Survival of the Famous

More with Leonard Lopate, host of Survival Kit

Leonard Lopate reveals the intimate sides of his famous guests
By Jennifer Fletcher

What would you need to bring with you if you were to going to escape civilization for a while?

This is what host Leonard Lopate asks his guests – who range from actors and comedians to scientists and historians – each week on Survival Kit, heard Fridays at 10 p.m. on 91FM (90.9).

The answers are often surprising and revealing: a famous, young actress wants Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographs; a Pulitzer prize-winning author requests a banjo and a banjo instruction manual. Survival Kit reveals a side of well-known persons and personalities that the public might otherwise never get to see.

Lopate has conversed with many prominent individuals on his long-running The Leonard Lopate Show, which airs on WNYC in New York City, but it’s usually to discuss "what’s happening in his or her life at the moment," he says. Below, Lopate talks about what it is like to talk to the same people in "a much more revealing way" as host of Survival Kit:

Jennifer Fletcher: If the format of Survival Kit wasn’t the way it is, do you think people would reveal themselves like they do?

Leonard Lopate: I don’t think so. A number of people have told me that they really appreciated this because so often what they’re doing is promoting their latest movie, their latest book, their latest record, or whatever else they’re involved with.

JF: Has anyone else from The Leonard Lopate Show been a guest on Survival Kit?

LL: Yea, they’ve done that more than once. Gary Hart, for example, came on to talk about terrorism, and then he came on Survival Kit and talked about wanting a textbook on classical Greek and William Butler Yeats poems and opera.

JF: How do you decide who’s going to be asked to come on?

LL: Well, I think that we ask people who are interesting and who represent as wide a range of experience as we can.

JF: What is revealed [about the guest’s personalities] that can’t be revealed otherwise?

LL: I think that what’s been interesting about this is not that any of their choices are all that surprising, but rather that the people who choose them aren’t necessarily the people I would have connected with them. And also, this gives them an opportunity to talk about other aspects of their lives.

JF: What have been some of your favorite moments?

LL: I think all my favorite moments are the surprises, as you can well imagine. Those moments when somebody gives you a little present that you could not have expected, something that makes you almost gasp to know. Those are the great moments in any interview.

But in the kind of interview we’re talking about here, people don’t know where they’re going. They don’t have an agenda, or even if they have an agenda, if you relax them enough and you take them down roads they don’t expect to go, they’re going to tell you things.

JF: What do you want listeners to learn from or get from the show?

LL: I think this is all about learning about people they’re interested in. But what I’m mainly trying to do is have an interesting conversation with an interesting person, and I think that’s entertaining in its own right.

JF: Why do you think people should listen in?

LL: If they’re interested in the way people think, what they would do if they were forced to be alone, then this show is for you.

On the other hand, it also often makes you think about what you would do and what’s important, so I’d like to also feel that people are being inspired to look into themselves at the same time as they’re hearing other people look into themselves.

Survival Kit airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on WHYY 91FM.

What would these guests bring with them if stranded for a remote period of time? Tune in this month to find out!

November 1 Novelist Oscar Hijuelos

November 8 Actress Julia Stiles

November 15 Food Critic Ruth Reichl

November 22 Actress/Comedian Jan Curtain

November 29 Former Senator and Presidential Candidate Gary Hart