December 7, 2022 • 31 mins
The season finale of Season 2 features some of our favorite questions and answers that didn’t make it into the second season. Featuring new conversations with Anthony Doerr, Katie Nolan, Sam Fragoso, Rose Matafeo, Brooke Shields, Graham Norton, and Christiane Amanpour. Stay tuned for our return with Season 3!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
To celebrate the end of season two. Of many Questions,
I'm thrilled to share a few more answers from our
guests that you didn't get to hear over the course
of the year. As I'm sure you know, we ask
each guest the same seven questions every interview, but we
don't always get to share every answer. But that's why
I love having one last chance every season to share
a few of the conversations with our guests that you
(00:26):
haven't heard. So to close out this season, here's a
few of my favorite answers from guests this year that
weren't in the original episodes. Are deleted scenes from season two.
And don't worry, well, we might be tying a bow
on this season. Many Questions will be back soon with
brand new, fantastic inspired and interesting guests, but for now,
(00:48):
let's get into season two's deleted scenes. Here is pull
at surprise winning author Anthony Dorr Tony What would be
your last meal? Mine would be crisps? Whatever? Really? Would
you really know? It would be? Would I would have them?
(01:08):
They would be there along with everything else that I
was going to eat. I love them? But but what
would your last meal be? Um? It's gonna be predictable
the American. But I think I would do a hamburger.
I'm trying not to eat beef very much, but I
think if it's my last one, I'm going to go
for it. I think you're fine, uh, and then with
(01:28):
like pickles, catchup mustard, the whole thing. Then French fries
with salt, really like salt. And then I would have
vanilla ice cream with M and M's on it. Now
is this something that you would eat when you were
a child or is it something that you're just imagining?
What the distillation of deliciousness is here? Like doctor Driver
(01:54):
the therapist in that one. Yeah, totally, I might be connected.
And it's like a try eildhood meal, isn't it? But
there's something about Yeah, maybe it's a mouthful of nostalgia
and comfort because apparently I'm dying right after this. That
was well, I mean, I I know it would suck,
it would It's so funny. It's kind of like. But
I also maybe in my version, like your last meal,
(02:17):
I someways think about all the other reasons, Like it
could be that you are like the last person on Earth,
or it could be in like the metaverse in some
virtual place one can go and experience like that feeling
of what your last meal is without you actually dying.
And then I think, but what would happen if you
actually got trapped in the metaverse and then it really
(02:39):
was your last meal? And then I go mad And
then at four o'clock in the morning and I don't
know what to do. I would like to say I
could appreciate each of meal I'm going to eat as
if it were my last meal. But usually I'm like
reading something and I don't taste it at all. I'm
jamming a whole doughnut right into my mouth and looking
at my email, and I realized I eat the whole
doughnut and didn't pay attention. So I'm trying to be
(03:00):
more present with the eating thing as because that's what
your exercise really is about, is defamiliarized this stuff we're
putting in our mouths and taste it because it's incredible,
Like we have access to so many spices that humans
throughout history didn't have. I can go buy avocados in
January and boise Idaho's incredible, So why if I could
(03:21):
just appreciate those things a little more and of a
bowl of vanilla ice cream and where it's ninety four
degrees outside, that's a terrible That's like an Aztec king
would sacrifice like forty people just to get Yeah. Oh,
I like that. I wish that that was a tribe
(03:43):
that we would find who had deified frozen dairy. I
would totally join that. I would join that collection of people.
Here is television host Katie Nolan. What quality do you
(04:06):
like least about yourself? How much time you got? Honestly, though,
I have spent the last whatever time two and a
half years whatever, we will all call the pandemic when
we look back at this part of our life. I'm
working on forgiveness of self, very self critical, and I
know that's probably a common trait among people, so I'm
not saying it makes me special, but it is something
(04:27):
that I am trying to work on. Forgive myself for
my shortcomings or understand them better so that I can
engineer my life around them. But the one that will
always haunt me is time management. I hate my lack
of an ability to manage time. I get very caught
up in my brain and I'm very curious, so I
follow a lot of paths like I could spend an
(04:49):
hour and a half reading about drama between two people
I've never met and don't know and I've never heard of.
Until I see a headline of this drama that sounds interesting.
I can read it and learn everything about it for
an hour and a half, but then I just lose
track of everything else. Scheduling things makes me so anxious.
(05:09):
I was ten minutes late for this a thing that
was very important to me, and I'm in my pajamas.
But the most generous reading I've had of that is
my good friend Mina Kimes, who also works in sports
TV and is brilliant and is our future and our queen.
She compared me to Andy Reid, and I know that
might not land, but I can explain it. He's a
football coach who is very creative in his play calling,
but sometimes he gets so distracted by how creative he
(05:31):
wants to be that he doesn't realize that the game
is about to end, and so he runs on the
time to do the thing he wanted to do because
he was showing off all the things he knows how
to do. It was part of the thing that's helped
me see the good intentions of my weaknesses. And try
to do my best at them where I can, and
then be prepared to apologize for them or warn people
(05:52):
of them ahead of time, because nothing's worse than disappointing people.
There are all things less than disappointing people. Yes, probably
killing people. I think maybe after you've disappointed them, well,
then you have to They can't continue to live disappointed
in me. I must rid the earth of their existence.
I say this a lot, and it's a soccer term,
which is, even if it's going really badly, you have
(06:14):
to play to the last whistle. You have to play
with everything. Don't say, well, your creative play for the
last fourteen seconds of a game. But I'm a procrastinator.
That's what I do because if I as soon as
I write it, or film it or put it on paper,
whatever it is I'm making, then it's going to be done.
And I don't want it to be done. I like
living in the part where you're figuring it out until
(06:37):
it's perfect. I don't want to do it. What about
the idea that like it is never going to be perfect?
