Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Today, to celebrate the end of season one,
Speaker 1: I have a treat for you. As I'm sure you've noticed,
Speaker 1: each time I ask a guest these questions, our conversations
Speaker 1: go in wildly different directions. The same question might get
Speaker 1: Gia Tolentino wondering about her life's purpose, ronan Pharaoh pursuing
Speaker 1: decades old government secrets, or Stephen Fry thinking about Amazonian
Speaker 1: tree frogs. And while every guest thinks about these questions
Speaker 1: in a unique way, we don't always get to share
Speaker 1: every answer. For the sake of sharing episodes with you
Speaker 1: that aren't too long, we had to leave some memorable
Speaker 1: moments on the cutting room floor, so today we're picking
Speaker 1: up those pieces. In this episode, I will share with
Speaker 1: you a few of my favorite answers that weren't in
Speaker 1: the original episodes to help close out season one of
Speaker 1: many questions. Think of them as deleted scenes. But don't worry.
Speaker 1: Season one is wrapping up and I'm off to film
Speaker 1: a couple of movies. Many questions will return for season
Speaker 1: two very soon, and please be sure to let me
Speaker 1: know in the comments and reviews if there are new
Speaker 1: guests you'd like to hear. From now, let's get into
Speaker 1: some of these deleted scenes. Here is today's show anchor
Speaker 1: Herd to cut the what quality do you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? I am two things that I wish I
Speaker 1: was less of. I'm super bossy, which is annoying to all,
Speaker 1: and I'm weirdly At the same time, I think I'm
Speaker 1: a pleaser, A bossy pleaser. A bossy pleaser. Is that possible?
Speaker 1: I mean, my sister is like, okay, stop being so bossy,
Speaker 1: and I can't help it. Joel is he just like
Speaker 1: watches me spin around and call all the shots, and
Speaker 1: he must be like when it's all comes down, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: now can we discuss you You're good? Okay? My conversation
Speaker 1: about it And I think at the same time, like
Speaker 1: I want to make people feel so comfortable that I
Speaker 1: sort of we'll turn myself into a pretzel to make
Speaker 1: sure they feel good. That's interesting. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a very female experience, that of turning yourself into a
Speaker 1: pretzel whilst also having to make ship happen. Yes, And
Speaker 1: that's really it, because I feel like I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to make the trains run on time and make sure
Speaker 1: we get where we need to get and do all
Speaker 1: the things we need to do. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I find myself doing this And it's so funny because
Speaker 1: the other day I must say sorry a lot. I
Speaker 1: don't even realize it, but cope, my two year old O, sorry, Mom, sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh god, you're too What am I doing?
Speaker 1: And I hear my words coming out? And then I
Speaker 1: saw my daughter was playing with a little boy. What
Speaker 1: she said, Calvin, what did you have for lunch? And
Speaker 1: he said, girl, cheese? And he said what did you have?
Speaker 1: And she said same like you but she didn't. And
Speaker 1: I was like, does this start? Now? What's how playing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean is that in her like She's already trying
Speaker 1: to make him feel like I'm like you. And I
Speaker 1: thought it was weird. But at the same time I
Speaker 1: was wondering, you know, I don't even know what I'm
Speaker 1: modeling at the time. I feel like I'm just living
Speaker 1: and maybe they see I don't know, you have to
Speaker 1: just live there. I mean, I'm all for self inquiry
Speaker 1: and you know, being aware of your behavior, but you
Speaker 1: simply cannot curate every second of what comes out of
Speaker 1: your mouth. I sort of wish I could, but it's
Speaker 1: just not possible. But that is interesting about the same
Speaker 1: like you, because I remember doing that really young, particularly
Speaker 1: with boys, you know, as a identifying heterosexual, assist gendered woman,
Speaker 1: I learned to please boys really really young. Yeah, the bossy,
Speaker 1: I like the bossy. I think bossy is good. I
Speaker 1: think bossy should have another word. I think it should
Speaker 1: just be called excellent. Okay, I'll think that. I'll take that.
Speaker 1: Bossy is just like, I know what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: Just let me make it happen. Shut up and let
Speaker 1: me do it. Everybody get out here, we go. I
Speaker 1: just need an open road and everything gets done. It's
Speaker 1: exactly right. I'm going to now say, holda, Oh yeah, holda,
Speaker 1: Why isn't she a bit bossy? Now she's a bit excellent.
