maids, where I wore exactly that corset with the Jean Jean A-Play. Yeah, the Jean Jean A-Play, I played so long and, um, we, we bought the corset for three pounds off of Barrow in the market and Glasgow and wore it back to front. That's funny. You'd be wearing it in, for like this transgressive playwright, Jean A, and then, uh, apparently, everything would be right to her. Absolutely. Well, there's probably nothing that can get you into character quickly, like Black Bikini Briefs, Fishnet Stockings, the Guard of Belt, the corset, the whole thing. Well, absolutely. And, and that was a fairly late development. I mean, I had no idea it was going to be like that. You didn't when you were set to the park? No, no, no, no. I thought I'd be in a white lab coach, you know. So how did, um, there's a bit of a shock. How did all of often? Well, it evolved because it was much funnier that way. And I mean, the great, I thought the great gag about, um, the way that we

14:58all looked was, and I, and I've always said this to anybody who's ever asked me about playing Frank and Fertre, if they were playing it, you know, to just never think about it as drag, because it's not. It's just what people wear in Transylvania. It's just what everybody wears in Transylvania. Is it just get over it, you know? It's truck driver drag. It's not, it's not about some going boop boop adoob. It's just what they happen to wear. I think the thing I found most amazing about the whole phenomenon of Rocky Horror was watching like the 12-year-olds outside the theater, parading around in their transvestite clothes, because they were all, it was like all these 12-year-olds outside the theater, imitating you in, in your get-up, and, and you had it just kind of ask yourself, what, what is going on here? What do the 12-year-olds make of it? I mean, are they going through some kind of gender thing or do they just love the movie? What is this about? I think it's all of the above, actually. I mean, I think first of all, they love the movie because it's daring to pretty much everybody. It was daring at the time,

16:01less daring now. To them, it's daring, and it's also, I think, you know, there are several reasons of why it's endured the way that it has. It's a kind of writer passage, now, I think, and, and actually, first of all, it's a guaranteed weekend party to which you can go with or without a date and probably find one if you don't have one. And it's also, I think, a chance for people to try on a few roles for size, you know, figure out, help them maybe figure out their ansexuality. I mean, I think that's probably taking it a little deeper than it needs to go, but I think it has had a useful purpose in that way, and I've certainly had some very interesting and moving mail from people who have said, you know, thanks for helping me figure out who I was, you know, and that's very nice. Did you ever go to one of like the midnight screenings back in the 70s and watch the movie with the people who were reciting along and when they would

17:07make a toast on screen, people would like throw toast, you know, at the screen, and, you know, the whole the whole better became an incredibly participatory experience for the people who came to see it time and time again. I did go. I went a couple of times. Oddly enough, it started happening at the Waverley Theatre on 6th Avenue in the village, and ironically, I was living a block behind it on Gern Street. Oh, you're kidding. So I would see on my way home, or all these people, and, you know, I got to know about it rather quickly because I was a neighbor. Well, and finally, I went to see it, and in fact, I had to sort of call the theatre because, you know, you could never get in, and I said, you know, I'm in it, and I'd really love to come and see it and get it an eyeful. And the operator said, you're the third ten-carried a cow this week. So finally, I showed up, and they

18:11sort of believed me and took me in, and the words spread rather swiftly, and people were sort of coming up and touching me and running away and giggling, and it was a very, very peculiar experience. And then finally, the Asherette, I don't know what you call them, really. That's what they called them in England, came and sort of dragged me out of my seat in an answer that I was an imposter and threw me out of the theatre, which is funny, really. Did you protest? I actually had my passport on me, and I pulled it out, and I said, still think I'm an imposter, and she said, almost occurring, I'm so sorry, please come back in, and I said, I wouldn't dream of coming back in. And I saw it once on the strip in LA, because I was doing a gig there with my band when I was making records, and I took them up to the balcony to see it, and remember my drummer coming out and saying, we don't have to dress up like that, do we? And I said, you're really down to me, I

