Loudon Wainwright III goes back to the basics on 'Lifetime Achievement'

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, in for Terry Gross. We're going to remember actress Anne Heche, who died Sunday after a highly publicized car crash. She was 53 years old. Heche she got her start in the soap opera "Another World" while just out of high school. She starred opposite Johnny Depp in "Donnie Brasco," Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman in "Wag The Dog" and Harrison Ford in the romantic comedy "Six Days Seven Nights." Here's a clip from that film in which she and Ford end up crashing on a remote tropical island after the plane he's piloting gets struck by lightning.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS")

ANNE HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Where are we?

HARRISON FORD: (As Quinn Harris) Here.

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Where? Where?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) Somewhere between Makatea and Tahiti. That's the best I can do for you.

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Whoa. What happened?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) It crumpled the landing gear when we hit.

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Well, are you going to fix it? I mean, can't we reattach it somehow?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) Oh, sure. We'll, like, glue it back on. How's that?

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Aren't you one of those guys?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) What guys?

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Those guy guys, you know, those guys with skills?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) Skills?

HECHE: (As Robin Monroe) Yeah. You send them out into the wilderness with a pocket knife and a Q-Tip, and they build you a shopping mall. You can't do that?

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) No. No, I can't do that. But I can do this.

(SOUNDBITE OF CORK POPPING)

FORD: (As Quinn Harris) Does that help?

BIANCULLI: In the Nicole Holofcener independent film "Walking And Talking," Anne Heche played opposite Catherine Keener. They portray Laura and Amelia, two best friends since childhood. When Laura, played by Heche, gets engaged, their friendship suffers.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WALKING AND TALKING")

CATHERINE KEENER: (As Amelia) You think I don't want you to get married? You know what? Brush your hair yourself.

HECHE: (As Laura) What just happened?

KEENER: (As Amelia) I don't want to talk about it.

HECHE: (As Laura) Well, I do. What's your problem?

KEENER: (As Amelia) My problem? My problem, Laura, is that you're different. OK?

HECHE: (As Laura) How?

KEENER: (As Amelia) We used to talk about things. You used to need me, for Christ's sake. When something happens to me now, good or bad, I tell you. When something good or bad happens to you, you tell Frank. It feels unfair.

HECHE: (As Laura) Amelia, I need you.

KEENER: (As Amelia) Not in the same way.

HECHE: (As Laura) OK. You're right. You're right. I don't call you 10 times a day like I used to. And I don't tell you every single thing that happens to me because I do have Frank. But does that make me a bad friend because I don't need you when you want me to need you?

KEENER: (As Amelia) Fine.

HECHE: (As Laura) You know, when I do call you, it's not enough. And if I do see you, that's not enough. Nothing is ever enough for you. It's like when Frank and I got engaged. You decided that I don't care about you anymore, and that is just not true.

BIANCULLI: Anne Heche also starred in such TV series as "Hung," and played recurring characters on "Nip/Tuck" and "Ally McBeal." In the late 1990s. Heche began a public same-sex relationship with Ellen DeGeneres at a time when such relationships were rare in Hollywood. They broke up a few years later. We're going to listen back to Terry's 2000 interview with Anne Heche. She told Terry she grew up in a Christian fundamentalist family.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: What were you brought up as strictly as a fundamentalist, and if so, did that affect the kind of popular culture you were exposed to, the movies you could watch, the TV shows, records?

HECHE: I couldn't watch movie or TV, none of it, None of it. I couldn't watch any of it. No. Books were not pushed in our direction either. There was - yes, it was a very limited scope.

GROSS: Now, I want to ask you, your father was an itinerant fundamentalist choir director. Would you describe what he did exactly and...

HECHE: And many other things (laughter).

GROSS: Yeah, we'll will get to the other things. But what did he do as the choir director and why did it entail traveling around a lot?

HECHE: He sang with flair. Oh, the traveling didn't have anything to do with being in church. The traveling had to do with our financial circumstances and running away from our debt. The two kind of tried to go hand in hand as he was constantly trying to explain why we didn't have a home. But he just - whatever town we were in, he would just go to the church. And he was a wonderful pianist and organist and had a beautiful voice and a talent for making people sing. So that just kind of happened by accident. They didn't go hand in hand.

GROSS: Why was the family always in debt?

