Filmmaker Ed Zwick, Actor-Comedian Kevin James, The Trials of Donald Trump

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Rocketmoney.com slash wondery. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. It's hard to believe it's been four years since the first case of COVID was confirmed here in the United States back in January 2020.

We all remember the uncertainty, panic, lockdowns, and the more than 1 million lives lost in this nation alone. But what is also worth remembering is the scientific miracle that quickly followed a vaccine developed and released later that very year, saving countless lives. This morning, our California introduces us to two scientists, truly unsung heroes, who made the COVID vaccine possible. He's an immunologist. She's a biochemist. In 1998, they met by chance.

22 years later, their research led to the COVID vaccine of 2020 and the Nobel Prize in medicine last year. Did you take a moment to celebrate? I just probably went back to work.

Famously, I ate a whole bag of chocolate-covered peanut. Well, on a day like that, you had definitely earned it. Coming up on Sunday morning, how it all happened. He's an everyman comic finding humor in everyday life. Jim Axelrod is talking with Kevin James just for laughs. Kevin James' high-flying comedy career includes a TV hit, a string of movies, and a new stand-up special. So what does he think of all the success? If someone literally tapped me on the shoulder, God just said, hey, we know what's going on, right?

I'd go, yep, where do I go? Getting serious about being funny. Kevin James, ahead on Sunday morning. Also this morning, with the Supreme Court agreeing this past week to rule on Donald Trump's claims of presidential immunity, Erin Moriarty will take a closer look at the many trials of former President Trump. Connor Knighton takes note of multi-talented musician Jacob Collier, plus a look back at the memorable movies of Hollywood's Ed Zwick. We'll have a story from Steve Hartman and more on this first Sunday morning of a new month, March 3, 2024.

And we'll be back in a moment. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of the hunt. But are you getting the thrill of the best deals? Rakuten shoppers do. They get the brands they love with the most savings and cash back, and you can get it too. Start getting cash back at your favorite stores, like Urban Outfitters, Sephora, and Nike, and even stack sales on top of cash back. It's easy to use, and you get your cash back through PayPal or a check. The idea is simple. Stores pay Rakuten for sending them shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app and never miss a deal, or go to Rakuten.com to start getting the most bang for your buck.

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Discounts not available in all states and situations. It's easy to think of great historical moments in the abstract, but too often the people behind them are largely forgotten. This morning, Kellefisane spends time with two unsung heroes whose groundbreaking work we can all be thankful for. Katie will tell you I'm a quiet guy who sticks to myself. I didn't know about him either.

I didn't chit-chat around. At the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Drew Weissman and Kathleen Carrico, known as Katie, met by chance at a copy machine in 1998. We both used to copy a lot of articles to read. We started talking. He was an immunologist studying cells that adapt to mount immune responses against diseases. She was a biochemist working with messenger RNA, known as mRNA, the molecule that teaches cells how to make proteins.

I joke it's like the Reese's commercial where the chocolate and the peanut butter come together and make a new treat. We learn from each other. What is it, do you think, that makes a good scientific team? Respect each other, listen to each other. We didn't try to overpower each other, you know, just... Did you try?

No, never. Their collaboration led to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines in 2020. That year, the virus spread worldwide, leading to global lockdowns and killing millions.

I knew the minute I heard about it, it's a virus, it's a respiratory infection. I knew the vaccine was going to work. How did the lockdown affect your life and your work? We never stopped working. They worked day and night, different shifts, and minimizing the presence of people in one room. This is the frozen vaccine.

Wow. For patients, you thaw this out, you dilute it, and you inject it in their arms. The mRNA COVID vaccine uses mRNA to direct the cells to create a spike protein, like the one on the surface of the virus, so the body builds defenses against that protein.

This protection helps fight the virus. The vaccine became available in the United States in December 2020. That month, Weissman and Kariko were vaccinated, with a flourish. Did you think on that day about all the years and decades of work it took to get to that point? Yes, yes, I was thinking about that and thinking about what we went through.

