Transcript of 'The Interview': Maggie Gyllenhaal on Envy, Rage and Reaching Out to Her Brother New

From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu García-Navarro. Maggie Gillen Hall has always had this fascination with the darker side of sex and love. Her breakout role as a young actor came with her award-winning performance in the 2002 film, Secretary, where she's a troubled woman who embarks on a sadomasochistic relationship with her boss. In Crazy Heart, she played a young mother who falls in love with an older, alcoholic country singer. That role earned her an Oscar nomination. And in the series The Deuce, she starred as a sex worker who becomes a director of pornographic films. That last role made her want to be a director in real life, too. And so in 2021, she won a claim with her feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, about the taboo feelings some women feel over motherhood. For me, the through line in all her work is a desire to tell the stories of women who live outside conventional boundaries. Enter her newest film, The Bride, an imaginative retelling of the story of the Bride of Frankenstein, starring Jessie Buckley, which Jelen Hall both wrote and directed. The film is part love story, part crime caper, with some surreal musical numbers thrown in.

But Jelen Hall's signature themes of sexual violence, female power, and transgression under heard it all. Here's my conversation with Maggie Jelen Hall. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you coming to the interview.

It really is my pleasure.

It's interesting to me because I interviewed you in 2019 for The Deuce. In that interview, you said to me, Playing that role where your character becomes a director of pornography, but a director nonetheless. It's like a real journey. You said that that had made you realize that you would also be a director. I was wondering, now sitting here with this big budget movie, where you're at in that evolution?

I mean, I feel like I'm deeply in process. That's how I feel. I feel like I knew I was going on a major journey starting The Bride, and I was scared. I was actually terrified. To be honest, I remember... I don't know. It's interesting that I'm sharing this, but I remember being at Venice with Peter.

Peter Sorsga is your husband.

My husband, who had a movie there. And feeling so scared about the prospect of directing the bride. We went to a lovely restaurant that we'd booked. We were so excited for it. We knew it. I remember feeling so anxious and getting up going to the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, Oh, I don't have to direct this. I can let someone else direct it. I've written it, I've cast it, I've conceived of it. Oh, I don't have to do this. And I came back to the table and I said to Peter, I don't know if I'm going to do it. I feel so relieved. And he was like, You don't have to do it. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't. But I feel having come out the other side and only really having finished it in October, it's February now, like I went on a trip, I learned so much. Now I'm on the trip of putting it out into the world.

Well, let's talk about The Bride because I think it's an incredible film. It tells the story of The Bride of Frankenstein's Monster. You have said that you were inspired by the 1930s movie, Original. This is almost a century later. Why are we still so interested in Monsters and Frankenstein? And what was it for you that seemed so enduring about that story.

Yeah. I mean, I think we have monstrous aspects inside of us, each of us, all of us. I do believe that. I think We can spend our lives running from those really truly monstrous aspects of ourselves, or we can turn around and shake hands with them. That's terrifying. That's the monstrousness I was curious about and interested in. Frankenstein as a piece of cultural mythology, I actually hadn't read the book. I'll tell you how it all came to me. I was getting pitched IP after The Lost Daughter. Maybe you want to do a- Marvel movie or whatever. Or something. I had made this little tiny movie, really left alone, almost entirely. It was cheap enough, and it was COVID, and they forgot about us. That's what I think when I look back on it. But it made an impact. I thought, I don't know how many more opportunities I'll have to make a film. I want to do something bigger. I also thought, The Lost Daughter hit a little vein where other people could relate to something that hadn't been talked about that much before. I thought, what if you could do the same thing, but on a pop level, on a big level?

What would happen? I thought, This was my question to myself. As I was thinking about this and thinking, Okay, I better think of something quick because who knows how long I'll be able to finance a movie, I saw this guy with a bride of Frankenstein tattoo on his arm, the Elsa Lancaster hairdo profile. I was like, Who is that again? I looked her up and I was like, Oh, yeah, her. Whoa, she's got some Like, wild energy, just the image. I hadn't seen the movie. I watched the movie and I was like, Oh, The Bride of Frankenstein is a Frankenstein movie. There's almost nothing to do with The Bride of Frankenstein.

She's like a prop.

