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Amanpour
Interview with Actress and Screenwriter Julie Delpy; Interview with "The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music" Author Dave Grohl. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 14, 2021 - 13:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:23]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to AMANPOUR.
Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need to take a longer view, though, and invest in building greater resilience to withstand the kinds of
shocks we have seen over and over.
AMANPOUR: Surging energy prices and shaky supply chains. Breaking down threats to the global economy with Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.
Then:
ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (voice-over): It was one of the first televised trials the world had ever seen.
AMANPOUR: He was behind the Nazi's Final Solution, a special report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann 60 years on.
Plus:
JULIE DELPY, WRITER/ACTRESS: Here's to the second half of your life. May it be as glorious as.
Navigating the age thing as a woman "On the Verge." I speak with actress and series creator Julie Delpy about not getting your life together by 40.
Then:
DAVE GROHL, MUSICIAN: Music used to just be a sound that moved the air, until it became the air that I breathe.
Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl tells Hari Sreenivasan how music saved his life and why he's finally opening up about Kurt Cobain's death.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
Empty supermarket shelves, soaring utility bills, sky-high gas prices. The global energy crunch is hitting supply chains and consumers hard. And it
comes as economies try to bounce back from the pandemic and last year's harsh winter.
Here in Britain, the crisis has already led to the collapse of several energy companies. And even China, a global economic powerhouse, says that
it's being forced to boost the production of coal, a cheaper and much dirtier fuel, this after widespread blackouts hit millions across the
country.
So, joining me on these threats to the global economy is Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and also columnist for "The New York Times."
Paul Krugman, welcome back to our program.
And I guess the first thing to ask you, should we be as concerned about all that I have just read out in terms of the global economy? Are you more
pessimistic or less than you thought you might be at this time?
PAUL KRUGMAN, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I am a little bit more pessimistic than I was a few months ago, because the supply chain
things are turning out to be more persistent and bigger than I expected.
But I still think that the kinds of things that are so photogenic, the ships piled up outside the ports of Los Angeles, the shortages of some
goods on shop shelves, are actually -- those are things that are not going to last. They might persist for a number of months, but they're not long-
term.
I think there are bigger questions about supply of labor, possibly energy issues that are -- you need to separate out the things that are really just
kind of teething pains for an economy trying to bounce back from the pandemic, and things that may represent longer-term issues.
AMANPOUR: OK, so let's talk about one of them. And that's the energy.
Of course, to what you're saying, we were told here in Britain that it's not really an energy crisis. It's a driver's crisis. And it's only in some
parts of the country. And why does the media, as you put it, look at all those photogenic pictures and not the big picture?
But "The Economist" has said -- and let me just quote -- "It's the first big energy scare of the green era. And it does show that the world still is
dependent on fossil fuels."
And it says: "Spending on renewables needs to rise. And the supply and demand of dirty fossil fuels needs to be wound down in tandem, without
creating dangerous mismatches. Many countries have net zero pledges, but no plan of how to get there. Without rapid reforms, there will be more energy
crises and perhaps a popular revolt against climate policies."
Paul Krugman, do you agree with that assessment?
KRUGMAN: Well, sure.
I mean, you can't switch to renewables before the renewable energy production base is fully there. And you can't -- in particular, we don't
have -- we haven't invested enough in kind of standby capacity to go with renewables. We don't have enough energy storage. We're still reliant on
fossil fuels to deal with peak demand.
[13:05:02]
But also, I mean, a lot of this really is very much a special factor -- you have special factors because of the peculiar nature of the crisis we have
had. We still have -- I think underlying a lot of this, what's going on, is the fact that because services were inaccessible because of infection
risks, people started buying stuff instead.
We have had this enormous surge. In the U.S. for a little while, purchases of durable goods were running more than 30 percent above pre-pandemic
levels. And all of that stuff, in turn, requires a lot of energy to produce. It's producing all this clogging in the ports.
So these are things that are really not a fundamental issue. They are just the weirdness of this recent business cycle catching up with us.
AMANPOUR: This has brought it out, again, all the way to China.
KRUGMAN: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Because these things, as you know better than us, have a massive knock-on effect.
So China is in the midst of some property crisis. Most people who are invested there have their savings in property. And it seems to be that
there's a huge debt crisis looming. People like me, laypeople, might think, oh, my gosh, subprime, oh, my goodness, financial crash, et cetera.
What do you think is happening in China? And could there be a burst bubble, so to speak, that will have a knock-on effect around the globe?
KRUGMAN: OK, I think -- I have been warning about a potential problem in China more like -- actually more like what happened to Japan around 1990,
when their big bubble burst, than what happened to us in 2008.
The thing is, I have been warning about that for about 10 years, and it keeps on not happening. But maybe, at this point, they really have reached
the point where it -- they have an extremely unbalanced economy. There's not enough consumer spending. They rely upon this enormous property sector
to keep the economy afloat.
And there really isn't sufficient demand to justify all of that real estate investment. So something has to give. Now, the Chinese have in the past
managed to paper over crisis after crisis, and maybe they will be able to do it again. But there is a real risk.
