Irmgard Keun

DATE August 22, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Mike White discusses his new movie, "The Good Girl"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Mike White, wrote the new film "The Good Girl." He also wrote and
starred in the film "Chuck & Buck," wrote the screenplay for the recent comedy
"Orange County," and wrote for the TV series "Dawson's Creek" and "Freaks and
Geeks." In his new movie, "The Good Girl," Jennifer Aniston plays Justine, a
30-something woman in a small Texas town who feels trapped by her life but
sees no way out. She hates her job at the local discount store, Retail
Rodeo(ph), and her husband seems to always be stoned on marijuana when she
gets home from work. But a new employee at the Retail Rodeo catches her
attention. He's young and brooding. He calls himself Holden, after the main
character in the novel "The Catcher in the Rye." Holden, played by Jake
Gyllenhaal, is barely out of his teens, still lives at home with his parents
and feels trapped by his life, too. He takes refuge in writing stories about
his unhappy life. In this scene, Justine gives him a ride home after work.
He invites her in, they walk past his parents, who are watching TV in the
living room, and have this conversation in his bedroom.

(Soundbite from "The Good Girl")

Mr. JAKE GYLLENHAAL: (As Holden) This is my room.

Ms. JENNIFER ANISTON: (As Justine) Not a lot to look at. What are your folks
like?

Mr. GYLLENHAAL: (As Holden) They're OK. You know, they don't get me. But
they're all right. I just...

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) My husband doesn't get me.

Mr. GYLLENHAAL: (As Holden) Since when do you have a husband?

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) Since seven years. He's a painter.

Mr. GYLLENHAAL: (As Holden) What's he paint?

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) Houses. He's a pig. He talks but he doesn't
think. I'm sick of it. I was looking at you in the store and I liked how you
kept to yourself. I saw in your eyes that you hate the world. I hate it,
too. You know what I'm talking about?

GROSS: Mike White, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Mr. MIKE WHITE (Writer, "The Good Girl"): Thanks.

GROSS: Now the Jennifer Aniston character says to her younger boyfriend,
played by Jake Gyllenhaal, `I saw in your eyes that you hate the world. I
hate it, too.' But that shared hatred really isn't enough to form a lasting
bond. Did you ever think that it was; that a shared kind of alienation was a
really strong bond?

Mr. WHITE: Well, it's interesting that you talk about that because that
really was the idea that sort of inspired the movie, which is, you know,
sometimes we see in other people our own--you know, it's like out of, yeah, a
shared hatred, you can create a love, you know? And I think that, you know,
sometimes, you know, when you are in pain or, you know, depressed, you know,
you look to someone else who feels the way you--you're feeling. And yet
sometimes that just adds to the misery.

GROSS: The Jennifer Aniston character, who thinks of herself as really
trapped by her life, calls her husband a pig and a pothead. But in his own
way, he's a very sympathetic character with a big heart. He's played by John
C. Reilly, who also starred in "Boogie Nights," "Heartache,"(ph) "Magnolia"
and "The Perfect Storm." Can you tell us why you wanted to cast him? I think
he's terrific.

Mr. WHITE: Well, that character's really important. I mean, all of the
characters--I mean, the idea for me--one of the big themes of the movie is
about change and the ability--you know, do we have the ability to change
ourselves? And I wanted all of the characters to sort of--just like, you
know, she's giving makeovers to the women in the store. You kind of want to
feel like through the narrative, all of the characters go through some kind of
makeover, whether it's through their--you know, they change or the perception
of them changes through the course of the movie. And his character was key
because of the way things transpire. And you want to feel like at the
beginning he is this one type of character and that he's--you know, he has
nothing to offer her. And you understand why she feels so, you know,
desperate in this relationship. But it was important that over the course of
the movie, you know, he is--got a big heart and that there is something more
to him than what you see at the beginning. And that in the end, it almost
feels like that's the love story.

GROSS: Now in "The Good Girl," you play a security guard at the Retail Rodeo,
the discount store. Let me play a clip from the movie. In this scene, you
invite the Jennifer Aniston character to a Bible study meeting.

(Soundbite from "The Good Girl")

Mr. WHITE: (As Corny) Hey, Justine. Can I talk to you for a second?

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) Yeah.

Mr. WHITE: (As Corny) I was just curious, have you ever been to a Bible
study?

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) Yeah.

Mr. WHITE: (As Corny) Yeah, well, we've got a good one going on every
Wednesday at the First Church of the Nazarene(ph). Rodney comes, Benita(ph)
comes. You got any interest in reading the Bible?

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) I have my own, you know, beliefs.

