US in common

Sharing different perspectives across America 🫶

[US in common @us_in_common]

Willem Dafoe on why he left Appleton, Wisconsin for New York:

"I liked the idea of creating something that didn't exist before.

New York, for me, I moved there because it felt like Mecca. I went toward that because New York was the place to catch what was going on."

— Willem Dafoe with @rachelnpr on @NPRWildCard

[US in common @us_in_common]

Drake on what happened when people found out the rapper they were playing was Canadian, half-Black and Jewish:

"I think the details of my background kind of came afterwards. I think what caught first was the music...

I never looked at it as overcoming anything. I was just like, 'Man, I just got to be a good rapper.'

But to a lot of other people they were like, 'Wait, whoa, wait, wait, wait, what? You're Canadian? You're Jewish and you're half—' It's just like mind-blowing things to them.

It wasn't like on my mixtape cover just said, 'The new Canadian half-black Jewish.' I guess it wasn't advertised.

People had to go kind of find out about me, and I think when they did it made the story even more interesting.

Like I said, I wouldn't want that to change."

— @Drake on CBC's @CBCTheNational, 2013

[US in common @us_in_common]

Steve Chen co-founded YouTube. But in the '80s, he was a second grader from Taiwan whose family was the only Asian family in its Chicago suburb:

"It was starting, finishing second grade in Taiwan, and so that was sort of in between years, and then starting third grade in the suburbs of Chicago.

My entire family, my younger brother, my parents, they had never lived in the US, and so we were all kind of figuring it out.

I mean, we were the only Asian family in that entire area...

There were actions taken where you were kind of excluded from the rest of the group."

— @stevechen , co-founder of YouTube, with @wongfuphil on @taaforg's The United States of Asian+America

[US in common @us_in_common]

Natalie Portman explains that one and the first word everyone learns in Israel, for Vanity Fair:

"Chai beseret, this is a great one.

This means you're living in a movie, which is, someone's being dramatic or they're unrealistic or whatever about their prospects. You say they're living in a movie, chai beseret...

Balagan is a great one, kind of the first word that people learn when they move to Israel, and it means a mess.

And it comes from the same root as balcony, because balconies were where you threw your clothes and dirty rags and stuff, and it would be a mess."

— Natalie Portman on @VanityFair Secret Talent Theatre

[US in common @us_in_common]

Steve Aoki on bringing Japanese food to school in a town he says was 96% white:

"I was not proud of my culture. I felt like I shouldn't be.

And kids said, 'You were eating worms.'

First of all, you bring a rice ball to school and in a class it just doesn't understand what that food looks like.

I'm like, 'Mom, why do you do that to me?'

...I have to eat this in private because I love... that's what I grew up eating, this food.

And Newport Beach, it's 96% white. It's very conservative."

— @steveaoki , DJ and founder of Dim Mak Records, with @GrahamBensinger on In Depth

[US in common @us_in_common]

Jeffrey Katzenberg on the advice his mother gave him as a kid:

"My mom always said... that I was like a wild Mustang stallion and that you cannot corral him.

You cannot put a saddle on his back. You cannot put a bit in his mouth.

All you can do is leave a light on in the barn and a lot of hay there and just hope that from time to time he wanders back in to hang out.

And it's kind of true. I always came back."

— Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks, on @BigShotPodcast

[US in common @us_in_common]

Yannis Pappas on what happens when a famous singer from Greece performs for a Greek American crowd:

"They invite these Greek singers from Greece, right, who are famous in Greece...

The guy's singing and he has to walk around the whole place. They don't like when he stays on stage.

So he walks around and people buy these buckets of flowers... and they take the flowers and they just fucking throw them... they pelt the guy.

So this guy's got one side is a flower stem. It could take your eye out, right?

But they throw flowers, the guy's just trying to sing and do a show and Greeks are just coming up on the stage, dumping flowers on his head, fucking throwing flowers and it doesn't stop...

Greeks just like to throw shit."

— Yannis Pappas, comedian, with Sabino Curcio and Rocco Loguercio on @growingupitalia

[US in common @us_in_common]

Gwen Stefani says her son prayed every night for a baby. Four weeks later, at 43, she was pregnant:

— @gwenstefani , lead singer of No Doubt, with @JeffCavins on @HallowApp

[US in common @us_in_common]

"You cover with all this subterfuge and ideology and intellectual this and that, breathing and meditation. Until that moment, late at night, and you're right back...

It's not a joke, you know, anxiety."

— @TheSlyStallone with @LuluGNavarro on The Interview from @nytimes

[US in common @us_in_common]

Phylicia Rashad on why she and her sister, Debbie Allen, never drifted apart:

"Mommy said the one thing that will ensure that you will remain very close is that you have the same interests."

— Phylicia Rashad on Michelle Obama's IMO podcast

[US in common @us_in_common]

Josh Peck asks his co-host why religious Jews sway when they daven:

"You're feeling Hashem or God in your body. It's more so, you're kind of like dancing as you pray."

— @boywithnojob and @shuapeck on the Good Guys podcast

[US in common @us_in_common]

Comedian Jared Freid has strong, unhinged opinions on the correct way to eat a Girl Scout cookie:

— @jtrain56 on Second Thought Podcast

[US in common @us_in_common]

SNL's Marcello Hernandez on why doing standup in Spanish hits different right now:

"I feel that when I'm doing a Spanish set with all Hispanic people and we're all laughing"

— @marcellohdz on Good Hang with Amy Poehler

[US in common @us_in_common]

Karlie Kloss on the one part of converting she admits is still painful:

[US in common @us_in_common]

LL Cool J on why he learned more at home than he ever did in school:

[US in common @us_in_common]

Sharon Stone on what adoption actually asks of a family:

"When you adopt children you have to be prepared that there's always going to be something..."

— @shaz_oyoo with @MichelleObama on @imopodcasts

[US in common @us_in_common]

Kareem Rahma on why his dad chose America in 1969, and Minnesota over New York:

"My dad moved to the States in 1969, and this was a time where we were landing on the moon, and there was not a lot of immigration as we see it today..."

— @SubwayTakes with @ilazer on It's Open

[US in common @us_in_common]

@PadmaLakshmi on her two completely different childhoods:

"I had two completely different upbringings, both equally important influences. My life in America with my mom in New York City was exciting. I had a lot of autonomy. I was a latchkey kid."

[US in common @us_in_common]

"What's the difference between a $900 rose order and a $500 rose order?"

"Double the roses. The time of day you ordered. And the fact that your wife found out that you did it same day and she hates it."

— @boywithnojob with @shuapeck and @jtrain56 on Good Guys