From 'hot priest' to Ripley, Andrew Scott is an advocate for his characters

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. The new film "Pressure" takes place in the days leading up to D-Day during World War II, when the exact date of the invasion was as yet uncertain because it would depend on the weather. Today, we feature our interview with Irish actor Andrew Scott. He co-stars in "Pressure" as Captain James Stagg, the chief Royal Air Force meteorologist. Allied commanders are gathered in England, and Stagg is urging them to hold off on the invasion, as he sees a storm brewing. But he's at odds with the meteorologist for Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces, who thinks the weather will be fine. His name is Irving Krick. Here's a clip from the film in which Andrew Scott, as Captain Stagg, responds to the forecast Krick has just presented to the commanders.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PRESSURE")

ANDREW SCOTT: (As James Stagg) Well, Colonel Krick's just said that it's going to be safe to land in Normandy tomorrow. And so that's what you believe. But everything that he's just said is pure unadulterated horses***.

(CROSSTALK)

SCOTT: (As James Stagg) You can muster all the tanks and soldiers and ships that you like. You can assemble the greatest armada that ever there was. But if you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away - because the storms that I'm talking about are real. And the jet stream that's propelling them towards the Normandy coast is real. And the wrath of nature is real.

DAVIES: Andrew Scott most recently played Tom Ripley, a con man with no conscience in the Netflix series "Ripley," adapted from the famous Patricia Highsmith novel. He was the famous hot priest in the award-winning comedy series "Fleabag," torn between his vow of celibacy and his love for a woman. And he was Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Moriarty in the British series "Sherlock," opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. Scott was also a soldier in Steven Spielberg's series "Band Of Brothers," a wise-cracking lieutenant in the World War I film "1917" and a gay man who shut down his emotions in the film "All Of Us Strangers." Terry spoke to Andrew Scott in 2024. She asked him about his part in "Fleabag."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TERRY GROSS: So you may be tired of talking about your role in "Fleabag" as a priest...

SCOTT: No, not at all.

GROSS: OK.

SCOTT: Not at all.

GROSS: As a priest, torn between your commitment to the priesthood and your love for the main character, the woman nicknamed Fleabag, torn between your commitment to celibacy and your own sexual desire. And, you know, it stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who also created and wrote it. And she plays a single woman who really loves sex and has had a lot of partners but isn't really in love until she meets you. And you're a priest who performs the ceremony for Fleabag's father's second marriage.

She falls in love with you. You're drawn to her. But you're a priest. You become good friends, and she started to hope that you'll leave the priesthood and be with her. And I want to play a scene in which she's visiting you at the parish in the evening, and the scene starts inside and then moves outside, so we just did a bit of editing to edit together those two parts of the scene. So let's hear that. Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FLEABAG")

PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) So I read your book.

SCOTT: (As Priest) OK, great.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) Well, it's got some great twists. But I just - I couldn't help but notice...

SCOTT: (As Priest) Come on. Just spit it out.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) ...Just one or two little inconsistencies.

SCOTT: (As Priest) OK, sure.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) So the world is made in seven days. And on the first day, light came. And then a few days later, the sun came.

SCOTT: (As Priest) Yeah. That's ridiculous.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) But you believe that?

SCOTT: (As Priest) It's not fact. It's poetry. It's moral code. It's for interpretation to help us work out God's plan for us.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) What's God's plan for you?

SCOTT: (As Priest) I believe God meant for me to love people in a different way. I believe I'm supposed to love people as a father.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) We can arrange that.

SCOTT: (As Priest) A father of many.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) I'll go up to three.

SCOTT: (As Priest) It's not going to happen.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) Two, then.

SCOTT: (As Priest) OK, two.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) Do you think I should become a Catholic?

SCOTT: (As Priest) No, don't do that. I like that you believe in a meaningless existence. And you're good for me. You make me question my faith.

WALLER-BRIDGE: (As Fleabag) And?

SCOTT: (As Priest) I've never felt closer to God.

GROSS: That's Phoebe Waller-Bridge and my guest, Andrew Scott. That's such a great role and such a great performance. Did you ever know a young priest as attractive as you were?

(LAUGHTER)

SCOTT: That's very kind and also impossible to answer. Yeah. No, I completely adore Phoebe and...

GROSS: Well, wait. Let's not avoid...

SCOTT: I'm very...

GROSS: ...The question here. We'll...

SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Take out the comparison to you so you don't have to worry about being humble here. But did you ever know a young, very attractive priest?