Mr. WHITE: (As Corny) Well, we don't preach fire and brimstone. Ten
Commandments--gotta live by those. Other than the usual ways, we're not
interested in scaring people. We're about lovin' Jesus.

Ms. ANISTON: (As Justine) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of like my nights to myself.

Mr. WHITE: (As Corny) Well, maybe you'll have night after night of eternal
hellfire all to yourself. Just kidding you. Drive safe.

GROSS: That was Mike White and Jennifer Aniston in a scene from "The Good
Girl." Mike White not only co-stars in the movie, he wrote it.

Mike, you must know a lot about Bible study. Your father, Mel White, is a
minister who ghostwrote biographies for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and, I
think, Billy Graham. Then your father came out, and his co-authors didn't
exactly approve of his being gay.

Mr. WHITE: No.

GROSS: How old were you when that happened?

Mr. WHITE: I was around 11 years old when I found out what was going on with
my family, and then it just kind of--actually the whole process of his coming
out was like very extended, so it went on, you know, throughout my high school
years.

GROSS: What did it look like from your point of view as not even a young man
yet? I mean, you're a preteener, as they say.

Mr. WHITE: Uh-huh.

GROSS: To have your father surprise the family and the world with his sexual
orientation--and I don't know, it's a very young age to be thinking a lot
about that kind of thing.

Mr. WHITE: Mm-hmm. Well, it was definitely a life-altering experience, and
the fact that he was gay was less of a difficult thing to digest than just,
you know, the fact of my parents' marriage unraveling and our family
transforming. It was--for, you know, many years when I was growing up, I felt
like we had the picture-perfect family. And, you know, to have that sort of
illusion pulled out from under you, you know, changes the way you see things.

GROSS: Now your father stayed religious. He is the minister now in a gay
church. But were you expected to stay--to change your religious perspective
when he came out? I figure you grew up a lot in the church and I presume it
was a fundamentalist church.

Mr. WHITE: Right. I think my father was very sensitive to the fact that when
he grew up, there was really a lot of proselytizing within the household in
the sense of, you know, `Are you OK with the Lord?' every day, you know, with
his own parents. And he was really sensitive to not kind of foist his
beliefs upon me, you know, and was sensitive from an early age. So it was--I
do have a sort of complicated--I don't know--relationship to organized
religion. But I never--you know, I was never a sort of devout believer. You
know, from the time I was a little kid, I just had a sort of skeptical
perspective on it all. So...

GROSS: Were there things that you were expected to do or expected to avoid as
a Christian kid?

Mr. WHITE: Yeah. I mean, there was the sense of, you know, you don't curse,
you don't, you know--I mean, I was kind of a precocious kid and I was a real
movie fan, even early on, and always, you know, was demanding that my parents
would--to take me across town to see these sort of, you know--to these art
house movies, you know. And for some reason, you know, at the time, I really,
you know, would pitch a fit if they wouldn't take me. And a lot of times, the
content of the movies were completely inappropriate for someone my age. But I
was willful and my parents kind of didn't know what to do. So there is those
kinds of issues all the time. And yet, my parents, you know, in that world
were actually pretty liberal comparatively.

GROSS: What was one of the movies that you insisted on seeing that, if they
could have, they would have prevented you from seeing?

Mr. WHITE: Well, they ended up taking me. But I don't remember. I wanted to
see that--I must have been eight years old and I wanted to see Woody Allen's
"Interiors."

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. WHITE: And wanted to see it again and again. I don't know, I just felt
like--at the time, it was like, `Oh, this is what profundity looks like.'

GROSS: It's a lot of Sturm and Drang for a young kid.

Mr. WHITE: Yeah. But--yeah, so I was always in search of--I mean, I had--my
second-grade teacher was Sam Shepard's mother.

GROSS: No kidding.

Mr. WHITE: Yeah. She was a teacher at my elementary school, and she was a
great teacher and was my favorite. And so I think it was around when I was
seven that I realized that, you know, play writing or whatever could be a
career choice. And I was reading "Buried Child" in second grade and thinking,
`This is what I want to do.'

GROSS: That's one of Sam Shepard's plays. Right.

Mr. WHITE: Yeah. Exactly. `This is what I want to do.' I was kind of a
weird kid, as you can imagine.

GROSS: Were you writing pretentious theater as a kid?

Mr. WHITE: Yes, I was. The more pretentious, the better. I mean, I feel
like, you know, sometimes I look at what I've done now and I think, `Gosh, all
my like heady, highbrow stuff I wrote 10, 15 years ago.' But I don't know,
now I'm sort of more--I don't know--like wary to go down the road of pretense.

