As part of our summer archives series, we revisit Alec’s interview with two rock legends, Patti Smith and Peter Frampton. Alec’s conversation with Patti Smith took place before a live audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey, in December 2016. She tells Alec she was never looking for fame. Her love of poetry, art, and a desire to “do something great” motivated her to move to New York when she was 20. She chronicled her formative friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe in...
Aug 17, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Alex Gibney is one of the most respected and prolific documentary filmmakers in history. His stories feature strong characters and a propulsive narrative that often exposes malfeasance or incompetency, and the victim is often the little guy or our highest ideals, like democracy. Gibney has made over 30 has made in the last two decades, including Taxi to the Dark Side , his 2008 film about the CIA’s use of torture for which he won an Oscar. Alex Gibney talks to Alec about his latest film, The Cri...
Aug 10, 2021•43 min
As part of our every-other-week summer archives series, we revisit two interviews from 2015 with masters of misdirection, Penn Jillette and David Blaine. Penn Jillette is half of the world-famous act Penn & Teller, and they star in one of the longest-running shows in Las Vegas history. In addition to juggling and card tricks, Penn Jillette plays upright bass and is the author of eight books, including his New York Times bestseller, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magi...
Aug 03, 2021•59 min
When he was just out of high school, Jackson Browne moved to NYC and wrote songs for some of the biggest names of the 1960’s folk scene. Then, when he returned home to Los Angeles two years later, he began singing his own material and set his course to become one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation. Today, Jackson Browne’s voice is still strong and political. He talks with Alec about his new album, Downhill From Everywhere, reflections on a life of activism, and the artists he’d...
Jul 27, 2021•44 min
It’s summer, and every other week, members of the Here’s The Thing staff are selecting favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec’s interviews with two award-winning, dynamic actresses who happen to have a lot in common, Julianne Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Alec and Julianne Moore worked together on Still Alice (Julianne won an Academy Award for Best Actress) and 30 Rock. She spoke with Alec in 2014 about the chops she developed doing soap operas early on, her work on a s...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr
Musical theater legends Ken Page and Betty Buckley have a lot in common. Both grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway: Ken in St. Louis; Betty in Fort Worth. Both were in the original Broadway production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty as Grizabella, for which she won a Tony. And both were pioneers in transforming musical theater over the past several decades. One of Ken Page’s most recognizable roles was as Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas, and, on Broadway, he starre...
Jul 13, 2021•59 min
When Kurt Andersen started working on his new podcast, Nixon at War, he thought he knew a lot about Richard Nixon’s presidency, especially the bookend events of his 1968 campaign and his 1973 resignation. Devastating events with far-reaching consequences but unrelated - or so he thought. The surprising connections between the two are at the heart of Nixon at War. Kurt Andersen is a prize-winning novelist, historian, and public radio host ( Studio 360 ). His most recent books -- Evil Geniuses , F...
Jul 06, 2021•43 min
Alec talks with two very different actors. Eddie Marsan grew up in working-class London and left school at 15 to become a printer. He was discovered on a dance floor, and a patron helped him afford drama school. Marsan’s worked with the likes of Martin Scorcese, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Mike Leigh, and he often gets cast as the tough guy. It’s an image he’s ready to shed. One of his most recent roles was in the Showtime series Ray Donovan as Terry Donovan, Ray’s brother with Parkinson’s ...
Jun 29, 2021•55 min
Alec’s guest Mark Harris has written a compelling new biography about one of the most celebrated directors of all time, Mike Nichols. Drawn from more than 250 interviews, Mike Nichols: A Life tracks Nichol’s difficult childhood as a German Jewish immigrant growing up in New York City to his college years at the University of Chicago where Nichols found a community of performers, including his life-long collaborator Elaine May. In 1963, Mike Nichols and Elaine May performed more than 300 sold-out...
Jun 22, 2021•42 min
Andra Day tells Alec that she almost turned down the opportunity to play Billie Holiday in Lee Daniel’s The United States Vs. Billie Holiday . Day considered herself a singer, not an actress. She went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress for the part and brought her incredible voice to all the Billie Holiday’s songs in the movie. The iconic song Strange Fruit is at the heart of the film’s conflict between the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the jazz singer, and Andra Day is no stranger to a...