Now, whether there's big knock-on effects, the thing is, there isn't that much foreign money invested in China, considering the size of the economy.
China doesn't buy as much from the rest of the world as you might expect. They're still an export-driven and not import -- importing economy to a
large extent.
So China could be a mess, and yet it might not be that bad for the rest of us.
AMANPOUR: OK, well, fingers crossed, and that your predictions don't come true.
But let me ask you now about obviously the United States, the other big global economy. We heard President Biden at the very beginning saying that
we need to build in resilience.
This is what he also said. And then I want to ask you about your assessment of the economy at this point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We need to take a longer view, though, and invest in building greater resilience to withstand the kinds of shocks we have seen over and
over, year in and year out, whether it's the pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, or other disruptions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, again, how big are these disruptions? And do you think there is some kind of a balance to be struck between the focus on these
disruptions, as you sort of indicated at the beginning, vs. the overall resilience of the economy?
KRUGMAN: Well, I mean, in the -- despite everything, in many ways, the U.S. economy is actually looking pretty good.
I mean, we were disappointed in the top-line job number in the last report, but if you looked at -- but, beneath the headline, it was still a pretty
good report, by many standards, increase in hours worked. Some of the stuff was probably just statistical noise.
So the U.S. economy isn't doing that badly. And there's nothing in what's going on now at the ports that looks likely to really derail the recovery.
It looks likely to lead to a lot of disappointed holiday shoppers, but that's not the same thing.
But, I mean, at a fundamental level, Biden is right. The U.S. economy, the thing that really strikes me in the stories about the clogging at the ports
is that the U.S. is technologically backward, that we don't actually have the kind of cargo handling, cargo management systems that much of the rest
of the world does
And that is really inexcusable, right? We're supposed to be the world's technological leader. And yet we have so underinvested in lots of basic
stuff, including port infrastructure, that we actually kind of are a second-rate nation.
And so, yes, this is -- really should be an advertisement for big infrastructure spending, big investment in the future.
[13:10:03]
AMANPOUR: So, President Biden is trying to do all that. He's having a lot of pushback from his own party, and not to mention the opposition party, in
Congress.
But you also focus very much -- and you have just -- one of your recent columns is about the award to the latest Nobel Prize-winning economists.
And you talk about the human factor. You just mentioned employment. The latest, this week's employment figures are better than they expected,
better than at any time since the beginning of the pandemic.
Tell me about the Credibility Revolution or whatever it's called that you are concerned about in terms of really analyzing what unemployment benefits
do, what Medicare, what aid does that goes counter to what a lot of Republicans have said over the last 20, 30 years?
KRUGMAN: Yes.
In economics, we have a lot of what sometimes we call 101ism, as in, people read economics 101 textbooks like mine, and they learn from that incentives
matter and markets work. And they tend to extrapolate from that. And, particularly, they -- these things are often used to support a conservative
economic vision.
Incentives matters, so we have got to keep taxes low. Incentives matters, so we can't give benefits to the unemployed because they won't take jobs.
The Credibility Revolution is really using evidence, taking advantage of times when history gives you what amounts to an experiment, the natural
experiment. And there's no inherent political bias in that method, but since it tends quite often to say that, well, econ 101 isn't getting you
the whole story.
Now, people, yes, they respond to incentives, but a lot of other things matter, that markets don't work as frictionlessly as you would like to
assume, if all you have read is an introductory textbook. It ends up saying that there's actually more we can do. We don't have to have taxes low all
the time, because people don't respond all that much to incentives.
We can help the unemployed with a lot less fear that they will refuse to take jobs and so on down the line. But it's -- again, this is very much --
this is economics as science. The Credibility Revolution is all about letting evidence really take you wherever it wants to go.
But in terms of policy applications, it's actually almost like this prize was an advertisement for Biden's Build Back Better, right? It kind of says
that the things that he wants to do are OK to do, that it's not true that economics says that they're bad things.
AMANPOUR: Right. And they actually produce for instance, aid to children, healthier, obviously, and more productive adults later on down the line.
So a lot of what Biden is proposing, paid child leave, maternity, all the rest of it, is taken for granted here in Europe, even in center-right
governments. It's getting so much pushback amongst some Democrats in his own party. What do you think is the likelihood of it actually going through
and actually working?
KRUGMAN: Me. What do I know?
I mean, my guess is that, in the end, it's so important for every Democrat that something pass, that they will find a way to get something together.
But I don't know that for sure.
And it's going to be inadequate. I mean, that $3.5 trillion that everybody talks about, which sounds like enormous, but it's only 1.2 percent of GDP,
even that was a big climb-down from what progressives in the party wanted.
The thing is, it's not a lot of Democrats that are raising objections. It's two senators and handful of members of the House. But because the
Democratic margin is essentially zero in the Senate and narrow in the House, those -- that small group has a lot of veto power, except to the
extent that the progressive wing of the party says, look, we won't sign on to anything that's too stripped down.
