WWDTM: Sterling K. Brown

0:00Happy New Year! Want to set goals that you'll actually stick to in 2026? You want to accept yourself and the situation you're in, but you also want to expect more from yourself and say, what are the ways that I can grow? This week, how to design and plan your year on the Life Kit podcast. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:27From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Sailors beware. Resist the overwhelming urge to follow my gorgeous voice. Stay away from me, sailors. I'm Bill Curtis. And here is your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you so much, Bill. Thank you, everybody. You're very kind. It's great to see you. We do have a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to the great actor Sterling K. Brown, who's starring in the new series Paradise. But if you are a fan of that handsome finance guy from This Is Us, well, this is he.

1:12But right now, it's all about you. So give us a call to play our games. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Alexis Breitnicker calling from Cummington, Massachusetts. Alexis, how are you? I'm doing very well. How about you? I am fine. I don't know where Cummington is, and I applaud your ability to just say it without hesitation or shyness. You just said it. What do you do there in Cummington? I did just say it. You just said it. What do you do there in Cummington? So I'm the mom to 10-year-old twins, which is a thing.

1:49Yeah. And I run a nonprofit that builds affordable housing and helps small businesses. That's great. We're going to need all those things. We need all the things. Well, Alexis, let me introduce you to our panel today. First, he's a comedian who will be at the State Theater down in Austin, Texas on April 17th. He also writes the weekly newsletter. That's marvelous. It's Josh Gondelman. Hello. Thank you so much. Next, she's a comedian and host of the podcast Fake the Nation, who you can see performing at TED in Vancouver next week. It's Nagin Farsad. Hello. Hi, Nagin. And making her debut on our panel, she's an Emmy and Grammy-nominated comedian and host of the podcast Handsome.

2:39You can find all her upcoming live shows at tignataro.com. That's right, it is Tignataro. From one twin mother to another. Also a twin mother. Well, welcome to our show, Alexis. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our prize. Any voice from our show that you might choose for your voicemail. Are you ready to go? I'm ready. All right. For your first quote, here is the President of the United States making a major announcement in the White House Rose Garden.

3:14It's such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in it. That was President Trump on Wednesday explaining why he was slapping what on almost every other country on the globe. Oh, that would be tariffs. It would be tariffs. On Wednesday, April 2nd, which he christened Liberation Day, President Trump announced the highest tariffs in history, and the world did not like it. The next day, Thursday, the Wall Street Journal actually ran out of words for how badly the stock market was tanking. It was like, Dow plunges. S &P 500 crumbles. The NASDAQ gets its junk stuck in a zipper.

4:04I'm sure you guys celebrated Liberation Day in the manner of your own families and customs, right? It's a traditional stuffed turkey in our home. Yes, absolutely. I continued not paying my taxes And we have stuffed Tofurkey yeah, of course because you are a lesbian

4:32Now this is true, this is absolutely true The markets cratered so badly in the 24 hours after this tariff announcement that the world's 500 richest people, including, of course, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, lost a combined$200 billion in just one day. But, but, wait a minute. Cat rules. But there was also bad news. For example, the day after the tariffs were announced, the US dollar became weaker than the euro, the British pound, the Australian dollar, and those arcade tickets where you need 500 to get one blow pop. We are going to be running on a sticky hand-based economy soon. I feel like let's go harder with it.

5:19Really? And my view is let's bring them to the United States and let's start tariffing each other. So it's like if you're wearing cargo pants too many times a month, you're tariffed. You know what I mean? There's a lot of behaviors I think we can control amongst ourselves. Is that a fashion judgment on cargo pants? Or are you just, because it has cargo in the name, it's now imports and exports?

5:46Both. All right, Alexis, your next quote comes from legendary Chicago newscaster Bill Curtis, right before the great Topeka tornado of 1966. For God's sake, take cover. That would be a lot harder for him to do now because thanks to government cuts, what is about to become a lot less accurate? Weather reporting? Weather forecast, that's right. Thanks to cuts to the National Weather Service, weather forecasts are about to become a lot less accurate and useful. But think about it. Now, talking about the weather with your in-laws will be that much more exciting. Who knows what's going to happen? Part of the reason for these cuts is, people believe, to eventually privatize the weather forecasting industry.