They put up some cameras and took pictures and had fun. Pfizer, Moderna, which one? Pfizer. The COVID vaccine reduced the death toll and helped people get back to relatively normal lives. Was there any disappointment that the vaccine didn't just sort of put an end to COVID once and for all? In the beginning of the pandemic, I would go into the intensive care units, and every bed would have a COVID patient on a ventilator doing poorly. And now, when I went into the intensive care units, there were no COVID patients at all, and that's because of the vaccine. And their work will be used in the battle against some of the world's most difficult diseases. How bright is the future?

It's truly phenomenal. Right now, there's 250 phase one clinical trials of RNA vaccines. People are making vaccines for HIV, for malaria, for hepatitis C, for TB, for food allergies.

Talk to a parent with a kid with a peanut allergy, and every day is a panic. The COVID vaccines were backed by government mandates and sparked an uproar. The controversy, I still don't understand people thinking that science and vaccines are out to get them.

And I've never heard of such a thing before. Well, maybe it's just what happens when politics collides with medicine. That's not the job of our politicians. They're not supposed to tell people how to live less well, of how to die from diseases.

They're supposed to help the world. This past December, three years after the vaccine was released, the Nobel Prize committee awarded Carrico and Weissman its 18-carat gold medallion. How long does it take for it to sink in? It's still happening. Yeah, it takes time. Did you think, finally? My finally moment was the phase three clinical trials, when we saw that the vaccines were 95% effective. That was a life's work has turned into something useful. Did you take a moment to celebrate? No, I'm not much of a celebrator. I just probably went back to work. Famously, I ate a whole bag of chocolate-covered peanut. Well, on a day like that, you had definitely earned it.

A good scientific lab has top-of-the-line equipment, but a really great scientific lab has a trophy run. When you think about becoming a scientist, is it somewhere in the back of your head like, I might win the Nobel Prize? Never.

No. My parents, when I was maybe five, they were brought in on a tour of the Nobel Auditorium. And at one point, they walked up to a pair of seats and said, reserve these for us. If Weissman's rise seemed predictable, Carrico's did not. Born in communist Hungary, Carrico never knew a scientist, but she knew she wanted to be one.

In 1985, 30-year-old Katie Carrico, along with her husband and young daughter, left Hungary for a job in a lab in Pennsylvania. This teddy bear seems like it would be kind of out of place. But this is actually a very important bear, isn't it? Yes, this is the bear that helped us get to America and start our lives. If I turn this over, someone did a little surgery on this teddy bear, didn't they? Tell me what happened here. I put $1,000 equivalent of British pounds and I saw it back, because in Hungary we were not allowed to take any money out of the country. Your daughter was the mule.

Nobody found it, nobody suspected. And from there to here, Nobel Prize. Yeah, and some decades in between.

Decades spent doing what both Katalin Carrico and Drew Weissman truly love. Laboratory is a wonderful place, and so kind of my home is a laboratory. I sometimes get the sense that maybe you would rather be in the lab doing your work than talking to journalists. Yeah, partially it is true. But also we realize that it is important to go out and educate the public and explain what we are doing and inspire the next generation of scientists.

Exactly. I mean, I'm much happier and nothing personal. I'm still happier sitting in my office or in my lab working. I don't take offense to this. That's my favorite place.

As a member of the human race, I'm glad to have you working in your lab. For nearly 150 years, ADT has made the security of their customers a top priority so you can have peace of mind that your home is protected. Now ADT professionally installs Google Nest products to help keep your home safe and smart. You'll be able to check in on your home and manage your security system from virtually anywhere. Plus, with Nest cams and the Nest doorbell, you can get intelligent alerts so you'll always receive notifications on what matters most. When the most trusted name in home security adds the intelligence of Google, you've got a home with no worries. Go to ADT.com today or call 1-800-ADT-ASAP. Google Nest Cam and Nest Doorbell are trademarks of Google LLC. ADT.

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See stores for details. Now, if it's going to do well wherever he is, except you with us, that's my fault. I didn't say that. I couldn't bring Samuel back home alive either, could I? Don't you dare say that, boy.