HECHE: Because he didn't have a job other than being a choir director. He just couldn't seem to settle down into a normal job. Which, of course, we found out later, and as I understand it now, was because he had another life. He wanted to be with men. And yet he was grounded in this family. I mean, he had four children. And they were very Christian. So certainly, coming out as being a gay man, especially then, was not - it was not even allowed. I mean, certainly for him, I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. But because he wasn't allowed to be who he was, he split off and went to find his love elsewhere than with the family. So he kept moving to try to be with him and never knowing why he was going away to these different places - later found out it was to be with his lovers.

GROSS: So your father was a choir director who traveled a lot because he was living this secret life as a homosexual.

HECHE: Right.

GROSS: How did you find out?

HECHE: He was dying of AIDS in '83. It was still not named anything yet, right? At that time, it was the gay disease. It was just starting to get known as AIDS. And there were starting to be articles in newspapers about it. And, of course, at that time, it was, you know, you can get AIDS by touching somebody and you can get age AIDS by hugging somebody and just whatever it was, you could get AIDS if you were around this person. My father was never open about his relationships or his disease with us. It was the doctors that told us about two weeks before he died. And by that point, he was so delirious, he didn't even know who we were. So we never were able to confront him about it. And it was - it's a very tragic story. And I think the shame was so huge for him and the running and the hiding. And hiding who you are is death, really. And I learned that very soon on. And I think that's why I'm able to be as open about myself as I am, because if you're not, I've already witnessed what can happen.

GROSS: You were - what? - you say 12 when your father died...

HECHE: I was 13.

GROSS: ...Thirteen - when you realized that he had a secret life and that his secret life contradicted his own religious beliefs. Did it affect your religious beliefs? I don't know how strongly you identified as a Christian at the time.

HECHE: I was a very big questioner of religion, even though I was a good girl. And so I did what I was told and believed what I was told until this future time I knew, and I would be able to explore my own arenas of life. Certainly, by that point, we were on shaky ground anyway as a family. And so our religious beliefs did not seem to really help us. I mean, I think it helped my mother. For me, it was a very discouraging time, a lot of questions about God and who God is, but started me on my journey of my own spirituality, which was also one of the gifts I received from that death.

GROSS: So you were in dinner theater from the age of like 12 or 13 on to help earn a living for the family. It must have been a little strange for you in the sense that, during the early years of your life, seeing movies or TV shows was considered bad, you know, sinful maybe. And then suddenly, you're in dinner theater performing, and that's...

HECHE: I know.

GROSS: ...Good because you're supporting the family.

HECHE: Things that will happen when you need money.

GROSS: Right.

HECHE: Point of view that changes very quickly when on the streets. It - yeah. I mean, things had to change. There was - my father's death and his split life was a huge wakeup call to all of us. I mean, there was just so many things that had to be changed because of that reality.

GROSS: So when you were in dinner theater - I think it was when you were in high school - you were offered a role on an afternoon soap.

HECHE: Right, right.

GROSS: Didn't accept it?

HECHE: Oh, when I was in 10th grade, I didn't accept it just 'cause I didn't want to have to move again and move my mom again, and we were just getting settled, and, you know, tears were stopping being, you know, cried every day. And so I wanted to keep that stability. They came back to me when I was a senior, and I did accept. And that was a difficult thing. There wasn't very much support for me doing a soap opera, no, from my family, no.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Right.

HECHE: But it was good money.

GROSS: So after high school, you went to New York and did - I think it was...

HECHE: The day after I graduated, yeah.

GROSS: And it was - what? - "Another World"?

HECHE: "Another World." I played twins on "Another World" for four years.

GROSS: You played twins. So what was the difference between each of the two twins?

HECHE: Oh, pretty obvious, good and evil, although I - then I kind of tried to mellow them out. But in the beginning, it was very much, you know, good and evil, prim and proper versus the crazy, wild girl who will do anything (laughter).

GROSS: Did you relate to either of these characters?

HECHE: I did. Of course, I put myself into them. I mean, the greatest thing about a soap opera is that you get to be anything. As long as you say your lines, you can be anything. So I created these, you know, fantasy characters for me. I was on the search of finding myself. I was 18, got this amazing opportunity and was finding myself in life and through these characters. That was my, you know, beginning of becoming an adult. And it was just - you know, it's fantastic fun, too. So the one character was just - became the funnest person in the world to play. Of course, she was the evil one. But it just became so much fun, and she was so daring, and I could do anything that I wanted. And it was just - you know, there was so much support around the character. And we just went for it. I mean, every day was just a blast.