GROSS: Now some of the people who you knew as a child, who your father worked
with before he came out, were people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
And these are people who see Hollywood as kind of like the gates to hell.

Mr. WHITE: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Did any of that ever rub off on you? And I guess, you know, there you
are in the center of it now.

Mr. WHITE: Yeah. Well, I remember when I was a kid growing up, my
grandparents, my father's parents, were very, very devout and conservative
Christians. And I remember--you know, I was such a movie enthusiast. I
remember, you know, I used to watch "The China Syndrome," this movie with Jane
Fonda, and I was really into it. And when my grandparents came to town, I was
like, `Oh, you have to see this movie. It's, you know, about, you know,
nuclear, you know, energy and all of the, you know, dangers of it.' And I put
it on and my grandmother sat down and she just wrote--she put a little mark on
a piece of paper for every time someone cussed. And her response to the movie
was, `Well, there were 40, you know, GDs and, you know, 30 four-letter words.
And how could you be watching this?'

And at the time, I just--you know, in my head, I was like, `Well, this sort of
seals the deal.' It's like, you know, if I have to choose between sort of my
father's like religious heritage or, you know, the world of movies, I
definitely know where I come down and kind of, you know, early on was saying,
if there's two churches and one is the church of the movie theater or the
church of organized religion, I guess I belong to the church of movies.

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. WHITE: I do. You know, for me, every time I go to church, it's like an
insanely emotional experience. I just start crying the minute that I go in
and cry until I leave. I find the ritual so moving and it just brings back a
lot of childhood memories. And it's just such a powerful experience. And I
do think--what I aspire to do in terms of my writing and in terms of the
moviegoing experience is trying to create something that is--you know, that
verges on the feelings that a good churchgoing experience provides, you know,
something that's cathartic and has a spiritual component and is powerful in
terms of the way, you know, you think about your life and what you've done and
the choices you've made and an introspective experience. And so, you know,
there's a little bit of sermonizing in the stuff that I do, although I'm also
loath to do it in an overt way.

GROSS: My guest is Mike White. He wrote the new film "The Good Girl." We'll
talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Mike White. He's a
screenwriter and actor. He wrote and starred in the independent film "Chuck
& Buck." He wrote and has a small part in the new film "The Good Girl,"
which stars Jennifer Aniston. And he also co-wrote the movie "Orange County."

Let's talk about your first film, "Chuck & Buck." I'm going to ask you to
describe the two main characters in this story.

Mr. WHITE: Well, the character I played was Buck, who is sort of the image of
stunted maturity. You know, he seems like a sort of 12-year-old in a man's
body who loses his mother at the beginning of the movie and tracks down his
old childhood friend Chuck, who was played by Chris Weitz, and who's now a
sort of Hollywood mover and shaker and has really forgotten about his old
friend until he shows up in his life.

GROSS: And when Buck shows up at Chuck's door, he nearly becomes Chuck's
stalker. And Chuck really wants nothing to do with Buck anymore. And Buck
can't really comprehend that Chuck has really grown up and that Chuck has an
important job, that Chuck signs rock bands and produces things. Your
character is actually kind of creepy because he's never emotionally developed
past childhood. Also, he's gay but he has a child's understanding of how to
deal with sexuality, which is you play sex games, secret sex games with your
friend. And he's become almost like a stalker to his old childhood friend
Chuck. How does this character look from your point of view, his creator and
the actor who played him?

Mr. WHITE: Well, I think everything you said is apt. I think, you know, for
me, I like the character in the sense that he, in a very twisted way,
represents something kind of pure and something that's uncompromised. And yet
at the same time he is stunted. And so, you know, I was trying to, in
creating the character, say something about childhood and sexuality and how in
a way it's much more complex and vibrant then than, you know, it is as an
adult where in a way some of the compromises or the simplifications of it are,
in some ways, seemingly untrue or inauthentic, as certainly in the case of the
other character, Chuck. You wonder what really--you know, how much of his
sexuality or even his entire personality is inauthentic.

GROSS: In your movie "Chuck & Buck," Buck is such a loser. I mean, he
really is not cognizant of what's happening in the world around him. He's
emotionally stunted in his childhood. He has no friends. And yet, you have a
happy ending in the movie. Things kind of work out, in part through his
discovery of writing plays and the contacts that he makes through that. It
seems improbable that such a story would have a happy ending.

Mr. WHITE: Well, to me, you know, I feel like that character needs a happy
ending; otherwise the movie, I think, is just, you know, too unrelentingly
bleak. I mean, I feel like he--you know, the hope is that, you know, if you
look at the movie from a sort of a--I don't know--a Jungian psychological
place, you know, they are two sides of the same person. In a way, you know,
what you're seeking is a kind of an ending where both can co-exist and neither
has to die in some way. And I feel like that was what I was aiming for.