So it's a very tense thing. But this is kind of how it happens. I mean, some of us remember how Obamacare was passed. And that seemed like a --
until the very last moment, it seemed doomed, and then they pulled it out. And I kind of think -- but I hope I'm right, that that's what's going to
happen again.
AMANPOUR: All right.
Well, we will wait and watch and see.
Paul Krugman, thank you so much indeed for joining us.
KRUGMAN: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And now, 60 years ago today, the notorious Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann was standing trial, charged with organizing genocide on an
unthinkable scale. He was known as the architect of the Holocaust.
And Eichmann stood trial in Israel, and millions of people around the world watched as survivors and witnesses described the unspeakable horrors that
he did in fact set in motion.
Elie Honig is a former federal and state prosecutor whose own grandparents lived through this enormously dark period of history. He sat down with some
key players in the trial who are themselves survivors to talk about their quest for justice and the threat that anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred still
pose today.
[13:15:20]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
E. HONIG (voice-over): Sixty years ago, the world saw evil.
In 1961, millions of people across the globe watched as Adolf Eichmann, the notorious Nazi official known as the architect of the Holocaust, stood
trial in Jerusalem for crimes against humanity.
MURRAY HONIG, SON OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: But I do remember it happening. And I remember more of the aspect of like, I think -- it means more. They
got this guy.
And I remember, from that point on, certainly, people began to understand what this was about.
E. HONIG: Eleven months earlier, Israeli Mossad agents had captured Eichmann in Argentina, where he'd been living as a fugitive for a decade.
They brought Eichmann to Jerusalem to face justice for his role in the systematic execution of more than six million Jews during World War II.
M. HONIG: Your grandma is here. She's the fourth from the right.
E. HONIG (on camera): Right.
So the vast majority of the people in this picture did not make it.
M. HONIG: Did not survive.
E. HONIG (voice-over): My father, the son of two Holocaust survivors, remembers the trial as a turning point.
M. HONIG: You have to understand, now everyone knows the Holocaust with a capital H. When we grew up, this was not a thing. The Holocaust was not a
thing.
E. HONIG (on camera): Yes.
M. HONIG: It was a private tragedy. It was a tragedy of the Jewish people. So a lot of it wasn't spoken about, until Eichmann.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The accused, together with others, during the period 1939 to 1945, caused the killing of millions of Jews in his capacity as the
person responsible for the execution of the Nazi plans for the physical extermination of the Jews, known as the Final Solution of the Jewish
problem.
E. HONIG (voice-over): Gabriel Bach, now 94 years old, was one of the prosecutors who tried Eichmann in Israel's newly formed court system.
GABRIEL BACH, EICHMANN PROSECUTOR: In the courtroom, we had a special room where we were -- all the prosecutors sat together and the defense counsel
sat together. And then they had -- in order to protect the accused, they had a special glass booth where he was kept.
This was really a very, very special moment, that here, in a Jewish state, in a Jewish trial, we are representatives of the Jewish people, and that we
can show that the man who murdered millions of people from our society, that that was very, very justifiable and very just that we should do that,
and not leave it to a court of another country.
E. HONIG: It was one of the first televised trials the world had ever seen. And it was a pivotal moment in the world's reckoning with the
genocide perpetrated by the Nazis.
MICHAEL GOLDMAN-GILAD, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR (through translator): I was about 16 when the Nazis took over. In July 1942, my parents and my sister
were taken onto a train. We did not know where at the time, but later found out it was the Belzec extermination camp.
My sister was 10 years old. The last time I saw them was on my birthday. It was July 26, 1942. And I saw them for 15 minutes.
E. HONIG: Like my grandmother, Michael Goldman-Gilad, now 96 years old, lost most of his family to the Holocaust. He survived the horrors of
multiple concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and he survived the infamous Death March.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): It was January 18, 1945. We were taken out in rows of 1,000 each. And there were S.S. officers with dogs. And we
were made to march. It was heavy snow, and it seemed implausible. But we marched 60 kilometers that night.
E. HONIG: Thousands of people died during that brutal Death March.
Little did Goldman-Gilad know he would go on to play a pivotal role as an investigator in the trial of Adolf Eichmann.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): I was in my investigation room. And when he entered the room, I saw a poor, frightened person shaking. And in
comparison to Eichmann in his S.S. uniform, this ubermensch, I couldn't believe it. It was the same person standing in front of me responsible for
the death of my parents.
But when he opened his mouth -- I cannot forget this -- when he opened his mouth, I saw the doors the crematorium open.
[13:20:04]
E. HONIG: Goldman-Gilad and the investigative team, many of them Holocaust survivors themselves, interrogated Eichmann over the course of several
months. They went through thousands upon thousands of documents, piecing together the horrific events and building a volume of evidence that they
hoped could prove Eichmann's role beyond a shadow of a doubt.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): One of the documents was from Poland, documenting a single transport to Auschwitz in November 1943. And it has a
list of numbers of those who arrived, those who were sent to the camps, those sent to the crematoriums.
I realized my number is part of that list, 161135. So I look at them. And I said, you need not look elsewhere. The proof is here, because I was part of
that transport. The number is still on my arm.
