Fresh Air Weekend: Joaquin Phoenix And A Self-Help Skeptic

Joaquin Phoenix's Her character, Theodore, has a job writing intimate — and sometimes erotic — cards and letters on behalf of other people.
Joaquin Phoenix's <em>Her</em> character, Theodore, has a job writing intimate — and sometimes erotic — cards and letters on behalf of other people. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Phoenix To Self: 'Why Am I Talking About This? ... Joaquin, Shut Up': The elusive actor tells Fresh Air about his new film, Her; his wacky 2009 David Letterman interview; and what it was like to be a child actor. But he insists he's not really that interesting: "If I was driving and I heard this, I'd change the channel."

Skeptic Takes A Tour Of Self-Help's 'Promise Land': Despite being the daughter of a child psychologist and self-help author, Jessica Lamb-Shapiro has spent most of her life recoiling from the self-help industry. But eventually, her curiosity got the best of her. She tells Fresh Air about self-help's high- and low-brow iterations and the ways the industry helped her address her fears.

You can listen to the original interviews here:

Copyright 2015 Fresh Air. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/.

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