News and Happenings

To me, there are few sitcom characters more memorable than Steve Urkel on Family Matters. So getting to talk to the actor Jaleel White — about his approach to acting, his take on Hollywood in the ‘90s and now, and what it’s meant to have a character follow him into adulthood — was as illuminating as I’d expected. As a pillar of show business and an astute observer of it, Jaleel is someone whose perspective I deeply appreciate. Plus, his new memoir ‘Growing Up Urkel’ is thoughtful and nuanced, and I’m grateful we could reflect on it together.

Peter Singer has a pretty simple mission: minimize the suffering of all living creatures. But a seemingly straightforward objective can lead to some surprisingly thorny questions. As a philosopher and professor, he’s spent decades pondering the ethical dilemmas that come with living in the modern world. His books have ignited movements — from animal rights to wealth equality — but his deeply personal work, confronting family, legacy, and inherited pain, also resonates. I’ve admired Peter’s work for years (it’s a huge part of why I stopped eating meat in college) and I was honored to sit down with such a brilliant thinker.

Kenya Barris, the creator of “Black-ish”, knows a thing or two about resilience. Eighteen failed pilots before he finally struck gold? That’s dedication — and, as it turns out, a family value. I’d always been drawn to Kenya’s humor and storytelling, but during our conversation it really clicked how much his experience as a father — and, as he openly shared, navigating divorce — informs his work. We delve into the intricacies of comedic structure, the tightrope walk that is satire for Black creators, and the moral considerations of challenging the status quo. Plus, we reflect on our time on set together. I’m a huge fan of Kenya’s, and if you aren’t already, I have a feeling you will be soon.

As someone who knows tech giants like Elon Musk more deeply than most reporters, Kara Swisher doesn’t have a ton of patience for them. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have empathy. Reflecting at this pivotal moment, she’s stripping away the facades of these powerful men to reveal their true characters (typically, cringeworthy pretenders). She and I share an energetic back-and-forth about what makes these disruptive innovators tick, what worries her about that, and what, despite it all, still manages to make her feel hopeful.

While Maggie Wheeler is known by millions as the iconic Janice on ‘Friends’, she has been my real-life friend for even longer. Back in the late 80s, we made our film debuts together, playing former lovers, which is a distinction we shared in real life, even at that time. And we’ve stayed close even as our lives and careers went off in the various ways lives and careers go. She and I talk about things that I knew she went through, and things I didn’t know until now. The mistreatment that Maggie experienced behind the scenes, and sometimes out in the open, still shocks me, and it reinforces the fortitude, creativity, and generous spirit that Maggie has always had. It’s my deep pleasure to be able to share my experience of who Maggie is with you all.

This week, I’ve got some more behind-the-scenes content for you. As you know, at the end of each episode you hear a little snippet of my thoughts from after the interview wrapped up. What you might not know is that I share the full version of those thoughts with our Lemonada Premium subscribers each week. Today, I’m giving you all a chance to hear what those are like. And I figured, why not give you a chance to hear my thoughts on the guests that you’ve been listening to the most? These are all from fan-favorite interviews, some of our most-listened-to episodes.

The author of In Praise of Failure, Costica Bradatan, joins me from Romania to share his wisdom on all things lack and loss. We talk about the true meaning of humility, the benefits of clumsiness, and just how broken democracy is — and has been — across time and place. Plus, we discuss quite possibly the biggest failure of all, the one none of us can avoid: death. I got to indulge my latent philosophical bent in this conversation, meaning I could even comfortably confess that I tried to work an 1880 parable into The X Files.

As the presidential administration turns over, it feels like an important time to revisit the family dynamics that brought about Donald Trump. His niece, Mary Trump, has long lived in the shadow of her family’s name. And as she writes in her memoir, Who Could Ever Love You, the darkness of that shadow affected generations of Trump children long before it took hold of the world. We talk about her grandfather, Fred Trump, the business-minded, manipulative patriarch who molded his son Donald in his own sociopathic image. It’s a vivid family portrait, explaining so much about the systems and ideologies that created a man so reluctant to fail.

Throughout his long and varied career, Rob Lowe has become an expert at reinventing himself. He left behind his bad-boy image from iconic 80s movies to work on a clever mix of dramatic and comedic TV roles. But I’ve known Rob for a while, and he’s a very layered individual. We look back at how Rob has pursued his passions and how he and his wife, Sheryl, have used practical techniques to keep their marriage strong for 34 years and counting. Plus, we discuss the difference between humility and humiliation, and why Rob is always down to be the butt of the joke.

I’m no self-help guru. And while I don’t think Gretchen Rubin would identify as one, she’s dedicated her work to figuring out just what the hell it means to live a full life. As a writer and former lawyer, Gretchen has spent years trying to understand happiness, the ways she can access it herself, and how to bring others in on the wisdom she’s gained. We talk action-led thoughts and aphorisms — anything in pursuit of leaving a conversation feeling happy (or at least, as Gretchen would say, happier).