E. HONIG: The Eichmann trial served dual purposes, first to bring the Nazis' chief architect of the Holocaust to justice, second, to highlight in
detail what had happened to the Jewish people through firsthand eyewitness testimony of survivors, people who turned the statistical six million
figure into personal stories of horror that the world would be unable to forget.
BACH: There was a witness called Maltine Faradi (ph). He was one of the witnesses. He was one of the person who was sent to Auschwitz with his
family and his wife and his little daughter and his son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Then they told us, men to the right together with the boys after the age of 4, and women and children to
the left.
BACH: Somehow, everyone knew that the people who were caught by some -- by the S.S. people, they were sent either to the left or to the right in
Auschwitz.
To the right meant they could stay alive, because they wanted their work or something. To the left meant to their death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): And we saw that the women were already going, and we were still standing, until they almost disappeared.
My girl wore a red overcoat. And I still saw that red spot. And this red spot was the sign that my wife was also there. But the red spot was waning,
of course, and was smaller and smaller. I went to the right, and I never saw them again.
BACH: Now, I had little a daughter exactly 2.5 years old. I had bought two weeks before that the red coat. When he spoke about that, the little girl
2.5 years old with a red coat, and the little red dot getting smaller and smaller, this is how his whole family disappeared from his life, I --
standing there as a prosecutor, I suddenly couldn't utter a sound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eichmann had practically unlimited power to declare who was to be killed among the Jews, chronologically, and by segment of
population, what countries geographically and throughout.
E. HONIG: After months of the prosecution presenting its case, Eichmann finally took the stand in his own defense.
BACH: I wondered if it would be clear to everyone in the world that this was -- this man was given a just trial, that he was given the possibility
to have a defense counsel who would be covered by the government.
He asked for a German, and, therefore, the government agreed to that, and I certainly agreed with that, and that the whole trial in every way, in every
feel, should be handled in a just manner.
E. HONIG: Under cross-examination, despite being confronted with documents that showed his direct involvement, Eichmann repeatedly claimed he was just
following orders.
ADOLF EICHMANN, DEFENDANT (through translator): I did not give these orders whether people should be taken to their death or not. This was the
administrative routine. This is how it was arranged, and my task -- and this was just a tiny particle in this.
I am not beating about the bush. I was in Hungary also one of those receiving orders and not giving orders.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): He lied through and through. He was acting. He was acting all the time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In September 1939, the accused committed acts of expelling, uprooting and exterminating the population, in coordination
with...
[13:25:01]
E. HONIG: Finally, in December 1961, the trial was over and the verdict was in. The court found Eichmann guilty and sentenced him to death.
BACH: Here was a man who was appointed to be in charge of causing the carrying out of the murder of millions of people.
So, if any person deserves it, it was him.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): That was the sentence for one person. But what about the other Eichmanns who fled Germany and died at good old
ages and were never brought to trial? You can give a sentence for one person, but you cannot avenge. There is no vengeance for what was done to
the Jewish people.
E. HONIG: After Eichmann had exhausted all of his legal appeals, he was hanged just a few minutes past midnight on June 1, 1962.
Michael Goldman-Gilad witnessed the execution and was part of a very small group chosen to spread Eichmann's cremated ashes at sea.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): I remember seeing the ashes, how little the ashes were. I thought, wow, how can this be so few ashes for a
whole human being? And this brought me back to an incident in Birkenau when about 30 of us were taken from our barracks to another building.
That building had a chimney. It was a crematorium. And next to it was a mountain. When I got closer, I realized that mountain was a mountain of
ashes, a mountain of human beings. I remember it was cold, and it was icy, and we were ordered to take wheelbarrows and shovels and take the ashes and
spread them on the road, so that the soldiers who were patrolling would not slip on the ice.
After we spread Eichmann's ashes, we stood quietly at the edge of the boat. And I thought to myself about my parents, my family, and those who did not
have the privilege to see one of the greatest murderers brought to justice.
E. HONIG: Sixty years later, with the number of living witnesses to the Nazi campaign of terror shrinking by the day, the risk of Holocaust
distortion and denial is a threat that makes the lessons of the Eichmann trial more relevant today than ever.
PROTESTERS: Jews will not replace us!
E. HONIG: The fight against hate based on race, religion, ethnicity, sex is a battle that's still being fought.
White supremacy and racial hatred remain serious threats, and they're on the rise.
GOLDMAN-GILAD (through translator): With the death of Eichmann, the murderous ideology of nationalist socialism was not scattered. It is still
existing here and there in the form of hatred, hatred that is dangerous, and we must be on guard, so that catastrophes do not repeat themselves.
Hatred can cause catastrophes and bring an end to this world, to this planet. And we must educate the new generations not to hate and to avoid
such hatred. Otherwise, our struggle against evil will be in vain.
E. HONIG: As the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, I am part of one of those new generations.
Sixty years ago, Birkenau Gabriel Bach and Michael Goldman-Gilad stood up and fought for justice for their own families, for mine, and for millions
of others.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: No words really, just to really see what Elie Honig is saying, and reminding us that everyone must always actually not just never forget,
and not just always fight back against any hatred, but whenever we see evil, to combat it with all our might.