6:36So if you want to know, say, if it's going to rain, okay, that's free. But if you want to know what it's going to be raining, water, men, then you need weather premium. So it's to privatize, you're saying? Pretty much. Honestly, as a Jew, it's just so nice to hear someone else accused of wanting to own the weather. This is like a big relief. I think bad for the country, but big for me personally. I'm glad, yes. Things will be so unpredictable that people will be betting on multi-day forecast parlays on FanDuel. And, you know, but it might be fun to, like, engage in, like, the nostalgia to the days before we had, like, reliable scientific weather forecasts, right?

7:20We'll have to go back to peering at the horizon from the front porch of the ranch house and saying, Mama, get the cows in the basement. This is true. You know who's going to be so valuable? People with arthritic knees. Yes, exactly. That will be our only source of knowing when a storm's coming. Yeah, that's a way for that guy to make up for the lack of social security. That'll be awesome. But you can also just the whole lick your finger. Don't forget about that. It's very handy. We're going old school. Yeah, and I feel like weather veins are going to have a real moment. Yeah. And varicose veins as well.

7:59Yeah. I don't know what that means. I'm putting all my money in veins after the stock market is done crashing. We're really going to, the groundhog is going to take on so much more. It really is true. We're going to be like, I don't know, it's as good as anything else we got. We have an overworked groundhog over here. All right, Alexis, your last quote is from DoorDash. Buy now, pay later. So you now instantly take out a loan so you can afford to do what? Get takeout? Yeah. Order food delivery. Klarna is a company. Very good. Yes. People are excited for you and for the possibility of going into lifelong debt for a sandwich.

8:43Klarna is a company that lets you buy things online, usually expensive items like clothing maybe or electronics, and you buy it on credit, and then you pay it back in installments. but now they are partnering with DoorDash, the food delivery company, for all of you who have ever said, you know, this burrito is great, but I just wish it affected my credit score. See, I feel like this isn't new. There are many things that I have ordered and eaten that I paid for later. Yes.

9:17Although I hope it wasn't in many installments. I hope it wasn't in monthly installments because that would just go on too long. There goes Tig again talking about her vegan food poisoning. Or someone trying to poison a lesbian. But they're so cute. I want to advise people who are thinking of doing this, remember to pay it back because you do not want to be the first person to get your legs broken because you're behind on a breakfast bowl. I'm here from DoorDash they're very disappointed in you Bill how did Alexis do on our quiz? She did perfectly she got them all right Well done Thank you Thank you so much Alexis take care Thanks so much bye Bye bye

10:10Right now panel it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news Tig this week the New York Times offered their advice on how to navigate a tricky social situation. When you go to see your friend in a show and then what happens? You have to compliment them? Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. The show is awful. Many of us have been there. You go to see your friend in some kind of show, whether it's a play your friend is in, your co-worker's improv show, or your other co-worker's improv show. And if the show isn't that great, what do you say to your friend when you see him after in the lobby?

10:42I'll tell you exactly what I say. I figured you guys would know. Go to. If I go to see a band that is not great, what I say with as much enthusiasm as I can muster, I will be like, man, you guys were rocking up there, which is true. Right. They were rocking. Right. And that way, I don't have to like really critique. I can just say I have eyeballs and I saw you. You just reaffirmed the action they did but with enthusiasm. I'm like I saw you up there for sure. What if it's a comedian who sucked? I'll be like you were rocking up there. I just lie and say that was a great show because I am a total coward.

11:30Really? What do you have to gain when your friend is like in a band that plays three times a year and you're like, hey, I've got notes. What do you think they're going to do? Take the notes. Because they only perform three times a year. Like, yeah, yeah. He is on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. He knows jazz.

11:57Coming up, our panelists relive their teenage years in our Bluff the Listener game called 1-888-Wait-Wait-To-Play. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. This week on Consider This, the deadly ice shootings in Minneapolis. That city's police chief told us he was already concerned with how federal agents were doing their jobs.

12:34Truly the manner how this enforcement action is being conducted. An immigration crackdown gone wrong on Consider This. Listen every weekday afternoon on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the NPR Politics Podcast. Barely more than a week into the new year, there's plenty to break down and try to understand. In Venezuela and beyond, questions about the changing role of America on the world stage. And in Minnesota, a deadly ice shooting. Follow us each day for facts, perspective, and analysis on the NPR Politics Podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.

