If you don’t think sound editing and mixing is a creative process, think again! Our guests are both nominated for Emmy Awards for their work on the Apple+ miniseries Masters of the Air —and they might be identified as Masters of the Ear. They have created a soundscape that is the equal of a major Hollywood feature, as you’d expect in a high-profile show executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Steven Spielberg. Mike Minkler is also a third-generation soundman with three Oscars to his c...
Aug 16, 2024•44 min
Colm Meaney makes a vivid impression whenever he appears on stage, screen, or television. (His latest, Duchess , debuts on digital today, August 9.) More people probably know him from the two Star Trek series in which he appeared— The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine —but we remember him best as the father in The Commitments and its follow-ups The Van and The Snapper . Leonard and Jessie were pleased to find that he shares our fondness for that trilogy from Irish writer Roddy Doyle as well. B...
Aug 09, 2024•32 min
You’ve been entertained by Jim Cummings at some point over the last forty years whether you know it or not: he is the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Darkwing Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and countless other cartoon characters. And like his hero Mel Blanc, he is not merely “doing” voices—he’s acting and singing his heart out. Leonard and Jessie are especially fond of his vocalizing as Ray the Cajun firefly, who croons “Ma Belle Angeline” in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. It was a pleasure m...
Aug 03, 2024•1 hr 4 min
If his face is familiar, that’s because Raphael Sbarge has been working since he was a boy—in theater, television and film. His credits range from Murder, She Wrote and Risky Business to Fear the Walking Dead . More recently he has moved behind the camera, crafting documentaries like Only in Theaters, the story of Los Angeles’ beloved Laemmle Theaters chain. That’s the project that brought him in contact with Leonard and Jessie, who are happy to have him as this week’s guest....
Jul 26, 2024•57 min
If you enjoy watching classic films you’re probably acquainted with Alan Rode, prolific author, commentator (on numerous DVDs and Blu-rays), and host (with Eddie Muller) of the Noir City Festival, an annual event in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. He also hosts and programs the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival every year in Palm Springs, California. He has several books to his credit, including a biography of character actor Charles McGraw and his magnum opus, Michael Curtiz: A Life in F...
Jul 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min
An Oscar winner (for Mask in 1985) and multiple Emmy winner (for various incarnations of Star Trek ), Michael Westmore carries a name that is synonymous with makeup in Hollywood. He’s proud of his heritage, which began with his grandfather in the silent-film era and flourished in the 1930s, when his father and uncles ran the makeup departments at virtually every major studio. He studied art history in college, then his uncle Bud took him on as an apprentice at Universal in the early 1960s and he...
Jul 06, 2024•1 hr 12 min
After starring in the TV series Royal Pains for eight seasons and appearing in recurring roles in shows ranging from Ally McBeal to The West Wing, Mark Feuerstein is ready to explode his good-guy image in the new MGM+ crime drama Hotel Cocaine . He’s never been so sleazy as this onscreen but as Jessie and Leonard quickly learned, in real life he’s a mensch who is devoted to his family and his craft. They all had fun during this fast-paced encounter, and hope that the feeling is contagious....
Jun 24, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Nick Stahl has been working in front of the camera since he was 13 years old and winning young admirers like Jessie because he’s so believable in every part he tackles. Mel Gibson chose him to costar in The Man Without a Face, which put him on a fast track to success. His widely varied credits include The Terminator 3, In the Bedroom, The Thin Red Line, and Sin City . After a break he returned to acting and quicky landed guest shots on such series as Fear the Walking Dead and Let the Right One I...
Jun 14, 2024•50 min
This week we introduce you to two more Emmy contenders for their exceptional work. Cian O’Clery directed, executive produced and photographed) the heartfelt documentary series Love on the Spectrum, which shows how people with autism search for love just like all of us. Mac Quayle is a busy composer of music for film and television who has become a favorite of the prolific producer Ryan Murphy ( Scream Queens, American Crime Story, Feud , et al) who already has an Emmy to his credit for Mr. Robot...
