Justin Baldoni is a producer, director and actor who is probably best known for his long-running character on “Jane the Virgin.” Across the show’s five seasons, Justin played Rafael Solano, the sensitive, reformed playboy who fell in love with the titular Jane, a virgin. But the actor, whose acting work tends to embody a certain type of shirtless machismo masculinity, is on a new mission to help change the way men — and society — think about masculinity. It’s an idea he first explored on social ...
Jul 22, 2021•54 min
Ursula Burns has had an impressive career that is often summarized by an historic achievement: that when she became the CEO of Xerox in 2009 she was the first every Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company. But there is so much more to Ursula’s career and life story, which is movingly detailed in her memoir, “Where You Are is Not Who You Are.” In it, Ursula gets very personal, sharing her childhood growing up in public housing in New York City, her Catholic-school days, her marriage, and, yes, ...
Jul 15, 2021•56 min
In March 2020, as COVID-19 started to grip the nation, fitness entrepreneur Amanda Kloots was settling into a new city (Los Angeles) with her husband Nick Cordero and their new baby. By July 2020, Amanda would become a very public COVID widow. Some of what happened to Amanda and Nick during those four months played out in incredibly personal posts and videos on Amanda’s Instagram feed. But there is so much more to Amanda’s pandemic story and the improbable death of her young, fit Broadway star h...
Jul 08, 2021•55 min
If you’re going to have a summer series on memoirs, there is truly no better person to begin with than the boss of memoir herself, Mary Karr. In 1995, Mary Karr published her debut memoir, “The Liar’s Club,” an engrossing, tragicomic telling of her childhood in a poor, industrial East Texas town. “The Liar’s Club” took the publishing world by storm and inspired a wave of confessional memoirs. Mary then followed it up with “Cherry” in 2000 and “Lit” in 2009. She also wrote a how-to book about the...
Jul 01, 2021•53 min
It’s summer! And here on Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie’s celebrating the shortest season with a fun series on books! But not just any books — memoirs!. Katie just finished writing her own memoir (which comes out this October — stay tuned!), so she wanted to spend time with other people who have shared their stories and put themselves on the page. She has a huge range of guests from actors Sharon Stone and Justin Baldoni to business leaders and entrepreneurs like former Xerox CEO Ursula ...
Jun 24, 2021•2 min
It's Emmy season and on this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie shares “The Handmaid's Tale” cast and creators panel she hosted for awards consideration. The dystopian Hulu drama just wrapped its dramatic, twist-heavy and pandemic-filmed fourth season, so be forewarned, there are spoilers ahead! There are so many talented people behind the ensemble show that the panel was split into two: the residents of Gilead and the refugees in Canada. The episode begins in Gilead with, i...
Jun 16, 2021•1 hr 4 min
On this sponsored episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie sits down with Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the executive vice president and chief patient officer of the biopharmaceutical company Merck. As a company with a long legacy of research in infectious disease, Merck has been in the thick of the COVID crisis, mobilizing its scientific expertise to help address the pandemic. Katie and Dr. Gerberding talk about the waning months of this historic pandemic, the lingering concerns about vacci...
Jun 08, 2021•42 min
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is one of the country’s leading anti-racist scholars. And, in fact, everything that Dr. Kendi does — as a professor, an author, a researcher, a podcast host, a human — attempts to reframe how we think about racism and how we fight it. In this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with Dr. Kendi about his prolific anti-racism work, which encompasses his academic leadership and Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, his multiple books, including “...
May 27, 2021•47 min
Stacey Abrams is known for a lot of things — her voting rights work, for flipping Georgia blue in 2020, for not winning the state’s gubernatorial race in 2018. But in addition to her political and advocacy career, she’s also a prolific author. She has written eight unapologetically steamy romance novels, under the pen name Selena Montgomery. And this month, she’s releasing her ninth work of fiction — her first under her own name — a political action thriller called, While Justice Sleeps . On thi...
May 20, 2021•53 min
“This is never going to be on TV,” says Bowen Yang, reflecting on the now-viral Saturday Night Live sketch where he plays the iceberg that sank the Titanic. “It’s such a big swing.” It turns out, if anyone can knock an unexpected pitch out of the park, it’s the 30-year-old comedian who has quickly risen to fan-favorite in his short time on the show. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie gets the full Bowen picture, digging into his cross-national childhood, understanding what...
