Actor Josh Brolin: A Life in Vivid Color

Since the turn of the century, actor Josh Brolin has had quite a run. From No Country for Old Men and Hail, Caesar! from the Coen Brothers, to Inherent Vice from Paul Thomas Anderson, to Sicario and the Dune films from Denis Villeneuve. His new memoir, From Under the Truck, contains stories about …

What Can Be, Burdened By What Has Been (with Astead Herndon of NYT)

It’s been a week. To help us through it, we’ve enlisted The New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon. We start with election night 2024 versus election night 2016 (6:35), what Astead discovered about the electorate reporting across the U.S. on his podcastThe Run-Up (9:25), and how insider …

Ta-Nehisi Coates (‘The Message’) is Live in Los Angeles

On the heels of his latest book The Message, author Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Sam for a conversation in Los Angeles. At the top, we discuss how his Atlantic piece The Case for Reparations guided these three new essays (6:10), Coates’ early education growing up in West Baltimore (14:57), and his power…

Actor and Director Anna Kendrick: Life Imitates Art

Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air) has been a fixture in Hollywood for the past fifteen years. She joins us this week to discuss Woman of the Hour, her directorial debut and most revealing project to date. At the top, we dive into the film’s true crime story (7:00), its examination of ge…

This Conversation with Author Jason Reynolds is a Gift

For the past decade, Jason Reynolds has become an inspiring voice in the literary world. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and as of this month, a 2024 MacArthur fellow. Reynolds sits with us today to share his latest YA novel Twenty-Four Seconds from Now… (7:45), why he was interested in w…

Wesley Morris Returns with ‘The Wonder of Stevie’

Today, culture critic Wesley Morris (The New York Times) returns to Talk Easy for a conversation aboutThe Wonder of Stevie, his new podcast with the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions. At the top, Wesley unpacks Stevie Wonder’s legendary five-album run from 1972-1976, his recent “battleground state…

Director Jason Reitman’s Love Letter to ‘Saturday Night’

Since his directorial debut in 2006, Jason Reitman has made the kind of films they say Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. Today, we sit to discuss his latest project Saturday Night (9:09), the influence of 1970s movies like Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate (12:46), and the details Reitman and his co-w…

Francis Ford Coppola Stays in the Picture

Director Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t just want to make movies. He wants to change them. This was true in 1969 when he co-founded Zoetrope Studios with George Lucas, and it remains true today at age 85. We begin with the historical context of his modern-day Roman epic fable Megalopolis (9:40), his…

The Joaquin Phoenix Interview

Joaquin Phoenix is one of the greatest actors of his generation. For three decades, he’s moved seamlessly between auteur-driven films (Her, The Master) and box-office sensations (Gladiator, Joker).  We sit today for a rare, long-form conversation with Phoenix, starting with his latest film, Joker:…

Why Myha’la (‘Industry’) is Playing the Long Game

For actor Myha’la, the role of a lifetime arrived less than a year out of college. “Lightning struck,” she says, “and in so many ways I have been preparing my entire life to be here.” In this case ‘here’ is Industry’s Harper Stern, a fiercely ambitious New Yorker who has come to London to join Pier…