Director Maja Vrvilo began her career as an editor, and her former job is consistently manifest in her economy of visual expression, impeccably calibrated pacing and use of montage to convey interior states. I first became aware of Vrvilo when she was directing on Hawaii Five-0, a series that made me sit up and take notice of her kinetic action staging and lively handling of actors. That led me to her episodes of Blindspot, MacGyver and other procedurals that all exhibited the sophisticated blocking and precise compositions I quickly realized were hallmarks of her filmmaking. Last year Vrvilo helmed two superb […]

I first came in contact with the juggernaut that is Shannon DeVido in her hilarious portrayal of Andrea Mumford on Difficult People. Another recurring role on the Netflix series Insatiable followed, and now the actor/singer/comedian gets to combine it all in the smile-inducing new movie musical Best Summer Ever. On this episode, she talks about the passionate, super-positive, love-filled environment that fueled that ambitious production and the ways she adjusted to a starring role after years of guest spots. She gives us a peek at what it’s like to navigate the acting world as a disabled person, and why the […]

Julian Kostov is a multilingual Bulgarian actor, producer, and advocate for slavic representation. He plays Fedyor on the new hit Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. On this episode, he takes us from his depressed student years, when it was folly to even dream of working as an actor, through the difficult period of the growth of his craft, recovering from big auditions, strengthened by personal breakthroughs that fuel the work, all the way through the harnessing of his ability to bring his unique spin to wonderful roles and help others with the founding of his company JupiterLights Media, which […]

Clancy Brown is a living legend of actor’s actors. With nearly 300 credits, from Highlander and The Shawshank Redemption to SpongeBob SquarePants and Promising Young Woman, he’s morphed and adapted in this business and made it work for him. On this episode, I ask him how his approach to preparation has changed over the years. He talks about the importance of knowing the narrative purpose of your character, why “faster, funnier, louder” are directorial notes that work for him, and how he looked at auditioning as exercising his Spencer-Tracy-don’t-bump-into-the-furniture muscles. You can tell he had fun playing Montgomery Dark, a […]

“When you walk into an Amazon fulfillment center, it’s like walking into the Chocolate Factory, and you won a Golden Ticket,” says Janelle, one of the employees featured in videos posted to Amazon’s YouTube page. The introductions share a format, with titles like “Meet Ricardo” and “Meet Ron, military veteran and Amazon Delivery Service Partner.” These documentary-style videos sometimes air as advertisements on streaming services. One of the people interviewed just had a baby. Another narrates in American Sign Language. Janelle talks about providing for her young son. She says he loves packages from “Mommy’s work.” He appears briefly in […]

For more than 40 years, there was a certainty to the film festival calendar—a comfort in knowing that, since 1978, when the Berlin International Film Festival moved to February, followed by Cannes in May, and Venice in the fall, there were three distinct seasons for producers, sales agents and buyers to meet, see films and make deals. But in 2021, things are different, of course. While the inflection points of the business cycle—winter, summer, fall—remain somewhat in place, the ongoing pandemic has scrambled the dates, formats and plans for hundreds of film events, upending launch strategies and causing potential logjams […]

In this epic episode, we really get to know the talented actor Danny Deferrari, who plays Max in Emma Seligman’s brilliant and hilarious new film Shiva Baby, and I’m eternally grateful for it. He talks about appreciating the “emotional language” that Seligman speaks and the heavy life situation that was weighing on him during that movie. He takes us through his early training as an actor, his formative and important seasons at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and the trials and tribulations that brought him to his “Holy Trinity of Artistic Safety.” I break down how a small performance of his […]

Billy Magnussen is a Tony nominated actor who you know from Game Night, Into The Woods, Ingrid Goes West and Maniac. On this episode, he talks about the foundational benefits of his early stint on a soap opera, the importance of showing up for your career, his fondness for Cristin Milioti, his co-star on the wonderful new HBO Max series Made for Love (with stories of pestering her mercilessly when they both performed on Broadway in theaters next door to each other), and he makes an impassioned plea for the celebration of NEW works in the theater. Plus much more! […]

Lily Rabe is probably best know for inhabiting a half-dozen characters over many seasons on Ryan Murphy’s hugely popular American Horror Story series, and recently her supporting performance in The Undoing had a lot of people talking, but in New York City, she’s theater royalty. I pinpoint my first encounter with her greatness. It was as Portia in The Merchant of Venice for Shakespeare in the Park. The court scene. She details the lengths director Daniel Sullivan went to avoid rehearsing that scene, and the miraculous occurrence when they finally did. She talks about being an “over-packer” when it comes […]