Feeling Seen

We're thrilled to be adding the delightful Sophie Nélisse to the list of YELLOWJACKETS stars we've spoken with on the show; you'll recognize her as young Shauna Shipman from that series (or perhaps from her role in the beyond-buzzy HEATED RIVALRY). Now she's starring in the fun and freaky cursed-object horror movie WHISTLE , out in theaters this weekend (February 6, 2026). Now 25, Sophie's been ac...

If you're one of Chris Stuckmann's 2 million + YouTube subscribers , you've known about his debut feature, the horror film Shelby Oaks , for years -- long before the movie was bought and distrubuted by NEON, maybe even before he started the record-breaking Kickstarter campaign that funded the film. But you might not know all that much about the world Chris grew up in -- and left behind, in part be...

Jolenta Greenberg is a very familiar and comedic voice to anyone who's heard BY THE BOOK, HOW TO BE FINE, or her new show, HOT MESS-TERPIECE THEATRE . She and Jordan are talking Real Housewives, 4-Hour Work Weeks, and above all, the hilarious and sometimes horrific antics of Jerri Blank, Amy Sedaris's iconic character of the small and big screen comedy STRANGERS WITH CANDY. Then, Jordan has one qu...

Director and star of OBEX (which premiered at 2025's Sundance Film Festival), Albert Birney is a filmmaker and animator who has paved his own unique path forward in the world of cinema, and done so with great success. He's brought another unique success story to the Feeling Seen table this week: Marcel, the Shell with Shoes On (and his eponymous 2021 film). Albert and Jordan also talk about his re...

Back in 1986, Tim Blake Nelson was a drama student at Julliard when he saw Jim Jarmusch's sophomore feature, DOWN BY LAW. Tom Waits (who would continue to work with Jarmusch, and is starring in his latest film) plays a regular unlucky joe, and does it as no typical Hollywood star could. It was a path into the world of movies that Nelson could see himself following, if he got the chance (which he d...

Happy New Year! We're bringing back one of our favorite episodes from the recent past, this conversation with June Squibb, which originally aired in June of 2024. Since then, in 2025, June had the title role in Eleanor the Great , Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, which premiered at Cannes. June Squibb was born an actor, and had a rich career on stage for years before becoming an on-screen p...

How's this for a holiday treat? Multi-award winning singer and actor Andra Day shares her love of Dorothy Dandridge's iconic lead performance in Carmen Jones ,  as well as her perspectives on wading deeper into movie-stardom (with her latest role opposite Bradley Cooper and alongside Laura Dern and Will Arnett in IS THIS THING ON?), turning 40, and why you should never stop transforming. Then, Jor...

It's an episode over 200 in the making -- writer/director Sam Wineman (who also happens to be Jordan's co-host on the oft-mentioned Aughtsterion podcast!) joins us to talk about his feature debut, Hag . And you might be surprised by his horror film's connections to a very different film -- 2016's rom-com (and Dakota Johnson vehicle) How to Be Single . Then Jordan has one quick thing about another...

Another one of those magical Feeling Seen manifestations this week: just a few episodes after discussing a film he starred in with director James Michael Powell (ep 196), James Badge Dale himself is with us to talk about his perspective on acting and how it was shaped by Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS. Dale, who has been in countless films, and blurs the line between leading man and character acto...

It's our 200th episode! We're celebrating in style with the charming and super-talented Thomasin McKenzie, an actor we've watched go from teen roles in films like LEAVE NO TRACE and JOJO RABBIT to grown-up roles, as in OLD, LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, and her new comedy, FACKHAM HALL. She shares the push-and-pull identification she feels (and aspires to) for Julie Delpy's Celine in the 1995 classic, BEFOR...

For his latest book, BREAK THE FRAME , culture writer Kevin Smokler interviewed 24 prominent female filmmakers about their rich and varied careers. One of those filmmakers, Patricia Cardoso, directed the 2002 movie that introduced the world to a 17-year-old America Ferrera: REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES. Despite their surface differences (to state the obvious, Kevin is not a young Latina child of immigra...

Actor Alex Winter may be best known as the Bill half of Bill and Ted -- and he's currently treading the boards with his counterpart from the Bill & Ted movies, Keanu Reeves, in a Broadway production of Waiting for Godot . But his body of work includes a ton of other films and tv shows, with roles both in front of and behind the camera. One project he co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in is the in...