That was in God's hands. That's a young Brad Pitt with Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall, one of director and producer Ed Zwick's many successes. He's looking back on his remarkable career with Luke Burbank. And common sticks to office two marker. If you were making a movie about Ed Zwick, the Oscar-winning producer and director of various huge films, this is just a beautiful campus. Act One would definitely feature the American Film Institute in L.A. as a backdrop. So it's very hands-on.

It's very deep into the pool right away. And your other students, or fellows as we are called here, will in fact become your own teachers. This was where back in the 70s, a 20-something Ed realized he was out of his depth and had to quickly start learning from his peers. Action! That's something he hasn't stopped doing over his 40-plus year career. I'd like to print that.

Let's print A and B camera. There's a great American narrative tradition that this has become a part of. I think you got something to tell me, Sergeant.

Over the years, he's directed some of Hollywood's brightest. Denzel Washington. I'm going to find out the truth.

I guarantee you that. Tell this man! Tom Cruise. If he does not shoot me, I will kill him! You're using him. Leonardo DiCaprio.

I'm using him, and you are using me, and this is how it works, isn't it? And almost Julia Roberts, who agreed to star in Shakespeare in Love before quitting without a word, shutting the film down for years. It's all recounted in Zwick's new book, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions. The good, the bad, and the ugly of working in Hollywood. It's a crucible, and in a crucible, among artists, things fulminate. And there's actually something beautiful about that, and often something very good comes of that.

But I wanted to tell it as it was. Zwick and his producing partner, Marshall Herskovitz, have been in that crucible since the two met as students at AFI and formed what they call the longest partnership in Hollywood history. We love to make epic films, big films, but we also believe that people can achieve the epic in normal life. Which is what they tried to achieve with their first TV series. There isn't enough time.

Thirty-something. They didn't think it would last one season. Did you ever think of having an affair? I don't have time to read the back of a cereal box. But it actually went on for four and won 13 Emmys. We were really interested in ambivalence and the ambivalence of being in a marriage, the ambivalence of being in your job, and you want to just screw around, but you have to work hard. All the contradictions of life, that upset people a lot. People often wanted to have just a very straight up and down depiction of life.

But that's not what life is. There's more to fighting than rest, sir. There's character. While making Thirty-Something, Zwick got his hands on a script about a group of black soldiers from Massachusetts during the Civil War. Glory was a sensation. I ain't fighting this war for you, sir. Battles on screen were matched by battles behind the scenes. Stand by. Quiet.

Action. With, as Zwick says, of all people, Matthew Broderick's mother, who he says fought for Zwick to enlarge the role her son was playing, that of the white leader of the African American regiment. It was an early lesson for Zwick in when to compromise and when to hold your ground. What I wonder is how you've navigated the world as a director and as a creative of when to fight for something and when to realize it's not worth it. I don't know if this is fit for CBS television, but there's a poem by E.E.

Cummings, and the last line of the poem is, There is some s*** he will not eat. But that also suggests that there's a world of s*** that he will eat. And having to make that decision is really crucial. And if you look at his films, people cry in those movies. They are affected by the movie.

They remember the movie. But in order to give a profound experience, you have to put a lot of things together. And I think that's what Ed does so brilliantly. You have to have a great story. You have to have an amazing sense of casting. Then you have to know how to deal with these very special people who are going to go out there and be the face of this movie. And I think in the book he very eloquently talks about the different ways you have to handle different people.

If this film, the one about Ed Zwick, does have a villain, it might be Harvey Weinstein, who ended up buying the Shakespeare in Love script that Zwick had so lovingly developed, then kept him from getting to the microphone on the Oscar stage. Only in Hollywood could you end up feeling bad about something you're supposed to feel really good about. But it turned out to be actually very important for me later, that it wasn't about fairness necessarily.

It was about hard work and knowing what you've done and then moving on, that you're going to get knocked down. There is a cruelty in this business that you have to accept in terms of the vagaries of what happens. And what do you do then?

Do you get up and can you keep going? Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. If you love that chicken from Popeyes, you'll also love that flounder fish sandwich and shrimp tackle box from Popeyes. Made with Alaskan flounder, the flounder fish sandwich is seasoned with Louisiana herbs and spices, dusted in a southern crispy coating and fried to a golden crisp. And as for the shrimp tackle box, you'll get eight crispy pieces of butterfly shrimp, a regular side, hot buttery biscuit and your choice of sauce. Does it make sense for a chicken place to have seafood this good?