Jun 14, 2024•40 min
This week, we’re meeting more fascinating people who are Emmy contenders for their work on high-end television, which nowadays has the production quality of feature films. An Emmy contender in the realm of limited series, All the Light We Cannot See has been adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by the brilliant writer Steven Knight. It draws on the talents of many people, among them our guests, sound man Craig Henighan, cinematographer Tobias Schliessler, and casting directors Lucy Bevan...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 9 min
The brilliant writer-director Steven Zaillian ( Searching for Bobby Fischer ) is a strong Emmy contender for his eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels, along with the collaborators we spoke to: composer Jeff Russo (an Emmy winner for Fargo ), Oscar-nominated production designer David Gropman, and editors David Rogers and Joshua Lee. Even if you haven’t yet watched the series on Netflix it’s fascinating to listen to these creative people talk about what they bring to every f...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Avy Kaufman’s name should be familiar to anyone who reads credits, as we do. She has cast scores of films and television series, from The Ice Storm to Succession, and launched many a career along the way. You can hear the pride in her voice when she recounts how she brought young Haley Joel Osment to meet the star and director of The Sixth Sense . Recent credits include some of the most talked-about television shows of our time: Mare of Easttown, Under the Banner of Heaven, Billions, and Fellow ...
May 17, 2024•54 min
There’s only one Mira Sorvino—Oscar winner for her unforgettable performance in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite , costar of the enduringly popular Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion , Harvard grad (cum laude), mother of four, and daughter of the celebrated actor and singer Paul Sorvino.credentials are pretty amazing; then you talk to her and discover what a quicksilver mind she possesses. To limit our conversation to film, we discussed directors she has worked with, from Spike Lee to Robert ...
May 10, 2024•1 hr
Marc Wanamaker is a walking encyclopedia of Hollywood legends and lore. He grew up in the community and soon realized there was history all around him. He began to amass a collection of rare photographs which eventually numbered in the thousands. Marc has been an invaluable resource for authors, scholars, documentarians, and even the movie studios themselves. His newest book, written with Steven Bingen, is called Hollywood Behind the Lens: Treasures from the Bison Archives. Leonard conducted thi...
Apr 26, 2024•58 min
If you only think of Clint Howard as Ron Howard’s kid brother, it’s time to reassess. He and his older sibling recently wrote a joint autobiography called The Boys which explains their loving relationship and points to their actor-parents as lifelong role models. Early on, Clint embraced his destiny as a young-ish character actor. There’s almost nothing he hasn’t done in his sixty--some years in show business, from the original Star Trek to The Cat in the Hat (one of many Ron Howard movies in wh...
Apr 19, 2024•44 min
Frank Marshall’s chance meeting with Peter Bogdanovich launched a career that led to him producing Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Jurassic Park movies, among many others, often in partnership with his wife Kathleen Kennedy. Now he’s released a record album that returns him to the world his father Jack Marshall inhabited: a long-forgotten session featuring two gifted jazz trumpeters. Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album. It’s a treat to hear, on CD or limited-edition vinyl...
Apr 05, 2024•59 min
Our guest is a five-time Oscar nominee for Best Costumes—most recently for Killers of the Flower Moon, although she is equally lauded for her work on Dune , parts 1 and 2. Her background in the fashion world, and as an art history major, gives her unique credentials for someone who provides costumes for movies. She also has world-class stories to share about her collaborations with such major directors as Philip Kaufman, Terence Malick, and David Fincher. Leonard and Jessie had a blast mining th...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Internationally renowned actress, model, and individualist Isabella Rossellini is charm personified. She has a supporting role in Alice Rohrwacher’s new import La Chimera, which opens in theaters March 29, and recently completed two seasons of Julia , playing Julia Child’s longtime friend and cooking colleague. She also carries with her the torch lit by her famous parents, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini and does so with grace and ease. Leonard and Jessie only had a half-hour with her but ...
Mar 22, 2024•32 min
His alter egos are world-renowned, but Leonard and Jessie didn’t focus on Miss Piggy or Yoda in this conversation, recorded in front of a live audience at Esther’s Follies in Austin. The main topic was directing movies, which Oz has done so well for so many years: The Muppets Take Manhattan, Little Shop of Horrors, In & Out, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bowfinger, and What About Bob? are just a few of his credits. What is the through-line, if any, from puppetry to filmmaking? Listen and hear wha...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min
In honor of the Academy Awards, we’re revisiting our 2017 interview with Keith Carradine, who won his Oscar for writing and performing the song “I’m Easy” in Robert Altman’s masterpiece Nashville (1975). Since we spoke, the actor has remained a familiar face on television as he and his siblings carry on the acting tradition that began with his prolific papa John Carradine. Like his dad, he eased into the niche of a “working actor,” starring on Broadway, logging 105 episodes of Madam Secretary —a...