GROSS: Did you get paid double because you had two parts?

HECHE: Only after the third year (laughter), only when I could negotiate. They got me real cheap when I was out of high school.

GROSS: Did you go to college?

HECHE: I didn't. No, those were my college years on the soap opera.

GROSS: Do you regret that at all? Do you feel you missed something? Or...

HECHE: I used to think - I used to have a real hard time with not being - I would think that I wasn't smart, and I didn't go to school, and I wasn't smart. Now I know I'm smart. No, I'm kidding (laughter). Now I've just come to understand that there are different paths that have already been created for us, and if you listen to that and you're going down the right path, then things are going to fall into place.

And I was actually going to go to school after I finished my four years at the soap opera and got another movie, the week before I left, with Jessica Lange. And I thought, you know, somebody is telling me something. I mean, I guess I'm supposed to do this. And then just job after job came, and it was very clear that this was the path I was supposed to be on. And my training ground and schooling had been on - in the best acting school in the world. And there's nothing better than working five days a week and being in front of a camera every single day.

BIANCULLI: Anne Heche speaking to Terry Gross in 2000. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DIE KNODEL'S "MIT DER 42ER")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's interview from 2000 with actress Anne Heche. She died Sunday after injuries sustained in a car crash. She was 53 years old.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: One of your breakthrough film roles was in "Walking And Talking." You and Catherine Keener starred as best friends.

HECHE: Yes, yeah.

GROSS: Then your relationship changes after you get engaged, and she doesn't even have a boyfriend.

HECHE: Right.

GROSS: Now, this was an independent film. And...

HECHE: Yeah, Nicole Holofcener was the director.

GROSS: Yeah. And independent film was the direction that your co-star Catherine Keener headed in for a long time, whereas you went more toward the big-budget pictures.

HECHE: Well, you know what? I...

GROSS: Was that an intentional move? Or is that just kind of what happened?

HECHE: No, I switched it up as much as I could. I mean, some of the independents that I did weren't seen. I've always wanted to shake it up. To me, I'm drawn to the parts more than I am - you know, what's different for me? What's unique for me? It doesn't usually have to do with anything financial. I mean, "Six Days, Seven Nights" was my biggest - I would say my biggest movie. And I mean, yes, the opportunity to work with Harrison floored me, but I also hadn't had an opportunity to play comedy, and I love comedy. So it always - whatever the genre was that it took me and if I could explore a different character and different territory, each one was a challenge, and I always wanted to challenge myself. So if it was a bigger budget, that happened to be so, and if it was an independent, then I would do that as well.

GROSS: I think when you and Ellen became a couple, it was I think just at about the time you were about to sign on to "Six Days And Seven Nights" (ph).

HECHE: Right, right.

GROSS: And I believe you were advised not to say anything publicly until the deal was finished.

HECHE: Yes, that's true.

GROSS: But you did say something publicly about being a couple with Ellen.

HECHE: Yes, I did, and the people who told me got fired.

GROSS: You fired your own management after that.

HECHE: Yeah (laughter). Yes. And, no, I don't want to make light. I mean, it was - I do want to make light of it because it's over, and now everybody is healed, and I have compassion for what they went through, too. I mean, it was a whole brand-new concept for Hollywood that this person who's about to catapult their career into a new level by working with somebody like Harrison Ford would actually turn that down when it's threatened - turn that down for love.

GROSS: Do...

HECHE: And the beauty of it was that I still got the part. So, you know, there you have it.

GROSS: Well, did they test you further or think about it a lot more or talk with you about how you were going to handle the public aspect of your private life before making the deal official?

HECHE: No, they didn't. The - what was on the table was, if you go to the premiere of "Volcano," which was a movie I did with Tommy Lee Jones - and actually, what was put on the table was, if you go to this premiere, you will not get the offer for the Harrison Ford movie.

GROSS: You mean if you go to the premiere with Ellen?

HECHE: With Ellen...

GROSS: Right.

HECHE: ...You will not get the offer for the Harrison Ford movie. And that was my ultimatum.

GROSS: And people from the movie told you that?

HECHE: I don't want to say the particular voices.