19:17shan't be either. But it was odd, I mean, it's a very peculiar experience. I mean, the first person to actually shout back in the theatre was David Bowie's first wife Angie. I remember when Bowie came, and he brought this huge on Gerardian, and she was with him, and when Richard O'Brien was about to kill me, she shouted, no, no, don't do it. And so I guess she was one of the first people to sort of do that. And Mark Shaman, who's sort of a famous composer now, was one of the first to actually talk back in the wavily. I think he began it here in New York, and of course it's everywhere. Tim Curry, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005, the actor died Tuesday at age 80. More of their conversation after a break, and will also revisit an interview with actress Ray Seahorn, who's nominated for an Emmy for her starring role in the TV series, Pluribus. I'm David

20:17Beane Kooley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin. In this podcast, the today's show anchor talks with A-Listers and athletes about the moments that shaped them. Listen, and you might get a fresh perspective. Search Glass Half Full wherever you get your podcasts. As the political landscape shifts beneath our feet, we're all vulnerable to a well-funded distraction economy determined to take our eye off the ball. Our weekly politics series, if you can keep it, is here to help, where our focus is not the force race, but the state. We tackle the big political stories of the day and why they matter for our democracy. Join me, Todd Zwilland, and me Jen White on the 1A podcast from WAMU and NPR. Psssss. Hey, you know that nagging voice in your head? The one telling you to put the phone down and stop Doom's growing? Well, it's time. Look up. Take a daily curiosity break with Shorewave, NPR's Science podcast. Let your mind wander to the edges of outer space, or wonder about what's lurking in the depths of the sea floor, all in under 15 minutes. Shirtwave, your daily mental

21:19recent. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss our full conversation in the rest of our games. Listen to the weight weight. Don't tell me podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David B. Inkouli. Tim Curry, star of the Rocky Horror picture show, died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. We're remembering him by listening back to a conversation Terry had with him in 2005. Your father was a chaplain in the British Navy. What did your parents think of your role in Rocky Horror? Well, he elast was dead because he died when I was 12. So he wasn't even aware that I was an actor even. I think my mother,

22:21my mother who is really one of those sort of Monty Python ladies. I can't imagine what's going on. Who will always have a hash? Since my first job in the 30 was hair and you know. And you were probably naked in that, right? And I did appear naked in it. I think it was a relief to her that I actually was wearing clothes of any kind. At least you were covered by a corset and garters. She was happily unaware that part of the character, particularly Franken Fertreux, who's most gracious, was based on her. Well, it was sort of her telephone voice. Do you have any tattoos, Brad? My sister, when she saw it, fell on the floor and said, does she know? And I said, no, she has absolutely no idea. And please don't tell her. She thought it was very, very amusing and brought all her friends. So she was pretty hip lady,

23:24my mother. And she got it. I mean, you know, astonishingly. She loved it. She didn't like it as much as the Pirates of Penn's Dance, which I did in Drury Lane, because the Queen Mother came to that. And that was the total seal of approval of my career. And I would bet that she'd not the Queen Mother did not go to hair or Rocky Horror. I don't think she went to either. Although Princess Margaret did come to Rocky Horror and had a wonderful time. Really? And so did Princess and Princess Diana actually requested to meet me because she was such a Rocky Horror fan. So did you ever meet Princess Diana? I did actually meet Princess Diana. I was doing a production of Love for Love. And it was taken to Vienna for British Week and we played at the Berktae Artor. And Prince Charles and Princess Diana were the guests of honor. And which was when she said that she very much wanted to meet me and said they sort of put me at the end

24:27of the receiving line. And Prince Charles said, I think I've seen your intuition. Haven't I seen your television? I said, yes sir. I'm sure you've seen me on television. Yes, I think I thought I'd seen your television. But Diana said, you were in the Rocky Horror show. And I said, yes, man I wasn't. I was, but I'm sure that you haven't seen it. She said, oh yes. It quite completed my education. She was a very funny girl. And a very beautiful one. And sort of a very wicked smile came with that sentence. She was, she was great fun. And the world is poorer without her. You've done a lot of animated films and television series. How did that become such a central part of your work? Well, the animation thing happened kind of by accident. A very nice man called Gordon