13:11Support for NPR and the following message come from the Lemelson Foundation, dedicated to improving lives through invention, innovation, and climate action.

13:25From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wade, Wade, don't tell me. The NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Nagin Farsad, Josh Gondelman, and Tig Notaro. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Segal. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody. Right now, it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-888-Wait-Wait to play our game in the air, or you can check out the pinned post on our Instagram page. That's at Wait, Wait, NPR. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hey, this is Jason Laughlin, and I'm calling from Des Moines, Iowa.

14:02Des Moines, Iowa. Great place. What do you do there? You know what? I'm a recovering attorney. In a couple of days, I'm actually going to start in a master's program for mental health counseling at 50 years old. What inspired you to leave the law and go into mental health counseling? You know, law, I think, drove me to counseling and then counseling affirmed that being a lawyer is toxic.

14:30I could have probably figured that out on my own, but it's nice to get it confirmed It's nice to have you with us, Jason. You're going to play our game in which you have to tell truth from fiction Bill, what is Jason's topic? I feel like I'm 17 again This week read about something from your teenage years that has come back and it's not your acne Our panel is going to tell you something from the teenage years that adults are now fully embracing Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win the wait waiter of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to go? Absolutely. I admire your spirit.

15:00Let's get started. First, let's hear from Josh Gondelman. Park ranger Lou Reggiano was doing his usual rounds past Bemidji, Minnesota's famed make-out point when he noticed something strange. Through steamed-up windows, he could see that the parked cars weren't full of teenagers, but rather grown adults. Reggiano says he first became suspicious when he heard a passionate cry of, Ow, my back, coming from a minivan. With recent economic instability taking a toll on their finances, many adults have moved back in with their parents, causing them to revert to adolescent habits for amorous encounters.

15:36My husband and I couldn't afford dinner out and a sitter, said a 29-year-old woman, so this is date night away from our toddler. And, not that it's any of your business, but we're out here trying for a second child. Even more upset are local teens who have been left without anywhere to get busy. I wasn't that excited about college, but now I can't wait to go, said Jameson, a local 17-year-old. All those student loans will be worth it if I can finally get to second base. Adults forced to live at home again in Bemidji, Minnesota, making the best of it and driving their cars up to Lover's Lane to make out.

16:09Your next teenage throwback comes from Tig Notaro. The typically quiet Boca Raton, Florida retirement community, Sleepy Shores, reported incidents of senior citizens mooning fellow residents. The events began before a wholesome pickleball game as the sun went down, or shall we say, the moon came up last Tuesday. Myrtle Ashton and her longtime travel companion, Mildred Rawls, both 71, decided to revisit the mischievous and daring activity from their days of youth. The long-term live-in roommates began flashing their derrieres as speed walkers and golf cart drivers passed their court, causing shock, but mostly utter joy by fellow neighbors.

17:05You don't have to be 19 to show them what you got, said Rose the Streak Bowman, 94. Although there are mixed feelings amongst residents, Sleepy Shores has made it clear how they feel as they started selling unisex underwear, reading, Over the Moon for Retirement. This story is still unfolding. Residents of retirement community in Florida pick up their old teenage habit of mooning. Your last poll from pubescence comes from Nagin Farsad. The dental world is having a cultural moment. After years of Invisalign dominance, patients are finally getting hip to old school braces. And not just any patients, adult patients.

17:54That's right, being a metal mouth isn't just for begrudging virgins with pimples anymore. Adults are saying goodbye to plastic mouth trays and clear brackets in favor of full industrial alloy chompers. We're also seeing reports of respected adults making their maws festive with colorful brace bands. Green for St. Patrick's Day, red for Valentine's Day, or Labor Day's famous chartreuse. influencers such as abby clancy and charlie james and rappers like lil luzie all names that mean nothing to an npr audience are showing off their be-metaled pie holes on social media but as always beware if two metal mouths make out they'll both pick up radio signals All right.