She's in it for three minutes, less maybe, and she doesn't say one word. But somehow she has entered the cultural mythology, even though she doesn't get to speak. I don't know. My fantasy, it's just my fantasy, and I've been taken to task for this, is that I don't know if Mary Shelle got everything she wanted to say out with Frankenstein. I love the book. The book is brilliant, obviously. It's one of, what, five books published that were written by women in the 19th century? I know I'm exaggerating, but not easy to do. How did she have to censor herself in order to get that book published? That's my... This is a major question in the movie.

This is quite a violent film. It's visceral, it's bloody. I'm wondering what you were tapping into with that.

I have a lot to say about this, actually. I've been thinking about this. Yes, there's sexual violence, there's violence, violence. Because it's a big studio movie, we tested and tested it. We had big screenings in malls and stuff where people came to see it, which I had never been a part of as an actress or a director before. Oh, interesting. So fascinating.

I want to hear about that, but get to finish this.

No, I'm going to. But one of the things that was brought up was the violence. Is it too violent?

By the people going to see it? Yeah.

I was talking about it with a girlfriend of mine who said, she wasn't being reductive. She's just like, I'm just curious. I just wonder if you had been a man making this movie, if you would have had the same response. Just about straight violence.

Yeah, I'm thinking of a lot of directors off the top of my head whose signature is that violence, right?

I was asked to take some of it out, and I did. What you're seeing is even a little bit pulled back from what was originally in the movie. One of the things I think that was important to me is that everybody who is killed, is hurt, we, at least for a moment, get to know them. There's the stormtrooper version of killing people, where they have white masks on and you don't know who they are. Then there's the version, which was very important to me in this movie, every single death has a consequence and a cost. Every single one But the other thing I really want to talk about, I want to talk about the sexual violence because that's another thing that I have been taken to task for.

Taken to task by whom?

Again, just by reading the things in the test screenings. I'm interested in this. I really am. I'm really curious. I had a couple of women, because you know, you don't know who it is, of course, but you know it's a woman, you know what age they are, say, I don't want to see a woman being violated. I think I also don't want to see that. And yet that is a major reality in the culture that we're living in. And so if we're going to see it, which in this movie, we do need to see it, we need to see it in a way that is very hard to watch because it is very awful. And if you know anything about me, you know If you look to any of my work, so much of my work, even starting with Secretary when I was 22, all the way through, this is something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, doing myself, considering. I am sure that in the process of both writing, shooting, and cutting this movie, that I have been thoughtful and very considered about this particular subject. And yet it will be hard to watch.

And I think we can take it. I think we can.

You have just articulated something which I think is very true about your work. Which is this has been a persistent theme, and I guess I want to understand why.

Well, what part exactly?

Well, the idea of violence towards women. What is it that has drawn over and over again to that subject?

I mean, there is a piece of this. This is a piece of what the movie is about. I understand. But also, and I think with all of these movies, or say, think about The Deuce, sex worker turned director, but director of porn. But really, she's a woman with a mind. All of these movies, really, I think, are about women with a mind. Even think about secretary, which is a very complicated one, which we can get into if you want, but- I was going to. I don't know. To me, in some ways, the violence is beside the point.

It's not the violence, it's the rage.

Oh, it's the rage.

Yeah. Sorry. No. That's what I connect to.

That's interesting.

To me, it's not the violence, it's the rage against the violence.

That was so interesting. I was just talking about rage yesterday.

I love rage. So this is coming from someone who's very rageful.

Well, I was thinking about rage and thinking about this teacher I had who was just a major, major teacher to me. Her name was Penny Allen. She's dead. But she used to say, Rage is an umbrella emotion. And what she meant was, what's underneath it. And I think what's underneath it is usually very, very vulnerable. I don't know. There's so much to say about rage Because for women in so many ways, let's not skip rage. We have a right to it. But I am also really curious about what's underneath it. I do feel angry about all sorts of things and feel a lot of vulnerability underneath that and just need and a desire to be heard. I hope that the people in the test screening who said, I don't want to see this, and I know what they meant. I know they meant enough of this in a gratuitous way. None of us want to see it, but let's look at it together with thoughtfulness and care. Also, there's joy. There's real joy in this movie.

There was reporting around it being a difficult process at the end with Warner Brothers because of some of the things you talked about, the way it tested. Were there a lot of changes? Was it difficult to work through the big budget studio system to get to the other side of that?