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But only for a limited time, so sail over to your Popeyes and try the flounder fish sandwich or shrimp tackle box for just $5.99. It happened last week, the deaths of three people from very different walks of life. Designer Iris Apfel died Friday. The New York-born Apfel, who once called herself a geriatric starlet, rose to fame in the 1950s and 60s as an interior designer, including on a number of White House restoration projects, eventually working for nine presidents from Truman to Clinton. But it was in later life that her bold fashions and saucer-sized eyeglasses made Apfel a trendsetter. She even signed a modeling contract at age 97. In 2011, she told the New York Times, when you don't dress like everybody else, you don't have to think like everybody else. Iris Apfel was 102 years old.

I want to get married my last, I just broke up with an actress who, look, I'm not obviously, I don't know if you know me or not, but I'm no gift, okay? We also learned Tuesday of the death of comedian Richard Lewis. Born in Brooklyn in 1947, first in standup, then TV and film. Boy, now I'm in trouble. Lewis built a career on his dark, neurotic, self-deprecating humor, most recently playing himself opposite close friend Larry David on television's Curb Your Enthusiasm. You never call me.

You always pick the restaurant. Are we married? I don't get it. Lewis, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's last year, died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76.

If we believe in our democracy, then we believe that a time will come when... And we've had a death in our family. They care about charges of conflict of interest in the EPA in Washington. We learned this past week of the passing of long-time Sunday morning correspondent David Culhane.

There is racial tension here. Culhane joined CBS News in 1967, and after a number of assignments, in 1979, he brought his signature style to a fledgling Sunday morning program. They've been trying to make steel in Youngstown in ancient mills that haven't changed much in 50, 75 years. He'd report on all kinds of subjects from all over the world for the next 16 years. Culhane then left CBS and moved to France, where he'd report for National Public Radio. After retirement, he remained abroad for some years before returning to the United States. David is survived by his wife, Ann Kinsey Culhane, and his four children and six grandchildren.

Our David Culhane was 93 years old. He spent more time in courtrooms than perhaps any presidential candidate or former president in American history. Aaron Moriarty explains how, in some ways, it's not just Donald Trump who's on trial. It's the very nature of our nation's judicial system. On March 25th, inside room 1530 of this Manhattan courthouse, a trial unlike any other is scheduled to begin, a criminal trial of a former U.S. president, Donald J. Trump. We've never been in a situation like this where we've been faced with the prospect of holding a former leader to account. What does that mean for the balance of power? Melissa Murray teaches constitutional law at the New York University School of Law.

Andrew Weissman teaches criminal procedure there. Well, I do think that if you think about American history, there are sort of defining moments. There's the actual promulgation of the Constitution.

There's the Civil War. And I think, I mean, without the hyperbole, I do think this is a defining moment in terms of having a criminal case. To be clear, Donald Trump is no stranger to the legal system, and recent civil judgments may cost him nearly half a billion dollars. But what makes this a defining moment, say Weissman and Murray, is that he is facing 91 criminal charges in four different courtrooms. In New York, in the so-called hush money case, Trump is accused of falsifying business records. In Washington, D.C. and Georgia, for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. And in Florida, for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property. And what's at stake now for Donald Trump is not just his finances, but possibly his freedom. The fact that we have these four indictments show that there is an appetite for accountability, but is he too much for the American legal system? I think that's what we're going to find out. Because overshadowing this tangle of trials is the fact that defendant Trump is also candidate Trump.

I think the country is going to rue the day that we ever travel down this road. Robert Ray, a former federal prosecutor, successfully defended Trump when he first faced impeachment in late 2019. What federal prosecutors want is they want the public to come to accept that the defendant was afforded fairness.