SCOTT: No, no. The priests that I knew were not young or attractive.

GROSS: Right. OK.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: You were raised Catholic in Dublin. What was the role of the church in your life?

SCOTT: Well, I think it was a huge role in my life growing up. The culture is based on the Catholic Church. Ireland is a small country. I was at a Jesuit school. I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, but certainly the culture around Catholicism is one that is very hard to dispel. And parts of it are wonderful. I think the sort of focus on community within the Catholic Church is really wonderful. And there's also, of course, you know, the huge amount of corruption and abuse that happened when I was growing up in the '90s. I remember, you know, driving to school. My father would drive me to school in the mornings and we would listen to the news in the morning. And, you know, my very strong memory is of just a whole litany of abuse cases within the Catholic Church just coming out every morning.

GROSS: Sexual abuse.

SCOTT: Sexual abuse. And not just sexual abuse but infidelity within marriages and - or marriages where people would be, you know, having affairs with priests and, you know - but mainly sexual abuse.

GROSS: Were you really angry with the church for having so many hypocrites in positions of religious power? You know, you talk about the priests who were accused of sexual abuse and, you know, infidelity and, you know, entering other people's marriages. And, you know, you're gay. I don't know how old you were when you realized that, maybe all your life. But like I said, in the Republic of Ireland, being gay was against the law until, I think, 1993. I think that's when it was...

SCOTT: Yes, 1993. Yeah.

GROSS: ...Repealed. And the church condemned it. And yet you have these priests, you know, abusing boys and having affairs with women - and men, probably. So how did you fit all these complicated feelings into your character of the priest in "Fleabag"? And it's a comedic role, too...

SCOTT: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: ...As we could hear from the scene that we played. And he's wrestling with the natural sexual desire that people have.

SCOTT: And love. I think he falls in love.

GROSS: And love.

SCOTT: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: Yeah, physical expressions of love, too.

SCOTT: Yeah. So it's not the abstinence that I have the problem with. It's the silence around the abstinence and the way that people in positions of power silence people who want to be able to talk about that. And so the reason that I found that character so cathartic is that, you know, when I first had the conversation with Phoebe - I don't want to play sort of a stereotype of somebody who is extreme in that way. This is a human being. I think that's why we like that character, because he does have faith. I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to have romantic feelings and to also have faith and to be able to talk about the human struggle.

And so I love the fact that this quite radical, sexual, kind of risque series has at its center a real addressing for young people of what faith is, because I think there's a real gap in the - for people of my generation who have been let down by the church and feel like it's not for them. To have a still space is something that would be wonderful for them, if they were made to feel welcome. And I think that's perhaps why "Fleabag" appealed to so many people, because it wasn't cynical. I think we tried to talk about religion, and in, of course, a humorous way, but also in a way that isn't just too judgmental of the Catholic Church, that actually this is a person who really is struggling and is a human being.

GROSS: And I love the fact that he questions his faith...

SCOTT: Yes, yeah.

GROSS: ...But constantly stays with it.

SCOTT: Yes, exactly.

GROSS: And that it's OK to question it.

SCOTT: Absolutely.

GROSS: Like, if your belief is deep enough, it's OK to challenge it and question it...

SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: ...And remain committed, so yeah.

SCOTT: Yes, exactly. Remain committed, exactly. To see that struggle, like in any relationship - in a marriage you think, am I - this is tough. This relationship is hard. How do I keep it going? How do I talk about it? It's not just blind devotion the whole time in any relationship. You question it. And it's how you approach those crises that makes us honorable and courageous. And that's a wonderful thing to be able to convey and also, of course, to just address.

GROSS: Did any priests give you feedback on your role in "Fleabag"?

SCOTT: Yeah, they did actually. I had really, really positive feedback from priests, I think because they, like all of us, like to see themselves represented in a sort of fair way - that they're not just these pious, flawless people. I think most of the feedback I got was really wonderful.

DAVIES: Andrew Scott speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 2024. We'll hear more after this short break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR, and we're listening to Terry's 2024 interview with actor Andrew Scott. Scott co-stars in the new film "Pressure."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: I think you first became known in the U.S. in "Sherlock," the BBC series that played in the U.S., as well, with Benedict Cumberbatch a Sherlock Holmes and you as his nemesis Moriarty. So, I want to play a scene from Season 1. And this is the first scene where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty meet face-to-face. And Moriarty has lured Sherlock to rescue his friend Watson, who's been outfitted with an explosive vest. So Sherlock is pointing a gun at you during this entire exchange, and your character, Moriarty, speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SHERLOCK")

SCOTT: (As Jim Moriarty) Do you know what happens if you don't leave me alone, Sherlock? To you?