GROSS: Oh, right. OK. Right.

HECHE: I mean, there were a lot of people who...

GROSS: Right.

HECHE: Yes - warned me to not go with Ellen.

GROSS: So...

HECHE: And actually, it was put on the table that if I was going to go with Ellen, maybe I shouldn't go at all to my own premiere.

GROSS: So why do you think you ended up getting the role anyways?

HECHE: I - Harrison Ford wanted to work with me? (Laughter) I don't know. We had - actually, Harrison and I had a really wonderful chemistry from the second we walked in the door. And the blessing of that entire movie is that it - the message that talent wins out. And it's not to say that there weren't a million talented actresses lined up in wanting to do that part; there were. We just had something special.

And I think in Hollywood, still, with all the malarkey that goes on and will continue to go on forever, there is a reality that something special - if you can create a magic on screen, it is so hard to deny. It is so hard to just stop that feeling because Harrison and I connected. And that movie would not have worked had we not been connected. And I think whoever - I give Harrison Ford all the credit, but certainly, I wouldn't have gotten hired if other people didn't feel that way. But he really went up to bat for me and said, this is who I want to work with - even with all the controversy.

GROSS: I'm wondering if you and Ellen disagreed at all, early on, about how to handle the public aspect of your relationship? Because, you know, on the one hand, you had always, up until that point, been straight, and you had the example...

HECHE: Right.

GROSS: ...Of your father about how a secret life can kill you...

HECHE: Right.

GROSS: ...Whereas Ellen had been gay all her life and had been very closeted, you know, worried...

HECHE: Right.

GROSS: ...About the impact it would have on perceptions of her and her career. So you're really coming at this relationship from completely different places, I mean, from opposite places.

HECHE: Totally. Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: And so your perceptions, probably, about how one handles the public face of a private relationship would likely be pretty different.

HECHE: Well, actually, I mean, we were both so amazed that people cared as much as they did. I mean, Ellen knew that it was going to be a big deal that her character was coming out on the show because people had started to pick it up and rumors started before they were even given the OK to do the show. And so she knew that people were starting to talk and it was going to be a big thing. We, however, as a couple - I, certainly, was incredibly naive. I had no understanding of the fact that somebody would care that I fell in love with her. I just - to me, it was not even a consideration.

I mean, Ellen told me the night that we met and - you know, this is a big deal. This shouldn't be an experiment. People are looking at me going, who the heck are you with? And I didn't even know who she was or, you know, that she had this big TV show that she was coming out on. I had no idea. Part of what's carried over from my childhood is that I don't watch television. And - but one thing that we kept saying to each other - I mean, it brought us - I mean, talk about testing a relationship within the first week. We just kept saying, you know what? There's nobody to call, to say, well, last time you came out and you were, you know, in movies, or last time you came out and you were on TV, what - how did you handle it? You know, we were it. We didn't have anybody to call. And certainly, we were getting messages to just shut up, which didn't go along with either of our belief systems. And so we didn't know.

I mean, certainly, the way we expressed ourselves - you know, we look back and go, gee, I wish I could have done that differently. You know, sometimes, I think - I mean, I've certainly found more understanding and have been educated in the last few years about so many stories of so many different gay individuals and how difficult their journey is. And mine wasn't very easy.

GROSS: But what do you wish you'd done differently?

HECHE: I don't know. I mean, I am such a blabbermouth about the truth, and I still am. But I think the way that I would have approached it was with more - see, but I couldn't have known. What I wish I would have known is more of the journey and the struggle of individuals in the gay community or couples in the gay community because I would have couched my enthusiasm with an understanding that this isn't everybody's story. My story isn't everybody's story. My joy and my experience and my knowing of falling in love with her is a fantasy to most people. And there are very few people who get to have that knowing.

I don't know why I got blessed with it, but I went out and blurted it out like it was the easiest thing in the world. And it was. But the experience for most people is not easy, and my compassion and understanding of this incredible and diverse group of people has broadened. And so I've learned more how to communicate and how to be compassionate without basically coming out and saying, hey, listen, I fell in love with a woman and it's no big deal. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and I'm going to ask her to marry me, you know? I just was like - stood on the top of the mountain and shouted it to the world. I don't think there's anything wrong with having done that, but I think my language could have been perhaps a little more subtle, a little more compassionate.

