(Recorded September 2021) British documentarian Lucy Walker is asking big questions with her latest film, Bring Your Own Brigade . Specifically, why are there more catastrophic wildfires worldwide, and what could mitigate the destruction? Her gripping film focuses on real people impacted by two 2018 California wildfires, “The Camp Fire,” which killed 85 and nearly destroyed the town of Paradise, and “The Woolsey Fire,” which devastated parts of Malibu. Lucy’s camera takes you from the horror of ...
Nov 23, 2021•46 min
(Recorded July 2021) Glenn Shepard, Ph.D., is an ethnobotanist and medical anthropologist who’s worked with indigenous people in the Amazon for decades. Filipe DeAndrade is the host of Nat Geo Wild’s Untamed . These remarkable storytellers have a way of making you care about people, places, and animals that are often overlooked and misunderstood. The Brazilan-born, Cleveland-raised DeAndrade is a rising star in the world of wildlife filmmaking, and he has a contagious enthusiasm for wild animals...
Nov 16, 2021•58 min
(Recorded July 2021) Marla Frazee’s an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator. She also the genius behind Boss Baby, the business-suit-wearing, hard-charging infant who changed Alec’s life. Marla Frazee says she tackles serious topics such as babies, birthday cake, boxer shorts, boys, and roller coasters. She’s been honored twice with the prestigious Caldecott medal. She’s written and illustrated A Couple Of Boys Have The Best Week Ever ; Walk On! ; and Santa Claus, The World’s Num...
Nov 09, 2021•41 min
Alec talks with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden. He talks to Alec about the latest in the pandemic and his long career. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Oct 12, 2021•47 min
Tom Jones’ booming baritone has led him to sell over 100 million records in his nearly six-decade career. He had a string of hits in the mid-1960s including “It’s Not Unusual,” “What’s New Pussycat?” “She’s A Lady,” “Green, Green Grass Of Home,” “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again,” and “Delilah.” Now in his early 80s, Tom Jones is still going strong with a new album out and an upcoming tour. Tom Jones talks with Alec about growing up in a small town in Wales, how contracting tuberculosis changed his...
Sep 28, 2021•48 min
It’s Alec’s turn to feature two of his favorite episodes in the summer archives series. He interviewed Daryl Hall in December 2019 on his home turf: Daryl's House, Hall’s restaurant, and live music venue located about 90 minutes north of New York City. Hall & Oates is the biggest-selling vocal duo in history, with hits like "Maneater," "Rich Girl," "You Make My Dreams Come True," and countless others. Hall talks about his teen years in suburban Pennsylvania singing doo-wop on the streets wit...
Sep 14, 2021•1 hr 2 min
It’s great to interview childhood heroes, and Roger Staubach a.k.a “Captain America,” was a big one for a young Alec Baldwin. Stuabach was a Dallas Cowboy quarterback for eleven seasons, 1969 and 1980, and he led the team to the Super Bowl wins in 1972 and 1978. Staubach earned Super Bowl MVP in 1972. Growing up an only child in Cincinnati, Roger Staubach loved sports but didn’t start playing quarterback until high school. He went on to the Naval Academy, where he received the Heisman Trophy. He...
Sep 07, 2021•41 min
Good Risings is a collection of mini-shows served up in less than 5 minutes, providing the perfect daily practice for anyone looking to lead a more intentional, mindful, and inspired life. Listen to one, two, or all the mini-shows on the Good Risings menu to perfectly curate your morning routine. Follow Good Risings On Social: IG/FB/TW/TT: @goodrisings ✨ THE RISING SIGN with @queercosmos 🔥 LEVEL-UP LATTE with @nichelle 🌈 GRATEFUL GRAINS with @jacquelinemwood_1 & @bmcmuffin ☮️ SPOONFUL OF S...
Sep 02, 2021•2 min
Two of the most popular shows from the Here’s The Thing archives are Alec’s conversations with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. These are fascinating, ground-breaking artists who influenced each other. Thom Yorke started Radiohead in 1985 when he was just a teenager. With each of the group’s nine studio albums, Radiohead evolved its sound and, at times, pushed the music industry. In this 2013 interview, Thom Yorke talks with Alec about working with longtime collaborators, fath...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat, represents the 80th Assembly District in her hometown of San Diego. Raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse, Lorena learned the value of service early. She went to Stanford, Georgetown, and UCLA Law and dedicated her career to labor organizing before taking office in 2013. Her impressive list of wins includes: paid sick leave, overtime for farmworkers, protecting janitorial workers against sexual assault, automatic voter registration at the DMV, diaper tax re...
Aug 24, 2021•38 min
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