And now what about letting go of this constraint you've
put on it and just be in the process, which
you clearly love because God knows you create. Everything is
self generated that you do, Everything is about you creating
this content and offering that up. And people clearly obsessively
(07:00):
love what you do. Even the people that don't get it,
they love what you do. That's like that. I think
that might be one of the nicest things anyone said
to me. I hope that you will be nicer to
yourself because you're great. You're great. No, not really, I
have my own ship to work on. This is writer,
(07:22):
filmmaker and podcast host Sam Fragoso. Okay, what I really
want to hear this now because I think you might
know things that I don't. What question do you most
want answered? My question? And it's something I've thought a
lot about this year in the pandemic. Why do we
often wait for conditions to get so bad before we
(07:46):
make change? And that's true of love, it's true of
this looming ongoing environmental crisis, it's true of racial justice,
it's true across the board. Why do we have to
weigh eight for the conditions to be so untenable before
we try to make them tenable again? And it's something
that really bothers me. You know, last year We did
(08:09):
a podcast with friend labor Witz, and back in the
late nineties, we were talking about this piece she wrote,
which was with Vanity Fair was like Nas told too,
I think it's called on race is what it's called.
And she makes all these great with a lovely, smart,
thoughtful points, as she often does about race, and she said,
I didn't know about any of this within people of color,
(08:31):
within the black community until I had a friend that
got pulled over while he had a Mercedes, and I thought,
that's interesting. But why do you have to know someone?
Why do we have to wait to know someone? Why
can't we actually just believe people's testimony? And this constant
thing this past year in the pandemic, whether it's around
(08:52):
mask mandates or police brutality, why do we have to
wait to have a secondhand account? But what do we need?
It's a really really good question. Why do we have
to wait for things to get so bad before we
address them? And also we don't seem to address them definitively.
It's like we all know that there is a climate
(09:15):
emergency and people are still just talking about it. I
wonder what that is? What is that human thing? The
easy answer is that it's laziness or slothfulness, as fran
would say. It also could just be life is really
hard already, we're already trying to just make it through
the day. When it comes to these big issues that
(09:37):
feel larger than life, although they're very much of life,
we let them go. We're trying to get on because,
as you said, this is all over in an instant.
She said, I know about people's experiences because I have
friends that look like that person, and I think that
applies to empathy in general. It's like COVID. It's like, yeah,
well I care about COVID because my friend died and
(09:59):
I had some people who mind. But why would we
have to wait for that? It's mystifying. I honestly think
that we look at a lot. We look at a
lot myopically and also to keep the gigantic nature of
stuff that's happening in the world at bay, and that
it's only when that bubble is penetrated by something personal
(10:19):
happening perhaps and it should or shouldn't. That's how it is,
maybe you're saying. When it comes to like change and
education in this country, there's been a long conversation about
giving kids free college or reducing tuition and all these things,
and the situation is dire. We know it's dire. There's
people not qualified for the jobs. There's not enough jobs
(10:40):
to even be qualified for. Schools are more expensive than
every we know. We all know this. And my dad,
who's a teacher, mind you, I sometimes said, and we
should really think about changing the system. We should think
about having these free colleges. In his first response as
a teacher as a Mexican, Yeah, but I had to
pay for school. I had to pay for them. So
(11:00):
it's like eye for an eye. It's like we're always
paying off the debt. There's like this ongoing ledger that
we need to toss out to say we're here now,
Like I'm sorry, my dad paid for it. But it
doesn't mean kids, aren't you now? So I don't know,
maybe that's part of it. I think that also works oversely,
and that it wasn't me doing that oppressing. I didn't
do all of that stuff. Why should I be responsible now?
(11:23):
I think he just comes back to we are these
individual entities, and maybe it is some deep reptilian brain
recognition that we are here for such a short amount
of time and that actually our lot is all we
really have the capacity to care about, and maybe there
is some deep programming of just taking care of yourself
(11:44):
and maybe your children because there's the DNA of the progeny.
I think it will. What it does is it takes
something that's really meant to stop you getting eaten by
a wild animal, and you start appying that to social
constructs that we have created as opposed to going, okay,
if we've created these social constructs, we need to develop
(12:05):
our responses to them, but nobody wants to do that.
They just want to make sure that they can take
care of their own lot. It's alternately depressing and understandable
because it's requiring us as humans to evolve to a
place to meet what we've created. It's so existential because
we've created all this stuff in the world, but it's
like we haven't evolved enough to meet the ship that
(12:26):
we've created with a response that is going to help
it or change it, and so we just stick our
heads back in the ground. There must be something hopeful.
In the specific context of when I asked fran the question,
I was she was sixty. It didn't even totally compute,
and I bet if you explain the dynamic and situation
(12:47):
to your son, who's much younger than I am. It
would make complete sense to him, and it would make
complete sense to my younger sister and my younger brother.
So there is some hope in future generations that I
think they're asking these questions. I think they feel it
in their bones. I do. So that's the hopeful party,
and then they'll have their own bunch of shipped to
(13:07):
deal with. Like I think that's also part of our condition,
that we continue to create stuff that we then have
to solve. Maybe it doesn't get solved. That's part of
the position. We might not survive our own slot. I
thought I was a depressing one, you know what, But
we're here in this present moment being happy. It's all true.
(13:28):
I think there is You're absolutely right, there is hope.
My son does not look at the world the way
that I do at all. He will have beginner's eyes.
With all the ship that we've created, it's really who
is the janitorial generation? Who is really gonna have to
clean up all this ship? I think it might be you.
I think it might be your generation. Sorry, Sam, here's
a broom and a dust bat and brush. I am
(13:51):
a fossil, like I'm going to hand that on hand
that up. Next up is comedian, actress and co writer
of the TV series Starstruck Rose Matter Fair. Okay, so
(14:13):
what person, plays or experience so far has most altered
your life? Oh, this is a it's very hard. I
feel like I haven't lived lived answers to the question,
I think experience in place I think would be would
be a big one for me. And that is I
think just being from New Zealand, living in New Zealand,
(14:35):
growing up in a place like New Zealand, it has
an immense effect I think on anyone who went through that.