I think that there's a good percentage of the country right now that doesn't believe that. And that is why Professors Weissman and Murray put together what they say is an impartial guide to the Trump indictments. There are facts that are disputed in four criminal cases, and our job is to translate that for people, hopefully, who really will understand that they need to get engaged. They begin not with the New York case, but the one they believe levels the most serious charges, United States of America versus Donald Trump, being heard in Washington, D.C. Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States. Last August, Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, charged Trump with conspiring with others to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election. The sort of gist of it is that you have a plot to disrupt the counting of the votes. Smith alleges Donald Trump knowingly made false statements about election results in states like Georgia, and according to court filings, cites as evidence Trump's own social media posts, like this one falsely accusing Democrats of stuffing ballot boxes. Smith also alleges the defendant lied to the Georgia Secretary of State to induce him to alter Georgia's vote count in that now-famous telephone call on January 2, 2021. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have. But former Trump attorney Robert Ray says a jury may hear that phone call differently.

Finding votes doesn't necessarily mean find me 11,000 fraudulent votes. And adds that Donald Trump will argue he was exercising his right to free speech. Attorney Weissman counters. I was prosecuted for many years. There's no First Amendment protection in terms of a criminal case if you were to rob a bank and say, give me all your money. That's speech.

None of that is protected. My office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. But that speedy trial that was scheduled to begin in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, ran into a roadblock earlier this year after Trump's lawyers made a claim that echoed one made by another former president 50 years ago. When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal by definition. Exactly.

Exactly. Donald Trump asserts he's protected from prosecution by presidential immunity. While that claim was initially thrown out by a federal appeals court, Trump asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. And in a win for Trump, just this past week, the justices agreed to hear arguments on the case in April. So even a case that's built for speed can be derailed by delays.

Yes. Doesn't that kind of reflect one of the limitations of the American system, these delays? Donald Trump once wrote a book called The Art of the Deal. This is the art of delay, and he's played it very well. There's no question that it is desirable politically for Donald Trump to delay these cases until after the election, for obvious reasons.

He's entitled to take that position. It's a strategy that presidential historian Douglas Brinkley says that Trump learned from controversial attorney Roy Cohn, chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and who represented the Trump Organization in the 1970s. What Trump has going for him is that he learned how to stall and defer and postpone, kick the can, but more than that, he learned never admit defeat. But as much as they have tried, Donald Trump's lawyers have not been able to delay or dismiss this case, the people of the state of New York against Donald Trump. Under New York state law, it is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime. Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged that Donald Trump had falsified records to conceal a bigger crime, election fraud. The defendant claimed that he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017.

This simply was not true. Instead, Bragg says the hush money went to pay Stephanie Clifford, an adult film star better known as Stormy Daniels, to buy her silence about an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election. While some legal observers question the strength of the case, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was convicted of similar charges in 2018 and sentenced to three years in prison. Jurors chosen for Trump's trial will likely remain anonymous and no cameras will be allowed inside the courtroom. What's more, unlike his previous civil trials, Donald Trump will be required to be in here instead of on the campaign trail. This is about defending his rights, him showing up in court and being able to mount a vigorous defense to the charges against him. That's his right as a defendant. That won't keep him from holding court outside, as he did after a recent hearing. Nobody's ever seen anything like it in this country.

It's a disgrace. Is he going to try to use this case as part of his campaign message? Of course he will. He has done that with regard to every other stage of these prosecutions. Why would the trial be any different?

Manhattan DA Bragg has already asked the judge to rein Trump in with a partial gag order. But Ray blames the prosecutors for taking the candidate to trial just months before a presidential election. Are you saying that former leaders should never, when they're running for reelection, ever be held accountable for alleged crimes? No, but I'm saying that the unusual circumstance that we find ourselves in is that we've got four pending indictments in an election cycle.

That is a result that I think most people would agree is undesirable. But Bob, he gets to bring in his evidence, he gets to cross-examine witnesses, and he could be acquitted, and that would help him in an election year. I think there are questions about whether or not Donald Trump can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia, as there are whether or not he can get a fair trial in Manhattan, given the potential juries. I watch them deliberate. They take it very seriously. But Professor Murray is confident that juries made up of American citizens are more than up to the task. I think very few jurors go into there like, I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, and I think they go in there like, I'm a juror, and I'm an American, and this is my civic duty. Here's a cool fact. A crocodile can't stick out its tongue.