Next: Aging, it is dreaded by most people, especially women, of course, but my guest is attempting to change our outlook on getting older.
Julie Delpy is the creator and star of "On the Verge." It's a Netflix series celebrating the changing lives of four female friends living and
working in L.A., all on the verge of middle age. It clearly struck a chord, becoming one of Netflix's top 10 shows the weekend it debuted.
Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DELPY: Switching career in your 40s as a woman.
COMPUTER VOICE: Switching careers in your 40s as a woman.
DELPY: You know how you have one of those days and it just feels like everything is collapsing all around you? And then, all of a sudden, it's
just fine again.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: What's going on? Are you having a heart attack?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: God, I'm 46, not 96. I'm having a panic attack.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: Julie Delpy is joining me now from Los Angeles.
Congratulations.
JULIE DELPY, ACTRESS AND SCREENWRITER: Hello.
AMANPOUR: A really fun and interesting series. Good to see you.
DELPY: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: So, tell me what made you start thinking about it. I mean, obviously, you are a woman on the verge in L.A. and you created in L.A.
What made you start thinking this would find an audience?
DELPY: Well, you know, I just wanted to tell a real story about people that I know and not pretend that, you know, I'm telling the story of people
that I don't know well, like, you know, sometimes I feel like people are a bit hypocritical. They will tell the story because they know, you know,
it's in fashion but it's not really genuine. And I felt like if I were to tell the story of people I know, people that are -- I mean, I have always
done that in a way. I kind of tell stories about people I know or people I've met or -- so, I feel it's truthful in what I'm describing.
Of, course, it's in a comedy tone. So, it's comedy. So, it's a bit, you know, exaggerated at times maybe, but barely, really.
AMANPOUR: Look, it is really funny. And one of your actresses actually said in an interview, she basically -- said Elisabeth Shue who plays one of
your friends in the program, it was just a lovely mixture of insanity and humor born out of insecurity and chaos. OK. I love that quote. Is that what
you were aiming for? What is the chaos that you captured there?
DELPY: I wanted to show that people -- you know, like this idea that a woman in her 40s and 50s has it all figured out. I mean, men are allowed a
little bit to -- I'm not being like overly, you know, saying women are not represented right, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I could say that but I
don't want to say that. What I want to say is that, it's not exactly fine tune into what I believe is real. And I wanted to show that women are
messy, are also -- haven't all figured out what their life is about and are questioning what's the next step is in their life, because there is next
step when you're 45 and 50.
I mean, for all I know, there's a next step for everyone, even at 80 or 90. I mean, you know, I think to limit ourselves to say, OK, now, we're set, is
very -- I think, it's very -- in a way, it doesn't represent the truth.
AMANPOUR: So, you -- in this show, you have created the role for yourself as a chef, a very successful chef in a very popular restaurant. And you are
also the wife of a husband who is basically, you know, out of work. And instead of being super supportive, he's pretty passive aggressive and very
snarky against you. I want to talk to you a bit about that and why you created that. But here's a clip with you in the kitchen of your restaurant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're back.
DELPY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, we missed you
DELPY: Fred, can you please make me your delicious mango coulis because I'm going to put it on the collard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, chef.
DELPY: Joy, can you put a little bit of salted cod in the (INAUDIBLE), OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New recipe, now?
DELPY: Well, if not now, when? Huh? Let's get this little old lady out of the blind spot and into the light. Let's shake things up a bit. I remind
everybody that this is (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. You heard the woman.
DELPY: I am the woman. I am the woman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You know, you obviously wrote that for yourself and you did have -- I mean, in the show, you have this pretty difficult relationship with
the man you're married to. And all the characters have boys. One -- well, most of the one boy, one of them has two boys and a girl, but she's not
married and she's had three children with three different men and that's a whole part of the story as well.
DELPY: OK.
AMANPOUR: It is very messy and you do deal, in humor, with sort of some toxic masculinity. You deal with gender fluidity through one of the male --
well, one of the young children. You take on a lot of the current issues.
DELPY: Yes. And I think that's why people are watching the show. So, many people are watching the show and I think it's because it's not just -- I
don't want to say just, but it's not only about those four women. It's also about the children. I think the film speaks to younger audience, younger
women, younger men. Men also because the husbands are very present in the story.
[13:35:00]
And I didn't want to limit it as like just -- I hate saying just, but like only a woman show because to me -- I mean, my husband, my son are very
present. Obviously, they are not absent from my life and I would be blind to not see that they are an extremely important part of my life. And so, I
wanted to be truthful in that sense too. And I think people respond to the show for that reason as well and that's people are watching, you know, in
numbers is because really about that specific thing in the show, that it's not only about women. I keep saying just but only about women. You know,
it's also about the young girl, I think --
AMANPOUR: Yes. We're going to get to that in a minute.
DELPY: -- further in the second season, you know.
AMANPOUR: Because it was in space.