GROSS: Why did you want to play the character of Buck?

Mr. WHITE: Well, I actually didn't write it to play it. I don't know. It
was Miguel Arteta's idea, the director, and for me, it just seemed like an
exciting opportunity to get out of the cave that was my writing life. And it
just seemed like an opportunity too challenging and terrifying to not pursue.
So I did it, for better or worse.

GROSS: What was it like in that first movie to see yourself blown up on
screen?

Mr. WHITE: It was horrifying. The first time I'd saw it with an audience was
at Sundance, and my father was there. And I just remember there was one scene
where Buck is telling a little kid--you know, the kid says he can't have
lollipops because it'll rot your teeth. And my character says, `Oh, you know,
I eat them all the time, and look at my teeth,' and I open my mouth and
they're completely corroded and cruddy. And my father looked at me and was
like, `What are you doing? Why are you showing this strange'--you know, in a
way, people could say it was an alter ego or something. You know, why are you
showing this, you know, face to the world? And, you know, it was just a
strange--I don't know--psychodrama going on inside my head to see that all
come to life.

GROSS: Are those gray, corroding teeth really yours?

Mr. WHITE: No.

GROSS: Oh, OK. So you were just acting. I mean, it's not...

Mr. WHITE: I was just acting. No.

GROSS: ...like you were letting us in on a cosmetic secret.

Mr. WHITE: No. But I think--I mean, it's more just a metaphor for--you know,
a lot of times you--especially when you go public, you want to show your best
face--put your best face forward. And the creation of Buck was definitely
trying to show a character that you wouldn't want to be. You know, somebody
that, you know, is in some ways--who has nothing to offer and is, you know,
extremely dysfunctional and is the person you don't want to be. And so it's
even interesting now as, you know, years have gone by since, you know, I
played the part how, you know, people confuse me with the character and how
I'm living with that to this day.

GROSS: What's next for you?

Mr. WHITE: I've written a script that starts shooting in November called "The
School of Rock." It's for Scott Rudin and Paramount, and Jack Black is going
to star in it.

GROSS: What's it about?

Mr. WHITE: It's about a--Jack Black plays a musician who can't find anyone to
be in his band because he has such a bad reputation. So he ends up pretending
to be a substitute teacher for a fourth-grade class filled with musical
prodigies and uses them to be his backup band.

GROSS: Wow!

Mr. WHITE: Yeah, it's going to be sort of a complicated endeavor. But, you
know, it's definitely a lark.

GROSS: OK. Well, good luck with your movies.

Mr. WHITE: Thanks so much.

GROSS: And thanks so much for talking with us.

Mr. WHITE: Oh, thanks for having me.

GROSS: Mike White wrote the screenplay for the new film "The Good Girl" and
plays the part of the security guard, Corny. He wrote and starred in the film
"Chuck & Buck."

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: On "Sex and the City," Miranda has just become the single mother of a
newborn baby and it's turning her life upside-down. Coming up, we meet the
actress who plays Miranda, Cynthia Nixon. She's pregnant with her second
child. And Maureen Corrigan reviews a new translation of a German novel first
published in 1932 about a sexually liberated young woman.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Cynthia Nixon discusses her role on "Sex and the City,"
her career and her family
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Life has completely changed for the character of Miranda on HBO's "Sex and the
City." Last season ended with the birth of her baby. This season, she's
adjusting to being the single mother of an infant and trying to figure out how
much she can keep of her old social life.

(Soundbite of "Sex and the City")

Ms. CYNTHIA NIXON (As Miranda): I can't go. I'm just not ready to be
separated from the baby.

Unidentified Woman: What?

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): I'm kidding! Steve took him two hours ago. I'm
free! I'm free! I'm ready to...

GROSS: While Miranda figures out her new life, the actress who plays her, my
guest Cynthia Nixon, is pregnant with her second child. Nixon is nominated
for an Emmy for her portrayal of Miranda. She started acting professionally
in her early teens. Until "Sex and the City," she was best known for her
theater work. Her character on "Sex and the City" is trying to keep up her
law career and social life by hiring a nanny for the baby and sharing some of
the parenting with her former boyfriend, who's the baby's father. In this
scene, she's ready to go with her friend Carrie for a weekend in Atlantic City
after leaving the baby with his father, but just as she's ready to leave, he
shows up at the door with the baby.

(Soundbite of "Sex and the City")

STEVE: Hi. How you doing?