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Talk to a licensed specialist to find out if it's right for you. To Steve Hartman with a story about the power of a promise. You can't hear him over the crowd, and that may be a good thing. As Auburn University coach Bruce Pearl sneers and snarls his way through yet another basketball game. You see him on the court being tough and stuff to all the players, but there's a whole totally different side of Bruce outside of basketball, which is a nice, loving, caring person. Auburn freshman Sam Cunningham's unique perspective comes from his greatest struggle. When he was 12, Sam was diagnosed with leukemia.

And not long after, someone asked Coach Pearl to record a video for him. You're going to beat this, son. Cancer, pick the wrong hombre. Pick the wrong dude to mess with, okay?

It was just real funny to me. Cancer, pick the wrong hombre. Pick the wrong dude to mess with. That quote is what I kept with me when I got in my darkest days in the hospital and stuff. Through all his complications. You're going to beat this, son. Through his relapse. Pick the wrong hombre.

Through the days that felt like they would be his last. Pick the wrong dude to mess with. Sam kept watching that video over and over. Okay? Eventually, Coach Pearl delivered the same lines in person.

Pick the wrong dude. And they became friends. And then one day, Bruce gave him another even more inspiring message.

I tell you what, you're going to get better, you're going to come to Auburn, and you're going to be my assistant. And he takes me at my word. He believed it. He did.

He is. Today, he is the team manager and so happy to be here. In fact, Sam says Coach Pearl's encouragement may have saved his life. That truly healed me.

I didn't think I would really get to this point from all the complications I had, so that was pretty amazing. I'm just a miracle to be here right now. This month, college coaches across the country will be praying for a national championship. But here at Auburn, this coach will be asking for something far more consequential.

In my prayers, it's, God, don't let this thing relapse. Take me. Let Sam live.

Basketball seasons come and go, but great coaching lasts forever. What would a Doug Heffernan bring to FedEx? Well, I'd bring myself and my lunch if I don't get Regal Park.

No, I think I'd, hey, cast away. Whoa. In his hit sitcom, King of Queens, Kevin James played an average Joe who finds the humor in everyday life, which pretty much is Kevin James' own recipe for success. Jim Axelrod has our Sunday profile. So this is where it all starts. This is it. For Kevin James, one of our most popular and successful comic actors of the last quarter century, all roads actually lead to stand-up. I see it, I see it, I see it, I see it.

It's like a verbal wood chip right here. And right here on Long Island. This was the East Side Comedy Club, first place I ever did stand-up. I think I had a couple Coors Lights. A couple?

A couple to get the courage up. And then I went in here and this was the first place, 1989, July 26th. Thirty-five years later, he has quite a lot to look back on. I love you, especially that part. Delivery man Doug Heffernan made him famous on King of Queens.

Mall cop Paul Blart made him a bankable star. You like this stage? Yeah, I've been here many, many times.

But it's still stand-up, like his new special Irregardless on Amazon Prime that makes him happy. You ever try to delete an app? You got to do that hard press on the phone, first of all?

All the apps start shaking. They're on a crazy journey, right? Yeah, it's amazing. Hopefully it still continues. Oh, they know somebody's going.

They know this. A high school football star, James went off to play college ball at Cortland State in upstate New York. When a back injury ended his athletic dreams, a public speaking course sparked some new ones when he played it for laughs. So some light bulb went on for sure that I have this capacity, I have this talent. I didn't know what it was, but I had something.

I don't know how you bottle it and make money off it, but I never went back to school. He went to work honing his style. Tell you what else annoys me the size of muffins. How big are muffins going to get before we all join hands?

Affable and observational, never dirty, and always with an eye on the future. I just want to lose enough weight so that my stomach doesn't jiggle when I brush my teeth. You don't work blue. You never have. No, because I knew it was going to prevent me from being able to get on a TV show. I want my act to be able to go and play wherever. It's like I want to build an act that people can relate to. By the mid-90s, James was big enough to bag an audition for Saturday Night Live. A chance to follow comedy legends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy. He fell flat on his face. It was the worst audition I've ever had in my entire life because it was literally me in a room, and they were filming, and it was absolutely brutal. And I just started doing my stand-up to no laughs, but I just kept going through it.

