Before he co-created the FX comedy series “Reservation Dogs,” Sterlin Harjo directed three micro-budget films in his home state of Oklahoma. He had knocked on Hollywood's door, but somehow he never could find financing. No one wanted Native films, and Harjo almost left the industry entirely. Then he teamed up with his friend Taika Waititi to make a coming-of-age show about four Native teenagers. FX liked “Reservation Dogs” so much, they’ve already ordered a second season.
Sep 12, 2021•30 min
The critically beloved sitcom “The Other Two” follows the trials of the older, struggling siblings of a 13-year-old overnight pop sensation. The series creators knew the first season got lost in the shuffle when it ran on Comedy Central. For season two, the show moved to HBO Max, and is a lot easier to find. Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider tell KCRW about the return of “The Other Two,” and how they decide which celebrities to skewer.
Sep 05, 2021•30 min
Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs are two of the three creators of the Emmy-nominated comedy series “Hacks.” The HBO Max show features Jean Smart as a veteran comedian fighting to hold onto her long-running Las Vegas gig. In real life, Smart also wanted the show to go on — even when her husband died unexpectedly with a week of shooting left. Downs tells KCRW, “We knew from working with [Smart] that she is all in, she is fully committed. And so in that way, we looked to her in this time as well.”...
Aug 30, 2021•30 min
Jeff Bergman’s name may not ring a bell, but he has some very recognizable alter egos: Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat and Yogi Bear, to name a few. Bergman is the voice of many of the cartoon stars of “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” His repertoire includes nearly 200 voices, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Showtime’s “Our Cartoon President.” He tells KCRW about some of the challenges of this often overlooked profession.
Aug 22, 2021•30 min
Director and producer Shawn Levy’s new movie “Free Guy” — a big-budget original starring Ryan Reynolds as a video game character — had its release date pushed three times because of the pandemic. The film is finally opening exclusively in theaters. But heading into opening weekend, Levy wasn’t sure if people would go. “I have to confess, I don’t know,” Levy says. “I don’t know what the reaction will be to going to theaters, and going to theaters for a new movie.” The producer-director tells KCRW...
Aug 15, 2021•30 min
Producer Jason Blum thinks stars and filmmakers deserve a piece of the profit from their work. So naturally he opposes a push from studios to pay Netflix-style flat fees instead. But that didn’t stop him from taking a big flat fee to make three new “Exorcist” films. Blum weighs in on big battles underway in the industry, including Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney. He hopes it’s the first of many.
Aug 06, 2021•30 min
For nearly the past decade, media mogul Barry Diller has backed award-winning movies and Broadway shows from now embattled mega-producer Scott Rudin. Asked about allegations that Rudin engaged in a decades-long pattern of abusive behavior, Diller pushes back. In part two of KCRW’s conversation with the Diller, he emotionally defends Rudin and decries cancel culture.
Jul 30, 2021•30 min
Barry Diller, who made his name as a powerful studio boss, recently told NPR that “the movie business is over.” Expanding on those views, the legendary mogul and former chairman of Paramount and Fox tells KCRW why, with the pandemic and rise of streaming, Hollywood will never go back to what it once was. In the first of a two-part conversation, Diller — now the chairman of online empire IAC — weighs in on a transforming industry and its future....
Jul 23, 2021•30 min
The new HBO series “ Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes ” includes a 2019 interview between Kim Masters and Ronan Farrow for his podcast “Catch and Kill,” which explores the fall of Harvey Weinstein. The Business airs a portion of that interview in which Masters elaborated on her interactions with Weinstein over the years.
Jul 16, 2021•30 min
Multi-hyphenate Daveed Diggs has a lot going on, including writing and producing his new series on Starz, “Blindspotting.” The broadway hit “Hamilton” launched his career, but at this point, he’s moved beyond the version of himself that won a Tony and a Grammy. “That Daveed Diggs that everybody fell in love with in that show does not exist anywhere but on that stage,” he says. Daveed Diggs tells KCRW about developing the version of himself after “Hamilton.”
Jul 11, 2021•30 min
Investigative reporter and documentary producer David Holthouse was sexually assaulted as a child. He says that trauma led him to devote his life to unmasking monsters, both real and imagined. His newest project took him to a dangerous part of Northern California — the supposed home of Bigfoot. Holthouse tells KCRW about investigating a more than 25-year-old triple homicide for the Hulu series “Sasquatch.”
Jul 02, 2021•30 min
Filmmaker Edgar Wright's new music documentary “The Sparks Brothers” celebrates two musicians whose work he loves. Ron and Russell Mael are brothers who make up the band Sparks, and they’re a pair of complete originals. Wright is an original, too. His hit movie “Baby Driver” and upcoming thriller “Last Night in Soho” are based on ideas he made up. And he can’t help but wonder why movie studios aren’t willing to take a few more chances on fresh ideas.
Jun 27, 2021•30 min
Writer Nida Manzoor wanted “We Are Lady Parts,” her series about an all-female Muslim punk band, to be funny. But as a Muslim woman writing about very underrepresented characters, she also felt some heavy responsibility. Manzoor shares her process for writing comedy while also breaking new ground with “We Are Lady Parts,” now on Peacock.
Jun 18, 2021•30 min
Kim Masters and Matt Belloni offer a fresh banter about the current awkwardness at WarnerMedia. The company is set to spin off from AT&T and merge with Discovery, but the deal will be delayed while undergoing federal review. And The Business replays a conversation with director Sam Feder and executive producer Laverne Cox about their documentary “Disclosure,” which explores the history of trans representation in Hollywood.
