Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

It’s been a week. To help us through it, we’ve enlisted The New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon. We start with election night 2024 versus election night 2016 (6:35), what Astead discovered about the electorate reporting across the U.S. on his podcast The Run-Up (9:25), and how insider Democrats arrived at a second Biden run in 2023 (13:30). Then, we discuss politicians’ “lowercase rac...

On the heels of his latest book The Message , author Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Sam for a conversation in Los Angeles. At the top, we discuss how his Atlantic piece The Case for Reparations guided these three new essays (6:10), Coates’ early education growing up in West Baltimore (14:57), and his powerful dispatches from South Carolina (22:00) and the Middle East (29:30). On the back-half, Coates unpa...

Anna Kendrick ( Pitch Perfect , Up in the Air ) has been a fixture in Hollywood for the past fifteen years. She joins us this week to discuss Woman of the Hour , her directorial debut and most revealing project to date. At the top, we dive into the film’s true crime story (7:00), its examination of gender politics in the 1970s (19:29), and the personal Hollywood experiences Anna embedded into this...

For the past decade, Jason Reynolds has become an inspiring voice in the literary world. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and as of this month, a 2024 MacArthur fellow. Reynolds sits with us today to share his latest YA novel Twenty-Four Seconds from Now…  (7:45), why he was interested in writing a story about boyhood and masculinity (12:05), and an early passage from the book (15:52) that...

Today, culture critic Wesley Morris (The New York Times) returns to Talk Easy for a conversation about The Wonder of Stevie , his new podcast with the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions. At the top, Wesley unpacks Stevie Wonder’s legendary five-album run from 1972-1976, his recent “battleground states” tour in the run up to the election, and how his relationship to Stevie’s music has evolved in the...

Since his directorial debut in 2006, Jason Reitman has made the kind of films they say Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. Today, we sit to discuss his latest project Saturday Night (9:09), the influence of 1970s movies like Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate (12:46), and the details Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan collected from dozens of interviews leading up to production (17:45). Then, Jason desc...

Director Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t just want to make movies. He wants to change them. This was true in 1969 when he co-founded Zoetrope Studios with George Lucas, and it remains true today at age 85. We begin with the historical context of his modern-day Roman epic fable Megalopolis  (9:40), his decades-long process developing the film (12:18), and the inspiration he’s taken from Georges Méliès...

Joaquin Phoenix is one of the greatest actors of his generation. For three decades, he’s moved seamlessly between auteur-driven films ( Her, The Master ) and box-office sensations ( Gladiator, Joker ).  We sit today for a rare, long-form conversation with Phoenix, starting with his latest film, Joker: Folie à Deux (9:10), his free-wheeling collaborations with director Todd Phillips (11:32), and th...

For actor Myha’la, the role of a lifetime arrived less than a year out of college. “Lightning struck,” she says, “and in so many ways I have been preparing my entire life to be here.” In this case ‘here’ is Industry ’s Harper Stern, a fiercely ambitious New Yorker who has come to London to join Pierpont, a prestigious financial investment bank. With the season finale of HBO’s breakout hit approach...

For the past couple decades, actor Ken Leung has played scene-stealing characters in films like Rush Hour, Keeping the Faith, and A.I. Or, prestige TV shows like Lost and The Sopranos. Today, he joins us to discuss his spectacular turn in HBO’s Industry (7:30), how he created his character in baseball-bat-wielding manager Eric Tao (9:55), and his Brooklyn upbringing to a family of Chinese immigran...

To commemorate his 30th birthday, Abbi Jacobson interviews Sam! They talk about Sam's early days in journalism (8:00), his Almost Famous -like experience as a teenage film critic (10:30), making Talk Easy and how the show evolved post-pandemic (13:15), and the email from the late Roger Ebert that changed his life (22:30). On the back-end, they discuss Abbi’s annual birthday questions (28:00), why...

To start, Sam sits with another week in American life, before returning to our timely conversation with Congressman Maxwell Frost (FL-10). At the top, we discuss the five-year aftermath of the horrific shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (10:29), his first two months in office as the first Gen-Z Congressman (12:10), and the legislature he’s fighting for to reduce gun viol...

