432: A Conversation With Karla Sofía Gascón, 'Emilia Pérez'! Audio Interview In Spanish, Subtitled On YouTube (Episode first aired in May)

Guest: Kevin Baillie Even a death-defying high-wire artist has to start somewhere. As a boy, Philippe Petit dreamt of performing daring feats for dazzled crowds. As an adult, his life’s ambition came true when on August 7, 1974, he successfully walked between the Twin Towers, 110 floors up with no harness or net! Our guest Kevin Baillie’s journey also reads much like a film script. By the age of seven, after being inspired by films like Back to the Future, he had already chosen his career path and was best friends with Ryan Tudhope, with whom he would later co-found the visual effects studio Atomic Fiction. With his dream, much determinacy and hard work, Baillie was working at Skywalker Ranch at just 18 years old! Flash forward; Baillie is the Visual Effects Supervisor on The Walk, and along with the team at Atomic Fiction, worked with legendary director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Flight) to bring Petit’s seemingly impossible stunt to life in The Walk. In this highly anticipated film staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it is the absolutely stunning visuals that make this vertigo-inducing journey so believable, a feat that meant recreating the twin towers and New York in the 70s. Baillie has worked with Zemeckis on multiple films. Remember the gut-wrenching plane crash in Flight? That was his work! His resume also includes work on Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, Hellboy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Sin CIty and Star Trek Into Darkness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Okt 201536min

In the 1970s, there wasn’t a Hollywood agent more successful than Sue Mengers. Her client roster read like a who’s who of the hottest actors and directors of the time: Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Ryan O’Neal, Ali MacGraw, Diana Ross, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Jacqueline Bisset, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, and a glittering marquee of many other high- profile performers. Author Brian Kellow interviewed over 200 people, to collect all of wonderful moments in her often loud and abrasive life and career for his recently released biography Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First Superagent. The last twenty years has been referred to as the second golden age of television. Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks, and The Wire were breeding grounds for the showrunners who are now bringing us smash hits like Empire, Girls, Madmen, Unreal and many more. Tara Bennett, who interviewed showrunners Joss Whedon, Ronald D. Moore, Damon Lindelof, Terence Winter, and many more for her book Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show, joins us to shine the light on the people making this golden era come to life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Sep 201547min

Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp and directed by Scott Cooper, tells the terrifying story of real-life Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger who kept Boston in his grip for decades. After 16 years on the run he was finally arrested in 2011 and found guilty of federal racketeering, extortion, conspiracy and involvement in 11 murders. Former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lehr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting. He spent decades reporting on Whitey Bulger and his unholy alliance with the FBI. Together with Gerard O'Neill, Lehr wrote the critically acclaimed, NY Times bestselling book Black Mass, which the film is based on, as well as the book, Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss. We also follow up with Awards Daily Sasha Stone, arguably the best Oscar tracker in the industry, who we last spoke to after the Cannes Film Festival. We get all the buzz from the Telluride Film Festival – a hotbed for Best Picture winners. One film getting buzz is Spotlight about The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting unit, or "Spotlight" team, and their coverage of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Sep 201545min

Guest: Debra Birnbaum, Variety With the Emmy’s just over a week away, we share our thoughts on the nominations, the gala, the snubs, surprises and of course – PREDICTIONS! Our expert guide is Debra Birnbaum who is the executive editor, TV for Variety! She also covers the Emmy Awards, producing 13 special issues highlighting the Emmy contenders. She knows her Emmys! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Sep 201527min

Guest: Jenny Jaffe Funny, fearless and passionate are just a few of the words that describe Jenny Jaffe, comedy writer and founder of Project UROK - a nonprofit organization that is creating honest and frank videos for teenagers who are struggling with mental health issues, made by people who have been there before.Their message - You are not alone, you are okay! These include actor and writer Wil Wheaton (Stand by Me, Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory) who shares his struggles with mental illness and depression, Mara Wilson who came to fame as a child actress in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire shares her struggle with anxiety, as well as gossip reporter Perez Hilton who struggled with panic attacks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Sep 201524min

Guest: Ellen Lewis The iconic performances in Goodfellas, Scent of a Woman, Forrest Gump, The Devil Wears Prada, Wolf of Wall Street and close to 70 other films have one thing in common - renowned casting director Ellen Lewis. While the director and screenwriter create a films world, it is the casting directors job to fill this world with just the right mix of actors to create exhilarating onscreen chemistry. Lewis has been doing just that for directors such as Mike Nichols, Jim Jarmusch, and Martin Scorsese. In fact her IMDB page looks like a list of the best films from the past two decades. In this exclusive interview with Ellen Lewis we discuss her career changing films, tricks of the trade, why there is still no Oscar given for casting, and her recent work which includes the upcoming Steven Spielberg feature Bridge of Spies, and highly anticipated new HBO series Vinyl, produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Sep 201533min

Guest: Lisa Belkin Race, community and politics – topics just as relevant today as they were in 1988 when Mayor Wasicsko fought an aggressive battle to set in motion a housing desegregation plan for the city of Yonkers, New York. These dramatic real-life events are the inspiration behind the new HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero, written by The Wire creator David Simon, directed by Oscar winner Paul Haggis and starring the critically acclaimed Oscar Isaac. The series is based on the gripping book Show Me A Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race and Redemption written by Lisa Belkin who followed the events and citizens of Yonkers for seven years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Sep 201526min

As correspondent on The Daily Show or on HBOs hit series The Brink, Aasif Mandvi is tackling bigotry and Islamophobia one show at a time. In this portrait of his life and career he shares the immigrant journey that brought him eventually to New York, the importance of The Daily Show and the unique opportunity he has today to change the perception of Muslims with his Funny or Die parody series Halal In The Family. Since Jon Stewart steps down this week from The Daily Show, after hosting the Emmy-winning program for the last 17 years, we ask Aasif about what the show, and Jon Stewart, has meant to him personally and on a larger scale – geopolitics in comedy today. We also speak to Amy Mitchell of the Pew Research Center in Washington, Department of Journalism, on the impact and influence of The Daily Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Aug 20151h