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): Steve, what's wrong? What are you doing back here?

STEVE: Oh, I thought I forgot the wipies.

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): Oh.

STEVE: But it turns out actually, I don't think I can do this.

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): Excuse me?

STEVE: I'm afraid that I might break him or something. Look, I accidentally
scratched his face with my dirty fingernail. Look.

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): It's nothing. You've taken care of him before.
It's been fine.

STEVE: Wait, wait, no. But for two hours. Yeah, for two hours, I'm great,
but, you know, after two hours, I might accidentally kill him.

Ms. NIXON (As Miranda): Look, we're both afraid we're going to kill the baby.
That's a given. But we made an agreement this week. Monday to Friday, I try
not to kill him. Saturday and Sunday, you try not to kill him.

GROSS: Cynthia Nixon, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Ms. NIXON: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

GROSS: Now your character, Miranda, has just become a single mother. In real
life...

Ms. NIXON: Yes. A somewhat--yes, go ahead.

GROSS: In real life, you're pregnant for the second time. You're...

Ms. NIXON: I am.

GROSS: Yes. What is Miranda most unprepared for about motherhood?

Ms. NIXON: I think Miranda is not prepared for the way for--Miranda is a
control freak, and Miranda is a high-powered lawyer, and she is used to
scheduling everything, and she is used to barking and having people jump. And
she is used to, you know, dividing up her life, and she's, you know, a
multitasker and efficiency expert. And I think she's not so good at, you
know, with people all the time and she's not so good at sort of going moment
to moment. So I think the baby overwhelms her. I think in the scene that we
just heard, it's a perfect example of she's trying to schedule it. She's felt
like she's put in her hours with the baby, and now she deserves this payback.
She deserves this time off, and it doesn't always work that way. The human
element can wreak havoc with your schedule.

GROSS: Miranda and Steve--they both seem to be afraid that they're going to
accidentally kill the baby. Was that an anxiety of yours when you first
became a mother?

Ms. NIXON: No. No. Miranda and Steve seem to have a fair amount of new
parent anxiety, which I personally--perhaps I'm callous or unfeeling--I was
never particularly worried. I was not--when I was going to become a mother
for the first time, I wasn't worried about it, you know. I mean, you know, I
was a little worried about the labor, you know, the scariness and the pain and
that kind of thing. But, you know, I didn't have much experience with
children or babies, but it didn't worry me too much, I've got to say.

GROSS: So how pregnant are you now?

Ms. NIXON: I'm about five months.

GROSS: The number of episodes of this season's worth of "Sex and the City"
were shortened because of Sarah Jessica Parker's pregnancy.

Ms. NIXON: Right.

GROSS: Would yours have affected the shoots, too? I mean, how pregnant were
you when you were shooting this season?

Ms. NIXON: No. They would not have affected this season's. Let's see. We
finished filming about two weeks ago, so I was about four and a half months
when they finished, and Sarah was about six months when they finished. So,
no, it wouldn't have been an issue. And I've got to say I think that the
wardrobe people and the prop people putting objects in front of her, you know,
did a really great job in disguising her pregnancy, you know, which was a
little further along than mine.

GROSS: Well, my impression is that this season, all the women on "Sex and the
City" are wearing different clothes than they used to be wearing: trench
coats, baggy sweaters and...

Ms. NIXON: Yeah. You think so?

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. NIXON: Well, I mean, Miranda--I would say Miranda is, but she's the only
one that I would say that of, because Miranda definitely--she's got a lot of
things going on. She's got a lot of weight that she hasn't lost,
post-pregnancy weight, which becomes an issue, you know, when she goes to
Weight Watchers and, you know, decides to try and get back to where she used
to be before she was pregnant. And I think frankly, also, Miranda does go
through a little--you know, when you have a new baby, it kind of hits you
hard and, you know, these women spend an awful lot of time getting dressed and
putting on their makeup and having their hair done. And Miranda--in what I
think is kind of a realistic touch for us, you know, Miranda stops paying so
much attention to that and she kind of wears shlumpy clothes for a while
because, you know, she's not sleeping. If she's not sleeping, she's probably
not getting her hair cut and, you know, doing her beautiful makeup and putting
together ensembles.

GROSS: Miranda's body weight when she was pregnant and her body weight now
after pregnancy has been a big issue on the show, just how she was physically
transformed and the discomfort and self-consciousness that it caused her. It
sounds like that has not been an issue for you.