18:43So one of these things from our teenage years has come back. Is it from Josh Gondelman, the town of Bemidji, Minnesota, where Lover's Lane has been taken over by adults who had to move in with their parents like they were still living there? So why not act that way? From Tig Notaro, a group of residents starting with long-term roommates in a retirement community in Florida who've decided to start mooning anybody who goes by, or from Nagin Farsad, braces the scourge of so many teenagers being worn proudly by adults. Which of these is the real story of a teenage trend coming back? You know, all of those being so cringy, I feel a lot better about being a new student at 50 years old.

19:30Why not? I've got to go with Tig and the mooning matriarch. All right. Your choice then is Tig's story? Well, we spoke to someone who had covered this real story. I remember when I had braces in the eighth grade, and I definitely didn't want them. That was Tracy Swartz, a journalist from the New York Post, who commented on the story about adults embracing braces. I just got some grills, so apparently I'm behind. Yeah. So, you didn't win. However, you earned a point for Tig on her very first time in the show, which is very exciting for her. Pretty cool. Thank you for that. And thank you so much for playing.

20:10This was awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, and good luck in the new gig. Thank you as well. Take care. Bye-bye.

20:19And now the game where we ask really well-known people about things they don't know anything about. We call it Not My Job. Sterling K. Brown had been a working actor for 15 years or so when he became famous and won an Emmy for his performance in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. And since then, he's gone on to star in This Is Us, as well as the movie American Fiction, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. And now, Paradise, a political thriller, or so you are led to believe. We believe we are thrilled to have him with us now. Sterling K. Brown, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Daniel.

20:55It's an absolute pleasure to talk to you. I've been a big fan for a while, as I am of your new show, Paradise. but there's a problem which I'm sure you are aware of, which is that there is a big twist at the end of the first episode and it would be bad if we discussed it. So the question is, you're out there like a good guy promoting the show, which you should do. It's one that everyone should see. How have you been handling this? Like you can't actually talk about like what's really going on in the show. It is a very similar experience to promoting This Is Us. Right. Yeah, it's the same creator of the show.

21:29So I can say that Dan Fogelman created This Is Us, creative paradise uh very talented man love him dearly but the whole time when you're talking about this is us you're like oh it's a family drama and it's got you know all the feels and all that kind of stuff but if you know the end of the pilot you're like wait a minute all these people are related you know what i'm saying sorry if i ruined anything for people haven't watched this it's been out for a really long time oh that's the us oh my god i don't know who it was about yes famously i think i can talk about this the pilot of this is us this family drama, you're having all these different characters, and then you find out at the very end that you've been watching in different timelines, and some of these characters are the parents of these other characters who are now grown into adults.

22:09How nice. So have you tried talking about what the twist in the new show Paradise is not? So for example, it turns out that your character is James Marsden's grown son. Whoa, that would be, that would, have you come up with any tricks or Well, you know, to be the adult son of more white people, I think would be going to the well.

22:37It's definitely not that. I usually just try to talk about the things that I can. The president dies in the pilot. But most folks, you see that in the preview. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. And I say that that's the truth. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. The whole audience going, which president? Right. The president in the show. Everybody calm down. I have to ask you about another project you do. You do, and I believe you're coming back and doing it again, a podcast with your wife, right? I do indeed. My wife and I, Ryan Michelle Bathay, we do a podcast called We Don't Always Agree. Spoiler! Yeah, it describes most marriages.

23:23But we've been married. We just celebrated 19 years in March. Mazel tov. March what? I want to write this down. So you had an episode where you talked about the fact that you did ayahuasca together. That is correct. That is correct. Whose idea was that? And again, I mean the podcast. It was mine. The podcast is my wife's idea. Ayahuasca was my idea. We're both what we like to call crunchy granola black people. So we don't really fit in the box of like typical sort of things. Like we like to do what they call white people stuff. You are on NPR right now. Yeah, I know. I'm on NPR right now.

24:13That's good. That was really good. But the ayahuasca, we went to Costa Rica. It's one of the few licensed dispensaries of the medicine in the world. And I think we were interested in seeing, a friend of mine described it to me as it unlocks blind spots that you weren't aware that you had. And can you share what your blind spots were, please?

24:36The biggest blind spot in all of this is that we all sort of delude ourselves into thinking that we have some degree of control over what happens next. and really all we have control over is our response to what happens next. That's probably the biggest takeaway. You know what else is a way of finding out