Mar 08, 2024•1 hr
Originally published Jun 10, 2021 From The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi to such movies as Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good as It Gets , writer-director-producer James L. Brooks has created quality entertainment for decades and has no intention of slowing down. He has served as mentor to the likes of Cameron Crowe and Wes Anderson and continues to work with young talents behind the camera. Oh yes—he’s also produced The Simpsons for the past 30 years. Leonard and Jessie were honor...
Feb 23, 2024•58 min
Cord Jefferson is riding high as the Oscar-nominated writer and director of American Fiction , which has widely and properly been acclaimed as one of the best films of the past year. Even more exciting is the fact that Jefferson has never made a movie before. Leonard and Jessie enjoyed exploring the building blocks of his career that led to this achievement. He was on the writing staff of Larry Wilmore’s Late Night comedy show and Aziz Ansari’s Master of None , among others, when a series of eve...
Feb 09, 2024•49 min
As editor of Empire , Nick de Semlyen presides over the best film and television magazine in the English language: Empire . Every issue is jam-packed with deep-dive articles, interviews, set visits, and fun facts for both the fan and the aficionado. Nick has also written two excellent books examining American films of the 1980s: Wild and Crazy Guys and The Last Action Heroes. Leonard and Jessie got to meet him on their last trip to London which cemented a friendship that grew out of their admira...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr
The senior film critic for the Los Angeles Times , Justin Chang is also a graduate of USC and took Leonard’s class—three times. Leonard takes no credit for Justin’s brilliance as an essayist or as a world-class punster. Jessie has known him her whole life and is also an unabashed fan. Just back from the Sundance Film Festival, Justin made time for us to talk about his career and some of the nuts and bolts of being a daily newspaper’s leading critic.
Jan 26, 2024•54 min
Our guest this week is now appearing on movie theater screens in The Color Purple , recreating the role of Sofia that she originated in the Broadway revival. But as you’ll hear, that is just her latest achievement in an ever-growing body of work on stage, screen and television. Fans of Orange is the New Black knew her as Taystee, and followers of the recent series Peacemaker could see yet another facet of her boundless talent. A graduate of Juilliard, she is riding high during this awards season...
Jan 12, 2024•44 min
Sam Wasson has become one of the finest Hollywood historians of our time, and also one of the most productive. His newest book, The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story is not a conventional biography but an insightful analysis of the formidable filmmaker. It joins Sam’s earlier books on Blake Edwards, Paul Mazursky, and the making of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Chinatown as essential reading. He also coauthored with Jeanine Basinger a hefty new volume called Hollywood: the Oral History...
Jan 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Any film that includes Patricia Clarkson in its cast has the cinematic equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. She is that good, that committed, that versatile. Her credits run the gamut from well-loved indies like Lars and the Real Girl, The Station Agent and Dogville to mainstream hits like The Untouchables and TV series, including Six Feet Under, which earned her two Emmy Awards. Her latest release is Monica, about a transgender woman coming to terms with her dying mother. Leona...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Oscar-winning actress, mother, championship archer, film festival director, memoirist, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media…Geena Davis has many hats but wears them lightly. The star of such enduring films as Beetlejuice, A League of their Own, and Thelma & Louise is a cut-up at heart, as Leonard and Jessie quickly learned. It’s easy to see how she has accomplished so much, especially in the area of female representation in media. She’s smart and talented but also endearin...
Dec 09, 2023•57 min
David Keith has been out of the spotlight in recent years but when he hit it big in An Officer and a Gentleman he became a hot property. Many movies followed, including The Lords of Discipline, Firestarter, Heartbreak Hotel (in which he played Elvis Presley), and The Indian in the Cupboard , to name just a few. He’s kept busy doing episodic television and directing a handful of genre films. Now he’s working as a creative executive producer, and in his new horror-thriller Walden (available on VOD...
Dec 02, 2023•52 min
A lifetime of acting, mostly on stage, finally paid off for Paul Raci when he earned an Oscar nomination for a part he was born to play in Sound of Metal. It has changed the trajectory of his career, and he is happy to talk about working with Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Lopez, and Colman Domingo on recent projects. But what Leonard and Jessie took away from our conversation is Paul’s admirable work ethic and total dedication to his craft.
Nov 24, 2023•43 min
