Daniel Radcliffe, Mariska Hargitay and the Happiest List on Earth
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What is the main theme of 'Every Brilliant Thing'?
Hey, it's Ben Fruman, editor-in-chief of Wirecutter.
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Make sure you have towels on hand. You don't want to end up taking a shower and using a dirty sock to dry off. Yeah.
If you're getting ready to move, let Wirecutter help you make a plan at nytimes.com slash moving. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily on Sunday. The general heaviness of this moment, the war, the prices, the AI, is not lost on any of us. We cover it every day on this show. Joy and relief, I think it's fair to say, are rare today. But a few weeks ago, I found myself genuinely awash in both of those feelings. I had just left a theater in midtown Manhattan, where I had seen something unlike anything I'd ever seen before. A show that insists on creating a new kind of filter. A happier filter. A filter through which ordinary, everyday occurrences... literally become a reason to live.
How does Daniel Radcliffe describe his character's journey?
The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world.
The show is called Every Brilliant Thing. It just opened up on Broadway, starring Daniel Radcliffe. In it, Radcliffe asks us, the audience, to work together with him to tell the play's central story.
One. Ice cream.
Two.
Water fights. Three.
More on that in just a moment. It turns out I was relatively late to the phenomenon of this show, which has become a kind of global antidote to pain. It's been translated into dozens of languages. It's been produced in hundreds of communities around the world, in places like Dublin. The list began after her first attempt. Tokyo. No walking. The list began after her first attempt. Even on HBO. The list began after her first attempt.
What role does audience participation play in the show?
A list of everything that was brilliant about the world, everything that was worth living for. And so today, we're going to tell the story of this show, why it has resonated with so many people, and what it tells us about how to live in dark times. It's Sunday, April 26th. Daniel Radcliffe, welcome to The Daily. Thank you so much for having me. We're thrilled to have you. Thank you. So, Every Brilliant Thing, as you know, is a very complicated show to explain to somebody who has never seen it before. So, when somebody asks you, Daniel Radcliffe, to describe the show, what do you say?
Well, the plot of the show is I play a character who, when they were young, their mother was dealing with very, very serious depression and mental health issues. And so in an effort to sort of cheer his mom up, he starts making a list of every brilliant thing that he can think of about the world.
And brilliant in the context of the show and in British parlance is essentially everything that's good and wonderful.
Yeah, everything that's, you know, wonderful, great, amazing, joyous about the world.
Yeah. And just to give some examples.
Kazoos, period. Yeah. Kazoos actually... Really good oranges. Yeah, really good oranges. Peeing in the ocean and nobody knows.
How does the play address mental health and depression?
The awkward dance of negotiating whether it's going to be a hug or a handshake. Yeah. So then it's sort of about how the making of that list follows him into his teenage years and then becomes a kind of coping mechanism for him as an adult and a kind of really an extension of just how he sees the world in this sort of ever-evolving list-making process.
Yeah.
My mind was fizzing. Ever since I was little, I'd wanted to understand why my mum had done what she had done. And here was a possible answer, or at least, you know, part of one. I am so sorry, Professor. Please carry on. But Charlotte is... I left the lecture. You're done. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But the way the play is done, it's this kind of amazing communal experience. Like it should feel every night like me and the audience are kind of making the play together.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main theme of 'Every Brilliant Thing'?
0:00–1:25
2
How does Daniel Radcliffe describe his character's journey?
1:25–2:31
3
What role does audience participation play in the show?
2:31–3:54
4
How does the play address mental health and depression?
3:54–5:09
5
What personal connections do the actors have with the material?
5:09–6:29
6
How has 'Every Brilliant Thing' resonated across different cultures?
6:29–7:50
7
What insights does Mariska Hargitay share about her upcoming role?
7:50–9:10
8
How does the show foster community and connection among audiences?
9:10–42:22