I live in London now, but I think, yeah, I
just wouldn't have been the person I am and do
the things I do, and particularly I think, you know,
I started in comedy, like, I don't think I would
have had the attitude towards making things and making comedy
and writing and just creativity in general if I hadn't
(14:56):
come from a country where it was like, I don't
know something specific about news that you know a lot
of New Zealanders, you know who like we're an l
a at the same time as you install all those
kind of you know, people who have moved abroad, and
there is just this weird quality when you come from
a country in the bottom of the world and you're
allowed to like have this sort of sandpit of just
(15:19):
doing whatever you want without I think a lot of
the pressures, particularly and like you know, being a performer
in like cities like London or like you know, in
the States and stuff, and know, you can be weird.
But New Zealand seems to be this really extraordinary incubator
for creativity. Like that's what I've noticed with the actors, writers, directors,
musicians that I know New Zealand. It's like this brilliant
(15:41):
creative science island where you're all you're all grown and
then you go off out into the world and everybody
because there is something recognizable there. For me, there is
something recognizably Keywi. There is a way of seeing the
world that is brilliant and clever and also doesn't really
give a fuck, but it's curious and fascinated and not
(16:05):
or at least not publicly judgmental, yes, but rather rather
sort of let me have all this input. Maybe again
from being from little lovely Islands at the you know,
in the southern hemisphere. There's a lot of this pressure.
I think, I think the output of of lots of
things like music and film that comes out of New Zealand.
(16:25):
I mean there's always like it's always the funny thing.
I think there's very I think Ireland and New Zealand
have very similar like a lot of my Irish friends,
it's bizarrely like it's kind of similar traits. But I
think it's you know, farming and men with depression. That's
heavy drinking, heavy drinking, sheep farming, member depression, similar population size. Yes,
(16:47):
that's the vibe. I think geography really obviously has an
effect on a sort of national attitude and and and
sort of you know, even personality traits. But I think
I think, you know, New Zealand is a place where
there is like an earnest as well sometimes in like
a connection to the land that you're from, and you know,
a sensitivity. I think that maybe you know, the other
(17:08):
places have less or I don't know. I think it's
just a great place for you to be a weird
artie freak and like you know, learn to do something
without pressure and you know you look at like you
know tycho or like you know a fly to the
concord or you know, act your main all that's amazing
all given the opportunity to just sunk around for many
(17:29):
years doing comedy and the same with you know, filmmakers
from New Zealand. I think it's like the work is
the focus sometimes rather than like the industry, because it's like, no,
there's not really an industry you know down there as
such like as much as you know here or in America,
and just you know, a healthy attitude towards um life.
It's certainly working in comedy and television and stuff. I
(17:51):
think there's always part when you when you've got another
New Zealander, like I've got Alice Neddon, who I write
you sound struck with, and it's like inception. You know,
we're each other's token, just grounding each other and going, remember,
none of this matters. It's fine. You are such a stupid,
silly person from we grew up streets away from each other.
(18:12):
This is all ridiculous and very funny, and it's so
great and healthy to have that. I think it's so
nice to have a mate doing all of this with
it means my imagine I'm very jealous of that. It's lovely.
Next up is actress and model Brookshields. What relationship, real
(18:35):
or fictionalized, defines love for you? You know, it's interesting
because love in my personal life had always seemed conditional.
Then I became a mother and all of it flipped
on its head. It was no longer selfish to me.
That first feeling of unselfish love was it was something
(19:01):
I don't think. I thought I would love my baby
and I whatever, and I had a hard time with
my first one postpartum wise, but beyond that, I've never
known that kind of selfless love where I really it
was just purely about this this other creature that I
was both responsible for and the desire to be the
(19:23):
best part of myself or version of myself instead of
just fit into somebody else's idea of of what that
love should look like. You know, Yeah, there was nothing
you had to do to experience that love. It was
in and all of itself. Like that. I I get that.
It's it's a particularly I think you mentioned like the
(19:46):
transactional nature of being an actor or trying to make
a living doing it, and love is so wrapped up
in that because love and approbation in terms of like
an audience or people putting you in things. And then
when you have a child, it's so beautiful, how it
just it blows up that whole notion of you don't
(20:06):
have to try to do anything. You have to feed
that baby and stare at it and love it and
play with it and be there's no, there's something you
actually have to do, no, in order to engender that love.
It's so pure. Yeah, And I think my my version
of love for me, even all romantic love had a
(20:29):
it like had a goal to it. You did this, this,
this and this, and then that would happen or or something.
Or I'd be like, look at me, walk a walk
a walk, I like I would be doing a song
and dance just to sort of get approval or I
was never really first in it, and so it was
it was very odd. But then to you have this
(20:50):
primary thing kind of comes out of you and feeds
on you, and it's the most parasitic, crazy relationship, right,
And to just think, yeah, that's she doesn't even know
me and she loves me. Oh my god, I must
(21:14):
be all right, wait till you get to know me.
Here is comedian and television host Graham Norton. Okay, So
what would be your last meal? It would definitely involve potato.
(21:37):
What because because you love potatoes. I don't mean this
to be stereotypical about Irish people that because you ate
a lot of potatoes growing up a lot of different ways.
Have you always had an affinity for the tubers? I mean,
I don't know it's certain whether it's you know, nature
and nurture, I don't know, but a bowl of mash
(21:59):
but aato is so delicious. Remember seeing him? What's that
York film? There's a scene at the end where she's
on death throw and she's getting her last meal. And
I remember I was on a diet at the time.
I was trying to dose weight. So I see some
loots of fish and salad and things, and they gave
her her last meal and it was like chop steak.
(22:20):
It was a really big chop steak with potato and gravy,
and and she pushed it away. And that was when
I lost all sympathy for that character, because I eat it,
you more on eat it looks delicious, get it down here.