BIANCULLI: Anne Heche speaking to Terry Gross in 2000. After breaking up with Ellen DeGeneres, she went on to get married twice and had two sons. The actress died Sunday after injuries sustained in a car crash. She was 53 years old.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "BLACKBIRD")

BIANCULLI: After a break, John Powers reviews the new documentary "Three Minutes: A Lengthening." Ken Tucker reviews a new album by Loudon Wainwright. And an interview with actor Jonathan Banks, who played Mike Ehrmantraut on both "Breaking Bad" and its just-concluded spinoff series, "Better Call Saul." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "BLACKBIRD")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross. The singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright is known for his intensely autobiographical writing. So it's not surprising that when he recently turned 75, he decided to make a new album that is about trying, and mostly failing, to age gracefully. It's called "Lifetime Achievement." And rock critic Ken Tucker says the album contains Wainwright's characteristic bluntness and honesty, this time about being older.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I BEEN")

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III: (Singing) I been boatin' and fishin' and mopin' and wishin' and skiin' on water and snow. Walkin' and joggin' and skatin' and tobogganin' and missing you, don't you go? I been wonderin', worryin', slowin' down, hurryin', walkin' the floor. It's true. Yellin' and blinkin' and smokin' and drinkin' and waitin' for the other shoe. I been lyin' and cheatin', nudge and browbeatin', in a jam, on the lam, at sea. Bullyin', bashin' and a bit of talk trashin', givin' it away for free. I'm fussin' and frettin', I'm underpants sweatin'. After all, I'm just a man. Moanin and groanin' and amendin' and atonin' and doin' the best I can (ph).

KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Loudon Wainwright is folk music's great confessor, a compulsive chronicler of growing up, falling in love, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, growing old and dying. In the past, Wainwright has been ruthless and unsparing in his honesty about his faults as a husband, father, son and workaholic artist. This time around, having turned 75, there's an autumnal air to his songs, or perhaps I should say, a winter chill. He's more serene than usual, contemplating mortality.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW OLD IS 75?")

WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) How old is 75? So old that you're hardly alive. It's a number that's weighty. In five years, you'll be 80, poised way up there on the high diving board. Tell me, how old is 75 (ph)?

TUCKER: Wainwright's first couple of albums released in 1970 and '71 were simple affairs, folk records with the author accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Over the course of his career, at various times, he's plugged in and rocked out, written movie soundtracks and has crooned in front of an orchestra or two. On "Lifetime Achievement," he's back to basics, strumming a guitar, clawing at a banjo. The title song has the easy lope of a country ballad.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT")

WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) I have lived a lifetime, and it's hard to be believed. I'm near the end times, almost up, so what have I achieved? I have done and won some things, awards, I have a few. But the biggest prize, the great surprise, is I managed to win you (ph).

TUCKER: Well before owning up to privilege became the norm, Wainwright had made a career out of being honest about his white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upbringing, freely admitting that male Wasps like him get away with far too much. You certainly can't accuse him of not being aware of how obnoxious the behavior he's described over the years can be. These days, his sins are minor ones, as when he chafes at having to be a happy camper, resenting family vacations, yearning to be left alone.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FAM VAC")

WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) I need a family vacation. I mean, a family vacation alone. I'm gonna pack up the car, load up the bike and the kayak and leave the [expletive] family at home. A vacation away from the family.

TUCKER: As the years have gone by, Wainwright is increasingly aware that he'll soon encounter the ultimate loneliness. Aside from Al Green and Bob Dylan, I can think of few living performers who have thought about life, death and what comes after with as much rigorousness, resignation and gratitude.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FUN AND FREE")

WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) I got my old job back pushing this machine. I'm mowing my own lawn now like I did at age 14. Six decades have come and gone. Hey, I'm the old young me. Mowing my grass, I'm my own boss, and I'm doing it for fun and free. Mom showed me how to vacuum when I was just a kid. That was then and this is now. And I'm doing what I did. Made it, Mom, top of the world. I'm channeling James Cagney. Now, it's wall to wall. I'm havin' a ball, doin' it for fun and free. Hey, doin' it for fun and free, that's my new philosophy. It's practically recovery when you do it for fun and free (vocalizing) (ph).

BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker reviewed Loudon Wainwright's new album called "Lifetime Achievement." Coming up, we revisit an interview from our archives with actor Jonathan Banks. He began playing the character of Mike Ehrmantraut on "Breaking Bad" in 2009 and just played him again for what may be the last time on this week's finale episode of "Better Call Saul." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARCUS ROBERTS' "EVERYTHING'S COOL")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. The AMC series "Better Call Saul," the prequel to "Breaking Bad," aired its outstanding final episode on Monday. We're going to listen back to our interview with actor Jonathan Banks, who played Mike Ehrmantraut, the hitman and fixer on "Breaking Bad" who was killed by Walt in that show's final season. But his character returned for the prequel "Better Call Saul," and Banks, as Mike, was in the opening scene of that show's final episode. It was a flashback sequence taking Mike and Saul, played by Bob Odenkirk, back to the desert they had traversed on foot in one episode in an earlier season.

Saul was lugging millions of dollars in cartel money, and in a conversation not shown when this plotline played out originally on "Better Call Saul," Saul wonders aloud about keeping the money rather than returning it to the cartel. Mike advises against it, but Saul continues to dream. He suggests they keep the money and escape the cartel by investing some of it in a time machine. When Saul asks Mike where he would go in a time machine, Mike finally settles on the day he, as a former cop, first broke bad.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BETTER CALL SAUL")

JONATHAN BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) March 17, 1984 - I took my first bribe. And then I go forward. There's some people I'd like to check on in five or 10 years, make sure they're doing OK. You?

BOB ODENKIRK: (As Jimmy McGill) It's easy. May 10, 1965 - that's the day Warren Buffett took over at Berkshire Hathaway. I figure, got a million left from building the time machine, so I take my half and just stick it into Berkshire. And then I come back here, and I'm a billionaire. Is there such a thing as a trillionaire?

BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) That's it, money?

ODENKIRK: (As Jimmy McGill) What else?

BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) Nothing you'd change?

BIANCULLI: That scene was a final sendoff for an actor who has been part of the "Breaking Bad" universe since 2009, 13 years ago, Terry Gross spoke with Jonathan Banks in 2015. She played the clip in the "Better Call Saul" premiere when Saul Goodman, who at this point is still going by the name of Jimmy McGill, first meets Mike. Jimmy, played by Bob Odenkirk, pulls up to the ticket booth of the parking lot that adjoins the courthouse where Jimmy is working as a public defender. Mike is manning the booth.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BETTER CALL SAUL")

BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) Three dollars.

ODENKIRK: (As Jimmy McGill) I'm validated. See the stickers?

BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) I see five stickers. You're one shy. It's $3.

ODENKIRK: (As Jimmy McGill) They gave me - look. I'm validated for the entire day, OK? Five stickers, six stickers, I don't know from stickers because I was in that court back there saving people's lives, so...

BANKS: (As Mike Ehrmantraut) Gee, that's swell. And thank you for restoring my faith in the judicial system. Now, you'll either pay the $3 or you go back inside and you get an additional sticker.

ODENKIRK: (As Jimmy McGill) Fine. You win. Hooray for you. Backing up. I have to back up. I need more stickers. Don't have enough stickers. Thank you. Thank you. Very nice. Employee of the month over here. Yeah. Hooray. Give him a medal.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: So, Jonathan Banks, you're a former cop in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul." You've played a lot of cops and former cops over the years. And in "Wiseguy," where I first saw you, a TV series that started in 1987, you played the head of, like, an organized crime task force. And you were the supervisor for the Ken Wahl character who goes undercover every week. So how did you get to play so many cops and former cops? Like, what is it about you, do you think?

BANKS: I'm not very pretty, so I can't play the leading man. So I'm either going to be the bad guy or the cop. And that's - you know what? It's a smart aleck answer, but it's also there's some truth in that. In the world of Hollywood and television, if you're not beautiful, you better be able to act a little bit, anyway.

GROSS: Were you a tough guy at all as a young man?

BANKS: No. I mean, these guys that get up and say, I grew up in a tough neighborhood, it was this, it was that, it was this - the reality is they were sad neighborhoods. And if you were lucky enough to get out, oh, my gosh, how lucky I am. Yeah, and that's my answer.

GROSS: I read your mother was in the CIA. Did you know exactly what she did or was that like a big secret?