Barbara Muschietti (along with her brother Andy) has made her mark on Hollywood, especially in the horror realm (MAMA, IT, IT: CHAPTER TWO and now WELCOME TO DERRY ). But regardless of what genre you're working in, the business of Hollywood takes tenacity, luck, and no small amount of delusion. That's what we've got for you today, through WORKING GIRL (1988) and Robert Altman's THE PLAYER (1992)....

Directors John-Michael Powell ( VIOLENT ENDS , in theaters now) and David Gordon Green (whose movie ALL THE REAL GIRLS was an early entry in what's become an extremely varied and successful career) are both from Arkansas. Powell's new film, which stars Billy Magnussen, James Badge Dale, and Alexandra Schipp, is a bloody, grimy crime thriller -- a far cry from ALL THE REAL GIRLS' quiet romantic ang...

An androgenous figurehead of a found family that refuses to grow up -- if you've never thought of Peter Pan in those terms, director Tina Romero is here to set you straight (er, in a manner of speaking). Tina also shares the ins, outs, and inspirations behind her feature debut, Queens of the Dead , which continues and reinvents a family legacy of zombie cinema (Tina is the daughter of the legendar...

If you've never seen G.I. Jane , you might know it as a punchline, an epithet, or shorthand for a certain kind of movie -- or a certain kind of woman. But watching G.I. Jane in 2025, you see a portrait of fierce tenacity and genuine strength, all baked into a Ridley Scott action war drama. Actor Katy O'Brian -- who is absolutely on fire right now, and the list of things you'd know her from grows e...

Adult Swim veteran producer and head of Thin Edge films, Lisa M. Thomas has been working across genres in film and television for decades from her home in upstate New York. Her latest project is The Misadventures of Bucky and Beene , the story of queer radio hosts who get in some hot water with the locals. Similarly, her choice of young Ludovic from a French classic of '90s queer cinema, Ma Vie En...

As October kicks into gear, we've got Mercedes Bryce Morgan , director of the new horror movie BONE LAKE . And not only is her own film spooky, but so is her chosen "feeling seen" subject: teen girlhood...er, we mean Sissy Spacek's CARRIE from the horror classic CARRIE. She and Jordan get into the blurry line between exploitation and representation in horror and erotic thrillers, especially when i...

Writer/director MJ Bassett's latest film, Red Sonja continues her run as a writer/director of intense and action-packed projects -- she's also directed FUBAR , Reacher , Deathwatch , Rogue (2020) and more. But when it comes to seeing herself on screen, MJ's life has two distinct chapters: before and after coming out as a trans woman in her 40s. MJ shares the small ways she's felt seen (and not alw...

Carmen Emmi's directorial debut, PLAINCLOTHES , is in theaters now, after catching a lot of attention and fanfare out of this year's Sundance Film Festival. He tells Jordan about the experience of getting to break out with a personal contribution to the queer cinema canon, and about all the ways he was comforted, educated, and inspired by another Sundance hit -- 2006's LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE . Then,...

When Alice Wu directs a film, she really means it. Both SAVING FACE and THE HALF OF IT, released decades apart, made a big splash on the independent cinema scene. Now SAVING FACE has been added to the Criterion Collection. Alice tells Jordan about creating a patchwork of identity across various movie characters -- specifically the romantic searcher Frances from FRANCES HA and the too-smart-for-her...

This episode originally aired in October 2024. A second season of English Teacher premieres on Hulu on September 25, 2025. You may know Brian Jordan Alvarez from the killer horror film M3GAN or from his web series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. Most recently, Brian created and stars in the FX comedy series English Teacher , a refreshingly hilarious original that follows a high school te...

André Holland has wowed us in movies like MOONLIGHT and his new Sundance hit LOVE, BROOKLYN. But he says that he gets the most comments -- and perhaps even owes his career -- to his role as Dr. Algernon Edwards in the Steven Soderbergh-helmed Cinemax series THE KNICK. It was a role he could relate to, and of the kind he'd been searching high and low for -- one that fit. He and Jordan talk about th...

Director, writer, and actor Macon Blair has been making movies with friends since he was young -- including frequent collaborator Jeremy Saulnier. His new film is THE TOXIC AVENGER, starring Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon. It might not feel like an obvious follow-up to his work with Saulnier, nor to Blair's previous film, I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE; neither might seem like a direct...

Tricia Cooke is having her moment, and it's been a long time coming. Together with partner Ethan Coen, she's made last years DRIVE AWAY DOLLS and the new HONEY DON'T from scripts written long ago. And in some ways, the seed for these very gay, very fun movies was planted by a modern classic of fun gay cinema: Jamie Babbit's BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER. Tricia and Jordan talk about that film, the new one...