25:31Hunt, who's the father of Helen Hunt, the actress. And a wonderful director. It was directing animated cartoons at Hanabar Barbarra. And they were doing a series of Bible stories and he wanted me to play the snake. So I played the snake and had a lot of fun. And I said, look, you know, when the torso of her, I'm actually going to move to LA. And I'd love to do some more of this. And will you, you know, at least audition me for things when you have them. And he did. He was very faithful. And he would just say, you know, come in and read. And I'd come in and read. And I started doing a lot of animation and loving it. And the great thing about it, I mean, apart from just the fun of it, is that, you know, if you're in Los Angeles waiting for movies, it can get very dull. And you can just, you know, show up to an animation studio and you don't have to look good, you don't have to shave or anything. And, you know, and you get to play all these people that you'd never ever get

26:31to play in real life. So what are some of the voices you've done for these animations? Oh, all sorts of things. I did, I did Captain Hook for Peter Pan and the Pirates. I did Nigel Thornberry for the Wild Thornberrys. Nigel Thornberry is sort of an eccentric English explorer. I do do Professor Kalamitas in the, uh, a show called Jimmy Neutron, who's a terrible ripoff of Truman Capote basically. He's very, he's very tiny. You grew up in England. Your father was a a chaplain in the Navy. Were you religious when you were growing up? Not. Rather not. As, as preachers kids, tan not to be, you know. I mean, my father was pretty chill about all of that. I mean, he wasn't, um, Methodism in, in England is a lot more relaxed than it is in

27:36the States. It's not as forbidding or as, um, uh, chilly. Um, and he was a very liberal and very funny man. Um, but, you know, I did, I did Willie Nilly show up, you know, to Sunday school, morning and afternoon and went to hear him preach when, when he was on shore because he was quite often at sea. And I spent my childhood in sort of various sort of naval bases until he, he died when I was quite young and I was 12. And we moved to South London and I went to boarding school. Did you, did you have to go to church and did you sing a lot in church? Well, that was the great bonus, um, because the Methodist church has, uh, a remarkable, um, body of hymns, um, largely, a great number of them by Charles Wesley. Um, and so I sang in church,

28:39from about, I didn't know, six or seven. And I was, um, I was, you know, I was a real voice soprano for, you know, until, until my voice changed. Um, it changed a lot, didn't it? It did change quite a, quite a whole lot. I was very lucky because there was, I had a great music teacher who sent away to Westminster Coral School for exercises when my voice started breakings because, you know, so often people with wonderful voice soprano voices end up with no mature singing voices at all. Um, and I managed to make that transition happily. And it's funny when I was doing, I don't know whether this is interesting. When we were doing parrots of pensions and I had my first singing lessons really. Um, the lady who was doing them said, you know, we must work on your falsetto and get your range up. And I said, I don't have a falsetto. And she said it nonsense. Everyone has a falsetto. And I said, no, I really don't. And,

29:39and she made me find one. And she suddenly had this revelation one day and she said, well, you were a voice soprano. And I said, yes, I, I, I was. And she said, hmm, you're in mourning for that sound, aren't you? And, and I realized that I was. I mean, it is of great sadness not to be able to make that extraordinary pure sound that you do make as a voice soprano. That's actually really interesting. Yeah. It is. It's fascinating, isn't it? I think I just, you know, cut off that alley. But you kept singing, didn't you? I kept singing, yes, absolutely. So did you go to like the loud graph rock band kind of singing afterwards? Well, no, actually, I mean, you know, at 17 or 18, I was singing leader and, you know, I was singing sort of classical music, really. But then I guess, you know, the Beatles happened and it was all over. So, so, so, what that and Malboro, you know, more borrower. It's funny because I actually, yes, I actually quit smoking a year ago and it was fascinating. It was within three weeks. My voice went back up

30:47at 10 and a half and, and I remembered and I heard the voice that I remembered myself singing in when I was 19 or 20. And it's very odd. And it's a great warning to anyone to stay away from the demon tobacco, stupid drug that it is. Did you always know that you had that ability to mimic? Yes. I think you know, you have it or you don't. Hank, who, as there is in this, in the show, is an absolutely dazzling mimic and do anybody. You sort of have any error or you don't, I think. And I think, you know, a lot of it has to do with amusing other children when you're young and, you know, getting out of being hit. Right. Was that effective for you? I think it's effective for old childhood comedians. I think it's, you know, the root of a great deal of comedy. Tim Curry, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. The star of the Rocky Horror picture show