DELPY: Excuse me?
AMANPOUR: What did you say about a second season? What did you say about a second season?
DELPY: No, I just think the young girl would probably be developed a lot in the second season, so would the boys, you know. So, it's -- what I'm
saying, it's not only about those four women, it's also about their environment and everyone around them, including the men.
AMANPOUR: So, there's a second season. That will please the fan. Let me quickly go to the before trilogy because --
DELPY: We don't know yet, but you know --
AMANPOUR: -- you know, you played, you know, a very attractive character in that and you also were a writer in the later two, you know, parts of
that trilogy and you obviously starred with Ethan Hawke and it was really a big success, that trilogy.
You were executive producer, you were you sometime director, you're a writer, total creator of "On the Verge." Do you feel a yearning and a
satisfaction that as a woman you can really shape this in all the ways that I've described that you had those roles?
DELPY: Well, but it's not easy. It comes with a price, you know, it comes with a price of tremendous amount of work, having, you know, a system that,
you know, sometimes is not always open. I'm not saying they're fighting against you but they're not necessarily open to this kind of shows or even
-- you know, when I started as a writer, I remember -- I mean, it was a long time ago now, I'm 51. So, like, you know, my first screenplay was 16
years old. I mean, no one wanted to give me money and I didn't get money from my screenplay.
You know, things are evolving but it definitely comes with a price, which is, you know, because you're so tenacious you get a reputation, right,
because I am so tenacious, I get a reputation of being tough and being, you know, sometimes a bee (ph). You know, bee (ph) something.
AMANPOUR: Yes, yes.
DELPY: So, anyway, I'm not doing my job, which is, you know, to persevere in my journey and try to be also -- for me, it's very important to keep
integrity, to not use people. And then, I have a lot of -- my morals are very, very strict because I was raised with -- by dreamers, you know. So, I
try to keep this very clear in my life, always. And that comes with a price as well.
AMANPOUR: OK
DELPY: But, you know, the result of this show, people are watching, people are having fun. And I love to entertain, yes. For me, it was a pleasure.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. And a pleasure to watch.
Julie Delpy, thank you so very much. Really a pleasure to have you on.
DELPY: Thank you so much.
AMANPOUR: Congratulations.
And we turn next to the life and career of a rock and roll legend, Dave Grohl. He's best known as the Foo Fighter's front man and, of course, the
former Nirvana drummer. And he now talks about what he's doing at the moment with Hari Sreenivasan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Dave Grohl, first, thanks for joining us.
You read a lot of about growing up. And I want to know, when is it that you figured out how important music was to you, I mean, different than it is
for me.
DAVE GROHL, AUTHOR, "THE STORYTELLER: TALES OF LIFE AND MUSIC," FOO FIGHTERS FOUNDER AND FRONTMAN: It really started with this one car drive
with my mother, while we were driving out to this lake. I grew up in Virginia, outside of D.C. We were driving out to this lake to go swimming
and Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" came on the radio. And when the chorus came around, my mother who was also a singer in the '50s, she took Carly
Simon's part and I took Mick Jagger's part. And it dawned on me, like, oh, my God, two separate notes sung together create a chord.
And I think I was maybe seven years old. This is in the '70s. And then, I started really listening to music differently. All the different layers of
instrumentation, the composition, the arrangement, I started seeing it as a puzzle and how all of those shapes fit together. So, from that moment on,
everything I heard I would try to like decipher in this weird way. And I would go back to my bedroom with my Beatle's records and my guitar and play
along. And it was a mystery to me that I was trying to solve. And it's been that way ever of since.
[13:40:00]
SREENIVASAN: You talk almost in a way where your brain is processing this information a little differently, like you can almost see music. And I --
GROHL: Yes.
SREENIVASAN: So, kind of explain that to somebody who doesn't have this in their brain.
GROHL: Well, you know, there's a condition called synesthesia and it's when you -- your sensory pathways are crossed somehow. So, in my case, when
I -- I don't know if I have synesthesia, but when I hear music, I almost imagine it like Legos in my head, like the shape, whether it's the time
signature or rhythm, I see it in little blocks or the compositions or arrangement of a song, I it see in shapes. And because I don't read music,
this is what I rely on to memorize music.
I don't know why it happens, but thank God it does because otherwise, I would be really screwed. So -- but that's -- yes. I mean, that's how I
process it. And even -- if you and I were sitting here having a conversation and I heard music in the background, you know, I would been
engaged in our conversation, but I would be trying to figure out the time signature going on in the background, well, like with this ear. And then
with this ear -- so, it just becomes something that, you know, you're obsessed with, and I have been since I was a kid.
SREENIVASAN: So, do you timestamp the things in your life by the soundtrack that's happening? I mean, do you remember, I don't know, hotel
lobby music? Or, I mean, where does it become too much and where do you say, I know that feeling because of what was playing?
GROHL: Well, it's almost like if you smell a certain perfume or if you smell something cooking in the kitchen, it brings back memories of
different times in your life. It's that way with me and music. So, if I hear like Carly Simon or 10cc or Andrew Gold or Helen Reddy, it reminds me
of the smell of my mother's Ford Maverick car in a humid Virginia day, you know, like it just comes back like that.
