Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Mandy Moore first rose to stardom with her hit single Candy in 1999. It made Mandy a teen pop star, following the steps of her peers Britney Spears, N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys. But she never wanted to be just a pop star – she had dreams of performing on stage and screen and writing her own music. And for the last 20+ years, Mandy has been doing just that. She's starred in movies like Saved , T...

Content warning: This interview contains some explicit language and graphic, frank talk about sex that some listeners might be sensitive to. Ryan O'Connell is the creator and star of the Netflix show Special . It's a semi-autobiographical sitcom about Ryan's own life – his experience as a gay man, and coming to terms with his identity as a disabled person. Ryan has cerebral palsy. It's a congenita...

Many know Bill Hader from his time on Saturday Night Live . He was kind of an impressions guy — he did a mean Alan Alda. One of his most memorable characters was Stefon from Weekend Update. He left the show in 2013 and went on to perform in movies like Trainwreck , Inside Out and Sausage Party . His latest project is a TV show called Barry , which is in the middle of its third season. Hader joined...

Hip-hop historian Dan Charnas joins Bullseye to discuss his new book Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm . Charnas digs deep into the life and work of acclaimed producer J Dilla, who took the hip-hop industry by storm at a young age with his signature, influential production style. His solo album Donuts was released to rave reviews just three d...

Adam Scott is best known for his iconic roles in comedy: Parks And Recreation . Party Down . Step Brothers . The Good Place . His latest is a departure from the roles traditionally associated with the actor. On Severance , he portrays the show's protagonist Mark. While the show has some comedic elements, it's very dark and mysterious. Severance is set mostly at a company called Lumon Industries. I...

Claudia O'Doherty is, as you are about to hear, an extremely funny person. She is from Sydney, Australia. Some of her work includes serving as a writer on Inside Amy Schumer and a regular part on Netflix's Love . Claudia has her own brand of comedy that I guess one could describe as "cheerfully deranged." Sort of a kindler, gentler Adult Swim bizarreness. Her latest project is called Killing It ....

Michael Stipe is forever cemented in the minds of music fans as the lead singer of R.E.M., one of the biggest rock bands in history. You might also know him from his fun appearances on shows like At Home with Amy Sedaris and The Adventures of Pete and Pete . We're chatting with him this week about discovering his voice, his passion for photography, and the new music he's been writing. See pcm.adsw...

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey will be forever linked together – thanks to one show: The Office . Angela and Jenna were strangers when the show started, but soon formed a friendship that has lasted long after the show wrapped. Together they recently released a book. The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There is both a celebration of the show and a memoir of a friend...

In a time where there is a lot going on in the world, it is nice to have a break every once in a while. To find something silly, something weird and something that can transport you somewhere else completely. Perhaps to a place where iguanas are mail carriers, one where ATMs sprout from the ground in the city park and lawn hedges are trimmed with shaving cream and razors. Lemoncurd, Connecticut, i...

Gilbert Gottfried died last month. The standup comedian and actor was 67. To millennials of a certain age, he was an iconic voice actor: Iago in Aladdin , Kraang Subprime in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the voice of Aflac Duck commercials. We're taking a moment to remember Gilbert's life by revisiting our conversation from 2017. At the time, he joined us to talk about the documentary Gilbert ,...

Ron Carter is a legend in the world of jazz. His work as a bassist has appeared on thousands of recordings, and has the world records to prove it. In a career that spans over five decades, he's won three Grammys – and he's worked with folks like Miles Davis, Alice Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel and A Tribe Called Quest. Ron takes us back to when he first picked up an instrum...

Alan Alda has been performing for over six decades. He played the iconic role of Hawkeye in M*A*S*H , was Arnold Vinnick on The West Wing and starred in several other memorable roles over the years. He has also had parts in a number of films and performed on Broadway. Alda is also an almost-journalist, a communicator and an interviewer. For almost thirty years now it has been his second career. Fi...

Paul Feig created TV shows like Freaks and Geeks , movies like Bridesmaids , Unaccompanied Minors and Spy . He's directed episodes of 30 Rock , The Office , Mad Men and more. He's basically a legend, and he keeps plenty busy. He helped produce the new HBO show Minx – it's a period comedy about the first women's erotic magazine. He also helped make the newest Fox sitcom Welcome to Flatch , a mockum...