May 13, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Best-selling author Michael Lewis has a knack for extracting page-turning drama out of otherwise mundane and complicated subjects (hello, bond trading and baseball stats). Several of those books have been so good they’ve been turned into award-winning dramas starring half of Hollywood (hello, “The Big Short” and “Moneyball). And now, Lewis takes a crack at the pandemic realty still unfolding. His new book is called “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.” In it, Lewis uses the first-hand accounts of...
May 06, 2021•44 min
This week on Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie sits down with former Secretary of State, former Democratic nominee for president, former First Lady Hillary Clinton. The truly multi-hyphenate ( did you know she’s also a podcast host ?) advocate and author shares her thoughts on some of the issues that are top of mind right now, from the COVID vaccine and the potential for post-pandemic life, to the spread of disinformation and policing in America. But Katie and Hillary also spend time discus...
Apr 29, 2021•51 min
It has been a brutal year. Not only for the loss, heartache and isolation the pandemic has brought, but also the relentless and senseless violence, the mass shootings, and systemic racism at play all over America. Even as Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all accounts, on April 21, 2021, of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis last May, a 16-year-old girl in Ohio was killed by police. “It’s a trauma,” President Biden said of all that had to occur to deliver the guilty verdict and such basic acc...
Apr 22, 2021•46 min
This past (very long) year, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been immersed in all things COVID-19, as CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent reporting on the front lines of this novel virus. “All I think about is COVID,” he told Katie, “Viral transmission, how people evaluate risk, social behavior. There’s no part of our society that hasn’t been touched in some way.” But Sanjay is also a neuroscientist and in addition to his on-air work and a daily podcast (Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction), Sanjay has somehow found...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 2 min
The Oscars are on the horizon and though it’s been a strange year for the movie industry, the race for the golden statue is nothing short of historic. Notably, there is not one but two women nominated for best director: Emerald Fennell, for “Promising Young Woman,” starring Carrie Mulligan, and Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand. “Nomadland” was also written by Zhao who based her screenplay on the non-fictional book, “Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century,” by jour...
Apr 13, 2021•47 min
Luvvie Ajayi Jones is a writer, speaker and author of two New York Times best-selling books, “I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual” and her latest, “Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighting Manual.” Luvvie’s books are part memoir, part manifestos that, like Luvvie herself, try to help the rest of us do better — for ourselves and for the people around us. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie gives herself over to Luvvie’s wisdom and learns how to overcome confidence barr...
Apr 08, 2021•48 min
Kathryn Hahn is an absolute scream, as you may have guessed from watching her in the hit Marvel TV show “WandaVision.” Or maybe you first took notice of her comedy chops in early aught blockbusters like “Step Brothers.” Or perhaps, you knew along given her propensity for all-too-relatable characters in indie films like “Private Life.” However you’ve come across Kathryn Hahn, there’s no denying the actor, at 47, has hit her stride. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie digs in...
Apr 01, 2021•41 min
On this special episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie dives into a subject very close to her heart: colon cancer awareness. After Katie’s first husband Jay died 23 years ago, she’s been a fierce advocate for early screening and regular colonoscopies — she even, you might recall, got one on live TV. There’s a reason Katie goes to such lengths: early screening saves lives. In this episode, we first hear from a stage 4 cancer fighter who is living that lesson. Then, Dr. Edith Mitchell o...
Mar 31, 2021•53 min
Twenty-six years ago, Kate Winslet sat down for her first nationally televised, American interview with none other than Katie Couric when she was co-host of the Today Show. Kate was promoting “Sense and Sensibility” and was a nervous wreck. “I was very self-conscious,” she reminisces with Katie. “I remember being physically and just very self conscious in those days.” Katie, who was pregnant at the time, admits to feeling endeared to the 20-year-old star, “It was one of my favorite interviews,” ...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Don Lemon is busy! The CNN Tonight anchor has spent the year guiding and framing the public’s understanding of a deadly pandemic, George Floyd’s death, the presidential election, an insurrection. Somehow, amid all of that, he wrote a book, “This is The Fire: What I Say To My Friends About Racism.” On Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie and Don talk about his personal exploration through America’s racist past and becoming the nation’s moral compass as it reckoned with its racist’s present. To ...