BANKS: I'll give you - I'm going to get - my mom's gone now. But my mother started out in life on her own completely at 15 years old as a maid in a methodist parsonage in Bloomington, Ind. She was a whiz at shorthand and typing, and they got her a job with the Navy department in Washington, D.C. World War II came along. There was a period of time where she was Admiral Wilson's private secretary. Admiral Nimitz, at one brief time, was a commander of the Pacific Fleet. After the war, she went to work, managed the secretarial pool, as I understood it, at the CIA, under a woman named Peggy Hunt.

And back then, they would burn their carbons every day at the end of the day. And they had those oval-backed chairs that the secretaries would sit in. And she taught her girls, if someone came up behind them, that they were to throw their elbows straight back, stand up and address them in a very loud voice. The thought being, if it went past that moment, that it was not going to go in their favor. They were secretaries. And whoever the man was that came up behind them was probably one of their superiors. Her bosses knew that that's what she taught. But that was pretty much the recourse that a woman had in the '50s, and the early '50s. There weren't any human resources to go to. And, you know - and I mean this, I should be half the woman that my mother was.

GROSS: It took me a while to realize you were talking about sexual harassment there.

BANKS: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

GROSS: And for people who don't know - when you said they burn their carbons, that's carbon paper that makes duplicates of what you're typing. Your mother must have typed a lot of secrets.

BANKS: My mom - when the transcriptions came back from the Nuremberg trials, she was at the Treasury. And that's where the Secret Service used to be. And there was a tunnel that used to go under - and maybe - probably still there - from the Treasury Department to the White House. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff. And as far as sexual harassment goes, she always left her office door wide open. And she raised me by herself.

GROSS: So how did you get into acting?

BANKS: I was a handful. And I used to - at the gym at the school, I would - when I'd go out for whatever practice it was, I would look through the gym window. And I just - I’d wanted to do it since I was probably 5 with Jimmy Durante and Jackie Gleason, who I just loved. And one day in the hall, Ms. Cartwright (ph), who did the plays, yelled at me when I was hanging with some of the boys. And she yelled down the hall. And she said, Banks, you're a chicken. She said, I've seen you looking through that window for a long time. And she said, why don't you ever audition for a play?

And I auditioned for the junior class play. And I got the lead. And we were doing Shaw's "The Devil's Disciple," which no high school should ever do, but we did. And it changed my life. My mom was having to work all day long and go to school at night, trying to give me a better life. But I was on a street a lot. And that answers some of your questions about the neighborhood or whatever it was. And, you know, when she - she got her teaching degree. And she then took me to this high school where I got very lucky. Hey, you know what I said, Terry, about being lucky? If I say it a thousand times more, it's the way I feel. I honestly feel that I am one of the luckiest human beings that ever walked.

GROSS: I love hearing stories about teachers who, you know, who give students an opportunity that they would have been too embarrassed or shy to ask for or just wouldn't have thought of doing, and that it's transformative. So thanks to that teacher...

BANKS: Well, I'll tell you this...

GROSS: Yeah.

BANKS: That teacher, it was one of those things - and then I did it. And of course, back then, you know, there were no computers. The most - I thought they were - only the smart kids did it, is what I thought. And I didn't think I belonged there. And they were all walking around with the slide rules in their pocket and all that. And they were so gentle with me. And they were so good to me because they would - I was from somewhere else or - yeah, I was from somewhere else. And they were dear to me. I look at those kids that, you know, other - back then were called nerds or whatever, and I couldn't have been treated any better. And there was a trade-off, too, because nobody was ever going to put them in a locker ever again. I can tell you that (laughter).

GROSS: Were you going to protect them?

BANKS: You bet, yeah.

GROSS: The roots of Mike. There we have it (laughter).

BIANCULLI: Jonathan Banks speaking to Terry Gross in 2015. The actor played the character of Mike Ehrmantraut for 13 years, first on the TV series "Breaking Bad," then on its prequel and sequel spinoff, "Better Call Saul," which ended earlier this week. Coming up, critic-at-large John Powers reviews "Three Minutes: A Lengthening," a new documentary focusing on recently discovered footage from the 1930s of a Polish village soon to be obliterated by invading Nazis. This is FRESH AIR.