So, as I was writing these stories, it was easy for me to remember everything. I mean, miraculously, my memory remained pretty intact over the
years. It just takes music to bring it all back, and it does. If I hear a Nirvana song on the radio, I remember like the shorts I was wearing when I
played that drum track. Like I remember, you know, the suitcase I had on that trip, things like that, it all comes back with music.
SREENIVASAN: You write about when you had this tremendous opportunity to go play with this band that you really looked up to, Scream, but that also
included telling your schoolteacher mom that you were pretty much done with school and you were trying to brace yourself for that conversation. How did
it go?
GROHL: Well, first of all, I think she had been bracing herself for that conversation since first grade. You know, I was just a terrible student. I
just was. And I don't know if it was that I just didn't get it or I couldn't focus. I think it's all of those things. But, you know, since my
mother was a public schoolteacher for 35 years, she had taught generations of kids like me. And my mother, I think, she realized like, you're better
off -- you want to learn Italian, go to Italy. You want to learn, you know, geography, go travel the world rather than sit under the fluorescent lights
of a school room. So, she kind of set me free.
SREENIVASAN: So, there you are on an unbelievable road tour with these guys, basically living in a van, not just having all of your gear in it,
but sleeping in this van at all times and then -- and going to places and playing your hearts out. Not for much money, I might add, as you're
describing it. And I kind of want to know, what is it about being in a van with a group of people like this for an extended, intense period of time
that's so important? I mean, you made a documentary basically about that thing that happens in bands.
GROHL: Well, first of all, when you're young, these are really form formative experiences, right? So, I mean, I never thought I would make it
past the Mississippi playing drums, you know. Like I remember standing with my feet in the sand looking out at the Pacific Ocean and it was music that
brought me there, you know. I mean, it was like new yoga over here and a drum circle and whatever California, but I was like, music brought me here.
[13:45:00]
And that, to me, was, at the time, my life's greatest achievement. You know, there -- I think that -- I think I say in the book that music used to
just be a sound that moved the air until it became the air that I breathed. And so, I think that even in the darkest, most difficult times, it was
music that kept you going. Music kept you alive. You survived not from the $7 a day that you were making, it was the music that kept you alive. And I
still feel that way. I mean, if I didn't have it, I don't know what I would do.
SREENIVASAN: So, you get an opportunity to come up and try out to be the drummer for Nirvana, way before they were a household name. They'd already
put out one album, but before we know it. And the band puts out this album, but before everyone hears it, you obviously -- you figure out that there's
something in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that is different about a song and you go into what it was like to -- I think you were in a hotel room where
you saw it on MTV the first time. Tell me about that.
GROHL: Well, first of all, you know, I -- there weren't such massive expectations for our band. And when we recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit",
I remember thinking, wow, this sounds huge, but not like what it became at all. Nobody did. And that it happened really, really quickly. And the video
-- I mean, honestly, the video is what changed the game.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GROHL: You know what, we were on tour just as we always had been. We were in our van. We were loading our equipment into this club, playing and then,
getting back in the van and leaving. When that video came out, all of a sudden, the 300-capacity club had 300 more people outside. And then, the
500-capacity club had 500 more people outside. And it got to the point where I would sit down on my drum stool and the first thing I do is look
for the exit.
I'm like, OK, there's going to be a riot. How am I going to get out of here? There's going to be a riot. But it was the video. And I think, you
know, not only was the song great, Kurt's lyrics, his voice. Kurt was the greatest songwriter of our generation. And -- but that video -- and then
you make a video, I always say, you want to know how to sell a million records, make a video where you're burning down your high school.
SREENIVASAN: So, I -- what is it -- you know, you have written a lot of songs yourself. You have been around a lot of great songwriters. And what
makes you heap that kind of praise on Kurt? What makes great songwriter?
GROHL: I mean, I don't know. I think that it just happens sometimes. I think his simplicity and the -- you know, the beautiful, direct language in
his lyrics, which I would consider poetry. His specific lens, his perspective on life, he was very open to writing about his own pain, which
I think millions of people could relate to and connect with. And I think it's a number of things. But because it was just him, that was it. It was
just him.
SREENIVASAN: You said that you wrote the chapter about loss and about Kurt last, why?
GROHL: Because I was scared to write it. I mean, you know, it's one thing to write about getting stitches when you're 12 years old or it's one thing
to write about, you know, taking your kids to the daddy daughter dance. It's another thing to write about something that you have barely spoken
about with people close to you.
I mean, I revealed some things in that story that I have never told my closest friends. I was scared to write it. I mean, you know, first of all,
I knew what people wanted me to write. I think that people have a lot of unanswered questions, as do I. So, I decided to write in a much broader
emotional sense that, you know, the process of loss or grief and mourning and how that's determined and how it differs from person to person. So,
yes, it was just -- it was a tough one to write.
