Terry Gross: Opening Up

That weekend Gross had plans to see a four-and-a-half-hour opera, Rossini’s ‘‘William Tell.’’ She discovered opera only recently, and wishes she had found it when she was still taking singing lessons with an instructor, who died a few years ago. From him she learned about head tones and chest tones and how, when you’re singing, your voice ‘‘should resonate in the bones of your face.’’ She added: ‘‘When I was taking singing lessons, I felt like, No one’s having more pleasure in singing than I am. I sound horrible, but that doesn’t matter. I’m enjoying it.’’

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Gross’s interviews have often been compared to therapy. That’s in part because of her seemingly neutral stance, but also because of the feeling of safety she gives her interviewees. Once in a while, a guest confesses to Gross that he’s confiding something for the very first time. ‘‘I don’t know that I’ve said that to anyone,’’ the ‘‘Project Runway’’ host Tim Gunn told Gross in 2014, of spending time in a psychiatric hospital as an adolescent. Gross’s response was as affecting as Gunn’s story. She handles confessions quietly, acknowledging the weight of what’s been said without drawing undue attention to it.

Gross herself started seeing a therapist several years ago. ‘‘When she asks me a question that gets exactly to the heart of what I’m trying to say, but maybe haven’t articulated clearly, it just feels so good,’’ Gross told me. ‘‘My ideal as an interviewer is to be the person who gets it. Like somebody can tell you something really personal,’’ she continued, and ‘‘you can ask them something that can help them comfortably move to the next place and go deeper.’’ She went on: ‘‘Hearing someone speak really personally, and having that affirm your experience as a sexual person, or as a sick person, or just as a person trying to get through daily life, is really valuable. And I think that’s why we turn to literature, I think that’s why we turn to film, beyond the entertainment it gives us.’’
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