Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Greg Daniels is a screenwriter, television producer and director. Over the span of more than three decades he's worked on some of the most beloved comedy television shows. Seriously, he's worked on some of your favorite tv series: Seinfeld , The Simpsons , Saturday Night Live , The Office , King of The Hill , and so many more. These days, he still keeps busy. Greg has two sitcoms in production. On...

The Song That Changed My Life gives us a chance to talk with different artists about the music that has inspired them. On the latest installment, we are joined by Eric Nam. Eric is an Atlanta-born singer, songwriter, and entertainer. He has worked with Timbaland, Gallant, Craig David, and a bunch of others and has headlined festivals like KCON and the Seoul Jazz Festival. He recently released an a...

You probably know Brian Cox from Succession . He plays patriarch Logan Roy on the show. But Brian has hundreds of credits acting with a career spanning decades: movies, TV shows, even a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company! Cox recounts his career in a new memoir. Putting the Rabbit in the Hat covers his childhood, growing up in postwar Dundee, Scotland, his time studying and performing Shakes...

Syl Johnson, the Chicago soul and blues singer, died last month at 85. He was probably best known for his work on Hi Records, the home of Ann Peebles and, of course, Al Green. In fact, he turned down a record deal that ended up going to Green. The songs Johnson cut for Hi in Memphis were some of the best soul records of their time. Hip-hop producers have feasted on Johnson's records, making him on...

Alana Haim has been leading two very distinct careers. First, there's her music - Alana is one third of the Grammy nominated, critically acclaimed rock group Haim. And then there's her acting. Alana made her big screen Debut in the new Paul Thomas Anderson film Licorice Pizza . The role has earned her a Golden Globe nomination along with a bunch of other awards. It's also up for Best Picture, Best...

Betty Davis died earlier this month. She was 77. She was the very definition of a cult hero – she never cut a hit record, but her influence is still strong today. Her music was absolutely unforgettable, and her style was outrageous, like a funky Barbarella with a two-foot-wide Afro. Her band was the best of the best. Even her husband was influential. (That's Betty Davis as in Miles Davis – they sa...

You read that right: Chrsitopher Walken! One of the greatest character actors ever. So many iconic parts: King of New York , Pulp Fiction , The Deer Hunter , Catch Me If You Can , and Hairspray . These days, you can see him on the dystopian workplace dramedy Severance . Christopher Walken talks about Severance and working alongside John Turturro. He'll also get into his days as a child actor and g...

The Craziest Day of My Entire Career is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite people about the weirdest workday they have experienced so far. This week, our guest is Alan Tudyk. Alan is a brilliant character actor and a performer who can do a thousand and one impressions. He has worked in movies like Rogue One , I, Robot , and several Pixar films. His latest project...

Big Boi and Sleepy Brown. Two legendary recording artists! Big Boi is one half of the legendary rap duo OutKast and a prolific solo-artist. Sleepy Brown is a veteran singer-songwriter and producer. Along with his team production team Organized Noize, he helped produce well over half of OutKast's discography. He's also worked with Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, and Ludacris. Their latest joint effort...

Charlie Day is the star and co-creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . You probably knew that already, because Always Sunny is the longest running live-action comedy in the history of television. And it's still good! But Charlie Day, the actor, is more than Charlie from Always Sunny . He helped co-create the very funny TV show Mythic Quest . He's acted in movies like Pacific Rim , Horrible...

Kristen Bell joins the show this week to talk about her new series The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window . It's a parody of domestic thriller movies like The Woman in The Window and The Girl on the Train . Kristen plays the character of Anna in the show, a woman who lives in an upscale suburb and is having a rough go of it lately. Anna does not do much other than dri...

John Bradley was around 22 when he got the part that changed his life. On Game of Thrones he played Samwell Tarly, John Snow's close friend for nearly a decade. In the beginning, it's clear that Sam isn't cut out for the world of Game of Thrones . He isn't a natural warrior. He's a bigger guy. Kind of soft. He's smart, but not especially cunning. He's nice, maybe a little goofy. And on any other s...

