Actress Gaby Hoffmann grew up in New York in the 1980s, in the famed Chelsea Hotel, among misfits and creatives. In the new Netflix series Eric (out May 30) she plays the mother of a young child who goes missing, also in 1980s New York. The show stars Benedict Cumberbatch among others, and explores what happens when adults, and city institutions, fail children. She joins Lilah to talk about similarities between this series and her own childhood and how good acting can help “invite people deeper ...
May 27, 2024•25 min
Billie Eilish’s new album Hit Me Hard and Soft has been hailed by critics as her best album yet. She describes it as an “album-ass album”, meant to be listened to in its entirety, but it’s also provocative: it takes on fame and body-shaming ("People say I look happy just because I got skinny") and women she wants to please (“I could eat that girl for lunch, she dances on my tongue”). So what do we think? Lilah is joined by two experts, the FT’s music writer Arwa Haider and US media business corr...
May 24, 2024•24 min
After more than 25 years reviewing art, the Financial Times’ US art critic Ariella Budick is full of sage advice on how to approach museums and exhibitions, and how to discover our personal taste. Her biggest tip is that art is a form of communication, “a cry in the wilderness”, and “you’re just listening”. So don’t run to the wall label and forget to look at the work. Approach the art first, then see if it sparks you to learn more. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @ lilah...
May 20, 2024•20 min
This week, we're talking about 'La chimera', directed by Alice Rohrwacher and starring Josh O'Connor and Isabella Rossellini. The film follows a band of graverobbers on a quest for Etruscan treasures. But there's also a darker, more melancholy plot that makes you question what’s real and what’s symbolism. The FT's global head of audio Cheryl Brumley and audience engagement journalist Marianna Giusti join guest host Katya Kumkova to hash out what it all means. ------- We love hearing from you. Li...
May 17, 2024•21 min
Introducing Power for Sale, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. In Untold: Power for Sale, host Valentina Pop and a team of FT correspondents from all over Europe investigate what happened in the Qatargate scandal, where EU lawmakers were accused of accepting payments from Qatar to whitewash its image. Subscribe and listen on: Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 15, 2024•2 min
The Sympathizer , directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Robert Downey Jr and Sandra Oh, is one of the top-watched show on HBO right now. But before it was a television series, it was a novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Both the book and the series tell the story of the Captain, a communist mole in South Vietnam who comes to the US as a refugee as the Vietnam war is ending. On today’s episode, Lilah talks to Viet about the themes of The Sympathizer , and what it was like to help reimagine his book fo...
May 13, 2024•24 min
In a new season of Tech Tonic, longtime FT China reporter Jame Kynge travels around the world to see how China is pushing towards tech supremacy. Will China be able to get an edge in crucial technological areas? What does China’s attempt to leapfrog the west look like on the ground? A 6-part series looking at China’s tech industry. Presented by James Kynge. Edwin Lane is the senior producer. The producer is Josh Gabert-Doyon. Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner a...
May 11, 2024•1 min
One of the hallmarks of humanity is our ability to pass down cultural information and knowledge over thousands of years. Philosopher and author Martin Puchner says the lifeblood of culture lies in how we take pieces of information and combine them into new ideas and ways of inhabiting the world. Martin talks with Lilah about how that culture is formed, and how he sees the emergence of generative AI as a new tool for remixing cultural ideas from human history. This conversation was recorded in fr...
May 10, 2024•22 min
Chef Fadi Kattan does something that usually isn’t done in the West Bank of Palestine: he cooks seasonal, locally sourced dishes for a dining experience meant to rival the world’s best restaurants. Born and raised steps from the Church of the Nativity, Fadi has also been documenting the recipes he grew up with. His new cookbook is called Bethlehem: a Celebration of Palestinian Food , and in today’s episode he tells Lilah why talking about food and culture is especially important in a time of war...
May 06, 2024•24 min
Is the buzzy new film Challengers about tennis, sex or just hitting middle age? This week, Lilah invites the FT’s resident film buff and our US sports expert to talk through it. The film stars Zendaya, is directed by Luca Guadagnino, and features a love triangle, a low-level tennis tournament and three sweaty bodies. Our guests today are the FT’s deputy arts editor Raphael Abraham and US sports business correspondent Sara Germano. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @ lilahra...
May 03, 2024•24 min
The FT’s US media correspondent Anna Nicolaou keeps hearing this lament from music executives: that Olivia Rodrigo could be the last pop superstar. They worry that no one has broken through with such ferocity since. On today’s show, Anna tells us what they mean, what the trends reflect, and whether she believes the prediction. Plus, Anna and Lilah reflect on why Rodrigo has gotten so big, and the gap she’s filling in our culture. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap ...