Yeah, it was difficult, but not in a bad way. It was just very new for me, and I was very interested. I loved working with Pam Eptee, who runs Warner Brothers, along with Mike DeLuca. Both of them were there, but I think both of them would say, This is really me and Pam. I knew she understood me, and I knew she understood what I was saying. There would be times where she would be like, Maggie, you cannot have Frankenstein lick black vomit off of the bride's neck. It's just too much. You just can't do it. But she understood why I wanted it. It's not like she was someone who didn't hear me and couldn't understand me.

Do you think it can dilute, though, the vision of something? Because I've heard other creators talk about that process and also how many movies have been made about the Hollywood system that saps the creative vision till it becomes this palatable thing.

What I now am putting out into the world, I think the places where Pam really pushed me to let go of things, I To be honest, I really do think that they served the movie ultimately. My goal from the very beginning was to try to open a bigger vein, was to be telling feel the truth about something that could be heard by many people. I really think Pam helped me to do that. She never pretended she was doing anything else.

This The film was also a family affair, which I found really fun to watch. Obviously, your brother, Jake, is in the film. This is the first time you directed him. I'm wondering how that went, being the older sibling. How did that feel?

Well, Jake, I waited until I was absolutely sure that asking him to do this part in the movie. It's a pretty small part. It's just a little... It's just a cameo, really. But asking him- It's a fun part. Yeah.

He dances, he sings, he's a matiné idol.

I made sure I really did some work and thinking to make sure that it was the right thing to do to ask him. Then when I knew that it was, because I did come to the conclusion that it was. It was both, I remember asking him and tearing up. I called him and I waited too long so that he had to learn those songs and dances and stuff really quickly. But that was a rookie mistake. But anyway, I teared up, I remember just alone in this hotel room I was in asking him because it meant so much to me, and it meant so much to me to interact with him? Why? I think I have, in the past, had to be separate from my family, from my brother, like close Cool. I got my own thing going. I think I did have to do that. I mean, we both started so young. I think it was just a really honest vulnerable, what's underneath rage, reaching out, just basically saying, I want to interact, and I know that this is a place where we can do it. I'm not asking him to do something that he can't do.

I'm making an offer, which is a generous thing to do.

An invitation.

Yeah, and just with love.

Have you two been estranged?

No, we've never been estranged, But we've never been as close as we are now. I think we're finally in, I don't know, maybe the last five years, although more and more and more, even each day, really interacting, which is hard for people to do.

The other thing I was thinking about the family dynamics is with your husband, who you have worked with before. Your parents obviously were filmmakers. Your mother was a screenwriter, your father was a director. You've said that them working together might have caused their ultimate separation because it's hard to work with family members. I just wondered if when you are working with Peter, if that's in your mind, if you're thinking about that, the fraughtness of maybe embarking on those family relationships while you're working.

I don't think that them working together caused their separation, but I don't think it was good for them. I think it was a bad idea, and they did it a few times. It is complicated working with my husband. We've done it in all sorts of ways. We did it as actors together on stage in two checkoff plays, and it was hard and awesome. I remember playing Masha, which is one of the parts I'm most proud of with Peter playing Vershinen. I had the fantasy. I was young. I was 33, that Masha and Vershinen and three sisters were the love affair of all time. And that is not what my husband thought.

I was like, so you totally understood it slightly differently.

I was like, Why are you so withholding? Why make that choice? I was hurt personally by the artistic choice he was making. But Penny, our mutual teacher that I was mentioning before, she said to me, That play is when I really started to learn how to work. She was like, You may wish that that's the relationship that you had. Okay, so now Masha wishes that. But that is not the relationship that you're actually having to contend with on stage. So contend with that relationship. So that was great and both exciting and difficult. Then we did The Last Daughter, where he has a really hot love affair with Jessie Buckley. Yes, he does. Which was very complicated, too. At first, I almost didn't give him the part.

Because of that? Mm-hmm.

I was like, I don't need that also, along with directing a movie for the first time.

How did you talk through that?

I actually offered it to somebody else first. I knew he was hurt, even though we hadn't really talked about him playing it. We might have. I remember speaking to both my best girlfriend and to this teacher, and both of them were like, You can't manage this. Can you really not? I was like, No, I think I can actually. I think I can. I think I can manage it. I actually really want Peter to play this part.