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: (As Sherlock Holmes) Oh, let me guess. I got killed.

SCOTT: (As Jim Moriarty) Kill you? No. Don't be obvious. I mean, I'm going to kill you anyway, someday. I don't want to rush it, though. I'm saving it up for something special. No, no, no, no, no. If you don't stop prying, I'll burn you. I would burn the heart out of you.

CUMBERBATCH: (As Sherlock Holmes) I have been reliably informed that I don't have one.

SCOTT: (As Jim Moriarty) But we both know that's not quite true. Well, I'd better be off. Well, so nice to have had a proper chat.

CUMBERBATCH: (As Sherlock Holmes) What if I was to shoot you now right now?

SCOTT: (As Jim Moriarty) Then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face. 'Cause I'd be surprised, Sherlock. Really, I would. I'm just a teensy bit disappointed. And, of course, you wouldn't be able to cherish it for very long. Chao, Sherlock Holmes.

CUMBERBATCH: (As Sherlock Holmes) Catch you later.

SCOTT: (As Jim Moriarty) No, you won't.

GROSS: So you play Moriarty big and smirky, sinister and funny. What was your audition like?

SCOTT: My audition was incredibly fun. Just the day before, I knew that they were auditioning people to play Moriarty, and their original idea was that this character would appear almost like a - just an image, and it would say something like hello, Sherlock, and that would be the end of the series. But then when they realized that, lots of actors coming into audition just saying, hello, Sherlock, doesn't give them much of an idea of the actors' range, you know, for future series if they cast this actor. So they quickly wrote - Stephen Moffat, the writer, quickly wrote that scene, which eventually appeared as the scene we've just listened to, as an audition scene for actors to read in the audition. And they sent it maybe, I don't know, like, the night before the audition, and I thought, wow, this is really fun. And I was aware that I didn't look like a villain at the time. I had quite a sort of, you know, boyish face and stuff. And so I took great pleasure in frightening them. And I knew in the audition that they were amused but also that they were scared.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Were you able to tap into a place in yourself that you thought could scare people?

SCOTT: Yeah, yeah. I was. I feel like one of the things that I feel quite fortunate about is that I feel quite near my emotions, you know, I feel that's stood me in good stead as an actor. I feel like it's an enormously, I don't know, it feels healthy to me to be able to access that part of you but not really do any harm, you know? Yeah, it's a funny thing - isn't it? - to be an actor?

GROSS: Yeah, yeah. I want to move on to "Hamlet." You got an Olivier award, I think - right? - for your portrayal?

SCOTT: I...

GROSS: No?

SCOTT: I might have, yeah.

GROSS: You might have. OK.

SCOTT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: How am I supposed to know if you don't know?

SCOTT: Yeah, well, I don't know. How am I supposed to know if you don't know?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Well, Anyways, you were acclaimed.

SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: OK.

SCOTT: Yeah. Yeah.

GROSS: You were acclaimed.

SCOTT: People liked it.

GROSS: Yeah.

SCOTT: People liked it, yeah.

GROSS: So, you've spoken about how you wanted to make the language understandable so often, especially...

SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: ...For Americans who sometimes have to work hard just to grasp a British accent when spoken quickly or spoken with a regional British accent. And, of course, so much of the language is - so much of the language in Shakespeare is language that we no longer use. It's archaic. But you really wanted to make every word understandable. So I went on YouTube to see if I could find anything, and I found you doing part of the to be, or not to be soliloquy, which is, of course, the most famous part. And it was so interesting because, you know, Hamlet is really, like, thinking through, like, should I live, or should I end my life? I don't know. And what's the worst that can happen if I die? What would that be like?

SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: And, of course, he's using very elevated, poetic language to say all of that. But you say it, like, really slowly. There are so many, like, long pauses in between, for instance, to be - long pause - or not to be. And on the one hand, I thought, like, wow, that's a lot of pauses. And on the other hand, I felt like, well, every word is ringing out, and I'm kind of hearing things I hadn't heard before. So...

SCOTT: Right.

GROSS: ...Can you describe your thoughts about those pauses and why you took them and where you took them?

