Jesse Eisenberg Hated Bar Mitzvahs As A Kid

Eisenberg's film, A Real Pain, follows two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland, which includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp. Eisenberg spoke with Terry Gross about tragedy tourism, and his own relationship to Judaism. The "Hebrew school dropout" says the suburban bar mitzvah scene made his 12-year-old stomach turn.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

NYT columnist and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom and scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. reflect on the struggle for civil rights and what it means to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the same day that President Donald Trump is sworn into office. "Perhaps the juxtaposition of seeing Donald Trump preside over the official state memorialization of Martin Luther King will remind us of our responsibility to remembering King as he actually was ... as he was a philosopher, an organizer of the people," Cottom says.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Writer Pico Iyer lost everything in a 1990 California wildfire. After being rendered homeless and sleeping on a friend's floor, he was told about a Benedictine monastery. His time spent in silence on retreat there changed him both as a person and as a writer. He spoke with Terry Gross about his new memoir about the experience, Aflame. Also, comic and former Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. talks with Tonya Mosley about his new comedy special, Lonely Flowers. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys has been adapted for the big screen. In 2019, Whitehead spoke with Dave Davies when the book was released. It's set in the early '60s, based on the true story of the Dozier reform school in Florida, where many boys were beaten and sexually abused. Dozens of unmarked graves have been discovered on the school grounds. "If there's one place like this, there are many," he says.Later, guest critic Martin Johnson reviews a new recording featuring two giants of jazz. And film critic Justin Chang reviews Mike Leigh's new film, Hard Truths.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Rape kits were widely known as "Vitullo Kits" after a Chicago police sergeant. But a new book tells the story of Marty Goddard, a community activist who worked with runaway teenagers in the 1970s. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the Western miniseries American Primeval, now streaming on Netflix.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 1990, writer Pico Iyer watched as a wildfire destroyed his mother's Santa Barbara home, where he also lived. In Aflame, he recounts the devastation of the fire — and the peace he found living in a Benedictine monastery.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In the past, Donald Trump talked about keeping America out of foreign conflicts — but lately he's talked about potentially using force or economic pressure to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal, even Canada. We'll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT national security correspondent David Sanger. He'll talk about how Trump might handle the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and Iran's growing nuclear threat.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A good comedian has to "know what regular people are going through," Roy Wood Jr. says. In his new Hulu special, Lonely Flowers, Wood riffs on how isolation has sent society spiraling. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about leaving The Daily Show, learning from other comics, and how an arrest pushed him to pursue stand-up.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Tilda Swinton stars as a woman with cancer who decides she wants to end her life in the new Pedro Almodóvar film The Room Next Door. She asks a friend to stay with her for her last weeks. She spoke with Terry Gross about the role and her own experience bearing witness to the deaths of loved ones.Also, we hear from award-winning actor Adrien Brody. He stars in the film The Brutalist as a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who seeks a fresh start in post-WWII America. Brody tells Tonya Mosley how drew from his mother and grandfather's experience as Hungarian immigrants for the role. Also, film critic Justin Chang reviews the new Mike Leigh film Hard Truths.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A Complete Unknown – the film about Bob Dylan is in theaters. We're featuring interviews with three people depicted in the film: Suze Rotolo was his girlfriend and was photographed on his arm for the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. She told Terry about that photoshoot. Folk singer Joan Baez was already a star when she met Dylan. She took him on tour, but nobody knew who he was. She talks about some of those early shows. And Al Kooper was a session musician who played the organ on "Like a Rolling Stone."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy