Feeling Seen

Actor, director, and writer Megan Rosati was not a child vampire. But from first watch, she so identified with Eli, the 12-year-old vampire in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, the modern horror classic from Sweden, that she would show the film to people to help them understand her. In this episode, she and Jordan dig into the ways we can feel like we're different -- especially in adolescence -- and the power...

New Yorker cartoonist and writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert , Asher Perlman, related to Charlie Kaufman's self-deprecating self-portrait in Spike Jonze's 2002 film Adaptation - a movie we discussed here in one of our earliest episodes, with author Susan Orlean. As he's grown up -- both as a person and a creative -- has he gotten more in touch with his inner Donald, Charlie's (fully fic...

You definitely know DeWanda Wise from somewhere. She's made a splash on the big and the small screen, in titles like SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT (the Netflix series) and JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION. Now she's starring in the horror film IMAGINARY, which just landed on VOD after being in theaters earlier this year. But if you didn't realize that was the same DeWanda in all of those projects, you're not alone -...

With CHALLENGERS, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes tapped into what he really wanted to know about his favorite athletes: what are they REALLY playing for? Beyond the game? That's a glimpse we get into Brad Pitt's Billy Beane in the 2011 film MONEYBALL. What's more, we see Beane trying to do something anyone who's tried to get a movie or a play off the ground knows well: hustling to make magic with l...

Sierra Katow is an Asian-American woman in stand-up comedy, but those parts of her identity are surface-level. What you might not know about Sierra (unless you watch her new special, FUNT) is that she's also a little sister. That's not the only point of recognition she has with Lilo and Mei, heroes of Lilo & Stitch and My Neighbor Totoro , but it's certainly first on the list. She and Jordan discu...

Drag superstar Latrice Royale has been in the game since before Ru Paul's Drag Race was a phenomenon. She won Miss Congeniality on her season of that show, and went on to appear on All-Stars and Drag U. An actor and performer, Latrice is one of the co-hosts of the just-launched Season 4 of HBO's We're Here . And if you know anything about Latrice, just a few moments with Della Reese's character, V...

This episode originally aired on  May 18, 2023. From her roles in a semi-autobiographical sitcom in 1996 ( Life's Work ) to The Parent Trap to Abbott Elementary , Lisa Ann Walter has played a lot of different kinds of strong, brassy women. And even though standards of beauty and acceptance in Hollywood are always changing, those winds haven't always blown in her favor. But what makes an icon iconi...

Larry Fessenden is almost a kind of mythic figure in the world of indie filmmaking. He's a filmmaker behind dozens of his own independently produced projects, an actor, an editor, and a producer who's helped give directors from Ti West to Kelly Reichart their start. His new film is BLACKOUT, which focuses on a different kind of mythic figure: the werewolf (with Larry's signature thoughtful touch)....

Avril Speaks, independent filmmaker and co-host of the film advice podcast DISTRIBUTION ADVOCATES PRESENTS tells us why J from AWKWARD BLACK GIRL was such a revelation -- even more so than when the successful web series morphed into INSECURE, and J became Issa. Plus, she shares her affinity with Summer, a teen girl coming of age as her mother converts to Islam, in her film JINN . Then, Jordan has...

THE SAVAGES (directed by Tamara Jenkins, who also directed SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS, and starrring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an often poignant comedy about adult siblings trying to get care for their elderly father, who suffers from dementia. That might not be the most expected pick from a director whose new horror film, IMMACULATE , now has  the distinction of being NEON's highest...

It's the final week of #MaxFunDrive! Thanks to everyone who has joined or upgraded so far; if you've been putting it off, now's thie time! maximumfun.org/join It's been a long time since comedian Jackie Kashian (co-host of MaxFun's own Jackie and Laurie Show ) has been a industry newb like Benji (Mark Linn Baker) in 1982's MY FAVORITE YEAR. But she felt really seen by Benji's journey into the worl...

This podcast is part of the #MaxFunDrive! If you’d like to help this podcast continue and get great gifts in the process, go to maximumfun.org/join and become a MaxFun Member for as little as $5 a month. You can also upgrade or boost your membership for as little as $1 more a month to help the show out even more and earn gifts and certain levels. COLOR OF NIGHT is one of the wildest, most surprisi...

Susie Banikarim has been a freshman journalist. She's also been a boss. Now, she's the co-host and EP of the podcast In Retrospect , along with her friend, New York Times editor Jessica Bennett. Over the years, Susie has kept watching the 2006 modern classic The Devil Wears Prada , and she's noticed a funny thing happen. Where once she (obviously!) identified with the put-upon lead, Andy Sachs (An...

