This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is actor and writer Amanda Pete. She first became

known for her roles in the 2000s in films like The Whole Nine Yards, Igby Goes Down,

Siriana, and the Nancy Myers film Something's Got to Give, always bringing intelligence and wit to her

performances. She also co-starred on television in shows like Studio 60 on the Sunset

Strip, the HBO series Togetherness, the recent reboot of Fatal Attraction, and now the Apple TV series,

Your Friends and Neighbors, which recently started its second season. The show is about Coop,

played by John Hamm, a hedge fund manager who was pushed out,

and now makes his money by stealing from his neighbors in a rich suburb of Manhattan.

Amanda Pete plays Mel, his ex-wife, a former therapist who's struggling with aging, the loss of

her career, and her deteriorating relationship with her teenage kids. Pete also stars in the new

film Fantasy Life, which won the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Amanda

Pete won the special jury prize for acting. She plays a formerly successful New York actress,

who starts a relationship with the 20-something former paralegal who's babysitting her children.

Amanda Pete is also a great writer. She was co-creator and showrunner of the Netflix series The Chair,

starring Sandra O. And she recently wrote an essay in The New Yorker about how she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

At the same time, both of her

parents were dying. They were divorced and living on opposite coasts under home hospice care.

Amanda Pete, welcome to fresh air. Thank you so much, Terry. It's an honor to talk to you.

It's an honor to talk to you. And I'm glad to hear that you're doing okay.

Just so listeners aren't like in suspense.

Even though you had a second lump that was found, that was benign.

And your diagnosis turned out to be, was like stage zero?

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