Ms. NIXON: That has not been a issue for me. No. No. You know, I never
really moved in this world that Miranda moves in. You know, Miranda is the
least of the four of them maybe, but she's still kind of very interested in
the clothes and very interested in the way she presents herself and kind of
out in the dating world and so aware of how she looks and how she looks to men
and, you know, I've been out of the dating scene for like, you know, 14 years,
so not since I was like 21 or 22, so, yes, it was not such an issue for me.

GROSS: Is there anything you envy about the single life as it's portrayed on
"Sex and the City"?

Ms. NIXON: The only thing that I would say that I would envy is--and all
four of the actresses talk about this--is the amount of time these women are
able to spend with each other.

GROSS: Isn't it remarkable?

Ms. NIXON: It's remarkable, in the same way people complain sometimes about
how do these women find so many eligible, appealing men to date in this city?
We may be stretching the truth a little bit. I think we're also stretching
the truth in terms of even though the four of them are so close, I mean, these
people see each other two or even three times a week. I mean, I have, you
know, women in my life that I am certainly as close to as the four of these,
but, you know, I'm lucky to see them once every couple weeks. I envy them
their coffee shop time, that kind of time in which you can just loll about on
a Saturday morning and catch up. Particularly I would say since I've had my
daughter, you know, that kind of endless unscheduled time is not to be found
plentifully in my life.

GROSS: Cynthia Nixon is my guest. She plays Miranda on "Sex and the City."

You're pregnant now with your second child, and you're not married to your
partner. You both decided not to get married. What's behind--you've talked
about it before, so I don't feel uncomfortable asking you about this.

Ms. NIXON: Right. No, no, no, no.

GROSS: But why are some the reasons why you think marriage is not necessary
for you?

Ms. NIXON: Well, let's see, we've been together since we were 21, and we've
known each other a lot longer than that. We've known each other since we were
12 or 13, because we went to junior high and high school and college together.
So we've known each other a long time. I would say that in the first few
months that--well, even in the first few--very soon in our relationship--I was
going to say the first few weeks, but that's perhaps an exaggeration. In the
first few months that we were together, we knew that we were going to be
together, you know, forever or, you know, whatever. We were together. There
was no question. And I've got to say we're both fairly serious people. We're
both fairly devoted people.

And there's a lot of things that make me wary about marriage, but I've also
got to say I've always felt so confident about Danny and so sure of him that I
didn't really feel a need to sort of, you know, nail him down. I thought,
he's going to be here. You know, he's going to be here because he wants to
here, and I'm going to be here because I want to be here. And I had gone out
with a guy actually before him for a long time, for about five years, and I
had been sort of more anxious to marry my boyfriend before that because I felt
more unsure about the relationship and I felt more unsure about where it was
going to go, that I wasn't going to be able to hold on to him, and I wanted to
hold on to him. But when I got together with Danny, that didn't seem to be an
issue.

Also, it's not just as easy as that. It's not just as simple as that. I do
have misgivings about marriage. Around the time that Danny and I got
together, a couple of friends of mine who were married, their marriages were
breaking up. And they both said similar kinds of things to me independent of
each other, which was that their relationship really changed when they got
married, and they started to see the man that they were married to as--like he
lost his name. He just became sort of `husband,' and that they had all these
expectations of him now that he was in this archetypal role, and it kind of
got in the way of them really seeing him just as a person. And, you know,
frankly, I don't see any reason for it, and I would say our relationship is a
fairly private relationship. You know, I have to go out on the town a fair
amount. I am, you know, in a public profession and he is a more private
person, so he comes out for the events that he needs to come out for, but to
me, also at that time, marriage was something like--a husband was sort of like
an accessory that you had with you at the parties, and he's never been that
kind of a partner for me, you know. He's not a--he's my private guy. He's my
private guy at home.

GROSS: How do you think your daughter will feel as she gets older, having to
tell friends that her parents aren't married to each other, even though they
live together? Do you think that'll be an issue for her?

Ms. NIXON: Oh, she tells people now.

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. NIXON: No. Well, you know, she doesn't really like it. She's been
asking us about it for year--I mean, she's five, she's almost six. She's been
asking us about it for years. But I would say, you know, my daughter is kind
of the captain of the gender police. She's very, very, very girlie. She gets
very pleased with the more girlie my clothes are. She used to be displeased
with me if I would wear pants or she would used to say, `Women don't wear
belts.' I remember that was one of her cries. I've got to say, first of all,
I think there are so many people with children and without children who are in
long-term relationships and are not married. Now I would think, unless
there's some horrendous backlash that I'm not foreseeing, I think it'll be
even more so as she gets older.

