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Fresh Air Weekend: Lucy Liu and Zadie Smith

Lucy Liu plays a dying woman who agonizes about the fate of her teen son in Rosemead.
Vivien Killilea
/
Getty Images North America
Lucy Liu plays a dying woman who agonizes about the fate of her teen son in Rosemead.

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, as well as new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and it often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Lucy Liu on 'Rosemead,' rejection and returning to Mandarin: The child of Chinese immigrants, Liu didn't learn English until she was 5. She plays a terminally ill woman grappling with her teenage son's mental health crisis in Rosemead.

These 10 terrific movies emerged from a tumultuous year for the film industry: Fresh Air film critic Justin Chang says most of his favorite films this year were made overseas, including his No. 1 pick, Sirāt.

Zadie Smith's heads up to young people: 'You are absolutely going to become old': Smith was 25 in 2000 when she published her critically acclaimed first novel. Now 50, her latest collection of essays, Dead and Alive, reflects on middle age, climate change and generational gaps.

You can listen to the original interviews here:

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