What was it actually like?

Oh, my God. It was so many things. I mean, it was like, he was so good in The Lost Daughter. He was so brilliant, and so was Jessie. And watching them together and egging them each on from a very unconnected, emotionally placed. Try this, try this. Not just in the sex, but in the... I mean, this wasn't at all about the sex. This was about the courtship, which was so hot. And pushing them and pushing them and watching them create as real actors have to. Create the love. Do it. It's okay. So they did that. I watched them do that. I'm like, okay. When I get a second to stop, it's a little hard, but we have to keep going. We have to keep going. Then we get to the sexy stuff. I remember my cinematographer who was amazing. We shoot the scene on the steps where they're kissing and all this stuff. I was very like just looking at it. Okay, wait, there's the light on her leg in the right way. Maybe if we just pan this way, very removed, and we got it. Then Hélène says, Oh, I was going to do my French text, my French Hélène.

Do your French, Hélène. I censored myself at the last minute. Anyway, she's like, Oh, no, this will not do. There is a wine glass on It is so bad. It is so bad. We have to do it again. I was like, We do. We have to do it again. It was hard a little. It's also so full of life. I completely trust Jessie. We haven't even talked about her. We say she's like a sister, and I completely trust Peter. It was like It just created life.

We touched a little bit on the film, Secretary, and I rewatched it. I loved that film when it came out. At the time, you said it was a feminist film. Would you say it's a feminist film now?

It's funny. I also rewatched it recently. They played it in the little town that we live in in Vermont as a part of a film thing they were doing. I watched it a few years ago, but it's not right on the tip my mind. I mean, what is a feminist film?

That was exactly the question, Maggie, that I was going to ask.

I mean, right.

Yes.

I mean, the thing about Secretary, I think, at least as I intended it, was that it was consensual, that she wanted that erotic relationship with her boss. And so who is anyone else to tell her that that is not allowed? So then the movie asks, Can you make that true, even in this situation? Can you tolerate- With a boss who's older and a young woman who is coming out of a mental institution and damage. Can you allow her to want what she wants if that's what she says she wants, even in those circumstances? I don't know. That's the question. I I haven't seen it recently enough to say whether I can, but I think that's what I was trying to stir up at the time. Can she have what she wants, even if it's not what you would want?

The idea of you as a young actor, you were seen as this cool girl, young actress who was willing to push boundaries. I'm wondering what was, at 23, having that sense of you wanted to stir something What was going on there?

Well, I don't think back then, although maybe in other ways I wanted to push boundaries just for the sake of it, maybe. But in my work, I think, at least looking back on it from here, I think I wanted similar things. I think I wanted to make people think. And not just think, feel into thinking. Secretary was also the first time I really expressed my artistic self. I hadn't had a template, a palette. I hadn't had the space. So that attention was tied up with that. Also, I met Peter when that movie came out, right around then. So it was falling in love, finding some voice as an artist, which obviously shifted and changed throughout my career and grew and everything. But that was the first time. So it was just a moment of life, like a little explosion in a lot of ways. I wasn't well known at that point. Jake was.

I mean, I imagine there was sibling rivalry. Did you see your brother have success and you trying to make your way?

In general, I am very interested in envy. I think There's a reason why it's a seven deadly sin. I've been interested in it in terms of watching other people's movies come out. Admiration versus envy. What creates it? I think it's usually feeling starving, like you don't have enough. Even in general, I don't know her well, but I know Emerald Fennel a little, whose movie is about to come out. Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights. I reached out to her and I just said, How are you doing? How are you doing with all of this? And just the act of reaching out to her, and she's great. She's great. Freeze the competition up. You go, No, we're actually 100% on the same team. There absolutely is enough to go around. But I don't think I knew that at first when I was and Jake was a movie star right away. I don't think I knew that. I don't think I was in touch with the envy, but it was there.

We've been talking about being a female director, and I was thinking about this moment because on the one hand, we've had all these interesting films come out just this year. Chloe Zhaouh with Hamlet, Lynn Ramsey with Die My Love, Kristen Stuart with The Chronology of Water. But on the other hand, there's only 8% of films that were made by women, and that's a seven-year low. What do you think that says?