So I do like the concept of last meal because
(22:41):
all of us are going to have a last meal,
but our last meal will probably be toast. If you
die of all day, you ends up with toast, which,
by the way, that wouldn't be a bad thing for me.
I love toast, do you, Yeah, really do if it
if it ended up being my last meal, I'd be
really piste off. It were the crisps that I didn't want,
(23:02):
but I had to take a packet of crisps because
I was hungry, but they didn't have the flavor that
I liked, and I ended up with like I hate cheese,
no onion crisps, Like I ate cheese nonion crisp. Because
that would be really a bummer for me, that was
my last meal. You could have, it would give you
a reason to live. You'd hang on. I must get
to the shock, must not let that lingering shit taste
(23:30):
for eternity. Yeah. And also I suppose maybe this whole
idea of last meal, it only makes sense in a
situation like you're going to be killed in fairness to
be work, you would I suppose lose some interest. And
that's what people have tried to say. There's me. They've
(23:51):
been like on the show, they've been like wow, they
were like, you know, I just think I would be
I just I don't think I could eat, and I
was like, yeah no, but let's just say you could.
Let's just see really hungry because it is your last meal,
and let's take the whole death thing out of it.
There might be I think I even said that some
of there might be another reason why this is your
last meal. And there was a really long s You're
(24:13):
being abducted by aliens and they don't eat so potatoes,
lovely potato. It's mashed mashed potato. Probably do you put
butter and a little bit of cream or milk in
your bashed potatoes or do you just well, here's the thing.
When I go out, I eat whatever. But in the
house it's vegan and it's and it's one of the
(24:33):
things about mashed potos because I always thought mashed potatoes
were gorgeous because you put you know, lots of woster
in them. And can I just say, we've been underestimating
the potato this whole time. Just a bit of plant
based butter, olive oil, salt and pepper and then mash away.
It is as delicious as any mashy you've ever had.
(24:55):
You're very surprising, Graham. I like that vegan mashed potatoes.
That that okay, you will last me on and then
I'm actually going to make that. Does it depend on
what potatoes you use? Because in America you can't get
you can't get like are they called marass piper my favorite?
You can't get them in America. Can't find they are
(25:16):
the most versatile. They are the most versatile. They are.
They are the best roast potatoes, the best chips, and
the best mashed potatoes I found. But in America they
must have good potatoes. They don't have, you know, they
don't have new potatoes. They have like russets, but the
small potatoes. It's funny, I haven't found any really good ones.
But then I've I've never been to Ida Home off
(25:38):
the Potato exactly. Maybe I got to go there. This
is the legendary journalist and television host Dnam'm Paul in
(26:01):
your life. Can you tell me about something that has
grown out of a personal disaster? Well, I think my
first personal disaster was failing my exams. I had never
failed anything in my life. I'd never ever failed anything
in my life. I was always you know, first or second,
you know in my class. No, No, sorry, no, Joanna
(26:22):
Blundle was first. Wow, you've never forgotten Joanna Bund. I
have never forgotten. I was eleven years old until eighteen
years old. I've never forgotten it. But just to say
that when I did fail my levels, I was desperate.
I've never been that desperate. I've never sunk into such
a hole. And I didn't know what to do. I
(26:45):
did not know what to do with my life. And
I sent me home to Iran and I spent that
year in the revolution. And you know, you you wouldn't
want to say that that was a good thing that
came out of failure, but that was a constructive thing
that happened in my life that put me on the
path to my future. What did you do in that year? What? What?
(27:07):
What did you secretarial work? I did a little this
or a little bad. But during a revolution, a cultural
and a religious revolution, well it was hard because you know,
I was of the class and the group who was
being revolted against, so it was, you know, not that
easy for me to get in to see what was
(27:29):
going on. I watched it from the sidelines as it
as it unfolded outside my door or whatever. I did
not go into the protests I just watched and I
talked and I listened, and then in the end, my
father sent me out just before Ormeni came back, because
you said, if you don't go now, you don't know
what will happen. And I needed to go to university.
So that's what happened. I really did not mean in
(27:51):
any way to be disrespectful, to make light of what
must have been an unfathomable time in Iran's history. But
I do kind of love the idea that you've failed
your A levels and then we're like, okay, I guess
I'm just going to go back to the revolution. Then
there's there's no point anymore. I'm just going to go
back and watch everything chatting like that's that's that's kind
(28:11):
of that's kind of amazing. It sort of happened after
I failed. But it was great. I mean, what can
I tell you? It wasn't great for so many people.
Many people lost their lives. In fact, in my own family,
my father's brother, my uncle was arrested and in jail
and he was either killed or died or tortured to death.
We never saw his body. They never gave it back. Um,
(28:32):
And so these things stick with you it's a very
particular context that you then go out into the world
to do what you do. And I think it's astonishing
that you survived that, that you survived not just physically
but mentally. And I know you've said that so many
people didn't. Well, to bring it back to what you've
been asking me, I survived because of love and happiness
(28:54):
and joy and knowing how to see it and how
to recognize it and wanting it. M hmm. That is
true for all of us as well. I mean that
that is a wonderful thing to hear. And that's a wrap.
Thank you so much for listening to season two, and
I can't wait for you to join me next season
(29:14):
for even more guests, more laughs, and more surprises. You know,
when I first started many questions, I wanted each episode
to help us create some sort of cultural anthology, every
new guest giving us news stories that highlighted our differences
and our similarities, whether we're reliving early gigs at CBGB
with Debbie Harry, sharing fried Hallumi cheese with an Airs Mitchell,
(29:37):
or talking about dog psychics with Graham Norton. I hope
you heard something that made you laugh, something that surprised you,
maybe even something that made you feel a little more
connected to the world. Until next season, be sure to
follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Driver Mini and
subscribe to Many Questions on the I Heart Radio app,
(29:57):
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast
to be the first to note about our new episodes.
I can't thank you enough for listening. Thank you so much.