31:54died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. After a break, the Emmy Awards are coming up next month. We'll revisit an interview with Ray Seahorn, who is nominated for her starring role in the new Vince Gilligan series, Pluribus. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin. In this podcast, the today's show anchor talks with A-Listers and athletes about the moments that shaped them. Listen, and you might get a fresh perspective. Search Glass Half Full wherever you get your podcasts. You count on sunscreen to protect your skin, but that SPF rating on the bottle might not be exactly as advertised. So you could measure an SPF 50 at one lab and an SPF 30 at another. On the Sunday story, is it time to update sunscreen guidance? Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast on the MPR app. History is intriguing, but unlike the present, it can feel far off. On NPR's through line, we bring it back to life and put you in the middle of it.

33:03Go inside the stories from then that shape the world we live in now. Find NPR's through line wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. The Emmy Awards are next month, and among the nominees is Ray Seahorn. The former co-star of Better Call Saul is nominated for her starring role in Puribus, the new Apple TV series created by Vince Gilligan. Gilligan also co-created Better Call Saul and wrote Puribus with Seahorn in mind. It's a wonderful series and she's wonderful in the central role. In the powerful premiere episode, she was on screen almost the entire time, carrying much of the drama without dialogue. Puribus is a thrill ride that's the most fun if you don't know where it's going. But if you've seen it and want to know more, Terry Gross spoke with Ray Seahorn last year about the series. She plays Carol, a writer of fantasy romance novels who's returning from a book reading event. She's accompanied by her manager and life partner,

34:07Helen, and they stop at a local bar. Everything seems normal, but suddenly, everyone at and outside the bar, including Helen, has a sudden seizure. Only Carol is unaffected, as some people drop and die while others become calm and happy and speak to Carol in unison. Panicked, Carol finds her way home and turns on the TV for an explanation. The only channel that still works is Seaspan, where a man standing behind the White House podium, not the president because he's dead, explains that a medical advance of extraterrestrial origin has connected most people on earth through a sort of psychic glue. That's creepy enough, but what's even creepier is that the man on TV is addressing Carol directly and telling her that her immunity may be only a temporary condition. Rest assured, Carol. We will figure out what makes you different. Figure it out, why?

35:07So we can fix it. So you can join us. Carol, you're still there? You said my life was my own. It is. 100%. So what happens when I say no? Carol, once you understand how wonderful this is, Carol. I love this series. I love you on Better Call Saul. It's really such a pleasure to have you on the show. Oh my gosh, thank you. It is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you. The premise of this series is sci-fi, but the show itself is asking so many questions about human nature like what is happiness? Is it happiness if there's no longer a larger meaning to your life?

36:12Is being an individual with your own temperament and thoughts is that more valuable than this happiness? And as anger lethal, there's a good to let out your anger and resist what you think is wrong. Maybe we'll find out some answers to those questions and many other questions later. I just want people to know there's some really interesting thoughts in this. Thank you. Did you find yourself asking what is happiness as you made the series? Yeah, I definitely was asking myself a lot of those questions throughout this series. We had amazing conversations among the crew and the cast, some of these late-night shoots and even on weekends, stuff of like, well, would you choose what's best for the individual versus what's best for the community as a whole? I personally think I would absolutely be team-carryl as far as

37:19arguing the necessity and the positives of individual thinking and independent thinking. For one thing, a big thing that came up for me was the fact that this group think no matter how intelligent and how peaceful one of the ideas of happiness and joy, which maybe is slightly different, is being surprised by things, whether it's wonder growing up as a kid and hopefully still as an adult or a giant belly laugh. And if you cannot be surprised, there's never going to be any new art, there's never going to be a joke that you haven't heard, there's never going to be surprise behavior that makes you laugh. And that's just such a source of joy for me that I just can't imagine that contentment is the same as happiness. So the character in Polarbus was originally written for a man by Vince Gilligan and then he decided

38:20to rewrite it for you. How did that happen? I don't believe there were scripts with the male character and then he went back and re-wrote. I think he said he was ideas will pop in his head, sometimes questions without answers and one of them was what would happen if you woke up in the whole world was obsequious. The whole world was willing to do whatever you wanted to him to give you anything you want. And it was a male character and he has said that it's just because that second nature to him that he is a man and he has written male protagonists. And then I don't know the exact like shift that happened or where, but I didn't know about it until after we had wrapped all the better Call Saul, but he said it was during I think towards the end of season one of Better Call Saul that he was just watching me work and had talked me a lot about the way I work as well as watching me perform and decided that I'm stuttering because it's