I don't know. I'm thinking about I'm thinking about whether to say this. Say it. I think that it's fine when we make little movies cute or go make your little movie, starts to get dangerous when women have their hands on a lot of money. I mean, it's It still doesn't really entirely answer your question about how few women are given the space, the real estate, to express ourselves. And look, you know what you're saying? You're saying it's a tiny percentage, but look at how many of those movies were movies that made an impact. If you've had your mouth shut for so long, almost like a geyser, having your hand on something, well, when it bursts, it's going to come out really powerfully and with a lot of energy. I wonder if what's happening culturally is going to... Okay, I will say one thing about this. It's going to bring an unstable response, maybe, especially for women. I will say, and I don't know if I've said this out loud before. Again, maybe I'll get in trouble, but I actually think that when I really became a director, it was actually, I think, the first time, the morning that Trump was first elected.

I think I was like, I have a lot more to say than I've been saying.

Tell me what that means.

Well, actually, I was thinking about Kristen Stewart interview on this show. It made an impact in my community. I remember Jessie asked me, Did you hear Kristen Stewart Stewart's interview? And I went and listened to it. I was thinking about it in a lot of ways. I was thinking about her idea that being an actor is submissive. Very interesting idea. I was also thinking about something that she said, which is that she hadn't heard of a method actor who's a woman. I know she didn't quite mean that. I want to talk to her. I don't know her very well. But in fact, I just worked with Ellen Burston, who's 93, studied with Lise Drossberg and is absolutely a method actress. I know that's not what Kristen meant. I don't think that's what she meant in my watching it and interpreting it. But I think what being a method actor, me, because my teacher, this teacher I keep bringing up, also studied at the Actors Studio with Lise Drossberg and is about bringing yourself into your work. That's not exactly submissive. In my experience, As an actress, I really had to learn to sometimes convince everyone I was being submissive and radically get my own artistic Just myself, expressed.

Otherwise, why am I doing it? I think what I mean is that I think I came to a point, at a certain point, where I was like, I can't keep playing that game. Something about that time made me do it, made me say, Okay, I am terrified. I was terrified, and I'm going to do it anyway.

I want to thank you so much. This has been really delightful. I've really enjoyed it.

Thank you. Me, too.

After the break, Maggie and I speak again, and she shares some of the best direction she's ever received as an actress from a legendary director.

He took me aside after the first read through, and he said, Come here. It's just one thing. She's feral.

Good to see you again.

Yeah, you too.

I went back after our interview, and I rewatched The Dark Knight after we talked, because it was on my mind since we spoke a lot about you taking on this big budget movie. I guess that movie had to have been the biggest budget film you were ever a part of.

I mean, it was probably like such a huge event.

I was wondering what that experience taught you about how to harness all those resources from inside the studio system.

Well, I mean, acting in it in a big, huge budget movie is very different than directing one. What I did think was it's hard to be free in a movie of that size because there are so many other aspects as an actor, so many other aspects that can sometimes feel like they take precedent. Vfx, the massive day, the 400 extras, whatever it is. And he, Ledger, really, really managed to find that humanity and freedom inside of that really big movie. And I will say that that was one of the most important things to me on The Bride was to create real freedom for all of the artists who were working on it, not just my actors. That was a major priority for me.

I guess I am curious about your own experience where that wasn't what happened to you.

I would say as an actress, to be honest, it is way more rare to find an environment, a situation where you feel seen, respected, and loved than one where you don't. Yeah, that's my experience. But I had to learn how to do it without it. I see so many actors walk on set with that mindset. I do. I feel like many actors walk on set like, Okay, I'm probably going to get nothing here. I think that I have such a wish and a hope for interaction and connection. I think I often had to let go of having that in a really deep way with a director. I I mean, there are exceptions, and there are times when I had it, and those people, I did my best work with them, probably. I mean, I worked with Mike Nichols for one day as an actress in a reading of a play that we did on stage in New York, and he gave me probably one of the best directions I've ever received. I knew that he wanted my mind in this. I was playing Marie Curie, and he took me aside after the first read through, and he said, Come here.

He said, It's just one thing. She's feral.

It's a great direction.