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(30:22):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
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(30:44):
Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech
support Henry Driver. Additional production from Many Questions with the
Mini Driver Season two provided by Zoe Denkla and Carl
Cadle
To celebrate the end of season two. Of many Questions,
I'm thrilled to share a few more answers from our
guests that you didn't get to hear over the course
of the year. As I'm sure you know, we ask
each guest the same seven questions every interview, but we
don't always get to share every answer. But that's why
I love having one last chance every season to share
a few of the conversations with our guests that you
(00:26):
haven't heard. So to close out this season, here's a
few of my favorite answers from guests this year that
weren't in the original episodes. Are deleted scenes from season two.
And don't worry, well, we might be tying a bow
on this season. Many Questions will be back soon with
brand new, fantastic inspired and interesting guests, but for now,
(00:48):
let's get into season two's deleted scenes. Here is pull
at surprise winning author Anthony Dorr Tony What would be
your last meal? Mine would be crisps? Whatever? Really? Would
you really know? It would be? Would I would have them?
(01:08):
They would be there along with everything else that I
was going to eat. I love them? But but what
would your last meal be? Um? It's gonna be predictable
the American. But I think I would do a hamburger.
I'm trying not to eat beef very much, but I
think if it's my last one, I'm going to go
for it. I think you're fine, uh, and then with
(01:28):
like pickles, catchup mustard, the whole thing. Then French fries
with salt, really like salt. And then I would have
vanilla ice cream with M and M's on it. Now
is this something that you would eat when you were
a child or is it something that you're just imagining?
What the distillation of deliciousness is here? Like doctor Driver
(01:54):
the therapist in that one. Yeah, totally, I might be connected.
And it's like a try eildhood meal, isn't it? But
there's something about Yeah, maybe it's a mouthful of nostalgia
and comfort because apparently I'm dying right after this. That
was well, I mean, I I know it would suck,
it would It's so funny. It's kind of like. But
I also maybe in my version, like your last meal,
(02:17):
I someways think about all the other reasons, Like it
could be that you are like the last person on Earth,
or it could be in like the metaverse in some
virtual place one can go and experience like that feeling
of what your last meal is without you actually dying.
And then I think, but what would happen if you
actually got trapped in the metaverse and then it really
(02:39):
was your last meal? And then I go mad And
then at four o'clock in the morning and I don't
know what to do. I would like to say I
could appreciate each of meal I'm going to eat as
if it were my last meal. But usually I'm like
reading something and I don't taste it at all. I'm
jamming a whole doughnut right into my mouth and looking
at my email, and I realized I eat the whole
doughnut and didn't pay attention. So I'm trying to be
(03:00):
more present with the eating thing as because that's what
your exercise really is about, is defamiliarized this stuff we're
putting in our mouths and taste it because it's incredible,
Like we have access to so many spices that humans
throughout history didn't have. I can go buy avocados in
January and boise Idaho's incredible, So why if I could
(03:21):
just appreciate those things a little more and of a
bowl of vanilla ice cream and where it's ninety four
degrees outside, that's a terrible That's like an Aztec king
would sacrifice like forty people just to get Yeah. Oh,
I like that. I wish that that was a tribe
(03:43):
that we would find who had deified frozen dairy. I
would totally join that. I would join that collection of people.
Here is television host Katie Nolan. What quality do you
(04:06):
like least about yourself? How much time you got? Honestly, though,
I have spent the last whatever time two and a
half years whatever, we will all call the pandemic when
we look back at this part of our life. I'm
working on forgiveness of self, very self critical, and I
know that's probably a common trait among people, so I'm
not saying it makes me special, but it is something
(04:27):
that I am trying to work on. Forgive myself for
my shortcomings or understand them better so that I can
engineer my life around them. But the one that will
always haunt me is time management. I hate my lack
of an ability to manage time. I get very caught
up in my brain and I'm very curious, so I
follow a lot of paths like I could spend an
(04:49):
hour and a half reading about drama between two people
I've never met and don't know and I've never heard of.
Until I see a headline of this drama that sounds interesting.
I can read it and learn everything about it for
an hour and a half, but then I just lose
track of everything else. Scheduling things makes me so anxious.
(05:09):
I was ten minutes late for this a thing that
was very important to me, and I'm in my pajamas.
But the most generous reading I've had of that is
my good friend Mina Kimes, who also works in sports
TV and is brilliant and is our future and our queen.
She compared me to Andy Reid, and I know that
might not land, but I can explain it. He's a
football coach who is very creative in his play calling,
but sometimes he gets so distracted by how creative he
(05:31):
wants to be that he doesn't realize that the game
is about to end, and so he runs on the
time to do the thing he wanted to do because
he was showing off all the things he knows how
to do. It was part of the thing that's helped
me see the good intentions of my weaknesses. And try
to do my best at them where I can, and
then be prepared to apologize for them or warn people
(05:52):
of them ahead of time, because nothing's worse than disappointing people.
There are all things less than disappointing people. Yes, probably
killing people. I think maybe after you've disappointed them, well,
then you have to They can't continue to live disappointed
in me. I must rid the earth of their existence.
I say this a lot, and it's a soccer term,
which is, even if it's going really badly, you have
(06:14):
to play to the last whistle. You have to play
with everything. Don't say, well, your creative play for the
last fourteen seconds of a game. But I'm a procrastinator.
That's what I do because if I as soon as
I write it, or film it or put it on paper,
whatever it is I'm making, then it's going to be done.
And I don't want it to be done. I like
living in the part where you're figuring it out until
(06:37):
it's perfect. I don't want to do it. What about
the idea that like it is never going to be perfect?