SCOTT: I suppose the thing about the pauses is that he's thinking, am I going to live, or am I going to die? And we're seeing that live, and, you know, your job is to not play the famous speech. Your job is to just - that speech wasn't written to be famous. It was just written to be authentic. And this is somebody who's thinking, am I going to do this, or am I not going to do this? And nobody's watching him. So why wouldn't he take his time? You know, a lot of the language is archaic, but a lot of words that we still use today were invented by Shakespeare. So I have this real passion about Shakespeare that it shouldn't be kidnapped by academics. It's something that's very actable, and for young actors, if you really examine it and you're not intimidated and you're not told this isn't for you, then, actually, it should be really, really accessible. And you may not understand every single word, but in the same way you may not understand or get every word in a rap song, you understand that there's a musicality to it, and there's a feeling that you have to get, and that could be witty or it could contemplative or it could be whatever it is. And it's incredibly actable. And also, "Hamlet" is incredibly funny.

And so it was just - like with all things, it's just to be able to ignore the famousness of the play. In fact, we had a thing in rehearsal called the famous play buzzer...

GROSS: (Laughter).

SCOTT: ...Where you're like, are we just doing this just because everybody knows this is what you would do? Like, Hamlet's father appears to him as a ghost at the beginning of the story. And we don't know - we should unlearn the fact that we don't know that that character could be in - that character only appears fleetingly, but we know that probably because we know the play so well that actually that he just appears to him and then he sort of - and then he goes for the majority of the play. But for a 16-year-old who's watching it, they don't know that this character isn't going to be by his side for the rest of the show. So you have to unlearn what you already know about the famousness of the play in the same way you have to unlearn all the stuff that you know about Tom Ripley or James Moriarty or anything that, you know, when you're reinterpreting, you know, a famous story.

So, I found all that really interesting, and all this stuff about Hamlet, to me, is fascinating because people say, oh, he's the dark prince and he's wearing, you know, the inky black cloak and blah, blah, blah. But actually, this is just a guy, which I - you know, I very much understand at the moment, which is a guy who's in mourning. His father has died very recently. So the question is that you don't drown that character in just, oh, he's just a dark, depressing guy. Where was his lightness? And so, I feel like you always have to go towards the lightness when you're dealing with tragedy, a little bit like "Fleabag." Then you - when you're dealing with comedy, you need to look for the soul. And that's what I think the great art, or certainly the art that I'm interested in, you know, has a bit of both because that's the way we are as human beings. You know, we like a bit of both. We laugh on the saddest day of our life, and we cry, you know, in the middle of a brunch when we don't think we're going to. It's always within us all the time, the potential to go in either direction.

GROSS: Andrew Scott, I want to thank you so much for talking with us. And, you know, your face changes from role to role. Can you pass unrecognized on the street?

SCOTT: I can, yeah. Yeah, I can. (Laughter) Sometimes.

GROSS: Right. Sometimes. Yeah. Do you use...

SCOTT: Depends on the day.

GROSS: ...Any kind of disguise or...

SCOTT: It depends. I'm very lucky. I can walk the streets pretty easily, you know.

GROSS: Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts (laughter).

SCOTT: People have been saying that for a while, so hopefully I'll...

GROSS: Yeah.

SCOTT: Hopefully I'll be able to duck and dive into the future.

GROSS: Thank you so much for being with us.

SCOTT: Thank you so much for having me.

DAVIES: Andrew Scott speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 2024. He stars in the new film "Pressure." After a break, we'll remember artist and writer Marjane Satrapi, who died last week, and Justin Chang will review Steven Spielberg's new film "Disclosure Day." I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF VOLKER BERTELMANN'S "PRESSURE ENDING CREDITS")

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian French author and artist of the groundbreaking graphic novel series "Persepolis," died last week at the age of 56. No official cause was given, but The Guardian reported that relatives said she died of a broken heart after the death of her husband last year.

Satrapi's semi-autobiographical "Persepolis" novel, drawn in flat black and white, introduced readers to life inside Iran around the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. It was a world unknown to many readers outside the country. Published first in French, it became an international phenomenon. The novel was adapted into a 2007 film, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature.

Satrapi was born in 1969, 10 years before the Islamic revolution. Her family was prosperous, educated and westernized. Her parents protested against the shop, and later the Islamic regime. An uncle was jailed and executed. As we'll hear, Satrapi had a rebellious spirit, and when she was 14, her parents sent her to Austria to attend school because they were afraid she would get into trouble with the Revolutionary Guard. Four years later, depressed and missing her home country, Satrapi returned to Iran, where she earned a degree in graphic arts. She eventually returned to Austria and then moved to Paris. She became a French citizen in 2006. Marjane Satrapi spoke to Terry Gross in 2003, when "Persepolis" was published in English. Marjane was 10 years old when the Islamic government made it mandatory for women and girls to wear the veil.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TERRY GROSS: One of the images that you've drawn for your new book describes what it was like after all the girls and women had to wear the veil.

