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It's Been a Minute

Interview: Jonathan Van Ness on Quarantine Life and His New Children's Book

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News, Society & Culture, News Commentary, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.79.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jonathan Van Ness wears many hats: He's one of the Fab Five on the popular Netflix show Queer Eye, a podcast host, an aspiring figure skater and gymnast, a grooming and self-care expert, a comedian, and author of a best-selling memoir. And now... a children's book author.

Sam talks to Van Ness about why he decided to write Peanut Goes for the Gold, about a gender nonbinary guinea pig who has their own way of doing things, and how he's been dealing with social distancing during self-quarantine.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

We're going live in three, two, one, C-A-D-D-M-U.

0:06.0

Well hello, this is Matilda with a bit of international news.

0:11.0

Like the rest of us, my guest today has been finding new ways to pass the time in quarantine.

0:17.0

I'm going to do some good stuff. I'm going to mine the weatherman just falling into my short.

0:21.0

Well hello, this is Harry Larry.

0:26.0

Well hi, this is Harry Larry from Larry's Weather Corner.

0:30.0

I sure hope.

0:31.0

Harry Larry is a long-running head meteorologist.

0:36.0

Oh, actually no, he's a weatherman because in his a little resentful around that,

0:41.0

he always wanted to go to like a good four-year school and become a meteorologist.

0:46.0

But just never found the time and he was already like a one-year-old.

0:50.0

My guest, of course, is the one and only Jonathan of Venice.

0:53.0

He's like a full-meat meteorologist, but he doesn't want that to come through on camera.

0:57.0

So he always wants to be welcoming and really sweet, but he does have some resentment about that.

1:03.0

Matilda is from Adelaide, Australia, which is the most important.

1:07.0

If you follow JVN on Instagram, you probably already know that he has four cats.

1:12.0

But if you haven't checked his feet lately, you may not have known that he's cast them in something he calls cat TV.

1:18.0

So besides International Reporter Matilda and Weatherman Harry Larry, there's also Lady G.

1:24.0

She has a more nuanced story.

1:27.0

She is from East London, she's British, she came to the United States to get sober and Liza.

1:33.0

She likes to report on... she likes to report on...

1:38.0

You really a lot of food. She's really into food.

...

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