And now what about letting go of this constraint you've
put on it and just be in the process, which
you clearly love because God knows you create. Everything is
self generated that you do, Everything is about you creating
this content and offering that up. And people clearly obsessively
(07:00):
love what you do. Even the people that don't get it,
they love what you do. That's like that. I think
that might be one of the nicest things anyone said
to me. I hope that you will be nicer to
yourself because you're great. You're great. No, not really, I
have my own ship to work on. This is writer,
(07:22):
filmmaker and podcast host Sam Fragoso. Okay, what I really
want to hear this now because I think you might
know things that I don't. What question do you most
want answered? My question? And it's something I've thought a
lot about this year in the pandemic. Why do we
often wait for conditions to get so bad before we
(07:46):
make change? And that's true of love, it's true of
this looming ongoing environmental crisis, it's true of racial justice,
it's true across the board. Why do we have to
weigh eight for the conditions to be so untenable before
we try to make them tenable again? And it's something
that really bothers me. You know, last year We did
(08:09):
a podcast with friend labor Witz, and back in the
late nineties, we were talking about this piece she wrote,
which was with Vanity Fair was like Nas told too,
I think it's called on race is what it's called.
And she makes all these great with a lovely, smart,
thoughtful points, as she often does about race, and she said,
I didn't know about any of this within people of color,
(08:31):
within the black community until I had a friend that
got pulled over while he had a Mercedes, and I thought,
that's interesting. But why do you have to know someone?
Why do we have to wait to know someone? Why
can't we actually just believe people's testimony? And this constant
thing this past year in the pandemic, whether it's around
(08:52):
mask mandates or police brutality, why do we have to
wait to have a secondhand account? But what do we need?
It's a really really good question. Why do we have
to wait for things to get so bad before we
address them? And also we don't seem to address them definitively.
It's like we all know that there is a climate
(09:15):
emergency and people are still just talking about it. I
wonder what that is? What is that human thing? The
easy answer is that it's laziness or slothfulness, as fran
would say. It also could just be life is really
hard already, we're already trying to just make it through
the day. When it comes to these big issues that
(09:37):
feel larger than life, although they're very much of life,
we let them go. We're trying to get on because,
as you said, this is all over in an instant.
She said, I know about people's experiences because I have
friends that look like that person, and I think that
applies to empathy in general. It's like COVID. It's like, yeah,
well I care about COVID because my friend died and
(09:59):
I had some people who mind. But why would we
have to wait for that? It's mystifying. I honestly think
that we look at a lot. We look at a
lot myopically and also to keep the gigantic nature of
stuff that's happening in the world at bay, and that
it's only when that bubble is penetrated by something personal
(10:19):
happening perhaps and it should or shouldn't. That's how it is,
maybe you're saying. When it comes to like change and
education in this country, there's been a long conversation about
giving kids free college or reducing tuition and all these things,
and the situation is dire. We know it's dire. There's
people not qualified for the jobs. There's not enough jobs
(10:40):
to even be qualified for. Schools are more expensive than
every we know. We all know this. And my dad,
who's a teacher, mind you, I sometimes said, and we
should really think about changing the system. We should think
about having these free colleges. In his first response as
a teacher as a Mexican, Yeah, but I had to
pay for school. I had to pay for them. So
(11:00):
it's like eye for an eye. It's like we're always
paying off the debt. There's like this ongoing ledger that
we need to toss out to say we're here now,
Like I'm sorry, my dad paid for it. But it
doesn't mean kids, aren't you now? So I don't know,
maybe that's part of it. I think that also works oversely,
and that it wasn't me doing that oppressing. I didn't
do all of that stuff. Why should I be responsible now?
(11:23):
I think he just comes back to we are these
individual entities, and maybe it is some deep reptilian brain
recognition that we are here for such a short amount
of time and that actually our lot is all we
really have the capacity to care about, and maybe there
is some deep programming of just taking care of yourself
(11:44):
and maybe your children because there's the DNA of the progeny.
I think it will. What it does is it takes
something that's really meant to stop you getting eaten by
a wild animal, and you start appying that to social
constructs that we have created as opposed to going, okay,
if we've created these social constructs, we need to develop
(12:05):
our responses to them, but nobody wants to do that.
They just want to make sure that they can take
care of their own lot. It's alternately depressing and understandable
because it's requiring us as humans to evolve to a
place to meet what we've created. It's so existential because
we've created all this stuff in the world, but it's
like we haven't evolved enough to meet the ship that
(12:26):
we've created with a response that is going to help
it or change it, and so we just stick our
heads back in the ground. There must be something hopeful.
In the specific context of when I asked fran the question,
I was she was sixty. It didn't even totally compute,
and I bet if you explain the dynamic and situation
(12:47):
to your son, who's much younger than I am. It
would make complete sense to him, and it would make
complete sense to my younger sister and my younger brother.
So there is some hope in future generations that I
think they're asking these questions. I think they feel it
in their bones. I do. So that's the hopeful party,
and then they'll have their own bunch of shipped to
(13:07):
deal with. Like I think that's also part of our condition,
that we continue to create stuff that we then have
to solve. Maybe it doesn't get solved. That's part of
the position. We might not survive our own slot. I
thought I was a depressing one, you know what, But
we're here in this present moment being happy. It's all true.
(13:28):
I think there is You're absolutely right, there is hope.
My son does not look at the world the way
that I do at all. He will have beginner's eyes.
With all the ship that we've created, it's really who
is the janitorial generation? Who is really gonna have to
clean up all this ship? I think it might be you.
I think it might be your generation. Sorry, Sam, here's
a broom and a dust bat and brush. I am
(13:51):
a fossil, like I'm going to hand that on hand
that up. Next up is comedian, actress and co writer
of the TV series Starstruck Rose Matter Fair. Okay, so
(14:13):
what person, plays or experience so far has most altered
your life? Oh, this is a it's very hard. I
feel like I haven't lived lived answers to the question,
I think experience in place I think would be would
be a big one for me. And that is I
think just being from New Zealand, living in New Zealand,
(14:35):
growing up in a place like New Zealand, it has
an immense effect I think on anyone who went through that.