Speaker 1: I like that. I'm stealing it. How good you can
Speaker 1: have it? Here is writer and global health advocate Chelsea Clinton.
Speaker 1: So love what relationship real or fictionalized? To find love
Speaker 1: for you? I love my parents. I was really close
Speaker 1: to my grandmother, Um, who passed away almost a decade ago.
Speaker 1: I spoke to her at least try to speak with
Speaker 1: her every day. I love my husband we've known each
Speaker 1: other since we were kids, and we were friends for
Speaker 1: more than a decade before we fell in love, and
Speaker 1: you know, got me right. And now I've created kind
Speaker 1: of love and action in these three amazing beings that
Speaker 1: I just am so thankfully get to be their mom.
Speaker 1: And so, for me, love is being able to love
Speaker 1: my children, to be able to care for them and
Speaker 1: hopefully make them laugh and pick them up when they
Speaker 1: fall down, literally and metaphorically teach them what's worth their
Speaker 1: tears and not so when they just sort of trip
Speaker 1: and fall in they're okay, like not worth their tears
Speaker 1: versus like if they're actually bleeding, worth their tears, or
Speaker 1: for the older kids and their baby brother like knocked
Speaker 1: down their magnetile tower, which happens, you know, fairly frequently,
Speaker 1: Like I get that that's totally frustrating, but not worth
Speaker 1: their tears versus like you know, when they're missing their
Speaker 1: cousins and they haven't seen them for more than a year, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they can cry about that. That's painful. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: And so that to me is love. And my daughter
Speaker 1: Charlotte's obsessed with sharks and she wants to shave the
Speaker 1: sharks and so we talk a lot about the environment
Speaker 1: and how you know, I love for ourselves and love
Speaker 1: for each other also has to I think we love
Speaker 1: for our planet. And she's six, but she can carry
Speaker 1: out the cardboard recycling or at least, you know, with
Speaker 1: some help. And so I think all of that is love,
Speaker 1: like you know, making them laugh, picking them up, teaching
Speaker 1: them to be good citizens, and how to love and
Speaker 1: how to love and how to love each other. I think,
Speaker 1: especially like I was an only child, and so like
Speaker 1: how they love each other as siblings has also been
Speaker 1: a new experience for me because I didn't have any
Speaker 1: siblings growing up. My husband had ten siblings. Um, so
Speaker 1: I thankfully here's a lot of experience to draw from.
Speaker 1: So all of that to me is love. I love
Speaker 1: that this wonderful man called Mike Coots, who is one
Speaker 1: of the great environmental advocates for sharks. Okay, he was
Speaker 1: a pro surfer who had the lower half of I
Speaker 1: can't remember which leg it was a bitten off by shark.
Speaker 1: And he suffs now, he stuffs still, But he is
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary advocate for these animals that changed this
Speaker 1: life definitively, but in a way that I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting and beautiful exploration of the extraordinary
Speaker 1: spect trum of love and fear. It's it's really amazing.
