'Fresh Air' Celebrates 20 Years on NPR

Courtesy WHYY

Fresh Air host Terry Gross.

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but somehow Fresh Air has just reached its 20th anniversary as a daily national show. (We were a daily local program in Philadelphia for about 12 years before that.)

To celebrate, our producers have picked memorable moments from the past 20 years that they want to play back for you. Today's show includes classic excerpts from interviews with Dexter Filkins, a reporter embedded with Marines in Iraq; actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who created the comic Kazakh Borat; undercover cop-turned-rapper Eric Davis; and "cutman" F.X. Toole, whose memories of life in the ring were the basis for the movie Million-Dollar Baby.

Also featured: actress and teacher Uta Hagen, comic actor Jon Lovitz, Buddhist teacher and Tibetan leader Tendzin Choegyal (the Dalai Lama's youngest brother), musicians Arthur Alexander and Susannah McCorkle, and more.

Plus, our producers tell you some of the stories behind the stories — how they found guests, why some interviewees are tougher to book than others, and in some cases, what happened after our interviews were broadcast.

Thanks for joining us for this special anniversary show. And don't forget to check out our '20 at 20' celebration: We've collected 20 extraordinary full-length interviews, many not previously available online, on this special anniversary page.