Louie Anderson passed away last month at the age of 68. He was a veteran stand-up and comic actor who performed in movies and shows like Family Feud , Coming to America , and Life with Louie . When we talked with Louie Anderson in 2017, he had been starring in the FX series Baskets . We remember the life of Louie Anderson by revisiting this conversation with him on the latest episode. He talked wi...

I Wish I Made That is a segment where we invite some of our favorite voices in pop culture to dive deep into a work of art they did not make but they really wish they did. This time around we are joined by John Darnielle. John is a writer and frontman of the folk rock band the Mountain Goats. He recently released his third novel which is called Devil House . It is an epic story that touches on the...

W. Kamau Bell, a comedian and host, directed a new documentary series. It's called We Need To Talk About Cosby. It's about Bill Cosby – who he is, what he's done, and how we deal with that. It's a complicated, difficult topic. One that intersects with the fabric of the American entertainment system, with race, the justice system, the MeToo movement and so much more. In this conversation we talk wi...

The Righteous Gemstones just kicked off its second season on HBO, and that's good news. It's a comedy about the Gemstones, a family of pastors and owners of a massive megachurch with hundreds of thousands of followers. The show centers around Dr. Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), the patriarch, who's been preaching on TV for decades; he's played by John Goodman. But the show itself centers around Eli's...

Alfred Molina started his acting career almost 40 years ago. First on British TV and a couple of movies later on. Since then he's gotten over 150 roles. He's responsible for a bunch of other unforgettable scenes, in films like Boogie Nights , Chocolat and Magnolia . He played Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and has now reprised the role for Spider-Man: No Way Home , which is out now. When we talked wi...

Just before Christmas this past year, the writer Joan Didion died. She was 87. Didion rose to fame for her journalism – she immersed herself in stories. In the late 60s, she broke through with Slouching Towards Bethlehem . In her career she covered a bunch of different topics – counter culture, war, immigration. She also wrote a handful of novels, a couple memoirs. We never got to interview Didion...

Glynn Turman is a brilliant actor who's lived an extraordinary life. His first big role was at 12, in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett Jr. He's played mayor Clarence Royce on The Wire and Doctor Senator on the most recent season of Fargo . Just the other week he portrayed Mose Wright, the great-uncle of Emmett Till, in the...

Winston Duke was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to Brooklyn when he was nine. He studied acting at Yale and went on to work mainly in TV during his early twenties. He did not break into movies until he was thirty. That first movie role was M'Baku in 2018's Black Panther . He followed that up with an appearance in Avengers Infinity War , then with a starring role in Jordan Peele's Us . Last...

Living legend John Cameron Mitchell joins us on the latest episode. He's directed the movies Shortbus and Rabbit Hole , acted on shows like Shrill and Girls. But he's probably best known for his iconic work is the cult hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch . It's a story about queerness, about identity, about the threads rock and punk music shares with other live performances, like drag and cabaret and Br...

Odds are, you know Sarah Snook for her role on Succession, the latest Zeitgeist-y TV drama on HBO. Sarah plays Siobhan Roy. But to her friends and family, it's just "Shiv." Succession follows the Roy family. They own a giant conservative media conglomerate called Waystar Royco; the family's patriarch, Shiv's father Logan Roy, is aging and can't run the company forever. Who will he name to take ove...

Benedict Cumberbatch is pretty much one of the biggest actors around. In 2010, he got the title part on the BBC's modern day Sherlock Holmes reboot, just called Sherlock . He plays Dr. Strange in the Marvel movies, including the brand new Spider Man: No Way Home . He is also in the brand new western called The Power of the Dog , which is playing in theaters and streaming on Netflix. When we talked...

It's that time of year again! Our annual end of year best of stand-up comedy showcase is here! The whole team here at Maximum Fun combed through dozens and dozens of albums to bring you some of the best. In a year that was extraordinarily difficult for stand-up comedy, that meant that some comedians got creative. We have albums recorded before the pandemic, albums recorded in front of only a handf...

The Bullseye Holiday Spectacular is here! We are revisiting some of our favorite Holiday interviews with different guests from over the years. First, we kick things off with Ronnie Spector. She talks with us about her work with The Ronnets and her fond love for Christmas music . We are then joined by singer/songwriter Sy Smith, who shares which classic holiday tune changed her life. We close thing...