MARJANE SATRAPI: Yes.

GROSS: And in the illustration, one of the kids is strangling another girl with her chador and is saying, execution in the name of freedom. Another girl is putting the chador over her head and saying, ooh, I'm the monster of darkness. And another girl is saying, it's too hot out. So did you play with the chador like that and, you know, strangle friends with it and pretend it was a costume and act like kids do?

SATRAPI: Of course. I mean - well, yes. You know, it's not because, you know, they push you to do something or you have to do it, because the situation in Iran is that if you didn't wear that on your head you couldn't go to school. And if you were a grownup and you didn't have that on your head, you would have gone to jail. It was not the choice of people. That was like that. So we, of course, really didn't believe in it. And as soon as we could take it off or play with it or making it look ridiculous, we did. And this thing was really an obligation, and in no way that was the choice of Iranian people.

GROSS: During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran was bombed by Iraq. Your neighborhood was bombed. In fact, a house on your block was hit, and one of your good friends was killed. You say in your book that you were really changed by that and it made you fearless.

SATRAPI: Yes.

GROSS: Why did it make you fearless?

SATRAPI: When you see that your friend who is 13 years old, she can die, then you say, I can die also. I mean, of course, you know, when you come back to where you are and you see that, you know, people that you have known, they are gone, of course you have a very bad conscience also to say why you should have survived and why should she die, you know, if at this moment, you know, when the bomb exploded is a question of fate. I don't know the tenths of a second or the tenths of an inch is nothing really, so it could be my house, I could have died. So after that, you know, I think I accepted that I was already dead. So from the moment that, you know, your death doesn't matter anymore to you, then you're not scared, you know. All these people that they died in my country to defending the country, to defending freedom, justice in the war, whatever, I don't know in what sense my blood would be a little bit more red than theirs, you know. My life isn't worth more than theirs, so I'm not scared.

GROSS: So when you stop being scared, what are some of the things you started doing that you were too afraid to do before?

SATRAPI: Well, you know, I just came out and I always say what I think. After that, I never swallowed my words, I never hide myself, I always thought what I think. And, you know, it doesn't matter anymore. You know, it doesn't matter. So if, you know, people, they don't agree, if they agree, you know, all this hypocrisy of hiding the thing to please everyone and, you know, just want to save my skin and everything. I did - another way to save my skin was that I left my country in '94 definitely. But until the time - I was there until the time that I could speak and it had an effect, I spoke, and I still do that. That was the effect of that.

GROSS: When you stopped being afraid, were there rules you started breaking at school? Did you talk back to teachers? Did you refuse to pray when they asked you to?

SATRAPI: Oh, yes. I even hitted the director of the school, you know, because she wanted to take my - I had a little bracelet, Engord (ph), my mother gave me, and she wanted to take it. And, you know, they were just robbing things from us, that was stealing, and I say, I don't give it. And she wanted to take it by force, and I beated her at the time.

GROSS: With what, your fist?

SATRAPI: Oh, no, no, no. You know, I just pushed her away. And while she was like, you know, this wimp, so she fall down. And, you know, I didn't push this hard neither, but she fall down. And that was a crisis, and they threw me out of the school. And it was a whole story to find another school and everything. But, you know, I don't regret it one second. If I had to do it again, I would have pushed her even harder, you know.

I should just add something. All these directors of the school during these years that I was in the school, they give the student to the guardian of the revolution, and many kids between the age of 14 and 18, they had been killed in the prisons because of these directors that gave the children. So, you know, probably I would have beat her much harder than what I did.

GROSS: Who were the guardians of the revolution?

SATRAPI: Well, you know, you had the army, you had the police and then you had another style that was this guys who were dressed like rangers and they had big beard and, you know, they were here to make order. And, you know, they were the law themself, you know. They would stop you because they feel like stopping you, telling you that your scarf was not right or you spoke too loud or why is it four people gathered together in the street? That was a time in my country in '81, in '82 that, you know, people, they had been shoot down in the street because they had making - they made the little demonstration, you know. The thing that have very, very, very much changed - I am not talking about of Iran of today, and I hope that there won't be any confusion - but at the very beginning of the revolution it was like that.