We welcome a true "Superstar" on the latest episode, the one and only Molly Shannon! She's one of the greatest comic actors ever. Shannon just wrote a book. It's called Hello, Molly: A Memoir . In the book, Molly Shannon shares her life story. She writes about her time on Saturday Night Live , but also her childhood. Shannon's mother, younger sister and cousin died in a car accident when Molly was...

Courtney B. Vance started acting in college. He went to Yale drama school, where he met his future wife Angela Bassett. He starred in the debut performance of August Wilson's Fences , first at the Yale repertory theater in 1985, then later on Broadway in 1987. Since then, he has gone on to work on the big and small screen, too. He has had parts on shows like Law and Order: Criminal Intent , The Pe...

Chloë Sevigny is, in a word: cool. She has an impeccable fashion sense and makes waves in that world. She's an Oscar nominated actor for her role in Boys Don't Cry . An indie darling in films like The Last Days of Disco and Broken Flowers . She's had regular roles on shows like Big Love and American Horror Story , too. We were big fans of her recurring appearances as Alexandra on Portlandia . Thes...

Parks and Recreation 's Jean-Ralphio! Star Wars ' BB-8! The voice of Sonic the Hedgehog! We're joined by Ben Schwartz. Ben's big break came in 2010 with a small recurring role on Parks and Recreation . Jean-Ralphio was a character who only showed up a few times a year – but he was one of the most memorable characters on the show. We'll chat at length about his role on the show. You can hear his vo...

John Leguizamo has been in well over 100 movies and TV shows, including the recent Academy Award-winning animated smash Encanto . That is impressive enough but John's also a writer who has created and starred in a handful of powerful, hilarious one-man shows over his career. This includes his 2019 show, Latin History for Morons . During the show's run, he joined Bullseye to talk about it. He also...

Chuck Klosterman writes about culture. Pop culture, more specifically. Rock bands, basketball teams, adult entertainment, Saved by the Bell ... you get the idea. He was a writer who wrote volumes of hot pop culture takes before being a writer with hot pop culture takes was just, y'know, being a writer. He's positioned himself as a writer who doesn't just think about pop culture, but has a knack fo...

Mary Roach is a science writer who covers very specific branches of research: sex in space, cadaver handling, that sort of thing. Her newest book is called Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law . It's a book about how humans have tried – and failed to manage nature. Bears that break into dumpsters. Moose stepping into traffic. Gulls that eat papal flower arrangements. We'll talk with her about how the...

This weekend on the show: Steven Van Zandt! Of course, you might know him better as Little Steven, a guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, or as Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano's right-hand man. He's a singer, an actor, a guitar player, a famous wearer of head scarves. A man of many talents! He recounts all that in Unrequited Infatuations: A Memoir, and he tells us all about it. The months-l...

Amy Schumer is, of course, the creator and star of the hit sketch show Inside Amy Schumer . She also wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed romcom Trainwreck and has taped several comedy specials. She has been nominated for Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes, a Tony, and even won a Peabody award for Inside Amy Schumer . Amy's newest project is a semi-autobiographical television comedy called Lif...

J. Kenji López-Alt is a chaf and food writer who has written for the New York Times, Cook's Illustrated, Serious Eats, and more. A lot of his recipes perfect the staples including steak, potatoes, beans, eggs, mayo, and mushroom soup. If you are a home cook, odds are you have a recipe from Kenji you swear by. In 2015, he compiled a lot of his signature recipes in his award winning book The Food La...

For the first chapter of his career, Nick Kroll's comedy centered around big, outsized characters – the more preposterous the better. He created the sketch comedy series Kroll Show , and he starred on the FX show The League. These days he's behind the camera a lot more. In 2017, he co-created the animated show Big Mouth on Netflix. Now he's got a new show in the same universe: Human Resources . It...

On December 18, 2021, the rapper Drakeo the Ruler was murdered backstage at a festival in Los Angeles, his hometown. A group of 40 or so people ambushed him; one of them stabbed him to death. Drakeo was a young, rising rapper. Critics respected him and rap fans streamed his music millions of times. He was an LA gangsta rapper whose music didn't sound like what you'd think when you hear "LA gangsta...