Speaker 1: He has an instagram that is quite beautiful, um and
Speaker 1: some videos that Charlotte might really like. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: because she's love sharks now half her life. I mean,
Speaker 1: when she was three, we went to the New or
Speaker 1: Aquarium and she just became mesmerized by these animals. I
Speaker 1: wanted to learn everything that she could about them, and
Speaker 1: thankfully she had a wonderful preschool teacher who read her
Speaker 1: books about sharks, and then we kind of checked some
Speaker 1: books out from the library, and then we bought more books,
Speaker 1: and she just really you know, if you ask her
Speaker 1: what she wants to be when she goes up, she
Speaker 1: says she wants to be a shark scientist. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: And she's had the same answer, whereas my four year
Speaker 1: old has like different he wants to be. He also
Speaker 1: wants to be a scientists, but the type of scientist
Speaker 1: he wants to be kind of changes every day. But
Speaker 1: for Charlotte, it really is like she I have no
Speaker 1: idea what should be when she goes up, but for
Speaker 1: now to have had this consistent passion and commitment, and
Speaker 1: she talks to all of our family about sharks, and
Speaker 1: she wants her cousins and her aunts and uncles, you know,
Speaker 1: about jerks, and to really appreciate them and not be
Speaker 1: scared about them, and to know why that the caretakers
Speaker 1: of the ocean, and why they're so fundamental to the
Speaker 1: cycle of the ocean. I mean, really genuinely, that's so
Speaker 1: amazing that she's identified this thing that is a figure
Speaker 1: of you know, it has it has so much fair
Speaker 1: attached to it, and they are they are genuinely such necessary, beautiful,
Speaker 1: extraordinary creatures. Yes, yes, And and just that I've already
Speaker 1: learned so much from her, so fun as a parent,
Speaker 1: right that she's already taught me so much about about jerks.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, is awesome, That's amazing. Next up we have
Speaker 1: actor and director Coleman Domingo. Perhaps you could tell me
Speaker 1: in your life something that has grown out of a
Speaker 1: personal disaster my my my writing, to be honest, the
Speaker 1: stories that I write and the place that I write,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times sort of document or
Speaker 1: touch on something that I that I miss dearly, which
Speaker 1: is that little house in Philadelphia, where I was raised,
Speaker 1: where I felt tethered with all this love and hope,
Speaker 1: that family unit that is no longer terrible tragedies. Because
Speaker 1: I lost my parents within six months of each other.
Speaker 1: It was one truly devastating year. But with that, I
Speaker 1: think I poured all my energy into my heart and
Speaker 1: then to my storytelling, because I like to tell stories
Speaker 1: that are complex and about who we are. I think
Speaker 1: they're always trying to bring people together. They're always trying
Speaker 1: to show people the best parts of themselves. They will
Speaker 1: get through something. I think it's also possibly for myself,
Speaker 1: to be honest, to write it for someone else to
Speaker 1: actually get through that thing that you've got through, but
Speaker 1: you know it was harrowing, and you know that you
Speaker 1: could have fallen at any time. And that's the truth.
Speaker 1: I do look at my own tragedies that I've had
Speaker 1: as I guess things that it sounds weird, but things
Speaker 1: that they were mine. Not that I needed, but they
Speaker 1: were mine. They were mine, things to cross, They were
Speaker 1: my gifts. In some weird way. We don't want these gifts,
Speaker 1: but they are gifts, and we take them with best
Speaker 1: and we hopefully make them transformative. We show other people
Speaker 1: the way. The thing that many of that I think
Speaker 1: I do recognize even more so, and I think we've
Speaker 1: been doing our work for a long time, is that
Speaker 1: it is work of the soul, and it said you
Speaker 1: have to pour it all in there, all the tragedy,
Speaker 1: all the good times, all of it, and it's going
Speaker 1: to help you establish a new truth and the truth
Speaker 1: and creation I know. It's definitely the way I write,
Speaker 1: that way I create, the way I create opportunities not
Speaker 1: only for myself but for others. It's because of the
Speaker 1: tragedy that have a production company, because I want to
Speaker 1: make sure people taken care of. I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't leave it to everyone out there. I don't just
Speaker 1: writing a lot or getting upset about circumstances. I will
Speaker 1: create it. I will create the world that I think
Speaker 1: in the container that it should live in. And I
Speaker 1: don't know where I get that from. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: know where I get this from where I feel like
Speaker 1: I think everything in my past would have set me
Speaker 1: up to feel like I didn't have agency in the world,
Speaker 1: but that's not the truth. I think it's my mother
Speaker 1: and the way she raised me. Believing that I can
Speaker 1: make a difference that although we've had we had no money,
Speaker 1: but everything was available to me. I never believed that
Speaker 1: something wasn't available, whether it was love or money access.
Speaker 1: I've always walked into a room believing that everything was
Speaker 1: available to me, and you just leave with love, you
Speaker 1: leave with grace. I don't want and it seems to
Speaker 1: knock on wood when working out. Yeah, it's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1: Though to not come at any of it from a
Speaker 1: point of view of paucity, and also to come it
Speaker 1: from the idea that you can take things that are
Speaker 1: difficult and turn them into something else. I don't think
Speaker 1: alchemy gets a big enough shout out. Frankly, alchemy needs
Speaker 1: to get the biggest shout out in the world because
Speaker 1: it is transforming that and it's always possible. Always It's
Speaker 1: just up to you. It really is up to you
Speaker 1: in the way that you see it, what you choose
Speaker 1: to do with that fuel, because it's all fuel, right,
Speaker 1: all of it. This next question is from my conversation
Speaker 1: with actor Anna Faris, all right, love, So what what
Speaker 1: question would you most like answered? It is tough to
Speaker 1: think about potentially dying without without understanding a larger picture.
