time in my career, nothing really.

And I said, well, I'm really interested in the relationship of language to identity.

And I'm interested in ways that people, how to get people to speak in an idiosyncratic way that they and only they could speak.

I'm interested in what happens when a person can't get through a sentence.

And she said, I'm going to give you three questions to ask that will ensure that that will happen.

And she knew that I was using interviews as kind of, you know, I guess the way a photographer would have a sitting in a photographic studio.

I was doing a similar thing with my tape recorder, you know, sitting and having people talk with me.

When your time on Earth, and may you be here for a long, long time to come, do you think there's going to be a reckoning for how you behaved during this lifetime?

Who learned of the extraordinary life of Basil Biggs, including his work on the Underground Railroad, on an episode of Finding Your Roots, the PBS program hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

While slavery existed, he was an active agent in the Underground Railroad, helping fugitives to freedom.

Oh, this is amazing.

This man was amazing.

I knew this from the minute that Henry Louis Gates told me the story and showed me the picture.

I knew that this was the, an important piece of the puzzle I needed to understand my stake in the country.

So place meaning what you see, what you smell, what you, the wind and you're-

And my, my sense of belonging in it, in belonging in the story myself, that, that the fact that myself belong, and I haven't thought about this till talking to you, but that myself belonged in this story, that I could believe myself in this story because I was in the house, and in the barn, and on the creek, helped me begin to imagine this man, Basil Biggs.

Who learned of the extraordinary life of Basil Biggs, including his work on the Underground Railroad, on an episode of Finding Your Roots, the PBS program hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

While slavery existed, he was an active agent in the Underground Railroad, helping fugitives to freedom.

Oh, this is amazing.

This man was amazing.

I knew this from the minute that Henry Louis Gates told me the story and showed me the picture.

I knew that this was the, an important piece of the puzzle I needed to understand my stake in the country.

Both focused on riots in major American cities, for which she interviewed real protagonists and then portrayed them, taking on a wide variety of personas in a one-woman show.

And if I had to choose between arguing with people about my hairstyle or giving James Brown that one tribute, he asked.

What sparked that shift?

shift?You know, uh, I think everything starts with a question.

Uh, and I feel, for example, that education should be about us discovering our questions rather than seeking answers.

And I had that extraordinary opportunity in a Shakespeare class when I first started studying acting.

I didn't really begin that pursuit until I was 22 years old.

And our Shakespeare teacher, on the first day, and I was very worried about Shakespeare class, and it's about speaking Shakespeare, it's not Shakespeare scholarship, made this particular suggestion that we expect the rhythm of Shakespeare to be like this, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da.

What we call iambic pentameter.

Where did the inspiration come for Let Me Down Easy?

But, but you-- I've learned there's not a bright line between the two.

Oh, okay.

Well, I, I just wanna say that the story really comes out of something, a word that this gentleman over here used, which was humility.

And I know that, you know, especially in The Tyranny of Merit, you, you warn us that humility is a civic virtue that we desperately need and we no longer have.

So I wanna highlight that.

And I wrote this for Michael after he published and it was on the shelf, The Tyranny of Merit.

Uh, it doesn't really have a title, but he suggested I title it in this way: A Tale of Two Dogs.

[laughs]