Apr 30, 2024•17 min
This week, we’re discussing Taylor Swift’s new album 'The Tortured Poets Department', which is already the most-streamed debut in Spotify history. Lilah is joined by music critic Ludovic Hunter-Tilney and life-long Swiftie Taylor Nicole Rogers to discuss their picks for best and worst songs, whether Swift’s personal life gets in the way of the music, and where she’ll go next. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @ lifeandartpod . You can em...
Apr 26, 2024•23 min
Spring is upon us, which means a bounty of fresh, green seasonal vegetables, from asparagus to artichokes to ramps. To help inspire us to make our own spring feasts, Lilah invites Ayesha Nurdjaja into the studio. Ayesha is the executive chef and partner at Shuka and Shukette, two beloved New York restaurants. Shukette has been called “a Middle Eastern party”, both for its open kitchen and bountiful meals, and for its energy. Visitors are encouraged to mix and match kebabs, breads, herb-covered f...
Apr 23, 2024•19 min
This week, we talk about the new film ‘Civil War’, directed by Alex Garland, which depicts a future US that’s divided and decimated. It stars Kirsten Dunst as a veteran photojournalist, who is on a road trip with a ragtag group of colleagues. They’re driving through the war-torn north-east to reach the White House before it is stormed by rebel forces. The film has been highly praised as well as highly criticised. What is it trying to say about the state of America? Is it a war film, a political ...
Apr 19, 2024•22 min
Welcome to the final episode in our special four-part series on design. Brands are everywhere and sometimes feel so omnipresent that it’s hard to know what counts as one. So we’ve invited designer, educator and Design Matters podcast host Debbie Millman to help us make sense of brands. At its core, Debbie says, branding is the process of manufacturing meaning to come up with a shared symbol. And it’s something we’ve been doing for thousands of years. Today, Debbie and Lilah discuss the history o...
Apr 17, 2024•16 min
The FT’s foreign editor Alec Russell has been reporting on crises around the world for more than 30 years. He was in Romania during the fall of the Ceaușescu regime, in South Africa for the fall of apartheid, and in 1994 he reported on the genocide in Rwanda. So when we recently felt ourselves losing hope at the news from Gaza and Ukraine, we decided to ask him: is this an especially tough time in history, or does it just feel that way? And what has he learned from being present for so much of h...
Apr 15, 2024•23 min
For the third episode in our design series, we’re talking fashion design through the lens of the 2006 classic The Devil Wears Prada . The film is having a moment on the internet. We’re here to revisit it with fresh eyes, and with two experts in fashion: Jo Ellison, the editor of our luxury magazine HTSI, and Rob Armstrong, our men’s style columnist (OK, he’s also our US financial columnist). The film stars Meryl Streep as a powerful magazine editor based on Anna Wintour, and Anne Hathaway as a y...
Apr 12, 2024•25 min
Designer Jonathan Adler is known for a style that is classic but eccentric. Think gold chairs shaped like hands, vases shaped like heads, and beautiful cookie jars labelled ”quaaludes”. He got his start as a potter, but he now designs everything from furniture to dinnerware to custom upholstery, which are sold by hundreds of retailers around the world. In the second instalment of our design series, Jonathan talks to Lilah about how he developed his style and how we can develop ours. And his bigg...
Apr 10, 2024•21 min
What do you get when you mix female bodybuilding, guns, and a twisted romance? You get Love Lies Bleeding , the latest film from director and co-writer Rose Glass. When she first emailed Kristen Stewart about appearing as its lead, Rose says she described the film as a “crime, romance, thriller, dark comedy, farce, surreal thing”. She talks with Lilah about how she developed the idea, and the kinds of stories she's drawn to as a creator. She also walks through the process of how the film got mad...
Apr 08, 2024•20 min
Park your Lexus, throw your keys up, and let’s get into Cowboy Carter, the new genre-bending, country-angled album by Beyonce. Here are the facts: it’s the second instalment in her Renaissance trilogy. It features Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Post Malone and Miley Cyrus, and spotlights Black country artists such as Linda Martell. But what was Beyonce’s goal with this album? And how does it fit into her career arc? Lilah’s joined by the FT’s music critic Ludovic Hunter-Tilney and US labour and eq...
