SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
LeVar Burton knows he will be remembered for three specific roles - playing Kunta Kinte on the TV series "Roots," donning a futuristic visor to become Geordi La LaForge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and perhaps most importantly for millennials and Gen Xers, hosting "Reading Rainbow." Burton has embraced the fact that so many people strongly associate him with those roles, as he told NPR's Rachel Martin. Burton appeared on NPR's Wild Card, the show where guests answer questions at random from a deck of cards - questions about the memories, insights and beliefs that shaped their life. Here's Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Round 1, memories. Ready?
LEVAR BURTON: Ready.
MARTIN: OK. Let's go. So three cards.
BURTON: Yeah.
MARTIN: And you pick one, two or three.
BURTON: Three.
MARTIN: Three. Oh. What do you admire about your teenage self?
BURTON: My teenage self had this unshakeable belief that everything was going to work out OK. Everything was just going to be fine, you know, that I was going to, you know, move to Los Angeles, study theater, graduate with a degree, move to New York, hustle my way onto the Broadway stage and, you know, and have a have a career inspired by Ben Vereen. Right?
MARTIN: I mean, you sort of did that.
BURTON: Well (laughter).
MARTIN: So it wasn't like false confidence.
BURTON: No, but that's what I admire about that kid. That's what I admire about him. You know, the odds were so stacked against him. And had he really understood what he - what his expectations were, I mean, really understood them in terms of the real world and how things generally work out, you know what I mean?
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURTON: But he was focused. And he trusted. And, boy, did he manifest.
MARTIN: We are on to Round 2. In this round, we're focused on insights, stuff you're working through right now. Three new cards. Pick a card. One, two, three.
BURTON: I want to go one.
MARTIN: You're feeling one?
BURTON: I am.
MARTIN: Has your idea of success changed over time?
BURTON: Yes. I used to embody success unconsciously by how busy I felt and how busy I was. Now I feel that success is spending my time well, which - and what that means to me, what that looks like is a balance of work and leisure, work and rest. Because I recognize that this stage in my life, that although I have a lot of energy, there's a limit to it. And the older I get, the more important it is for me to create that balance of activity and recuperation.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURTON: My job, I've come to the conclusion that my job is to be LeVar Burton. And I love my job. And as it happens, my job requires a lot of energy going out, right? It's energy output. And unless I recharge this battery, it's not good.
MARTIN: It's interesting, though. You got so high so fast, right? Like, after "Roots," you were up here.
BURTON: I was 19.
MARTIN: Yeah. You were 19. You were still, like, a kid. And so I wonder if your definition of success, that epiphany of realizing you need balance, you got to conserve, you can't just soar or you'll burn out, I wonder if that had to evolve.
BURTON: That was experiential.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURTON: I had to learn that.
MARTIN: Because it's a long life, God willing.
BURTON: Exactly. And I think one of the gifts of "Roots" was that I had to come to terms with, you know what? I may never do anything as big or as important or as impactful as this, OK? And I'm 19. You just need to manage your expectations - no, seriously - about what's going to happen next. Because clearly, A, you don't know, and B, chances are this may be the pinnacle. It just - it may be. So yeah.
MARTIN: It wasn't.
BURTON: No, it turned out not to be, right? And that's the miracle of my life. that it wasn't the only leg on my stool. I have these three jewels I call them in my career crown in "Roots" and "Reading Rainbow" and "Star Trek." And I think the - part of the beauty of that journey for me is seeing that - as a storyteller, I've been able to portray the Black experience in America from our enslavement to the stars. And LeVar the "Reading Rainbow" guy is absolutely in the middle of that continuum. And so to really plot the trajectory of Black people through time and space in this roughly 20th, 21st century time frame.
MARTIN: Wow. That's very profound.
BURTON: Yeah.
MARTIN: What a gift.
BURTON: Yeah, what a gift. What a gift. Who gets to do that? I do.
MARTIN: OK. We are on Round 3. This is the final round. And for this one, we're getting into the big stuff, the really big stuff. Three new cards. One, two, three.
BURTON: One.
MARTIN: One. Have your feelings about God or a divine power changed over time?
BURTON: They have. I was raised a Catholic. And so I was raised with the idea of God as vehicle for punishment, right? And that has definitely changed over time. I'm much more in the camp of we are a part of God. God is a part of us, right? We are spiritual beings looking for an experience of God. We are actually God beings having human experience. And that just makes sense to me that we are a part of the all there is. This is - this cosmos is about mystery and infinity. And those concepts are as vast as God is. And I guess, for me, it makes more sense. It's comforting to me to feel like we are - that I am a part of that, not apart from, not separated from, but...
MARTIN: And the ambiguity is OK. It is not unsettling to you.
BURTON: Yeah, not at all. Not at all. Faith is about reconciling the ambiguity.
MARTIN: Yeah. I guess you sort of have had to made peace with maybe.
BURTON: Yeah, you do. You do.
MARTIN: That's the whole rub. Yeah.
BURTON: It is. It is. Belief in the absence of proof is what? Faith.
MARTIN: So we should just point out for those who don't know, this was going to be your thing. I mean, you were going to go into the priesthood.
BURTON: Yeah. I studied for four years. Yeah.
MARTIN: Did you - and it was that punitive God, that, at that time, you didn't have this bigger definition?
BURTON: No, I did not. No. It was pretty - my concept of God was formed by the Catechism of Catholicism and those precepts. And then as my world expanded and as my thirst for a deeper understanding of the world expanded, so did my idea of God expand.
DETROW: That was LeVar Burton speaking to Wild Card host Rachel Martin. You can listen to more of that conversation by following the Wild Card podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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