GROSS: Now, at the same time that you were rebelling against the authority figures in your life, like your teachers, who represented the Iranian Revolution, you were also rebelling against your parents.

SATRAPI: Oh, well, that was the age, you know. That was the age. I was like 12 years - 13, 14 years old. And, you know, I had to confirm myself because I was getting tall, and, you know, I was realizing that I was a human being myself and I was not anymore just the child of my parents. So, yes.

GROSS: Yes. You write you were rebelling against your mother's dictatorship.

SATRAPI: Yes, exactly.

GROSS: What was she strict about?

SATRAPI: Well, you know, because my mother, she was a real dictator, and she still is, you know. From the second that the school, for example, they closed, she was convinced - and I thank her so much today - she was convinced that the only way for me to get out of this whole mess was to be very well-educated. So, you know, the school finished every day at 2 o'clock. Every day she came to pick me up at 2 o'clock. Three days per week I had French courses between 2 and 8. So that was three days. Then one day per week I had some German courses because I was going to go to Austria. Then I had one day of karate courses, even two days. And then the only day of weekend, which was the Friday, I had painting courses.

And the rest of the time when I came home after 8:00 - when we arrived it was almost 9 - I had to sit and do my homework until 11. So - and my whole family was saying to my mother, but you are mad. You're going to kill this child. And my mother say, nobody die from reading or learning. So this child is not going to die and you're in a hectic situation. And if tomorrow she has to leave the country, she has to know everything. The more languages she knows, the more she knows how even to defend herself, bodily, self-defense, if she knows how to draw - whatever I give her, that's a new chance for her to be able to do something outside of this country. And she was right, because, you know, I learned, you know, not to be lazy, probably, and to work hard after that.

GROSS: When it became easier a few years after the revolution for people to leave the country for visits, your parents took a short trip to Turkey, and they went by themselves. It was just, like, the parents went and you stayed behind. And they brought you back gifts, and the gifts they brought you were the kinds of Western things, pop culture things, that you couldn't possibly have gotten in Iran. They got you a denim jacket. They got you an Iron Maiden poster (laughter).

SATRAPI: Yes.

GROSS: And they had to smuggle it in then. They had to figure out creative ways of smuggling this stuff into Iran. What did it mean to you to have that?

SATRAPI: Oh, I was the coolest person in the whole school. Imagine, I had the big poster of Iron Maiden and a large poster of Kim Wilde. Nobody had such a things. I was the only one. And, of course, you know, I was inviting my friends coming home watching my poster and being jealous at me. I was very, very happy to have those, though, you know, afterwards everybody had a friend who was in Germany or somewhere else and they were folding the posters into letter and sending it to their friend, but I had big posters, and the other one, they had smaller posters, so it was something. But, again, you know, my book is also to show that, you know, that's not because you're Iranian because you're listening to revolutionary song against the West the whole day, that, you know, the pop culture...

GROSS: That's right.

SATRAPI: ...Belongs to everyone. It's not because you're Iranian that you don't know who is Iron Maiden or who is Kim Wilde or you know. I mean, the culture in general belongs to everyone. There is no frontier, you know. Your Edgar Allan Poe belongs as much to - it belongs to me as much as my poet Hafez in Iran belongs to you. That is the heritage of all the human beings.

GROSS: And now that you're older yourself, looking back, do you think that your parents were wonderful or crazy to have almost risked their lives to smuggle in the Iron Maiden poster and the denim jacket? I mean, if they were discovered, not only would have the stuff have been confiscated. They probably would have been seriously punished.

SATRAPI: Well, I think that my parents, they were wonderfully crazy. That is, both of them. They were wonderful and they were crazy, but they wanted so much to make me happy. And, well, they really didn't risk their life. I mean, probably they would have, you know - I don't know - take my father's passport for a month and, you know, just finish with the poster and these things. You know, it was not really life-risking, but it was a risk anyway. But, yeah. But then I was happy for one year, and I think that it worth that for them, of course.

DAVIES: Iranian French artist and writer Marjane Satrapi speaking with Terry Gross in 2003. Her graphic novel "Persepolis" about growing up in Iran became an international phenomenon. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR. We're listening to Terry's 2003 interview with Iranian French writer and artist Marjane Satrapi. She died last week at the age of 56.

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GROSS: When you were 14, your parents sent you to a school in Austria.

