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Terry Gross gets fresh – Metro US

Terry Gross gets fresh

After more than 30 years talking to other people about their lives, famed NPR “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross will talk about herself for a change tomorrow. At “All I Did Was Ask: Terry Gross on Life Behind the Mic,” Gross will talk about her many interviews — the good, the bad, and the Gene Simmons — as well as participate in a Q&A session that turns the tables on the legendary interviewer. But before the audience’s shot, we got to her first.

How is the Town Hall event set up?

It’s me playing clips, usually of interviews that have gone terribly wrong. And the people I’m interviewing are usually walking out, arguing with me. Each of those clips has a larger story to tell about the process of interviewing and my approach to interviewing. I’m willing to put myself in an uncomfortable position with these clips onstage.

Don’t your guests know what they’re getting into when they go on “Fresh Air”?

Some people who come on the show don’t know the show, and I’m different with different people. If the interview is political, the questions are likely to be tougher because people who have power have to answer. Usually if I’m interviewing somebody about their art or their life, my questions will be different. But even then people sometimes get very prickly.

Is there an interview you would love to do that you haven’t gotten to yet?

I would get Jon Stewart back on the show. When I interviewed him in 2000, I don’t think the show was nearly as developed. I value so much seeing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert before I go to sleep every night because I go to sleep thinking there’s sanity in the world. And they’re just so funny, so you can kind of end the day on a hopeful note.

‘All I Did Was Ask:

Terry Gross on Life

Behind the Mic’

Tomorrow, 7 p.m.

Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St. $40-$50, 212-840-2824

www.the-townhall-nyc.org