Apr 05, 2024•20 min
Welcome to the first episode in our special four-part series on design! Today, Lilah speaks with the FT’s longtime architecture and design critic Edwin Heathcote to talk about an often-forgotten element of design in cities. It’s called “street furniture,” and it describes the objects we pass every day: from phone booths and lampposts to manhole covers and park benches. Last year, Edwin published a book on this called “On the Street ” , which elevates the small pieces of design that surround us o...
Apr 01, 2024•21 min
To celebrate the first signs of spring, we’re bringing you a special Easter weekend episode full of tips for spring travel. FT Globetrotter editors Rebecca Rose and Niki Blasina run our insider guides to great cities. They tell Lilah how to make the most out of a holiday in April and May: from where to go and how to pack, to tips on travelling alone, with kids, and with pets. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @ lifeandartpod . You can email us at li...
Mar 29, 2024•19 min
Today, Lilah and journalist Nadia Beard listen to two musicians play the same piece of music: one at 41 years old, and the other at 97. Nadia recently wrote about musicians who are debuting on major stages in their 80s and 90s. She came to this story after deciding to take up piano seriously in her 30s herself. She tells Lilah about the value of amateurism in adulthood: why it’s good to do hard things, and get better at them, even if it’s just for you. ------- We love hearing from you. Lilah is ...
Mar 25, 2024•16 min
Today we take on 3 Body Problem , the new buzzy Netflix sci-fi series from the creators of Game of Thrones. The show is based on Liu Cixin’s best-selling Chinese trilogy and is about humankind’s first contact with an alien civilisation. It spans timelines, worlds and dimensions. Lilah is joined by the FT’s AI editor Madhumita Murgia and work and careers journalist Emma Jacobs to discuss how well the show depicts our fears around advancing technology and how it fits into prestige TV right now. --...
Mar 22, 2024•20 min
Today we’re sharing an episode from a food podcast that we think you might like called The Sporkful, hosted by Dan Pashman. A few years ago, Dan invented a new pasta shape called cascatelli. It went viral and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Inventions of the Year in 2021. Dan’s first cookbook, called Anything's Pastable: 81 Inventive Recipes for Saucy People, will be released on March 19. And today, we’re bringing you the first in his four-part series about the making of the book. ---...
Mar 18, 2024•46 min
In his new documentary High and Low , Academy-award winning director Kevin Macdonald focuses on John Galliano, the one-time enfant terrible of fashion. Known for dazzling collections and a personal penchant for wearing pirate outfits, Galliano led the House of Dior from 1997 to 2011. He then “lost it all” when a series of videos surfaced showing him making drunken racist and antisemitic remarks – though that’s just one version of the story. In fact Galliano became creative director of Margiela i...
Mar 15, 2024•20 min
We think of fashion and reading as almost polar opposites: one is about creating an image, the other a kind of internal journey. But a number of recent fashion collections have been inspired by books, including by Hanya Yanagihara, Edgar Allan Poe, and Agatha Christie. Fashion brands are producing literature podcasts and hosting salons. And in interior design, TikTok’s latest trend is bookshelf wealth. On today’s episode, writer Simon Chilvers talks us through what’s behind the rise of literary ...
Mar 11, 2024•16 min
This week, we talk about the new film Dune: Part Two . A star-studded epic featuring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and more. It’s the second instalment in the Dune franchise, based on the book by Frank Herbert and directed by Denis Villeneuve. The FT’s global business columnist Rana Foroohar, an avid Dune fan, and associate editor Stephen Bush join guest host Katya Kumkova to talk through it. Is watching the film worth its long runtime? Why has Dune endured as a franchise? And what ...
Mar 08, 2024•23 min
If you’ve been to the wine shop lately you may have noticed a trend: wines marketed specifically toward younger drinkers. Many are natural, organic, or biodynamic. Others are made without special certification but boast backstories that focus on the producers, not just the region or grapes. Wine writer Hannah Crosbie joins Lilah to give us a primer on what young wine drinkers want. Why are pét nats, skin-contact wines, and chilled reds suddenly everywhere? ------- We love hearing from you....
Mar 04, 2024•21 min
This week, we talk about ‘The Taste of Things’ with Tim Hayward, the FT’s restaurant critic, and our food and drink editor Harriet Fitch Little. The film is set in France in the 1880s and follows the relationship between a talented cook, played by Juliette Binoche, and the food connoisseur who employs her (Benoît Magimel). ‘The Taste of Things’ has received widespread critical acclaim – with critics claiming you can ‘taste every shot’ – and it is France’s entry into the best international film c...
Mar 01, 2024•22 min