SREENIVASAN: You write that after the loss, you really kind of took some time for yourself and tried to process this. And the book finds you like
literally on a remote corner of the planet, in the middle of some rural part of Ireland that's gorgeous, what happened there?
[13:50:00]
GROHL: Well, after Kurt died and Nirvana was over, our worlds were just turned upside down. I don't know if anyone knew how to continue or what to
do next. I personally didn't have any interest in music. I put my instruments away. It was hard for me to listen to the radio, which was very
unlike me. And after a few months, I decided I would go on this kind of soul-searching trip to find the middle of nowhere. I just wanted to be away
from everyone and everything.
So, I went to one of my favorite places. The Ring of Kerry in Ireland where I've been before. And I mean, it's entirely remote. There's nothing there.
It's just country roads and beautiful scenery. And I was there driving down a country road, and I saw a hitchhiker in the distance and I thought maybe,
I'll pick him up.
And as I got closer and closer, I noticed that he had a Kurt Cobain T-shirt on. So, even in the middle of nowhere, I had Kurt sort of looking back at
me and that's when I realized I can't outrun this. I have to go home. I have to get the instruments back in my lap and I have to keep playing music
because it saved my life my entire life and I think that it might do it again. And I went home and started the Foo Fighters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SREENIVASAN: That first album, you practically played everything, I think, except for one portion of one track. So, what is the instrument you
identify most with? I mean, obviously, you're known as an exceptional drummer, but you're also a guitarist, you're also a singer.
GROHL: First of all, I'd take singer off that list because I basically just run around screaming for three hours a night. So, we could take that
one off. So, it's guitarist or drummer. You know, the guitar was my first instrument and there's nothing like sitting around with a guitar in your
lap all day long. But drumming, drumming, is -- I mean, I feel like I'm dancing when I'm drumming. I don't have to think. I can just do it.
And whatever is in my heart just winds up in my hands. There's not a whole lot of thought, which is probably why I prefer it. But I really love the
physicality of drumming. And I do have this sort of internal rhythm that I have had my entire life.
When I was a kid, I used to do this little exercise to challenge with myself. Whenever we would drive up to Ohio from Virginia to visit my
grandparents, we would go through these long tunnels in Pennsylvania, like through the mountains. And there would be a song on the radio and I would
be listening to it and see a tunnel coming up and then, we'd go in the tunnel, lose the radio and I try to hold the beat like this and then, once
we came out of the tunnel see if I was still on the beat. And I would still be on the beat. Like, this is how weird I am.
But, I mean, as far as drumming, I think drumming is one of those things that -- I mean, I will do it at drop of a hat, at the opening of an
envelope, I could be your cousin's bar mitzvah. I don't care. Like I will play the drum. If I see a drum set, I'm going to play on those drums.
SREENIVASAN: You know, there are so many stories in this book about when you meet these people, sometimes who are your idols and sometimes who are
just people you know and respect in the music world. From, you know, Little Richard to Lemmy from Motorhead to Paul McCartney who kind of becomes your
friend. And -- but all the way throughout these stories, there's like this giddy teen quality that comes out where you're still -- I mean, you
described being nervous around these people and you wonder what it's going to be like and all the things that any fan would be like around somebody
that they really looked up to.
GROHL: Yes. I mean, can you imagine? Like that's the way -- honestly, as I was writing, I started thinking, am I writing this from the perspective of
someone who is having an out of body experience every day? Because it's just too crazy. Like I can't believe it's happening to me. I can't believe
I'm like having dinner with ACDC. I can't believe that, you know, Paul is over at the house and playing my piano. Things like that. It never grows
old. You don't get used to it. I don't think you should get used to it, but, dude, really, like if you're face to face with Little Richard, you're
OK with that? No, you're not OK with that.
But the great thing about all of these experiences is that you're reminded that music is flesh and bone. Like this is real life. These are real
people. This is -- it kind of -- it's reassuring. Like, oh, good, life actually happened. This isn't just an allusion. And so, you know, what I'm
jamming with any of these people or hanging out with these people, I try to remind myself like, OK, we're all human beings here. Does it make -- am I
nervous, absolutely.
[13:55:00]
Like jamming with Prince, you're going to be nervous, believe me. Like that's going to make you nervous. And, you know, you try to get down in
like a really sort of human way. But ultimately, you know, it's reassuring to see that these people are people as well, and that's what I love the
most about it.
SREENIVASAN: Dave, if the book tells you nothing else, it tells you that you, Dave Grohl, have been an incredibly lucky man for this long. So --
GROHL: Hallelujah, dude. I mean, I remember, when my -- when Nirvana first got popular, my dad said, you know this isn't going to last, right? And I'm
like, no, why would it? That's crazy. And then, 10 years later, he's like, you know this isn't going to last, right? I'm like, no, why not? And so, I
still -- believe me, every single day I wake up, I'm lucky to be alive, I'm lucky to play music. I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
SREENIVASAN: Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, thanks so much for joining us.
GROHL: Thanks a lot, man. It's good to see you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Counting your blessings every day no matter how much success you have achieved.
And that is it for now. Thank you for watching and good-bye for London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