Comedian Caitlin Peluffo (whose new album, DIRTY BIRD , just dropped) was a soccer star as a kid who craved attention from boys, despite not fitting the "cute girl" stereotype. Becky "Icebox" O'Shea, a central character in the 1994 family football comedy LITTLE GIANTS, is on the precipice of that same flight. Caitlin never did shake her deep affinity with Becky/Icebox, but her relationship to it h...

Jack Haven (who at the time of this recording was known publicly as Brigette Lundy-Paine) comes from a creative family, and (in addition to their music and their work on WAIF Magazine), has been acting since childhood. In adulthood, success in their career has shown them the difference between being playing a role on screen and playing one in real life. Joe Buck, the pretend  cowboy and wannabe hu...

The host and writer of the SIGNIFICANT OTHERS podcast, Liza Powel O'Brien , was a teenager when Dustin Hoffman's iconic Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels dropped into her life via TOOTSIE . The Michael/Dorothy transformation illustrated to her the same thing it showed Michael in the movie: it takes a lot of work to dress up like a woman.  Jordan and Liza will get into all that, and then Jordan has o...

Oscar Montoya is a co-host of the new MaxFun podcast Eurovangelists , all about the Eurovision Song Contest. And his love of song and spectacle factors into his professional life as a dancer, actor, and comedian. But long before that career began, Oscar was a kid growing up in Colombia, where for some reason a 1985 movie called Young Sherlock Holmes was playing on repeat. Directed by Barry Levinso...

It's a banner day for Feeling Seen! On the heels of her latest screenplay, LISA FRANKENSTEIN (in theaters now), Jordan is talking to none other than Diablo Cody. From the Oscar win for her first screenplay (JUNO) to her recent success in the realm of the Broadway musical (JAGGED LITTLE PILL), Diablo has made a career of writing from her unique voice and perspective. And she's feeling seen by the u...

While MILLER'S GIRL, in theaters now, is Jade Halley Bartlett's debut feature, she's been a working screenwriter, playwright, and actor for many years. In this conversation, Jade and Jordan discuss the multi-faceted awakening that was Elizabeth Taylor as the witty-but-acerbic, strong-but-broken Martha in Mike Nichols' debut feature, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, adapted from Edward Albee's play...

 You might know Moshe Kasher from his standup, from his podcast Endless Honeymoon (co-hosted with his wife, actor/comedian Natasha Leggero), or from his memoirs -- of which the latest, SUBCULTURE VULTURE: A MEMOIR IN SIX SCENES, is out now. But that's just scratching the surface in the many lives and quests of Moshe. He tells Jordan about his forays with scenes as diverse as AA, Rave culture, sign...

The interview in this episode was originally published in March of 2022. Before she was the starring alongside Jodie Foster in TRUE DETECTIVE, Kali Reis was a champion boxer. As she shares in this interview, she has always been "boxing for a cause" -- in particular, that of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. In her feature debut, 'Catch the Fair One' (directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka), she pla...

Star of stage and screen, film and television, voice over and live action, Parvesh Cheena's list of credits is expansive -- and you've almost certainly seen or heard him  in SOMETHING ( Barbershop ? Outsourced ? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ? Mythic Quest ? The Mandalorian ?). Parvesh has carved out a place for himself as a character actor -- a position that has at times been a little lonely, and a little...

Comedian and writer Josh Gondelman is a pep-talk enthusiast and famously upbeat guy, with a solid career and a happy home life. Not one of these traits does he share with Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), from the Coen Brothers' 2013 film INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS. And yet, when he saw it in the theater, Josh felt so seen by Llewyn -- and not in a good way -- that he couldn't watch the movie again for a decad...

Growing up on the rez, comedian and writer Joey Clift didn't know that comedy (or TV writing) was an option for him. But a decade in Hollywood has taken him from UCB teams to Emmy nominations, and on the way he's helped create the Native representation he didn't see as a kid.  He's also watched as the industry has begun to make that representation more common -- as with his Feeling Seen movie pick...

This interview was originally recorded in April of 2022, when Auli'i Cravalho, who made a name for herself as the voice of Moana, was co-starring in Hulu's CRUSH (which is delightful, you should watch it!). Now, Auli'i will soon be hitting big screens as Janis Ian in the new movie adaptation of the MEAN GIRLS musical. With warm wishes for a bright New Year to all our listeners, we're delighted to...