SATRAPI: Yes.

GROSS: Why did they want you to leave the country? And why did they choose Austria as the place for you to go?

SATRAPI: Well, you know, I was too much outspoken. I was just, you know, talking all the time. And you should know that in these years, they really stopped no matter who. I mean, in the Iranian prison, you had kids of 15 years old,16 years old, 14 years old. You had all the ages, and these kids, they could be executed. So - and then it was bombed every day. And, you know, my parents, they had just one child. And, you know, they always - they were always so - I don't know.

I mean, my mother always said, you know, we love you so much that you should go. And she always thought that, you know, the parents that keep their kids close to them, they're just egoistic. And the real love is always to give enough possibility to your kid to go. And that was the reasons they sent me abroad. And why Austria, because Austria, they give very easily the visa. And my mother's best friend was in Austria and, you know, their life was not so expensive. And there was a very good French school in Austria. That's why I went to Austria.

GROSS: Did you feel like your parents were rejecting you by sending you away? Did you understand why they wanted to send you away?

SATRAPI: Oh, yes. At this time, I understood it very well. But then when I went to it in Austria, and I was so misjudged because, you know, now I am the axis of evil. But in these years, in the very early '80s, you know, I was Khomeini myself, you know?

GROSS: (Laughter).

SATRAPI: All the Iranian, they were so much misjudged, you know, by this.

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.

SATRAPI: You know, we were - I was escaping something. And people, they were judging me, but by the thing that I escaped myself. And it was so hard. And, you know, when you're 14, 15, 16, you don't have any friends. And, you know, you don't have your parents. And everybody judge you and everything. So I just cut completely with my country. I just wanted so badly, you know, to assimilate the Western culture that, you know, I just forgot who I was myself.

And I went back to Iran because of this reason, because I was just too finished, too tired for that. And that is just - much afterwards that I understood that to assimilate another culture, first of all, I have to assume my own culture and to assume who I am myself. And then I can open myself to the other ones. And that made me go back. And at this time, I was kind of angry to my parents, you know, because I thought that it was a rejection. But it didn't last very long, you know?

GROSS: You returned to Iran when you were 18...

SATRAPI: Yes.

GROSS: ...Intending to go to college there. Did you stay that long?

SATRAPI: Oh, yes. I stayed for six years in Iran, 5 1/2 years like that. I made the master in visual communication. You know, I got married, I divorced, I worked. I did all sorts of things. And that is only after that that I came back in '94 to France.

But this year that I had in Iran, first of all, I was so happy to be in Iran. And I can tell you, I never partied as much as I did there, because since there, you know, party was forbidden and everything was forbidden. With the students, we were just - you know, we were just together almost every night, making a party every night because, first of all, it was forbidden. And then we lived in such a repressive society that the only way to have a balance in our personal life was to have a big freedom in our personal life.

GROSS: Where did you hold the secret parties? And what were the parties like?

SATRAPI: Oh, like the parties that you have here, with more sophisticated people, because, you know, again, you know, whatever is forbidden, you make it even more. For example, you know, now United States, for example, it's forbidden to smoke. I smoke three times as much as I do in France, where I have the right to smoke. So that's the nature of the human being.

So it was held in the apartments, for example, in my apartment. And everybody came. And you had the Rolling Stones music, and you had Deep Purple and you had, I don't know, whatever you can imagine, you know, from, I don't know, whatever. And, well, we were drinking alcohol and dancing and shouting and all of that.

But at the same time, we were risking to be arrested. And we had been arrested 1 billion times. I mean, how many times haven't I been arrested because of the fact that I was in a mixed party with my friends? And then they came and, you know, they stopped us. And we were one night in the jail. And the day after, the parents, they had to come. They had to pay. We had to sign a paper saying that we will never start to make party again. But we did it. Life continued.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

SATRAPI: Thank you very much.

DAVIES: Marjane Satrapi speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 2003. Satrapi died last week. She was 56. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews Steven Spielberg's new science fiction thriller "Disclosure Day." This is FRESH AIR.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Nearly 50 years after making "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind," Steven Spielberg returns to alien territory in his new sci-fi thriller "Disclosure Day." The film, which opens everywhere in theaters today, stars Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor as two strangers trying to expose a U.S. conspiracy to cover up the existence of extraterrestrial life. "Disclosure Day" also features Colin Firth and Colman Domingo. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: Earlier this year, former President Obama made waves in an interview when he said that he believed aliens were real, though he hadn't seen any evidence of them during his time in office. President Trump accused Obama of revealing classified information but then said that he would direct government agencies to release a number of images showing alien and extraterrestrial activity. The Pentagon rolled out those photos last month, but they were largely deemed fuzzy and inconclusive. All this might sound like free publicity for Steven Spielberg's new thriller, "Disclosure Day," which is about a massive U.S. conspiracy to hide the fact that aliens have been visiting Earth for decades.