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DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Back in the late 1930s, a visitor to a small village in Poland shot 3 minutes of film in the Jewish part of town, which soon would be wiped out by the Nazis. Years later, this unseen footage was discovered and now forms the basis of a new documentary. It's called "Three Minutes: A Lengthening." And it opens in theaters today. Our critic-at-large, John Powers, says that it doesn't just capture a vanished piece of history, but also makes us think about how we look at the images that surround us.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Whether we like it or not, our culture today is all about quick takes and snap judgments. I mean, who has the time to look closely at anything, even the countless pictures on our phones that we think matter to us? One person who does take the time is the Dutch writer-director Bianca Stigter. Her elegant new documentary, "Three Minutes: A Lengthening," is built around a little over 3 minutes of 16-millimeter footage shot in a Polish village that would soon be ravaged by the Holocaust. Treating the brevity of the material as a challenge, maybe even an advantage, Stigter transfigures these seemingly modest visual resources into a transfixing film that evokes a vanished world, explores historical memory and ponders film's ability to bring the past to life. The footage was shot by a Polish immigrant to America, David Kurtz. On a European vacation in 1938, he decided to use his brand-new camera to get some shots, most in color, of his hometown of Nasielsk - population 7,000. More precisely, he grabs shots of the quarter where the village's 3,000 Jewish citizens lived. This was mainly slice-of-life stuff - people walking down the street, men stepping out of a synagogue, women standing in shop doors.

Two years earlier, the great German critic Walter Benjamin wrote that in the modern world, everyone feels entitled to be filmed. And you sense that here. The most striking activity in Kurtz's footage is the local citizenry jockeying to be in front of the camera like an entire village of photo-bombers. Kurtz's film remained unseen until his grandson Glenn stumbled across it in 2009 and began trying to discover what this teasingly eloquent footage showed starting with where it was shot.

He wrote a book about it that caught the eye of Stigter, who pushed even harder to squeeze every bit of meaning she could from the three minutes. This included everything from laboring to decipher blurry signage - what exactly was the grocery store owner's name? - to seeking out anyone who lived there at the time. Here, survivor Maurice Chandler and his family talk about what they saw when they first came across Kurtz's film on a website.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I saw my grandfather's face. And I heard my dad on the phone say to my mom, there's your father. I said, it's Grandpa. It's him.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: My father's face is so recognizable because of the full cheeks that I think a lot of us in the family inherited from my dad. When my daughter called my father, the first thing he said was, now you know I'm not from Mars.

MAURICE CHANDLER: I recognized myself immediately, but I couldn't remember what was the occasion.

POWERS: Now, in lengthening the original three minutes to a 70-minute film, Stigter doesn't pad the images with newsreel footage, talking heads or reenactments. Instead, to show us new aspects, she keeps playing the footage in different ways - slowing it down here, backing it up there, enlarging some frames, freezing others. We largely remain within the world that Kurtz captured in 1938, a seemingly solid world that would soon be erased. As the only surviving footage from pre-war Nasielsk, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Along the way, Helena Bonham Carter's narrative tells us many things about the footage - about the weather on the day when it was shot, about the camera Kurtz used and his clumsiness with it, about the village's Jewish-owned button factory that would soon be appropriated, and about the horrific December day in 1939 when Jews were ordered in the town square we see and then sent off to the Treblinka death camp. Only 100 of the 3,000 survived. The film shows this none of this death, only the living presence of the villagers caught on camera.

The critic Alissa Simon has termed Stigter's approach forensic. And she's right. From Bonham Carter's admirably cool narration to Wilko Sterke's spare score, "Three Minutes" doesn't try to milk our emotions with the horrors of the Holocaust and is all the more moving for it. It's amazing what riches she and Kurtz unearth from so little footage. Indeed, with her steady, concentrated, almost archaeological gaze, Stigter deliberately sets herself in opposition to today's dominant culture with its 24/7 blizzard of images that don't stick. We glance at them for a second and then move on. Her approach in "Three Minutes: A Lengthening" is precisely the opposite. Every moment reminds us that if you want to get to the truth of the world, you can't just look at things; you have to give them your full attention.

BIANCULLI: John Powers reviewed the new documentary "Three Minutes: A Lengthening."

On Monday's show, former Republican operative Tim Miller talks about how his work as a GOP hatchet man helped create conditions that enabled the political rise of Donald Trump. Miller also describes his interviews with Republicans who privately condemn Trump, yet find reasons to support him. Miller's new book is titled "Why We Did It." Hope you can join us.

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BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Charlie Kaier. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

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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.