You probably recognize our guest Rachel Martin from her years on NPR’s news magazines like Morning Edition and Weekend Edition. Her new project is a sharp break from the daily news cycle, but features her trademark warmth alongside a lot of laughs. Martin’s new podcast is called Wild Card, and it’s an approach to interviewing that brings in, well, a Wild Card.
The last time we talked was around the conventions in 2016. So much has happened since then. And as I understand it, from listening to the first episode of this new project, your mindset about what kind of work you want to do changed a little too.
Oh, totally, you know, I started my job as the co-host of “Morning Edition” in December of 2016. So this was right after Donald Trump was elected. And I don't think any of us really knew what we were in for in terms of the pace of the news. And then, of course, the pandemic. So it was it was a heck of a run in terms of the content that we were covering and the stories. And I got to a point where I needed a shift. I needed to shift to something that that felt like a place where I could be more of myself and thus, in turn, asked more of the people I was interviewing. So this show was really developed as a way to have really intimate conversations with people about how they see the world and people's interior lives. But it wasn't going to be fair if I just asked them to do that on their own. So you know, I'm part of this too. I've got skin in the game. The game concept allows for me to participate. I’m not just the host, but you know, guests can turn questions on me. And I find that really, really liberating. So I'm actually having a conversation with someone. It's not just in a news interview. There's a certain power dynamic, right? Like, I'm the interviewer, you're the interviewee. I've got control, I've got a script, I've got questions that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, that I know are going to elicit a certain kind of answer. And that was also something I wanted to shift. I wanted to be surprised again, and there's an element of randomness and surprise in this game format that is so fun. And I just can't wait for people to hear it.
A lot of us, and I will say ‘us,’ don't want to be as revealing as you might be in this format. So why is that something that you're looking for?
I was swimming around in all kinds of existential questions after my dad died a couple of years ago. He died unexpectedly and my mom had passed many years before. I was left feeling sort of unmoored and really consumed by questions about what it means to lead a meaningful life, and how that looks to different people from different walks of life. And I wanted a show where we could highlight the universal nature of those questions. Because often I think we get in our own heads, at least I do. And you can get lost, I can get lost in my own anxiety or despair about the state of the world, insecurities. And everybody has them. Everybody has them. And so I'm not asking this of everybody, not everybody has to go on this show and reveal their most innermost secrets and passions and fears. But the people who choose to, I think there an openness that makes the audience feel less alone when they hear someone new, someone who you thought you knew, someone who you maybe thought has their existential act together, because they're so successful and to hear those people work through their own questions inspires me. I leave feeling happier than I was before, I leave feeling like a deep connection. And I want the audience to feel that too.
You really need somebody who's willing to go down that road with you. And I think a lot of times when you're interviewing people with a high profile, it's in a very artificial setting with a junket, or they're promoting something, or there's a limited amount of time or whatever. So how are you finding willing participants who are really at the upper end of their game? I mean, the guest list I've seen is very impressive so far.
It's a really good question. And kind of the fun thing about this is the game itself, the format of the show is an automatic vetting mechanism. So if we pitch someone on the show, we send them an episode, do they get a sense of it, we tell them what it's about. And they're like, ‘Hmm, I am not interested in that,’ I totally respect that choice. Not everybody wants to do this, like, to air their innermost on the air in front of a huge audience. But it's been interesting to discover that a lot of people are very open to the idea of working through these questions with me in this way. Now, granted, a lot of these people are professional storytellers, whether they're actors, musicians, writers, these are people who operate in that world anyway. But they're not often asked about themselves in this way. And, you know, we focus the rounds in the game on experiences and memories that shaped someone, lessons that they're still learning or insights and beliefs. And so when an actor is on a junket about a movie, they're just not getting asked those kinds of meaningful, profound questions, often. There's not space, that's not the place for it. And this format allows for that. I take everybody seriously as a thoughtful person who has worked through hard things in their life and come out on the other side and has some wisdom to share. And I think people appreciate that, and they're willing to share that experience. And I am too when it's appropriate.
So has doing ‘Wild Card’ so far changed the kinds of conversations that you're having in your off air life at all?
It's really the reverse. I was having these conversations anyway, in my own life. So it's really it's my personal life that's now informed my professional life this way. These are the kinds of questions I want to ask all the time. I mean, yeah, maybe kind of a bummer at a party when people just want to have a glass of wine and eat some Chex Mix. And I'm like, ‘How does grief inform your life? And what's a recurring dream from your childhood, you can't shake?’ But if they're asked in a light way, in the format of the game, it's amazing what comes out. And my friendships get deeper, because these questions get right to the heart of it. Wit my family, too. Oftentimes, we struggle even with the people who are closest to us to ask these big kinds of questions. It doesn't maybe come up in ordinary conversation, or you feel uncomfortable. And if you get to lean on this game, it opens up all kinds of conversational possibilities.
So just one more thing about the format, because I found myself while listening to the Jenny Slate episode getting stressed out on my own behalf, thinking how would I answer these questions? So do they get any heads up about what might be in the stack? Or is it all kind of going blind?
It's going blind. So listen, I'm gonna be honest with you. Sometimes there are very long pauses. So we might shorten them for broadcast, because I want people to have the space to answer it. And there's also an escape hatch in the form of a skip. If you get a question like, I don't get that question; that question doesn't resonate with me… skip it. Or you can flip it and ask me to answer it first. And then I can sort of model for you what we're looking for if it's not immediately clicking. But you'd be surprised. People have answers, even to some of these questions. I'm like, Oh, I don't know this one feels kind of obscure. People want to walk through that door. They've got a story to tell, they can come up with some insight that that helps me understand them better and we all come out feeling like something special just happened.
Real quick, one more thing. Is there a dream guest you have in mind or someone you envisioned when putting this project together that you'd like to book for the show?
It's interesting. I thought a lot about that. There wasn't one person that I built the show around, because it's the opposite. I wanted this to be universal. I wanted the questions to be questions you could ask of anyone. And I believe that anyone can answer them. We lean on celebrities, because that tends to be people….people have a picture of who these folks are. They're curious about them. And so we lean in that direction. We're hoping to widen that aperture as the show gets its footing. But, I mean, there's so many people. I'm a person who has a lot of different interests, right? So I want to talk to not just actors and musicians and writers, but I want to talk to athletes. I am dying to talk to Jason Kelce because he's been so open about the reasons that he retired from professional football and left the Eagles and now he's got this brother Travis who's in the spotlight and he's just demonstrated himself to be a pretty open and thoughtful person. The Olympics are coming. We're hoping to talk to some Olympic athletes. I would love to talk to Simone Biles about the pressure of that spotlight. You know, I'm sort of obsessed with Billy Eilish. I think that she's just a completely unique, creative person. And I want to get into her head to the degree that she would let me. So you know, all kinds of folks. I mean, Beyoncé, Beyoncé, are you listening? Yes, please come on Wild Card.