Jun 15, 2021•41 min
On Friday, April 30, 2021, the Indian Point nuclear power plant permanently closed. Located less than 40 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, Alec and others worked for decades to shut Indian Point down. In this episode, Alec reminisces with key leaders in the fight: Paul Gallay, Richard Webster, and Joseph Mangano. Paul Gallay is the president of Riverkeeper, an organization dedicated to the health of New York Waterways. Richard Webster is an environmental lawyer at Riverkeeper and...
Jun 08, 2021•44 min
Ali Wentworth is a fearlessly funny actor and comedian as well as a New York Times best-selling author of three books, Ali in Wonderland, Happily Ali After, and Go Ask Ali . She played Jerry’s girlfriend Schmoopie in Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” episode, and she’s had roles in a wide range of TV and film projects including Jerry Maguire, Office Space, and It's Complicated. She’s married to George Stephanopoulos and the proud mother of two teenage daughters, Elliot and Harper. She started a podcast in ...
Jun 01, 2021•35 min
As the United States begins to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, Alec looks back with three guests on the ways their work lives changed. As the Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. Odette Hall’s work is always about the logistics of death. In the early days of the pandemic, that meant figuring out makeshift morgues and processes to deal with an unknown threat. Additionally, as the first Black woman in her public-facing role, Dr. Hall’s openness, humor, and compassion made her a trusted sour...
May 25, 2021•40 min
Screenwriter David Koepp and film editor Walter Murch have both carved out legendary careers in film. David Koepp has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including many Hollywood blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, Panic Room, Carlito’s Way, and Mission Impossible. He’s directed six films and released one novel. Walter Murch was part of American Zoetrope, the groundbreaking film production company founded in the late 1960s by Francis Ford Cop...
May 18, 2021•1 hr
Alec talks with Michael Sisitzky from the New York Civil Liberties Union’s police transparency and accountability campaign as many cities around the country are considering police reform. The NYCLU is requesting police discipline records from around the state after the repeal of New York Civil Rights Law Section 50-a. The law previously shielded police personnel records. Then, Alec checks in with Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for New York City, about NYC’s pos...
May 11, 2021•53 min
Hans Zimmer is one of the most celebrated and successful film composers of all time. He has scored more than 150 movies including Gladiator, Hannibal, Sherlock Holmes, The Last Samurai, the Thin Red Line, and many more. He won an Academy Award for Lion King and has earned 10 other nominations. His long-time collaboration with director Christopher Nolan on The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Inception has become one of the most celebrated partnerships in movie history. Hans tells ...
May 04, 2021•51 min
Marlo Thomas has been breaking barriers for women for more than five decades as an actress and activist. As an award-winning actress, Marlo became a household name as Ann-Marie, the lead in the television show That Girl , a woman who, in the late 60s, wanted a career more than a family. An outspoken feminist, Marlo then launched Free to Be...You and Me , which was first an album, then a book, and eventually, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning TV show for children that challenged gender norms and ...
Apr 27, 2021•39 min
Broadway and movies have both been deeply impacted during the pandemic. To get a sense of what lies ahead, Alec checks in with Robert Wankel, chairman and CEO of the Schubert Organization, and Pamela McClintock, senior film writer for the Hollywood Reporter. Broadway shuttered completely on March 12, 2020, and reopening remains a challenge due to safety issues for performers and audiences as well as capacity requirements that mean ticket sales won’t cover the show’s costs. Movie theaters face fe...
Apr 20, 2021•47 min
Felix Cavaliere started The Rascals in 1965. Felix began playing piano at age six and listened exclusively to classical music until junior high when he first heard Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. Rock and roll changed his life. In The Rascals, Felix sang and played organ on some of the group’s biggest hits, including It’s a Beautiful Morning , Groovin’ , Good Lovin’, and P eople Got to Be Free . The band signed with Atlantic and, with the legendary producer Arif Mardin, The Rascal...
Apr 13, 2021•45 min
Anthony Pellicano has dirt on some of Hollywood’s biggest names, and even after spending 17 years in prison, he’s still not talking. For decades, he was one of Tinseltown's most sought-after private investigators. His clients ranged from Tom Cruise to Michael Jackson, from Elizabeth Taylor to Courtney Love. But a raid of his Sunset Boulevard office in 2002 turned up explosives and eventually more than 150,000 illegal wiretaps. He walked out of prison on his 75th birthday, March 22, 2019. If he’d...