39:27hard to say this because I'm I'm floored by the compliment and the flattery to put it mildly and and struggle saying it about myself, but he said that he um he realized like I have to write something for her. I have to I need to make sure that I do a project with her and actually wouldn't these concepts that I'm noodling with wouldn't they work even better if they were her and he knew that he also wanted to play with tone and take wild swings as far as like it could be darkly comedic or it could be darkly psychological sometimes it's gonna you know go between back and forth and he was impressed at my ability to do those things so hard for me to say about myself. That can be the title of this episode. Renee C. Horn Bragg is a better title. Yeah I don't know I listen I've had to sit next to him and interviews when he's saying it and I'm

40:28just I'm just my face is one giant tomato red ball when he's saying it but um but I'm certainly very thankful for it. Rae C. Horn speaking to Terry Gross in 2025. More after a break this is Fresh Air. This message comes from Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin. In this podcast the today's show anchor talks with A-Listers and athletes about the moments that shaped them. Listen and you might get a fresh perspective. Search Glass Half Full wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Newsmakers after more than a decade in comedy I wasn't sure that we would get here. Robbie Hoffman is fearless. I had a small feeling I wasn't sure and fully herself. My line Lord. Hello. You can go out and flash. Well I'm not home now I'm doing something. We plunge into comedy and success with Robbie Hoffman on NPR's Newsmakers. billionaire Mark Cuban has stared into the belly of the beast of America's health care system. I mean it's so bad you can go through a long list of really quality hospitals and they don't

41:33know their costs. So can Medicare for all be a solution? We take a hard look at the cost of the program along with US health care itself. Find this and hear more stories from the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to Terry's 2025 interview with Ray Seahorn, star of the Vince Gilligan TV series Pluribus. At this point they were discussing Better Call Saul, the series co-written by Gilligan and co-starring Ray Seahorn. Here's Terry introducing a clip from Better Call Saul. In Better Call Saul Seahorn played Kim Wexler, a lawyer who marries Jimmy McGill, an unethical lawyer who gets involved with a Mexican cartel, played by Bob the series lasted six seasons and while shooting an episode in that final season, Bob Odin Kirk suffered a heart attack and collapsed on set. He had just completed shooting an intense scene with Seahorn that were about to hear an excerpt of. It's the scene in which Lalo, a cartel member,

42:36had just killed a colleague of Jimmy and Kim's Howard Hamlin, played by Patrick Fabian, and the murder was in Jimmy and Kim's apartment right in front of their eyes. They're frozen in fear as Lalo then instructs Jimmy to go to the home of drugs our Gus Fring and kill him while Kim waits behind with Lalo. Jimmy insists that Kim be the one to go because he thinks it might be even more dangerous for Kim to stay with Lalo. Here's the scene, Tony Dalton as Lalo speaks first. I know, I know. You're a lawyer and not a killer but look you can do this, okay? This guy he's a house cat. Black, medium-high, short hair, glasses. He kind of looks like a librarian but don't be fooled even a house cat can scratch. So that's it. Heart parts over. Now you put out the camera. Same principle as the gun. Point and shoot. Take a picture. One where I can see the face

43:37clearly and then you bring it back here where me and Mrs. Goodman will be waiting for you and then you're done. I'd say it's about a 20-minute drive over there, 20 minutes back, maybe 10 minutes to do the job. Let's call it an hour altogether. So you're back here in an hour or send her. What? She should tell it. Jimmy. Why her? This guy, the house cat. He looks through his people in the middle of the night and he sees me. Who's this ass? What's he doing? Maybe he gets his gun. Maybe he calls the cops. Either way that door stays shut. He sees a woman. She looks like she's in distress. Maybe her car broke down. I mean you'd open the door for her, wouldn't you? Stop. Stop. Yeah, but she's really clever. I don't know she's going to

