SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Each week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Rita Wilson had a successful career as an actor in Hollywood. But a few years ago, she got tired of being typecast in the same nurturing mom-type roles. So in her mid-50s, Wilson made the pivot to music. Her new album, "Sound Of A Woman," is out now, and she says it's about the many dimensions of being female.
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RITA WILSON: What is it like when you're younger, when you have your life ahead of you, when you're a little girl? What's it like when you get married? What's it like when you have a baby? What's it like when you find your voice or you're struggling to find your voice, and you've made compromises, and you get sort of lost along the way, and then you find yourself again?
PFEIFFER: Wilson spoke with Wild Card host Rachel Martin about her family's courage.
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RACHEL MARTIN: What's something your parents taught you to love?
WILSON: I'd say family. And that was a beautiful thing, but it was also this other interesting thing because I think they felt safer in their own familial group. My dad was born in Greece, raised in Bulgaria. He tried to escape Bulgaria so many times that he was caught and put into a labor camp. While he was in that labor camp, he was - it was a coal mine, and he was observing what the patterns were of this place. And he realized that if he worked at night, that's when the trains would come in. And they would collect the coal, and they would take it away. So he bribed one of the guards with cigarettes, and he said, I would love to work the night shift.
While he was on the night shift one night, he said to one of the guards, do you mind if I go down and get some more firewood 'cause our fire's going out? And the guard said, OK. And he said, can I take my friend - we'll call him Richard - with me because it'll make it quicker? So they said, OK. So Richard and my dad went down there. And the way the trains were set up, they blocked where the firewood was. So they were able to go down, pass in between the trains...
MARTIN: Oh, they got out (ph).
WILSON: ...And hightail it out of there, and there was a river. So it was probably around 20 minutes or so before they heard all the dogs barking and the alarms and sirens going.
MARTIN: Oh, my God.
WILSON: And they both made it to New York, jumped ship, and that's how he met my mom (ph).
MARTIN: Oh, my God, Rita.
WILSON: No, it's crazy. These stories are - these are the most courageous people on the planet (laughter).
MARTIN: I mean, when you're growing up with that kind of lore, do you just not complain about anything? You know, if you're like...
WILSON: Rachel, I'm not kidding you. I mean...
MARTIN: ...I'm having a bad day. I didn't make the cheerleading team, and your mom's like...
WILSON: That was the thing. They never talked about it. But I knew it. I knew it.
MARTIN: Yeah.
WILSON: I think about that a lot because their courage was, I mean, pretty extraordinary.
MARTIN: Yeah.
WILSON: So, you know, when it came to doing music for me, and I was like, I'm terrified. This is so scary. I was like, yeah, but...
MARTIN: Man, is it (laughter)?
WILSON: ...Is it really?
(LAUGHTER)
PFEIFFER: You can watch the full conversation with Rita Wilson on YouTube by searching for NPR Wild Card. Her new album, "Sound Of A Woman," is out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF AYANNA SONG, "GIRLFRIEND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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