Jun 11, 2021•30 min
Earlier in his career, Hugh Grant played the charming lead in romantic comedies. But lately, Grant has relished performing the role of the bad guy, including in the HBO series “The Undoing.” He talks about embracing his dark side on screen and reflects on his decade of work as an activist following the UK phone hacking scandal that engulfed the Murdoch clan a decade ago and continues to reverberate today.
Jun 06, 2021•30 min
Veteran producer David Friendly’s many film credits include three “Big Momma’s House” movies. But as Hollywood became less friendly towards his type of mid-budget pictures, he pivoted to television. Now with his USA TV series “Queen of the South” wrapping up after five seasons, he is finding that adapting yet again in an industry obsessed with streaming is hard, even after years of success.
May 28, 2021•30 min
When Meredith Scardino pitched her musical comedy series “Girls5eva,” about an all-but-forgotten late 1990s girl group that reunites in their forties, she made a fake CD case, complete with track listing, cellophane wrapper and discount stickers. That fake album generated real interest, and now “Girls5eva” is a buzzy new show for Peacock.
May 23, 2021•30 min
It’s a mid-May mega banter! NBC bounces the 2022 Golden Globes, Disney subscriber numbers disappoint, the stars of “A Quiet Place 2” make some noise over the movie’s theatrical run, and Ellen DeGeneres calls it quits. Kim Masters tackles it all with banter buddy Matt Belloni and Buzzfeed reporter Krystie Lee Yandoli, who broke the story on Degeneres’ alleged toxic workplace.
May 16, 2021•30 min
Producer Scott Rudin’s bullying has been an open secret in Hollywood for decades, and now it’s going public. Former Scott Rudin staffers Evan Davis, Max Hoffman and Eileen Klomhaus remember being yelled at, belittled, and gaslighted. And they call out the stars who have been silent.
May 07, 2021•30 min
When the pandemic hit London, director Simon Godwin's National Theatre production of “Romeo & Juliet” shut down before it could open. So Godwin shot the play as a movie — never mind that he had never picked up a camera and couldn’t film outside the theater. Even without a trip to fair Verona, Godwin shot his movie, starring Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley, in a mere 17 days.
Apr 30, 2021•30 min
Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win Best Director and Best Picture, but the 2021 Oscars will be remembered for the awkward, COVID-era ceremony and blunt ending. Producers expected Chadwick Boseman to win Best Actor, but instead the Oscar went to Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in Wales.
Apr 26, 2021•9 min
After filmmaker Raoul Peck made his award-winning James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” he had a lot of suitors in Hollywood. But it was HBO that didn’t blink when Peck explained what he wanted to do next: a project about colonization, extermination and genocide. That evolved into "Exterminate All the Brutes," a four-part series that zigzags through 700 years of colonial history.
Apr 25, 2021•30 min
Four days into shooting his tragic-comic film, “Another Round,” Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s 19-year-old daughter — who was supposed to appear in the movie — was killed by a reckless driver. His screenwriter temporarily took over, but Vinterberg soon came back to the project. He says making the movie kept him from insanity. “Another Round” is Oscar-nominated for Best International Film, and Vinterberg is up for Best Director.
Apr 16, 2021•30 min
Awards columnist Scott Feinberg explains why this is such a strange year for the Oscars, and how the event’s producers are attempting to keep the glitz and glamour for this year’s ceremony. The Business also replays a conversation with directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht about their now Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp.”
Apr 09, 2021•30 min
Documentarian Cullen Hoback maxed out his credit cards in his quest to unmask the person behind the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory. He talks about spending three years circling the globe on a shoestring budget and meeting people who dwell in some of the darkest corners of the internet, all in an attempt to pinpoint the identity of Q.
Apr 04, 2021•30 min
With the world starting to open up after a year-long pandemic shutdown, six workers in Hollywood share how they made it through, and explain how the entertainment industry may have changed for good.
Mar 26, 2021•30 min
Ted Sarandos is the co-CEO and chief content officer of the streaming giant that has everyone else playing catch-up. Sarandos says he sees Netflix as the outsider in Hollywood, but the streamer just landed 35 Oscar nominations. He shares the results of a recent Netflix diversity study and talks about streaming wars, the future of theaters, talent relations, viewership data, and more.
Mar 21, 2021•30 min
When the Writers Guild went to war against the agencies two years ago, few thought the union would prevail. But when WME, the final agency holdout, signed a deal with the Guild last month, it marked a decisive victory for the writers. WGA West Executive Director David Young and President David Goodman explain how they stayed the course through an emotional struggle and heated negotiations. And they look ahead to the Guild’s future battles.
Mar 14, 2021•34 min
Today, director Channing Godfrey Peoples and producer Neil Creque Williams finish each other’s sentences. More than a decade ago, they were just two graduate film students at USC. They’d each heard about the other’s work, but didn’t actually meet until a chance encounter in an elevator 11 years ago. They've been working together ever since. Now married, Peoples and Williams have made their first feature, the mother-daughter coming-of-age drama "Miss Juneteenth."
Mar 05, 2021•30 min
The new movie “Minari” is a personal story from filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung. It’s about a Korean American family struggling to run a small Arkansas farm in the 1980s. Chung says he thought “Minari” was going to be the last script he ever wrote before leaving the industry entirely. He’s joined by Christina Oh, the producer at Plan B Entertainment who read Chung's script and fell for it.
Feb 26, 2021•30 min