This week, our guest is trailblazing filmmaker Lee Daniels. At the top, we discuss his fifteen-year journey to the new Netflix film The Deliverance (5:00), Daniels’ relationship to spirituality (9:16), and his memories of directing theatre at eight-years-old (14:55). Then, we dive into the therapeutic quality of filmmaking (17:14), his work as a casting director at Warner Brothers in the 80s (19:4...

Since 1989 ( Sex, Lies, and Videotape ), filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has been a pioneering voice in American cinema. Part free-wheeling iconoclast, part exacting technician. Today, we return to our conversation with the legendary artist. First, Soderbergh describes his process making No Sudden Move amid the pandemic (8:38), his ability to push past creative blocks (14:34), the importance of 1998’s...

We’re so back at the movies… with head of content at The Ringer and co-host of The Big Picture , Sean Fennessey! At the top, Sam and Sean discuss Sean Wang’s Dìdi (8:52), the father-daughter story at the heart of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap (15:52), and why the documentaries Brats (19:39) and Faye (22:35) make the perfect weekend watch. Then, they talk about the real-life story behind A24’s Sing Sin...

What’s the difference between an interview and a first date? For the past decade, Amelia Dimoldenberg has been walking that fine line on her hit YouTube series, Chicken Shop Date . The premise is in the title: filmed at various chicken establishments across London, the show features a series of funny (sometimes awkward) ‘dates’ with everyone from Paul Mescal to Billie Eilish. To celebrate the 10th...

Vinson Cunningham has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for the past eight years, covering theater, television, and politics. He joins us this week to unpack his personal debut novel Great Expectations . At the top, we discuss the state of the US election (5:00), the emergence of the new Democratic ticket in Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (10:00), and the fickleness of internet...

Last fall, Zadie Smith published her prescient historical novel The Fraud . We return to our conversation with the beloved author this week, on the heels of our latest sit-down with writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner . At the top, Smith details her most recent book   (7:48), her instinctive writing process (13:37), and the role of projection in her work (20:08). Then, Zadie reflects on her upbringing in...

Taffy Brodesser-Akner (“Fleishman Is in Trouble”) is a staff writer at The New York Times , where she covers everything from The Eras Tour to Tom Hanks. She joins us today to unpack her new book Long Island Compromise (7:30), its central questions about wealth, trauma, and inheritance (11:58), and the real-life crime that inspired the story (12:52). Then, we dive into the process of writing a nove...

Today, we're revisiting our special conversation with actor Tom Hanks. We begin by discussing his debut novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece (5:58), his nomadic upbringing across California (13:28), and the Stanley Kubrick film that made him want to be an artist (19:40). Then, we talk about his early work at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (24:00) and moving to Los An...

This week, on the heels of our live show with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, we’re presenting a special conversation from her podcast Wiser Than Me. The episode features award-winning author Isabel Allende (The Wind Knows My Name). They discuss motherhood, falling in love again in her seventies, an influential piece of advice by writer Elizabeth Gilbert, and how Allende remains present in her life and work....

Julia Louis-Dreyfus ( Seinfeld, Veep ) is a national treasure with more primetime Emmys than any performer in the history of television. Then there’s her latest decade in film: two collaborations with Nicole Holofcener ( Enough Said and  You Hurt My Feelings )   along with a devastating turn in the heart-rending fairytale from A24, Tuesday . Her range is unparalleled, including in the role of host...

On the heels of his first Emmy win, actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach joins us on the show to unpack the return of The Bear . At the top, we dive into the making of the hit series   (9:22), a powerful scene with co-star Jeremy Allen White (11:20), and how Moss-Bachrach manages to keep adding layers to his portrayal of Cousin Richie (14:26). Then, he describes the mounting pressures around this new season (...

“You’re never gonna forget where you were last night at 7:30,” says James Carville. “It has the potential to be that consequential.”  Carville is regarded as one the most influential (and animated) operators in the Democratic Party. He came to prominence as the chief architect behind Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign, and has remained one of the most incisive political analysts in the country. ...

Beloved playwright Annie Baker won the Pulitzer for Drama in 2014 for her play, The Flick. A decade later, she’s releasing her directorial debut, Janet Planet, through A24. We begin by talking about her striking first feature (7:55): the Western Massachusetts origins of the project (11:00), the mother-daughter love story at its center (13:24), how Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” shaped Baker’s...