Which is where you learn all you need to know about Kevin James. Living proof that no one fails. They just stopped trying. Here's what I don't understand about that story.

99 out of 100 people would curl up in the fetal position and never move again. I just bombed a Saturday Night Live audition. Not you. It was the best thing that happened to me. Your eyes are getting weary Losing out on SNL meant he was free to audition and win the lead in a pilot called the King of Queens. He's making fun of my shorts again.

The bet Kevin James made on himself when he left college He's five. Be the bigger man. Had paid off. It's frustrating, you know?

He's so well dressed I can't come back at him with anything. Do you remember the moment of the phone call where you were thinking, my life has changed? Yeah, it's, you know, well, we got a call, you know, and it's like we're moving on to the next level.

In less than a decade, he'd gone from driving a forklift while moonlighting at Long Island comedy clubs to starring in a network sitcom. Just enjoy it. Enjoy who you are, you know what I'm saying? Too fast, perhaps, to completely trust the success. Even amidst all of this success, you were still cranking in your head, this may not last. They're going to find me out eventually. Well, that's my whole career.

I think my whole career, you know, everything. Every movie, you just go, you're going to figure. If someone literally tapped me on the shoulder, God just said, hey, we know what's going on, right? I'd go, yep.

Where do I go? It's all up. All right. It was a fun run.

Thank you. Everything hurts. Last week, I woke up, I asked my wife, I was like, hey, did I play rugby yesterday? She's like, no, you shook a can of paint for me.

And it wasn't even a big can. I'm talking the little Haagen-Dazs size. But at 58, married for 20 years, Kevin James would now have a hard time making the case that it's not going to last. Maybe the only doubters now is four kids. Do your kids think you're funny? They do at times.

Are your kids lethargic? Because I got a slug farm at my house. They have really high taste, which kind of like stung me a little bit. Like, they really did. They were like, we get it. You're falling down in the mall cop man. It's good. But we're looking for a little bit more, you know. I'm like, oh, all right. I'm going to give you my phone number in case you want to grab a drink sometime.

I don't drink, but I do ride. But for all the success he found in Hollywood, this son of Long Island will never stray too far from his roots. Stand up sitcoms, movies. I say you're only allowed to do one for the rest of your career.

What's it going to stand up? It's just me and a Mike and I get to do it. And there's no process through the studio or the network of saying, well, we're going to change it this way. We're trying to cast this way. And it's like, you know, I really do enjoy the process. And there's going to be times where this is not going to work out the way you want.

And you're not going to connect with people the way you expect. And there's other times where it's like, yeah, you can still do this. This is great. But the opportunity is there to do it. And I'm grateful for that.

I'm grateful that I'm still here. CarMax is putting peace of mind back in car shopping by putting you in the driver's seat to find a ride that's right for you. Because at CarMax, we believe you shouldn't just settle for a car. You should love your car. That's why every car we sell is CarMax certified quality so you can be sure with upfront pricing that's the same for every customer. So don't settle. Find love at first drive and start shopping now at CarMax.com.

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Gift easy with gift mode on Etsy. Our digital age has given young musicians the technology to create music previous generations couldn't have dreamed of. With Connor Knighton, we take note of Jacob Collier. When Jacob Collier headlined the Hollywood Bowl last year, he was backed up by the entire LA Philharmonic Orchestra.

It was a big jump for someone who's used to playing all of the instruments himself. On Collier's 2016 debut album, In My Room, he played every instrument, recorded every vocal track, all inside a small room in his childhood home in North London. I think if someone were to hear about a guy who made an album in his room, your first thought is going to be, well, it's stripped down.

It might just be a singer-songwriter. Yours is so not stripped down. His may be the most complicated album a single person could... Stripped up.

Stripped up, yeah. Collier's stripped up sound can be difficult to categorize. It's a multi-layered fusion of genres. I think maximalism can get bad press sometimes because people think of it as kind of being superfluous. Oh, there's just too much going on. Or there's things about this that are not necessary.