44:41stick to the plan. She will. No, no, no, no. No cops. You know she will. No. Look, this doesn't even make any sense. I've never shot a gun before. I've never even held one. Like I have. Jimmy, what are you doing? You know she's the best choice. No, I'm not. I can't. I can't do it. She can do it. You know she can do it. No, I'm right. Just stop. Just stop it. Oh my god. Okay. Fine. Yeah. That was a scene from Better Call Saul right before the star Bob Odin Kirk had his heart attack. Were you on set with him when this happened? Yes. So Jimmy and I, Bob and I are now on being held captive on the couch. And we had been shooting the scene for maybe the about 10 hours and they tell actors when it's a big turnaround, meaning there's enough time to go to your trailer because this is a lot of equipment that's got to be moved. It's not a quick thing. But we didn't go to our trailers,

45:44which is another like thank God he didn't. If Bob had gone to his trailer and just passed out, which is what happened when this heart attack happened, he would have been dead by the time they knocked on the door. And that would be that. No one would have even known. He would have just passed out. So we went down to that end and Bob was watching a Cubs game and chatting with us. Also on his exercise bike, which he would do to stay just kind of alert instead of getting sleepy after hours and hours of shooting, which did not cause the heart attack. I have to say that his rebound from his heart attack was because he was in the best shape of his life from training for his film Nobody. But he and Patrick and I are just laughing and goofing off and then got off the bike and looked like he was going to faint. So we ran to catch him so his head wouldn't hit the concrete floor. And then we realized, oh, this is this looks like either seizure, a stroke or cardiac arrest, all of which we need medical attention. And so we started

46:49screaming for help. And it took a beat, a horrifying, terrifying beat. And eventually a septumatic was there, a different septumatic that had just started. Then Rosa Estrada came over and it turned out that they couldn't get his heart to start. And they needed a defibrillator and Rosa ran to her car and got it and they brought it back and they were able to revive him. And then the ambulance came. But yeah, Patrick and I were, we would not let go of him either. They just kept having to tell us like, yeah, can't be holding on to him while he's being electrocuted. But that was that was very hard to let go of your friend for a second in that moment. I'm glad you have such vivid memories of this because like when I interviewed Bob Odenker, he had no memory of it. He has none. He has none. And so when we went back to shoot, we had to finish that shoot months later. And Bob had no memory of the entire day, not just the event,

47:53but the entire day. And they showed him footage so that he would know where he was sitting. And I go, I said, remember now do you remember that day because we were shooting this whole day? And he's, he looks at me and laughing and he said, it is like I am watching an imposter in my body. Do a scene that I have never done in my entire life. I was like, what a strange feeling that must have been. Isn't that crazy? It's just like, yeah, he has no memory of it at all. We had to tell him multiple times after he woke up in the hospital. Ray C. Horn, star of pleuribus, speaking to Terry Gross in 2025. Pleuribus is nominated for 18 Emmys, including one for C. Horn as outstanding lead actress in a drama series. The Emmys are scheduled for September 14th. On Monday show, why do Americans spend so much time waiting on hold in waiting rooms, filling out paperwork? Journalist Annie Lowry calls it the time tax and she says the difficulty is off in

48:58the point. She talks about who designed the system, who profits when you give up, and what it would take to get our time back. Her new book is The Time Tax. Hope you can join us. Fresh air executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Julian Hertzfeld and Adam Stanishevsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldenado, Lauren Crenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thayah Chaliner, Susan Yacundi, Anna Balman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CB Nesper. Our social media video producer is Hillary Kissinger. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. and Koolie. This message comes from Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin. In this podcast, the today's show anchor talks with A-Listers and athletes about the moments

49:59that shaped them. Listen and you might get a fresh perspective. Search Glass Half Full wherever you get your podcasts. Looking for love? One New York event promises to find you your perfect match using Palantir, though not affiliated with the actual software company. I could lose everything, but it would all be worth it. At least two people here have a spark. So no pressure. The facts, myths, and dark jokes surrounding Palantir. Listen to Plenty of Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. For a lot of us, cooking can sometimes be a daily annoyance. But what happens when your life blows up and cooking becomes your only lifeline? On this week's It's been a minute, Carla Lally, Chef, presenter, and author of Food Is Feeling tells us about how writing and cooking got her through ending her decades-long marriage. Watch or listen to It's Been a Minute on the NPR app or YouTube.