Fresh Air

Stephen Colbert has been taping 'The Late Show' without a studio audience during the pandemic — but he's not always alone. Sometimes his wife Evie is in the room. If she laughs, he knows he's on the right track. "I got into show business in a way to not be alone. Like a lot of comedians, I'm a bit of a broken toy," he says. Colbert and Terry Gross catch up on the past four years, since the Trump administration and COVID-19 changed his comedy.

Journalist Michael Moss says processed foods can be as addictive as cocaine, heroin and cigarettes. In his new book, 'Hooked,' Moss explores how these companies appeal to our senses, nostalgia and brain chemistry to keep us snacking. "It's inexpensive, it's legal, it's everywhere," Moss says. "And the advertising from the companies is cueing us to remember those products and we want those products constantly."

Ken Tucker reviews Carsie Blanton's album 'Love & Rage.'

Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. lost a close friend from college to police violence. His Spotify podcast, 'Resistance,' explores different aspects of the movement for Black lives — including Tejan-Thomas Jr.'s personal history. We also talk about his childhood in Sierra Leone during the civil war.

Courtney B. Vance got his start in the theater, with a breakout role in the August Wilson play 'Fences' on Broadway...

The Oscar-nominated animated film imagines a place where souls are matched with unique passions. It follows Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher and aspiring jazz musician, who nearly dies right after securing the gig of his life. Pete Docter and Kemp Powers say their movie is meant to challenge conventional notions of success and failure. We talk about lost souls, appreciating the small things, and early versions of the film...

Yale professor Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff co-founded the Center for Policing Equity, which collects data on police behavior from 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country. He says most people think of racism as an issue of character and ignorance. But, he says, focusing on changing racist attitudes is "a bad way to stop the behavior," He says. "The best way to regulate behavior is to regulate behavior. And that's what we can do in policing. That's what we can do in our communities...

Courtney B. Vance got his start in the theater, with a breakout role in the August Wilson play 'Fences' on Broadway. We talk about his origin story and his recent roles as Aretha Franklin's father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, in 'Genius: Aretha,' and as the show-stopping attorney Johnnie Cochran, in 'The People v. O.J. Simpson.' Vance attributes much of his career success to the dean of the Yale Drama School when he was there, Lloyd Richards, who lifted up Black performers.

Hough was 15 when her family left the Children of God cult. Afterward, she struggled to face the trauma of her past. At 18 she joined the Air Force during "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and was discharged for being gay. "I spent a long time lying to myself more than, I think, anyone else. Telling myself that my childhood didn't affect me, telling myself that the military didn't affect me," she says. "I think writing, more than anything, brought that out. .....

Former Stanford University undergraduate dean Julie Lythcott-Haims' new book, 'Your Turn: How to Be an Adult,' is a handbook on adulthood, offering insights and strategies on education and career choices, building friendships and coping with setbacks. Her 2017 memoir, 'Real American,' is the story of her coming to terms with her racial identity. Her father was a successful African American physician, her mother a white British woman. We talk about both books and her upbringing...

'Twyla Moves,' a new documentary by PBS American Masters, tells the story of the legendary choreographer and dancer, who got her start performing on subway platforms and rooftops in the 1960s. "If it was kind of level, it was fair territory," she tells Terry Gross.

Kevin Whitehead reviews a newly unearthed album from Hasaan Ibn Ali.

'Finding Your Roots' host Henry Louis Gates has a new book and PBS series called 'The Black Church...

Louise Erdrich's novel, 'The Night Watchman,' was inspired by her grandfather, a chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who fought a Congressional initiative to move indigenous peoples off their land and into cities. Erdrich says the policy amounted to tribal termination. "Termination was a way to finally resolve what Congress thought of as 'the Indian problem,'" she says.

David Bianculli reviews HBO's 'Mare of Easttown,' starring Kate Winslet.