Apr 06, 2021•44 min
William Kristol is one of the nation’s leading conservative voices. And, since 2016, he’s been at war with conservative elites and Trump loyalists. Kristol tells Alec he didn’t just vote for Joe Biden, he is actively rooting for his success. There is just too much at stake otherwise, particularly when so many members of the GOP keep parroting Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Kristol was the founder and editor of The Weekly Standard for more than two decades. When it closed in 2018, Kristol ...
Mar 30, 2021•39 min
British Actor Malcolm McDowell trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While he’s had many notable stage roles, audiences likely know him best for a single, iconic character, Alex DeLarge, the anti-heroic criminal turned victim in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971, A Clockwork Orange . McDowell tells Alec how he developed Alex DeLarge’s signature look with the cricket codpiece, bowler hat, and single disorienting lower eyelash. McDowell also talks about his life-long friendship with mentor...
Mar 23, 2021•50 min
Amanda knows about living inside other people’s preconceptions. When she was 22 years old, she was sentenced to 26 years in prison for a murder she didn’t commit. In 2007, on a study-abroad program in Perugia, Italy, Amanda’s roommate Meredith Kurcher was raped and murdered. The police and the tabloids pinned it on “Foxy Knoxy,” calling Amanda a sex-crazed murderer. After spending almost a decade in the labyrinth of the Italian criminal justice system, Amanda was fu...
Mar 16, 2021•43 min
From Blake Edwards and Paul Mazursky, to Audrey Hepburn and the history of Improv, Sam Wasson tackles distinctive creators and seminal moments in Hollywood history. Alec loved Sam Wasson’s latest, T he Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood . In this fascinating conversation, Wasson tells the story of the four men behind the 1974 film, producer Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Towne, director Roman Polanski, and the star Jack Nicholson. Chinatown marked the end of an era for Hol...
Mar 09, 2021•35 min
The Bee Gees were Barry Gibb and his younger twin brothers, Robin and Maurice. From the time they started playing together as children, they dreamed of stardom, and they certainly succeeded. The Bee Gees became among the top-selling music groups of all time. The distinctive “blood harmony” of the brothers' voices set the dance floor on fire and their prodigious talent as songwriters extended their career long past disco’s days. Now in his mid-70s, Barry is the sole survivor of the group. Barry t...
Mar 02, 2021•45 min
In this episode, recorded several months into the pandemic, NYC-based psychiatrist Julie Holland assures Alec it’s not just him, we’re all having a hard-time. Dr. Holland says our brains are wired for connection and isolation is causing many of us to go into “fight or flight” mode where it’s harder to feel safe and loved. But there’s hope. Put down the phone, go outside, call a friend. Connect. And, for some, drugs might help, too. Holland has been deeply curious about the brain since high schoo...
Feb 23, 2021•42 min
In the glut of comedy that exists today - with hundreds of comedy clubs, sit-coms, late-night talk shows, and podcasts - Patton Oswalt has distinguished himself over his three-decade career by being a talented actor who also happens to be very funny. Patton talks to Alec about the sudden death in 2016 of his first wife, author Michelle McNamara, how it changed his relationship with their daughter. Patton says the strength of his first marriage allowed him to “run at love” when it came a second t...
Feb 16, 2021•42 min
In 2018, U.S. Representative Katie Porter (CA-45) was the first Democrat ever to be elected in her traditionally conservative Orange County district. Prompted to run by Trump’s 2016 win, Porter quickly made a name for herself with her tough questioning of CEOs and administration officials, often using a whiteboard to lay out the facts. Katie Porter’s no-nonsense approach comes in part from her upbringing in Iowa. During the farm crisis of the 1980s, she saw first-hand how her father, a third gen...
Feb 09, 2021•38 min
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson talks to Alec about her best-selling book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents . Wilkerson says America’s caste system began in 1619, when enslaved people first arrived in the Jamestown colony. Drawing comparisons between India’s millennia-long caste system and the Nazis’ subjugation of Jews in WWII, Wilkerson says white Americans developed a caste system to justify centuries of violence and discrimination against African-Americans. Wilkerson ...
Feb 02, 2021•46 min
Mick Fleetwood is the drummer and a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful rock bands of all time. Fleetwood talks to Alec about how dyslexia led him to the drumming, how supportive parents encouraged his talent and his move to London as a teenager, how his friendship with the band’s founder, guitarist Peter Green, evolved to a life-long friendship, and how Fleetwood Mac balanced the weight of their interpersonal dynamics and the band’s wild, over-the-top success. The band’...
Jan 26, 2021•42 min