Mar 24, 2021•53 min
On this week’s episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie chats to everyone’s favorite pandemic sauce man, Stanley Tucci. They talk about Stanley’s new travel/food series on CNN called “Searching for Italy,” as well as his new movie, “Supernova,” co-starring Colin Firth. They also talk about Stanley’s upcoming new book (“Taste: My Life Through Food”), the origin story of his foodie obsession, his enviable physique, and how those mixology videos on Instagram started. Learn more about your ...
Mar 18, 2021•55 min
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. And, after watching the slow tidal wave of infections, deaths, and fear consume most of Asia and Europe, Americans finally felt COVID’s impact at home. This totally unknown, novel virus took root, upending our lives. On this week’s episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, we recognize this sobering anniversary of a full year with the pandemic. Three Americans intimately involved with COVID-19 — an ER doctor,...
Mar 11, 2021•39 min
“You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey,” is the title of the very funny, if completely horrifying, new book by comedian and late-night host Amber Ruffin. The book, which Amber co-wrote with her sister Lacey Lamar, is a collection of essays about all the racist sh*t Lacey has to put up with as a Black woman living and working in Omaha, Nebraska. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with the sisters about growing up in Omaha, their different trajectories and experi...
Mar 04, 2021•32 min
On the first episode of the new season of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie sits down with actor, director, activist Robin Wright who stars in and directs the new movie, Land. Robin plays Edee, a woman experiencing tremendous grief who decides to leave her life in the city to live in a cabin in the wilderness. “It’s about the existence you once knew, that you once lived in will never exist in the same way again,” she says, “and I just thought, wow, that’s something to explore.” And with 202...
Feb 25, 2021•28 min
On this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie shares a timely and important conversation with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. As a Republican leader in a predominantly blue state, Governor Hogan offers a valuable perspective on how to effectively bridge the partisan divide in our increasingly polarized country. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks with Katie about this unprecedented moment in our nation’s history, what it means to be a “common sense conservative,” and why he...
Feb 19, 2021•28 min
Next Question with Katie Couric is back with its third season! After taking some podcasting detours to help make sense of an unprecedented 12 months — from the outbreak of COVID-19, to America’s racial reckoning, to the presidential election — Katie returns to her intimate interview podcast with some new questions. Like, how do you create art when the world is burning? How can we heal through this trauma together? And how can we find and share joy. Join Katie as she sits down (virtually, of cour...
Feb 18, 2021•2 min
Next Question with Katie Couric is gearing up for its third season, launching Feb. 25, 2021. In the meantime, Katie shares a really important and fascinating conversation she had this week. The 92nd Street Y invited Katie to moderate a talk with the founders of the Lincoln Project, the Super PAC started by former Republicans who wanted to defeat Donald Trump as well as hold accountable all those who violate their oath of the constitution regardless of party. Katie was joined remotely by former h...
Jan 29, 2021•50 min
This series began in the past, to better understand the origin and history of our ongoing fight for voting rights. And as Turnout comes to a close, we consider its future. Where do we go from here? What lessons can we take with us, and what impact might this election have on our ongoing push for a more inclusive democracy and a more perfect union. In this last episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, we hear from some of our previous guests — including Wendy Weiser, Gilda Daniels, and Tyler Okeke —...
Dec 08, 2020•36 min
For the last nine months, as the coronavirus swept across the world, devastating so many lives in its wake, scientists have been working around the clock to develop a safe and effective vaccine in record time. And now the results from all of that hard work are starting to come in and it’s good news. Like, really good news. On this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with Dr. Stephen Hoge, a doctor, scientist and president of Moderna, one of the biotech firms leading the...
Nov 24, 2020•53 min
You’ve no doubt heard that the 2020 election welcomed historic turnout. But what do those high numbers of voters mean for our democracy, for future elections, and for the warring political parties as they conduct their post-mortems? On this episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, we hear from a data journalist who is starting to comb through the numbers. Neal Rothschild, director of audience and political data reporter for Axios, shares the four big takeaways that help explain the 2020 election. T...
Nov 24, 2020•53 min