If anything, though, the movie's pleasures feel more retro than timely. It harks back to Spielberg's greatest alien-themed hits like "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind," "E.T.," and "War Of The Worlds." But it also feels like a throwback to the '90s and early 2000s, the era of conspiracy-minded sci-fi series like "The X-Files" and M. Night Shyamalan's eerie crop circle thriller "Signs." "Disclosure Day" stars Josh O'Connor as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity expert who decides to blow the whistle on his employer, Wardex. That's a powerful agency operating outside the boundaries of the government that for decades has suppressed evidence of alien visits to Earth.

Daniel has stolen video footage of these creatures, and he feels duty bound to disclose it to the public and to expose the sinister Wardex for having captured, detained and even tortured its share of aliens. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Missouri, something strange happens when a TV meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild, played by Emily Blunt, tries to deliver her morning weather report. She freezes up on the air and begins making strange guttural clicking noises, speaking what appears to be a kind of alien language.

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EMILY BLUNT: (As Margaret Fairchild) Good morning, Kansas City. Let's take a look at today. Let's - let's. Today is - today is - (non-English language spoken).

CHANG: Around this time, Margaret also finds that she can read the minds of the people around her, a gift that comes in handy once she, too, goes on the run, with Wardex agents in pursuit. Although Margaret and Daniel don't know each other, they share a mysterious connection. Noah Scanlon, the head of Wardex, played by an unusually terrifying Colin Firth, is determined to stop them before they can make contact. One of Scanlon's deadliest weapons is a form of mind control technology that he uses to try to get Daniel's girlfriend, Jane, played by a very good Eve Hewson, to betray him.

Whatever aliens might be capable of doing to us, the movie suggests, we have far more to fear from some of our fellow humans. The mind control bit is one of the movie's cleverest sequences, a scene in which Margaret stages an almost Houdini-level escape is another. At 79, Spielberg is still the nimble filmmaker who delights in treating cinema as a magic trick. He's also as skilled with actors as ever. Firth injects a palpable sense of anguish into the role of the movie's big villain. And Josh O'Connor brings an everyman likeability to his truth-telling tech wiz.

But the most dazzlingly inventive work comes from Emily Blunt. Often a tough, sardonic screen presence, as in "The Devil Wears Prada 2," she gets to flex her proven action and comedy muscles in a more earnest emotional register. Like Richard Dreyfuss' obsessed alien seeker in "Close Encounters," Margaret is the kind of madly eccentric character Spielberg instinctively gravitates toward, someone who has little idea where she's headed but is convinced, rightly, that the truth really is out there.

There are other memorable characters, too. Colman Domingo gives a warm turn as a fellow whistleblower who steers the operation from afar. And Elizabeth Marvel delivers a fine performance as a Catholic nun, who, in one of the films more thoughtful asides, claims that the existence of aliens doesn't threaten her belief in God. If anything, she says, it affirms that God, like the universe He created, is far bigger and more complex than humans like to acknowledge. That's a profoundly beautiful idea, though I wish "Disclosure Day" itself were a more complex movie.

Spielberg's storytelling is often described as overly sentimental, which isn't always fair. His previous work, the semiautobiographical "The Fabelmans," was one of the most genuinely moving films of his career. But sentimentality does ultimately overwhelm "Disclosure Day," especially in the big finale, when the movie strains to bring its characters and indeed all of humanity together. Having shown us some of the terrible things powerful people are capable of, Spielberg makes a third act lurch toward catharsis, as though desperate to suggest we aren't beyond redemption as a species. Like the existence of alien life, our essential goodness is easy enough to believe in but a lot harder to prove.

DAVIES: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Steven Spielberg's new film "Disclosure Day." On Monday's show, author Eddie Glaude on America at 250. We talk about his new book, "America, U.S.A.," and the story he says this country keeps telling itself from Frederick Douglass in 1876 to this 250th year, and what we choose to forget. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. And you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@thisisfreshair. We're rolling out new videos with in-studio guests, behind-the-scenes shorts and iconic interviews from the archive.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

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