It's a great direction because it has no end in mind. It's just basically saying, or no particular in mind. He's basically saying, The wildest secret stuff in you, I want it. What an incredible thing.

All right. You are making this big budget movie at a moment when the industry is really struggling. And attention spans are hard to capture. Studios are consolidating. I read two articles that really chilled me. One One was about how film school students can't even focus enough to know the ending of a two-hour film. And these are film school students. And then I saw Matt Damon recently told Joe Rogan that Netflix wants its filmmakers to restate the plot of the movie four times for people who are double screening and to include a big- Double screening?

Oh, like looking on their phone.

Double screening on their phone while watching the thing. You have to restate it, restate it so that people who aren't really following along can jump back in, and that they also need to include a big action sequence in the first five minutes to capture the audience's attention. I'm just wondering what I think. No, first of all, what you think, but also, was any of that advice given to you?

You know what's so funny about The Bride is just so naturally, it's based on a really famous piece of IP. There's a big action sequence in the first eight minutes. I mean, I guess I feel... No, that advice was not given to me explicitly. But I mean, look, I know it's up. I'm not going to say I'm making The Bride of Frankenstein and then go make a super indie movie. You know what I mean? I'm using the tools that I've been required to use. That's part of the puzzle. And I like them. I mean, that's the thing. I don't think you can fake it. I think if you don't like the Hollywood stuff. I think people will smell a rat. I like it. I like it. I just also- What do you like about it?

Because I really thought a lot about this, you saying that. I was thinking about ambition and working inside and outside of the Hollywood system. You were pretty clear that the studio made the bride better. You felt like their input actually improved things, which is not something I think I hear very often.

I mean, listen, I have a big streak in me that is totally outside the box artistically. So I also like that. I mean, I really do. I love watching some... I mean, you know the feeling when you're watching a movie with a kid and the kid says, Who's that? What's that? What's happening? And you say, None of us know yet. We all have to hold not knowing yet. Movies that are often outside the studio system ask you to hold that feeling for a long time, and I love that, where you have to engage your own mind, your own heart to decide who you think that is and whether you think they're a good guy or a bad guy. I love that. But for me to have built and been allowed to build at this big studio, a movie that checked the boxes for them in terms of the IP, in terms of the action, the love story in so many ways, but also be able to tell it in an unusual outside the box way with real freedom, and then have to come up against someone very smart, I'm talking about Pam Abdi, with a different point of view and a slightly different agenda.

We then together, two women, had to interact, compromise, get inside of each other's minds to ultimately create a movie together that I think both of us feel really proud of.

When we started this conversation, I got this really strong sense of someone who's on the cusp of this big adventure that they're about to have. I imagine now you're in LA and you're just about to go on the big press tour and it's going to get released into the world and the critics are going to see it. I'm always so interested in that moment, the in between time before the world comes in. I'm just wondering where you're at, what you're thinking right now before this next big thing happens for you.

I feel simultaneously like somebody who just had a baby and someone who is about to have a baby. You know that super vulnerable time in between having had a baby but being ready to go out in the world. I have delivered my baby, right? I mean, I'm finished with the movie, and I have been coming back into myself, even to the point of like, Oh, now my jeans fit. At the same time, I know that the world hasn't really seen it. So I'm in both places at once. But I want to say one other thing about this, which is that when I started this process, Even though I've put a lot of movies out into the world at this point, I naively believed that if I was honest enough and excellent enough, that everybody would love it. That is just not ever going to be true. It's late in life to learn that or to be in the process of learning that. But I guess I'm interested in how to embrace, tolerate, even be proud of the ways in which Which some people will light up and love this, and some people won't.

Maggie Jelen Hall, thank you so much. I have really, really enjoyed our time together.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

That's Maggie Jelen Hall. Her movie, The Bride, is in theaters starting March sixth. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube. Com. Com/@symboledtheinterviewpodcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Dan Powell, Alicia Ba'Etu, and Marion Lozano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paula Neudorff, Joe Bill-Muneos, David Herr, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooklyn Minters. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Next week, David talks to author Rebecca Solnit, about finding hope in seemingly dire times. I often feel that a lot of pessimism, despair, doomerism comes from not knowledge about the future, but from lack of knowledge about the past. Despair and amnesia go hand in hand, and so do hope and memory. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and this is the interview from the New York Times.