And, you know, frankly, if it does bother her, I'm not that interested, I've
got to say, you know. It's my life and my decision and I'm happy with it, and
I can't imagine she will really be bothered by it when she grows up, but, you
know, she can always go ahead and get married, and I would be thrilled to have
her married and plan her wedding and all that stuff, but that issue just
doesn't--I don't know--doesn't resonate with me.

GROSS: My guest is Cynthia Nixon. She plays Miranda on "Sex and the City."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Cynthia Nixon, and she plays Miranda on "Sex and the
City."

Manhattan is one of the stars of the series. You've lived in Manhattan your
whole life. What kept your parents in Manhattan after you were born? A lot
of couples who start off in Manhattan leave for the suburbs or at least for a
neighborhood in Brooklyn after they have children because Manhattan is very
expensive, for one. There's no back yards.

Ms. NIXON: I don't think my parents ever thought about leaving New York, for
sort of separate reasons, probably. My father comes from a very small--my
father's dead, but he came from a very small town in Texas, and I think he
found it stultifying and dull and very small towny where your neighbors knew
your business and passed judgment on it. I think when he came to New York in
the '50s, he found it such an exciting place. He loved it and I think he
thought it was an exciting place not only for adults but for children, which I
completely agree with him. My mother grew up in Chicago, and so she always
says about herself that she is a total city person and that, you know, the
country or the green, it's nice, it's nice, it's pretty, a little passing
diversion, but she always yearns to get back to the city, which seems to her
like the real word and like real life and gets invigorated by it.

I, too--I mean, you know, you sort of tend toward what you know, I guess, or
what you come from, but to me, the city was such a great place to grow up and
such--for me, when I had my daughter, you know, I can't imagine raising
children anywhere else because there's so much here. There's so--like my
vision of hell would be to be, you know, living in a suburban house with a
small child or a few small children and being isolated, except for my--you
know, alone with my kids in my back yard. I feel like the city is the best
place to protect them because so many kids I knew who grew up in the suburbs,
you know, once they hit teen-agehood, it became so boring for them, there was
nothing to do, except go to each other's houses and drink, and you're so under
your parents' thumb at a time when you just want to be free, free, free, and
you're dependent on them to drive you around till you're 16 or whatever in a
very demoralizing way.

In New York, once you hit 11 or 12, you're on your own. You're on the subway.
You're on the bus. You're your own independent person. And because you've
grown up in the city, making your way and dealing with people, you know how to
handle yourself. I think it's a great place to grow up.

GROSS: Did September 11th change your feelings about living in Manhattan?

Ms. NIXON: It changed it--it didn't change it. It made me wonder about it.
You know, when September 11th happened, I had just started rehearsal for a
play at the Roundabout Theatre, and we were rehearsing on 42nd Street in the
heart of Times Square. And, you know, we took a couple of days off of
rehearsal, but then we went right back. And I was of two minds about it, and
partly, I thought, well, this is my life and I just have to keep going on with
it. I mean, the metaphor that people kept using at that time was it's like
London during the Blitz, and people were brave and they just went on, you
know. And then there was another part of me that thought perhaps I'm totally
being foolish here, you know, and perhaps I should be running for the hills
and, you know, fleeing to Vermont or Canada or somewhere and hiding out. But
I've got to say that feeling passed after a month or two, and it really felt
like, you know, just sort of wild fear in the end rather than, you know,
rationality.

GROSS: How much do you know about what happens to your character next season?

Ms. NIXON: I know nothing.

GROSS: Are you curious? Do you ever wonder, like, what's she going to be
doing?

Ms. NIXON: Oh, yes. The last few years when we're about to start, we've had
meetings--each of us separately--with the writers and they kind of give us the
arc, and they break it down episode by episode, which I frankly love. But in
terms of next year, I really know nothing so far. I mean...

GROSS: You love that process of them breaking it down for you?

Ms. NIXON: I love it. I love to get as much information as possible.

GROSS: What do you love about this process?

Ms. NIXON: Well, first of all, I mean, I just--you know, I'm a fan of "Sex
and the City" the way the viewers are a fa--so, I mean, it's like you want to
know what happens. It's like a juicy novel. You want to know what happens to
everybody, cliffhanger, you know. I also just frankl--I don't know. I always
like lots of information, like I, you know, sort of a semi-drudgelike way, I
watch all of the dailies, which is the footage that we film. And, I mean,
there's, you know, hours and hours and hours of it, but I really like to
scrutinize it and sort of watch my performance and see, you know, particular
moments that work or takes that work better or worse or, you know, of the
takes that I like, do they pick the one that I like or do they pick another
take? And why do they pick--you know, so I'm very much a detail-oriented
person. So I'm an information gatherer.