That's not the kind of maximalism that I believe in or partake in. It's kind of like how YouTube evolved. It's almost like you start with like 180p or whatever it is. And then now we've got 4K, 8K footage and stuff. You think, well, do you really need the resolution?

But if you really want to explain or describe something that's in your head and you are capable of seeing it in high resolution, I think you should describe it in high resolution. When he was just a teenager, Collier started using YouTube to share covers he'd recorded in his room with the rest of the world. Each time it happened, it felt like a rite of passage. We'd sit there and he'd say, do you think this is the time?

And I'd say, I think it's the time. Suzie Collier, Jacob's mother, is an accomplished violinist and conductor. I would go to the Royal Academy of Music and watch her do this and the music would begin. And you never get over that as a kid. That's meaningful. It's a magic trick. It's a magic trick.

And it's like her voice is being extended through her limbs. Collier learned how to play a variety of instruments. But when he learned how to use the computer audio software Logic, Here we have it. We have the Logic session of Moon River. He realized he could pull off his own type of digital magic trick.

Moon River, wider than mine. In a sense, Logic became my kind of primary instrument, you could say. The art really was less about, can I sit and play one instrument really well? It was, even if I just play one note on this little ukulele, I can still use it in my song. So my job became less an instrumentalist and more a kind of, I suppose you could say, like an orchestrator. Some of Collier's carefully orchestrated arrangements started to go viral. Isn't she lovely? I remember with Isn't She Lovely, which is what Quincy Jones initially saw, I remember saying, Jacob, I really believe that this song is going to change your life. And it's absolutely true.

It did. Quincy Jones reached out and asked if he could manage Collier. The 29-year-old has gone on to win six Grammy awards. His style has particularly resonated with other artists. Herbie Hancock compared him to Stravinsky. The UK edition of Rolling Stone described Collier as your favorite musician's favorite musician.

It's almost like you're cracking your joke in a dialect, where the people who speak the dialect laugh because they know what you didn't do, not just what you did. So Collier started asking some of those people to play along. I wanted to find a way of working with other musicians because I knew I needed to learn that. I needed to learn the art of collaboration.

I'd kind of gone as far as I could think to go by myself. Collier's latest album is the final part of a four-album cycle called Jesse, a play on his initials, J.C. Volume 4 features collaborations with everyone from Latin pop star Camillo to Brandi Carlile to audience choirs he's conducted around the world. If I put this in real scale, it would be taller than this room. Wow. When I caught up with him in the studio, Collier was putting the finishing touches on a song that contained 959 separate audio tracks. When you're doing all these layers, do you ever think about on that track 772, no one may ever notice that.

Oh, yeah. A lot of this stuff is, only I will know it's there. But I do think that even if you don't hear it and you perceive it, you feel it.

Just waiting for you to know. Collier talks a lot about eliciting a feeling, the feeling of joy or unease or surprise that can result from a specific combination of sounds. I enjoy the process of merging things together that shouldn't really ever be put together and making it work. I'm doing it because I feel an emotional chemical reaction. It's like putting two bits of wood together and making a spark and the feeling of an orchestra playing a huge chord and then like a death metal band coming and pushing it to one side is a feeling that I feel. The world's a crazy place. And actually, as an artist, if I do what I feel is my duty, which is to explain accurately how I see the world, how I experience the world, it's going to sound like a mess sometimes because the world is a mess. Thank you for listening.

Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. at wonder.com slash survey. Many put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His company was worth half a billion dollars. His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer. Scientists, doctors, renowned experts were saying genius, genius, genius.

People that knew him were convinced that he saved their life. But the brilliant doctor was hiding a secret. Do not cross this line that was being messaged to us. Do not cross this line. A secret the doctor was desperate to keep. This was a person who was willing to coldheartedly just lie to people's faces.

We're dealing with an international fugitive. From Wondery, the makers of Over My Dead Body and The Shrink Next Door comes a new season of Dr. Death, Bad Magic. You can listen to Dr. Death, Bad Magic ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Listen to The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert wherever you get your podcasts.