Letting Them Talk with Will Harris

This time, I’m letting Chris Mulkey talk. Chris is a character actor whose work I’ve been watching since well before I actually knew who he was, but I do know when I actually started paying attention to him: after he started playing Hank Jennings, the deceitful husband of Double R Diner owner Norma Jennings, on Twin Peaks. He first stepped in front of the camera in the mid-1970s, and he’s been wor...

This time, I'm letting Angelo Moore talk. Angelo is a force of nature, one of the most gregarious individuals I’ve ever had the good fortune to interview, and – it must be said – one of the greatest self-promoters you’re likely to ever come across. And I mean that as a compliment. I need to take notes from this man. In addition to having been the frontman of Fishbone since the band’s inception, An...

This time, I’m letting Rizwan Manji talk. Rizwan has successfully carved himself out a career as a character actor, one who’s frequently comedic but has also had the opportunity to show off his dramatic chops on occasion. I first met him when he was in the cast of the NBC sitcom Outsourced, which was set in a call center in India. It met with a decidedly mixed reaction at the time, but I enjoyed i...

This time, I'm letting Jerry Ordway talk. Jerry is one of my favorite comic book artists and writers, going back to the early ‘80s. If you listened to my interview with Mike Carlin a few episodes back, then you already know that I’m a certifiable comic book nerd, but I will admit that I got even nerdier while talking with Mr. Ordway. If you came of age with DC Comics anywhere within the ‘60s throu...

This time, I'm letting Mat Bradley-Tschirgi talk. Mat's a fellow pop culture writer - because, you know, we’re all in this thing together, you guys - and he and I follow each other on social media. We have a number of similar pop culture likes, but I was still surprised and honored when he asked me if I’d give a read to his latest book and do a blurb for it. I happily agreed, because, c’mon, when...

This time I’m letting two people talk. Better yet, it’s two people who starred in one of my favorite sitcoms in recent memory, and now they’re the hosts of one of my must-listen podcasts. If you’ve ever watched The Middle, then you already know Eden Sher, a.k.a. Sue Sue Heck, and if you watched The Middle on a semi-regular basis, then you also know Brock Ciarlelli, who played Sue’s bestie, Brad. I...

This time I'm letting Thomas Jane talk. The last time I talked to Mr. Jane was in 2011, when I interviewed him for the AV Club’s Random Roles feature , and I won’t lie to you, I was downright giddy when I got word that I’d secured him for an episode of this podcast. Thomas Jane has been acting in front of the camera since he was 15, and the story about how he got that gig is one that we talk about...

This time, I'm letting Pepe Serna talk. Pepe is a character actor who’s been appearing onscreen since the start of the ‘70s, bouncing between film, stage, and television, and although he’s still acting whenever the opportunity presents itself, he spends a good chunk of his time these days as an artist and an acting teacher. Pepe’s first film was a Roger Corman cult classic called The Student Nurse...

This time, I'm letting Julie Klausner talk. I’d never interviewed Julie before, but we found ourselves following each other on Bluesky as a result of my AV Club Set List interview with They Might Be Giants. It turns out that she's a huge They Might Be Giants fan, which is something I didn’t realize, but I clearly should’ve, since – as a realized during a rewatch of her Hulu series Difficult People...

This time, I'm letting Billy Campbell talk. Billy is someone whose career arc has taken him from Dynasty to Dracula to Star Trek: The Next Generation, if not necessarily in that order. He’s starred in a plethora of period pieces that have found him in the midst of the Civil War, Los Angeles in the late 1930s, and Chicago in the early 1960s. But, of course, it’s important to keep in mind that Billy...

This week, I'm letting Mike Carlin talk.  You may recognize Mike's name if you’re a comic book fan, since not only has he written and edited for both Marvel and DC Comics, but he’s even been a comic book character on occasion, famously hiring one particular superhero as an artist with Marvel Comics…while in his secret identity, of course. The funny thing about this interview, however, is that it d...

This week, I'm letting Vincent Martella talk. I’ve been a fan of Vincent’s work since he was a series regular on the UPN – later CW – sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, where he played Chris’s very white friend, Greg. It’s one of those sitcoms that not enough people watched when it was originally on the air, but its fanbase has continued to grow over the years as a result of the show’s streaming presen...

This week, I'm letting Murray Attaway talk. I first became a fan of Murray’s work when he was fronting the Georgia-based band Guadalcanal Diary, who – along with Rhett Crowe, John Poe, and the late, great Jeff Walls – brought us such classic college rock tracks as “Watusi Rodeo,” “Trail of Tears,” “Spirit Train,” “Cattle Prod,” “Litany (Life Goes On),” “Get Over It,” “Always Saturday,” and “Pretty...

This week, I'm letting Kevin M. Kruse talk.  Also this week: the debut of what I hope will be a recurring episode premise called “Political Pundits on Pop Culture.” Then again, maybe it’ll be a one-off. But given how much fun I had talking to Kevin, I certainly hope it isn’t. Kevin is a history professor at Princeton, a respected author, and one of my favorite follows on Bluesky , but as it turns...

This week, I'm letting Paget Brewster talk. I have a long and thoroughly non-sordid history of interviewing Paget for various outlets. It started with her Random Roles for the AV Club , continued with an interview for Decider , and I know I’ve interviewed her twice for That Thing They Did, and…I think this is therefore our fifth time talking, maybe? Unless you count the time when I met up with her...

This week, I'm letting Mitch Easter talk. He's a producer (R.E.M., the Connells, Suzanne Vega, Marshall Crenshaw), and he's also a singer, musician, and songwriter in his own right, though you likely know him best on that front from the years he spent in the band Let's Active. He's made a lot of music over the years, and as a result, he's got a lot of stories to tell. Also, when it comes to Smash...

This week, I'm letting Robbie Rist talk. For my first guest, I wanted someone I actually know but who I've never interviewed before, and although I've interviewed Robbie once many years ago, it wasn't a full look back at his career, so this seemed like a good time to do that. We discuss Big John, Little John, Battlestar Galactica, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kidd Video, and much more, including his...