GROSS: Well, Cynthia Nixon, thank you so much for talking with us.

Ms. NIXON: Thank you.

GROSS: Cynthia Nixon plays Miranda on "Sex and the City."

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews a new translation of a
1932 German novel about a sexually liberated young woman. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Republication of Irmgard Keun's "The Artificial Silk Girl"
TERRY GROSS, host:

One of the few portraits from a woman's perspective of everyday life in
pre-World War II Germany is a 1932 novel called "The Artificial Silk Girl" by
Irmgard Keun. It's just been republished, and book critic Maureen Corrigan
says it's sexually frank, funny and graphic in its depiction of a society on
the skids.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN reporting:

In the publishing world, late summer is limbo, the wide Sargasso Sea of
seasons. Nothing stirs. All is anticipation. The only faint noise is the
heralding wind of the big fall marvels to come. But because August is such a
flat month, it's also the time when small-press books that often slip under
the critical radar get noticed. Such is the case with "The Artificial Silk
Girl" by Irmgard Keun, a vibrant 1932 novel that's been newly translated from
the German by Kathie Von Aunkum. "The Artificial Silk Girl" was a sensational
best-seller in Germany when it was first published, and no wonder. The novel
reads like "Bridget Jones's Diary" as rewritten by Bertolt Brecht.

By 1933, it had been translated and published in England and banned and burned
by the Nazis, who called it an example of `asphalt literature, with
anti-German tendencies.' Keun fled to Belgium and then the Netherlands. When
the Nazis occupied those countries, she returned to Germany, where she lived
out the war in hiding and continued writing. She died in 1982. "The
Artificial Silk Girl" was a casualty of war until the 1970s when it was
rediscovered by German feminists.

The heroine and narrator of "The Artificial Silk Girl" is named Doris. She's
a young woman from the provinces who's besotted by the movies, convinced she
has what it takes to become the next Marlene Dietrich. Meanwhile, she works
as an office clerk to help support her family. Doris has a strong voice.
She's something of a nitwit, but spunky in her stupidity, so you find yourself
rooting for her. Doris introduces herself and her chronicle by saying, `I
think it will be a good thing if I write everything down, because I am an
unusual person. I don't mean a diary. That's ridiculous for a trendy girl
like me. But I want to write like a movie, because my life is like that and
it's going to become even more so.'

Its cinematic style is one of the most striking features of "The Artificial
Silk Girl." After Doris steals a fur coat and runs away to Berlin to make it
as an actress, she generates non-stop verbal snapshots of street life in that
city: the corners crowded with prostitutes and World War I veterans selling
shoelaces; 10 blonde windbreakers, as Doris calls them, raiding and beating up
patrons in a Jewish cabaret; the subway that she refers to as `an illuminated
coffin on skis,' a new fast-food joint that sports the American name of Quick,
and the bars she visits nightly, filled with scenes like this. `Girls were
sitting on their bar stools like plucked chickens on a ledge, looking as if
they would have to go to a spa first before they would ever be able to lay
another egg. And in front of them, guys, like sensual rabbits, sitting up on
their hind legs, groveling.'

Doris herself is a sexually liberated young woman. She's comfortable, even
flip about her desires and tells us up front that `it's never easy for me to
say "no."' Demonstrating the ingenuity of "Sex and the City's" Samantha,
Doris attaches rusty safety pins to her bra and undershirt before one evening
out so that if she winds up drinking too much cognac with the wrong man, in a
clinch, she'll be jabbed to her senses. Yet, the novel shrewdly dramatizes
the catch-22 of a working-class first-generation feminist who can't quite
claim her own destiny because she'll never earn enough at the clerical or
cleaning jobs she's offered to make it without a man.

Here's Doris' cold-eyed assessment of her situation: `If a young woman from
money marries an old man because of money and nothing else and makes love to
him for hours and has this pious look on her face, she's called a German
mother and decent woman. If a young woman without money sleeps with a man
with no money because he has smooth skin and she likes him, she's a whore.'
For all her cynicism, Doris can't quite give up her Hollywood dreams to
snuggle down with one of the sugar-daddy industrialists she's always toying
with. "The Artificial Silk Girl" ends with Doris homeless but still hopeful,
wandering the streets of Berlin. She says, `I have buoys of cork in my
stomach. They won't let me go down, will they?' It's a poignant question
made all the more so by a contemporary reader's knowledge of the ghastly
political realities approaching just beyond the boundary of this last chapter.

GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She
reviewed "The Artificial Silk Girl" by Irmgard Keun, spelled K-E-U-N. It's
published by the Other Press.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.