I live in London now, but I think, yeah, I
just wouldn't have been the person I am and do
the things I do, and particularly I think, you know,
I started in comedy, like, I don't think I would
have had the attitude towards making things and making comedy
and writing and just creativity in general if I hadn't
(14:56):
come from a country where it was like, I don't
know something specific about news that you know a lot
of New Zealanders, you know who like we're an l
a at the same time as you install all those
kind of you know, people who have moved abroad, and
there is just this weird quality when you come from
a country in the bottom of the world and you're
allowed to like have this sort of sandpit of just
(15:19):
doing whatever you want without I think a lot of
the pressures, particularly and like you know, being a performer
in like cities like London or like you know, in
the States and stuff, and know, you can be weird.
But New Zealand seems to be this really extraordinary incubator
for creativity. Like that's what I've noticed with the actors, writers, directors,
musicians that I know New Zealand. It's like this brilliant
(15:41):
creative science island where you're all you're all grown and
then you go off out into the world and everybody
because there is something recognizable there. For me, there is
something recognizably Keywi. There is a way of seeing the
world that is brilliant and clever and also doesn't really
give a fuck, but it's curious and fascinated and not
(16:05):
or at least not publicly judgmental, yes, but rather rather
sort of let me have all this input. Maybe again
from being from little lovely Islands at the you know,
in the southern hemisphere. There's a lot of this pressure.
I think, I think the output of of lots of
things like music and film that comes out of New Zealand.
(16:25):
I mean there's always like it's always the funny thing.
I think there's very I think Ireland and New Zealand
have very similar like a lot of my Irish friends,
it's bizarrely like it's kind of similar traits. But I
think it's you know, farming and men with depression. That's
heavy drinking, heavy drinking, sheep farming, member depression, similar population size. Yes,
(16:47):
that's the vibe. I think geography really obviously has an
effect on a sort of national attitude and and and
sort of you know, even personality traits. But I think
I think, you know, New Zealand is a place where
there is like an earnest as well sometimes in like
a connection to the land that you're from, and you know,
a sensitivity. I think that maybe you know, the other
(17:08):
places have less or I don't know. I think it's
just a great place for you to be a weird
artie freak and like you know, learn to do something
without pressure and you know you look at like you
know tycho or like you know a fly to the
concord or you know, act your main all that's amazing
all given the opportunity to just sunk around for many
(17:29):
years doing comedy and the same with you know, filmmakers
from New Zealand. I think it's like the work is
the focus sometimes rather than like the industry, because it's like, no,
there's not really an industry you know down there as
such like as much as you know here or in America,
and just you know, a healthy attitude towards um life.
It's certainly working in comedy and television and stuff. I
(17:51):
think there's always part when you when you've got another
New Zealander, like I've got Alice Neddon, who I write
you sound struck with, and it's like inception. You know,
we're each other's token, just grounding each other and going, remember,
none of this matters. It's fine. You are such a stupid,
silly person from we grew up streets away from each other.
(18:12):
This is all ridiculous and very funny, and it's so
great and healthy to have that. I think it's so
nice to have a mate doing all of this with
it means my imagine I'm very jealous of that. It's lovely.
Next up is actress and model Brookshields. What relationship, real
(18:35):
or fictionalized, defines love for you? You know, it's interesting
because love in my personal life had always seemed conditional.
Then I became a mother and all of it flipped
on its head. It was no longer selfish to me.
That first feeling of unselfish love was it was something
(19:01):
I don't think. I thought I would love my baby
and I whatever, and I had a hard time with
my first one postpartum wise, but beyond that, I've never
known that kind of selfless love where I really it
was just purely about this this other creature that I
was both responsible for and the desire to be the
(19:23):
best part of myself or version of myself instead of
just fit into somebody else's idea of of what that
love should look like. You know, Yeah, there was nothing
you had to do to experience that love. It was
in and all of itself. Like that. I I get that.
It's it's a particularly I think you mentioned like the
(19:46):
transactional nature of being an actor or trying to make
a living doing it, and love is so wrapped up
in that because love and approbation in terms of like
an audience or people putting you in things. And then
when you have a child, it's so beautiful, how it
just it blows up that whole notion of you don't
(20:06):
have to try to do anything. You have to feed
that baby and stare at it and love it and
play with it and be there's no, there's something you
actually have to do, no, in order to engender that love.
It's so pure. Yeah, And I think my my version
of love for me, even all romantic love had a
(20:29):
it like had a goal to it. You did this, this,
this and this, and then that would happen or or something.
Or I'd be like, look at me, walk a walk
a walk, I like I would be doing a song
and dance just to sort of get approval or I
was never really first in it, and so it was
it was very odd. But then to you have this
(20:50):
primary thing kind of comes out of you and feeds
on you, and it's the most parasitic, crazy relationship, right,
And to just think, yeah, that's she doesn't even know
me and she loves me. Oh my god, I must
(21:14):
be all right, wait till you get to know me.
Here is comedian and television host Graham Norton. Okay, So
what would be your last meal? It would definitely involve potato.
(21:37):
What because because you love potatoes. I don't mean this
to be stereotypical about Irish people that because you ate
a lot of potatoes growing up a lot of different ways.
Have you always had an affinity for the tubers? I mean,
I don't know it's certain whether it's you know, nature
and nurture, I don't know, but a bowl of mash
(21:59):
but aato is so delicious. Remember seeing him? What's that
York film? There's a scene at the end where she's
on death throw and she's getting her last meal. And
I remember I was on a diet at the time.
I was trying to dose weight. So I see some
loots of fish and salad and things, and they gave
her her last meal and it was like chop steak.
(22:20):
It was a really big chop steak with potato and gravy,
and and she pushed it away. And that was when
I lost all sympathy for that character, because I eat it,
you more on eat it looks delicious, get it down here.
So I do like the concept of last meal because
(22:41):
all of us are going to have a last meal,
but our last meal will probably be toast. If you
die of all day, you ends up with toast, which,
by the way, that wouldn't be a bad thing for me.