Speaker 1: I suppose I would love to be around for an
Speaker 1: extra terrestrial idea, for an interaction with an extra terrestrial
Speaker 1: it is interact. I just need to see it all
Speaker 1: the news, just of course, because you don't want to
Speaker 1: happen in my lifetime. You just wanted to happen. I think,
Speaker 1: I think that would be really fucking cool. Yeah, I agree, Mini,
Speaker 1: What about you? Can I ask you? I mean it's
Speaker 1: I asked this question because I really am so I'm
Speaker 1: so interested. But I realized, and having asked it so much,
Speaker 1: because so many people then myself included, go well, I
Speaker 1: you know, I want to know what happens when we die.
Speaker 1: But really what it is is, I want to know
Speaker 1: how to talk to the dead people. I really, I
Speaker 1: really feel like if what we're talking about is energetic
Speaker 1: frequencies and that you know, our bodies a matter vibrating
Speaker 1: at a certain level, that our optic nerves can perceive,
Speaker 1: and that if being dead is just being non physical,
Speaker 1: I really want to know how we can. I just
Speaker 1: want to speed up our evolution, in our advancement. I'd
Speaker 1: like to speak the head and see if we've we've
Speaker 1: developed these ways of dealing with the more subtle frequencies
Speaker 1: does that sound bananas? It sounds kind of bananas, but
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's true. No, it will well
Speaker 1: sounds bananas. It I mean, I'm getting to the age
Speaker 1: and I know that you've experienced death of late, and
Speaker 1: I'm getting to the age where my friends and I
Speaker 1: our parents are becoming ill and we are thinking about
Speaker 1: these things in a in a slightly different way. Um,
Speaker 1: But I love what you told me on my podcast.
Speaker 1: I think about that a lot. You said that grief
Speaker 1: is love amplified. It's an amplification of love. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is enormous and it is amazing, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the crone living in the scariest house on
Speaker 1: the block. Like everybody's frightened of her. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: go in and talk to her, nobody wants to be
Speaker 1: a asociated with her. But she really has so much
Speaker 1: wisdom and there is so much life in grief. It's
Speaker 1: a really funny thing. And there's a there's regret two,
Speaker 1: I would imagine, is there regret? Well? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it depends and you're you know, when you start going
Speaker 1: through the litany of things that you wish she'd said
Speaker 1: or done differently, because you do. I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's regret exactly. It's more like you examine everything. You
Speaker 1: examine it almost like it's under a microscope. And then weirdly,
Speaker 1: the things that I just don't need to be held
Speaker 1: onto anymore are the things that fall by the wayside.
Speaker 1: You keep shedding. I keep shedding layers of stuff that
Speaker 1: just was not interesting to keep alive when my mother
Speaker 1: herself was alive, and things that we talked about, and
Speaker 1: now the things that I think about are almost like
Speaker 1: the distillation of what I loved about her, and the
Speaker 1: distillation of our conversations and the things that she taught me.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like I look more like her. It's
Speaker 1: weird because I feel like I'm inhabiting more of what
Speaker 1: she meant and felt. That's kind of an amazing idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really weird. It happened the other day, like I
Speaker 1: was looking in my rear view mirror and I caught
Speaker 1: side of myself and I got a shock because I
Speaker 1: I looked like her. It was it was really it's
Speaker 1: very strange. I mean, I'm sure it's all part of
Speaker 1: the kind of the psychological journey, but I would I
Speaker 1: would love to know how we're going to evolve. I
Speaker 1: would love to know how human beings like, if we
Speaker 1: are actually going to develop more areas of our brain,
Speaker 1: if we are going to evolve beyond the kind of
Speaker 1: the hideous sort of warmongering and all of the cruelty
Speaker 1: that just has seemed to be this back and forth
Speaker 1: of the haves and the have nots and the powerful
Speaker 1: and the powerless. Will there ever change? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know I have quite a lot of questions that
Speaker 1: I'd like answered, but I think it feels it feels necessary.
