In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast

André Holland has turned in quietly powerful and honest performances in “42,” “Selma,” his leading role on the Stephen King-inspired Hulu series “Castle Rock,” and more. From his early days of studying theater and using Backstage, to his breakout in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Knick” and Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning “Moonlight,” the Alabama native has excelled at following his gut to stellar projects...

Regina Hall has proven she’s one of today’s shrewdest and funniest on-screen performers, from her early days pounding the pavement using Backstage, to her work in films like “Love & Basketball,” the “Scary Movie” franchise, and the biggest comedy of last year, “Girls Trip.” She’s now starring in the hilarious new Showtime series “Black Monday,” created by Jordan Cahan and David Caspe, and is provi...

At only age 15, Elsie Fisher has pearls of wisdom aplenty in this interview, recorded amid a whirlwind of a breakthrough year. As socially awkward middle schooler Kayla Day in writer-director Bo Burnham’s feature debut “Eighth Grade” from A24, she’s been nominated for over a dozen awards, including a Golden Globe, and won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor. Elsie has plenty o...

Award-winning actor, producer, director, and activist Natalie Portman is one of Hollywood’s brightest talents. She burst onto the scene as a pre-teen in “Léon: The Professional” and “Mars Attacks!” and has been fighting for the projects and causes she believes in ever since. You may know her from the “Star Wars” prequels, “Anywhere But Here,” “Garden State,” “Closer,” “V for Vendetta,” her Oscar-w...

Amandla Stenberg plays Starr Carter in 20th Century Fox’s “The Hate U Give,” the big-screen adaptation of Angie Thomas’ young adult novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Amandla got her start in the biz early, playing Rue in “The Hunger Games” and working as a model, musician, and even comic book co-writer. Also, at only 20 years old, she’s the voice of an activist generation, using h...

Nick Kroll appears in some of Hollywood’s funniest recent projects—films like “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy,” “Adult Beginners,” “The House,” TV shows including “Cavemen,” “Parks and Recreation,” and “The League”—and for creating “The Kroll Show,” starring on Broadway alongside John Mulaney in their web series–inspired “Oh, Hello,” and now, the Netflix animated puberty comedy “Big Mouth,” co-created...

John Krasinski is best known for his Jim Halpert on the award-winning “The Office,” but as this in-depth interview suggests, he’s as much a writer-director-producer as a comedic star. Inspired by his arts education at Brown University and the National Theater Institute, he’s starred in “Leatherheads,” “Away We Go,” “13 Hours,” collaborated on “Promised Land” and “Manchester by the Sea,” and helmed...

Triple threat MJ Rodriguez, born and raised in New Jersey where she got her big break in an Off-Broadway production of “Rent,” got an even bigger break last year when she was cast as Blanca, mother of the House of Evangelista, in FX’s drama “Pose” from Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals. She leads the largest cast of transgender actors in the history of scripted TV, recreating the world...

You may know Zoe Kazan from the feature film she wrote and starred in, “Ruby Sparks,” or for her performances on and Off-Broadway, in last year’s “The Big Sick,” and on the miniseries “Olive Kitteridge,” which earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination. This year she’s both the writer and producer behind IFC Film’s “Wildlife,” directed by her partner Paul Dano, and one of the stars of the Coen brother...

In 2018 Lucas Hedges stars in three buzzy films—“Boy Erased,” Joel Edgerton’s retelling of Garrard Conley’s gay conversion therapy memoir; “Mid90s,” Jonah Hill’s skateboarding indie; and “Ben Is Back,” an addiction drama written and directed by his father Peter Hedges—plus on Broadway in “The Waverly Gallery” by Kenneth Lonergan, who penned his Oscar-nominated “Manchester by the Sea” role. Earning...

Actor and activist Maggie Gyllenhaal has turned in striking and thought-provoking work in her every film role, from “Donnie Darko” and “Secretary” to “Sherrybaby” and “The Dark Knight.” She earned a Primetime Emmy nomination and won a Golden Globe for the miniseries “The Honourable Woman,” and has an Oscar nod for her supporting role in “Crazy Heart.” This year she’s both producer and star of HBO’...

First a viral hit in a college “Harry Potter” parody musical, then a breakout triple threat on “Glee” and Broadway, and now Emmy-nominated for playing an assassin, Darren Criss is one of today’s most charismatic and versatile storytellers. Playing the lead role of 1990s spree killer Andrew Cunanan in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” the second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthologized FX hit “Ame...

Ron Cephas Jones is proof that success in the entertainment biz, with patience, perseverance, and passion, can be achieved at age 60. After years of studying acting and jazz, scraping by with odd jobs in New York and Los Angeles, and balancing both fatherhood and downtown theater artistry, Ron is now Emmy-nominated a second time for NBC’s Dan Fogelman drama “This Is Us,” where he is beloved by fan...

Raised by actors and inspired by theater of the absurd at Fordham University in New York, Betty Gilpin is a performer full of surprises on both stage and screen. Her self-professed “gravitas Barbie clown” instincts are on full display in Debbie Eagan aka Liberty Belle, her character on Netflix’s 1980s female wrestling hit “GLOW,” a role that has earned Betty her first Emmy nomination for supportin...

Tracee Ellis Ross is a vocal advocate for equality and representation in Hollywood, a three-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee for leading actress in a comedy series, and a role model who positively radiates inspiration. All combined, she makes an ideal guest on a podcast featuring awards contenders giving both life and career advice. She joins us to talk about Kenya Barris’ ABC family sitcom “Blac...

Chances are you know the final guest of this season of the podcast as the hilarious Jack McFarland on NBC’s hit sitcom “Will & Grace.” The beloved character not only earned Sean Hayes an Emmy and four SAG Awards, it put an out gay man on network TV, making inroads for LGBT media representation. After almost a decade off the air, “Will & Grace” has returned as funny and outrageous as ever, and Sean...

Niecy Nash loves Backstage, and the feeling is mutual. With her background in theater and her years of pounding the pavement to carve a place for herself in Hollywood, the multi-hyphenate talent has all the audition advice an aspiring actor could ever need. Known for her hilarity on “Reno 911!” and “Scream Queens,” her Emmy-winning hosting gig on “Clean House,” and her quietly dramatic, Emmy-nomin...

You can’t pigeonhole Cristin Milioti as a performer—she’s made sure of it. Proving she can do everything from earning a Tony nomination for Broadway’s “Once” to taking on the title role in “How I Met Your Mother,” the actor-writer-musician has plenty of advice for artists trying to reconcile passion with what the industry requires. Now, after memorable turns in “Wolf of Wall Street,” “30 Rock,” “A...

Star of “Carlos,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Hands of Stone,” and more, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Edgar Ramirez has worked as an activist and political journalist, both in his native Venezuela and abroad. This season on the small screen he starred in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” Ryan Murphy’s latest FX miniseries exploring the 1997 murder of the titular fashion mogul,...

Thanks to her analytical approach to acting, Hayley Atwell inhabits characters brilliantly on both stage and screen. Training as a performer in her native London before breaking into Hollywood as Peggy Carter in Marvel’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” she’s worked with some of the best, in “Brideshead Revisited,” “The Duchess,” “Black Mirror,” “Conviction,” and more. She now stars as Margar...

Evan Rachel Wood began working in theater before becoming a child star on screen, with a Golden Globe-nominated breakout in “Thirteen.” Starring in films ranging from “Across the Universe” to “The Wrestler,” and TV series including “Mildred Pierce,” Evan has now taken the lead in Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s hit sci-fi-western-thriller “Westworld” on HBO. Her multilayered performance as the awake...

At only age 13, Noah Schnapp has already voiced Charlie Brown in “The Peanuts Movie,” worked with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on “Bridge of Spies,” and, of course, starred in one of today’s biggest pop culture phenomenons: Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” Season 2 of the Duffer brothers’ supernatural ’80s thriller featured Noah’s haunted Will Byers front and center, launching the SAG Award-winning...

Although well-known in the Broadway community for years of stage work—recently as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton” and for his Tony-nominated performances in “The Color Purple” and “Shuffle Along”—Brandon Victor Dixon became a breakout star in front of a much larger audience this Easter as Judas in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert” on NBC. Brandon also created Wal...

Pamela Adlon is an actor, producer, director, and screenwriter, and on her autobiographically inspired FX series “Better Things,” she does all that things and more, last year picking up the Emmy nomination for leading actress in a comedy. Known also for her work in “Californication,” Pamela is a six-time Emmy nominee and one-time winner for voiceover performance on the animated hit “King of the Hi...

One of the most beloved presences on and off the small screen for almost 50 years, Henry Winkler is a director, producer, and bestselling author as much as he is a performer. After achieving ubiquity thanks to “Happy Days,” where he for years he played “The Fonz,” the coolest guy on TV, Winkler had to reinvent himself, working hard to identify exactly what he wanted in Hollywood. He’s collaborated...