I love toast, do you, Yeah, really do if it
if it ended up being my last meal, I'd be
really piste off. It were the crisps that I didn't want,
(23:02):
but I had to take a packet of crisps because
I was hungry, but they didn't have the flavor that
I liked, and I ended up with like I hate cheese,
no onion crisps, Like I ate cheese nonion crisp. Because
that would be really a bummer for me, that was
my last meal. You could have, it would give you
a reason to live. You'd hang on. I must get
to the shock, must not let that lingering shit taste
(23:30):
for eternity. Yeah. And also I suppose maybe this whole
idea of last meal, it only makes sense in a
situation like you're going to be killed in fairness to
be work, you would I suppose lose some interest. And
that's what people have tried to say. There's me. They've
(23:51):
been like on the show, they've been like wow, they
were like, you know, I just think I would be
I just I don't think I could eat, and I
was like, yeah no, but let's just say you could.
Let's just see really hungry because it is your last meal,
and let's take the whole death thing out of it.
There might be I think I even said that some
of there might be another reason why this is your
last meal. And there was a really long s You're
(24:13):
being abducted by aliens and they don't eat so potatoes,
lovely potato. It's mashed mashed potato. Probably do you put
butter and a little bit of cream or milk in
your bashed potatoes or do you just well, here's the thing.
When I go out, I eat whatever. But in the
house it's vegan and it's and it's one of the
(24:33):
things about mashed potos because I always thought mashed potatoes
were gorgeous because you put you know, lots of woster
in them. And can I just say, we've been underestimating
the potato this whole time. Just a bit of plant
based butter, olive oil, salt and pepper and then mash away.
It is as delicious as any mashy you've ever had.
(24:55):
You're very surprising, Graham. I like that vegan mashed potatoes.
That that okay, you will last me on and then
I'm actually going to make that. Does it depend on
what potatoes you use? Because in America you can't get
you can't get like are they called marass piper my favorite?
You can't get them in America. Can't find they are
(25:16):
the most versatile. They are the most versatile. They are.
They are the best roast potatoes, the best chips, and
the best mashed potatoes I found. But in America they
must have good potatoes. They don't have, you know, they
don't have new potatoes. They have like russets, but the
small potatoes. It's funny, I haven't found any really good ones.
But then I've I've never been to Ida Home off
(25:38):
the Potato exactly. Maybe I got to go there. This
is the legendary journalist and television host Dnam'm Paul in
(26:01):
your life. Can you tell me about something that has
grown out of a personal disaster? Well, I think my
first personal disaster was failing my exams. I had never
failed anything in my life. I'd never ever failed anything
in my life. I was always you know, first or second,
you know in my class. No, No, sorry, no, Joanna
(26:22):
Blundle was first. Wow, you've never forgotten Joanna Bund. I
have never forgotten. I was eleven years old until eighteen
years old. I've never forgotten it. But just to say
that when I did fail my levels, I was desperate.
I've never been that desperate. I've never sunk into such
a hole. And I didn't know what to do. I
(26:45):
did not know what to do with my life. And
I sent me home to Iran and I spent that
year in the revolution. And you know, you you wouldn't
want to say that that was a good thing that
came out of failure, but that was a constructive thing
that happened in my life that put me on the
path to my future. What did you do in that year? What? What?
(27:07):
What did you secretarial work? I did a little this
or a little bad. But during a revolution, a cultural
and a religious revolution, well it was hard because you know,
I was of the class and the group who was
being revolted against, so it was, you know, not that
easy for me to get in to see what was
(27:29):
going on. I watched it from the sidelines as it
as it unfolded outside my door or whatever. I did
not go into the protests I just watched and I
talked and I listened, and then in the end, my
father sent me out just before Ormeni came back, because
you said, if you don't go now, you don't know
what will happen. And I needed to go to university.
So that's what happened. I really did not mean in
(27:51):
any way to be disrespectful, to make light of what
must have been an unfathomable time in Iran's history. But
I do kind of love the idea that you've failed
your A levels and then we're like, okay, I guess
I'm just going to go back to the revolution. Then
there's there's no point anymore. I'm just going to go
back and watch everything chatting like that's that's that's kind
(28:11):
of that's kind of amazing. It sort of happened after
I failed. But it was great. I mean, what can
I tell you? It wasn't great for so many people.
Many people lost their lives. In fact, in my own family,
my father's brother, my uncle was arrested and in jail
and he was either killed or died or tortured to death.
We never saw his body. They never gave it back. Um,
(28:32):
And so these things stick with you it's a very
particular context that you then go out into the world
to do what you do. And I think it's astonishing
that you survived that, that you survived not just physically
but mentally. And I know you've said that so many
people didn't. Well, to bring it back to what you've
been asking me, I survived because of love and happiness
(28:54):
and joy and knowing how to see it and how
to recognize it and wanting it. M hmm. That is
true for all of us as well. I mean that
that is a wonderful thing to hear. And that's a wrap.
Thank you so much for listening to season two, and
I can't wait for you to join me next season
(29:14):
for even more guests, more laughs, and more surprises. You know,
when I first started many questions, I wanted each episode
to help us create some sort of cultural anthology, every
new guest giving us news stories that highlighted our differences
and our similarities, whether we're reliving early gigs at CBGB
with Debbie Harry, sharing fried Hallumi cheese with an Airs Mitchell,
(29:37):
or talking about dog psychics with Graham Norton. I hope
you heard something that made you laugh, something that surprised you,
maybe even something that made you feel a little more
connected to the world. Until next season, be sure to
follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Driver Mini and
subscribe to Many Questions on the I Heart Radio app,
(29:57):
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast
to be the first to note about our new episodes.
I can't thank you enough for listening. Thank you so much.
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
(30:22):
Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
and a Nick Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador,
(30:44):
Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech
support Henry Driver. Additional production from Many Questions with the
Mini Driver Season two provided by Zoe Denkla and Carl
Cadle
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