Speaker 1: We'll probably have to go quite a long time into
Speaker 1: the future, probably, and well our general will probably have
Speaker 1: to take over. Yeah, oh probably. Oh my god. If
Speaker 1: it stills exhausting having to be in oh god. But seriously,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a matriarchy. Oh my gosh, exhausted.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sleep as it is. Jesus, you
Speaker 1: do it, no you. And finally, here is former Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Tony Blair. I will ask you very quickly, because
Speaker 1: I know you have to go. What would be your
Speaker 1: last mail? You know, I could go sort of really
Speaker 1: good fish and chips from my youth, and I would
Speaker 1: love that. I like a really simple pasta. It depends
Speaker 1: when my my last meal you can have you can
Speaker 1: have as many courses as you want, is your last
Speaker 1: male Yeah, that's so in that case, and it provided
Speaker 1: we're not going to go into sort of leger On
Speaker 1: booth style. So I would like a whole array of
Speaker 1: different dishes, small small amounts. Japanese maybe, But look, you know,
Speaker 1: I think if one knew it was my last meal,
Speaker 1: my thoughts would be elsewhere they might. I could always
Speaker 1: I could definitely consider my my mortal coil and have
Speaker 1: an apple crumble like a whole one. Yeah, I could
Speaker 1: definitely think about spirituality and eat everything that you said.
Speaker 1: I'd eat all of that and then roast chicken apple crumble.
Speaker 1: My mom used to make great apple crumble mine too.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite pudding. It's pretty English, actually, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you get good apples here. I mean not to
Speaker 1: disparage America, but I've very rarely had really good apples.
Speaker 1: You can't find cooking apples in America either. Rubob crumble
Speaker 1: that's good too. Well, there you have it. The deleted
Speaker 1: scenes of season one. In listening to all of these again,
Speaker 1: I started to think back on why I wanted to
Speaker 1: start doing this podcast, and I've been reflecting on whether
Speaker 1: I've accomplished a piece of what I set out to do.
Speaker 1: You've heard me say this before, but my mission with
Speaker 1: this podcast was to create a cultural anthology, an investigation
Speaker 1: into the human experience, with each episode presenting a new guest,
Speaker 1: a new data point in this great experiment. And I'm
Speaker 1: not done. Many questions will return for season two, and
Speaker 1: I hope three, four, or five, six, seven, eight, and
Speaker 1: on and on. One season does not a cultural anthology make,
Speaker 1: but I've gleaned an insight or two, and I hope
Speaker 1: you've been able to do the same. One I think
Speaker 1: about most often is whether you're a rock star performing
Speaker 1: for a stadium full of adoring fans, or a correspondent
Speaker 1: reporting on climate change, or a twelve year old trying
Speaker 1: to go to school. A peaceful moment is usually a
Speaker 1: happy one, so I hope that until we chat again,
Speaker 1: you have many, many happy moments of peace. I also
Speaker 1: hope that you have a meal where you never get
Speaker 1: full and get to eat lots of oatmeal, fried chicken,
Speaker 1: chocolate moose, and mashed potatoes without ketchup. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter at
Speaker 1: Driver Mini and subscribe to Many Questions on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts to ensure that you'll be the first to
Speaker 1: know about our new episodes. I really thank you with
Speaker 1: all of my heart for having listened and gone on
Speaker 1: this journey with me. It's been an amazing experience, and
Speaker 1: I'm extremely grateful that I have the opportunity to do
Speaker 1: this and to share these conversations with you. Until next time,
Speaker 1: keep asking Many questions. I think you will find that
Speaker 1: whether your questions reveal similarities or differences, you will invariably
Speaker 1: what's the connection, Because I found it is our questions,
Speaker 1: not our answers, that bring us together. Many Questions is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman,
Speaker 1: Producer Morgan Lavoy, Research Assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry
Speaker 1: Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman, Executive
Speaker 1: produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay,
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Addison, No Day, Lisa Castella and a Unique
Speaker 1: Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate Driver and
Speaker 1: Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support Henry Driver M.