The Business

Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki cast street children as the stars of ‘Capernaum,’ her gritty tale of 12-year-old Zain, who runs away from home and ultimately sues his parents for condemning him to a life of poverty and desperation. Labaki tells us what drew her to the story and describes the scramble to get her cast members the paperwork they needed to go to Cannes, where ‘Capernaum’ won the Jury...

Could this be the year the Academy finally nominates Spike Lee for Best Director or Best Picture? ‘BlacKkKlansman’ is looking like a contender. The film is based on the true  story of black police officer Ron Stallworth, who went undercover with the KKK in the 1970s. Lee and his ‘BlacKkKlansman’ star John David Washington join us to talk about the film and get a little philosophical along the way.

With 2018 in the history books, we’re revisiting some of our favorite moments from last year’s interviews. Stories of big breaks, trails blazed and getting back in the saddle...an actual saddle on a literal horse. We have ‘Blockers’ director Kay Cannon, rodeo star turned actor Brady Jandreau, ‘Dear White People’ creator Justin Simien, ‘Vida’ showrunner Tanya Saracho and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ directo...

Four years ago, director Paweł Pawlikowski won the best foreign language Oscar for his film 'Ida.' His new movie is 'Cold War,' a black-and-white period film based on the tumultuous marriage of his Polish parents that has him in the awards race again. He tells us about making 'Cold War,' getting encouragement from his friend Alfonso Cuaron, and gives the backstory of that memorable Oscar speech fr...

The Mouse swallows the Fox, Netflix keeps turning into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but are its rivals figuring out how to cross the streams? Old tweets cause new trouble, and a king of Hollywood falls from his throne. Banter buddies Matt Belloni and Lesley Goldberg join Kim Masters for a 2018 mega banter.

Peter Jackson generated whole worlds for his ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Hobbit’ trilogies. His latest project? A documentary that magically brings to life old footage shot on the front lines of World War One. The restoration of 100-year-old film was no easy feat. He tells us about his newest film, ‘They Shall Not Grow Old.’

In 2015, actor Kristoffer Polaha booked what he thought would be a one-off gig in a Hallmark TV movie. Now, he’s got 5 Hallmark films under his belt. He tells us how he and the Hallmark Channel fell in love. Then, KCRW's Matt Holzman sits down with Netflix's Lisa Nishimura. The head of original documentaries and comedy programming for the streamer tells us how she decides what will become a Netfli...

For his Netflix kids show ‘Beat Bugs’, Josh Wakely worked a miracle: he got the rights to use Beatles music in the series. Never afraid of going big, Wakely now has a new animated show on Netflix called ‘Motown Magic,’ which features another set of iconic songs and Smokey Robinson as the music supervisor. Wakely tells us about his years-long pursuit of the rights to some of the world’s most famous...

Sometimes our guests have so much good stuff to say that we can’t fit it all into one show. So let out your belt a notch. This week we’re bringing you delicious leftovers from Ethan Hawke, George Tillman Jr., Kathy Griffin, and Aneesh Chaganty and John Cho. Plus, some early Oscar forecasting.

In his career as a documentary filmmaker, Matthew Heineman has criss-crossed the country, followed Syrian activists in exile and embedded with vigilantes fighting Mexican drug cartels. His newest film, ‘A Private War’ is an adventure of a different kind--a narrative feature about war correspondent Marie Colvin. He tells us about using techniques he learned doing documentaries to make his first nar...

This week, while Kim Masters is out of town, we’re sharing an episode of the KCRW podcast, The Document. Our colleague Matt Holzman talks to married filmmaking couple Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi about why and how they made their dizzying new film, ‘Free Solo.’

When he was just starting his career, ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ producer Frank Marshall got a job with Orson Welles on what would be the legendary director’s last film. It was still unfinished when Welles died in 1985, but Marshall was determined to see the job through. He and fellow producer Filip Rymsza tells us about the decades-long quest to finish ‘The Other Side of the Wind.’

When comedian Kathy Griffin posed for a photo holding what appeared to be the blood-covered head of Donald Trump, she became a pariah overnight. So she did the only thing she could do to keep her career alive: turned her story into an act, and took it around the world.

Director George Tillman Jr. felt called to make ‘The Hate U Give’--about a black teen who divides her time between her mostly white high school and her mostly black neighborhood. He wasn’t daunted by the fact that the film was based on a novel for young adults. He tells us how made sure his movie avoided YA cliches and reflects on his career--from directing 'Soul Food' to producing the 'Barbershop...

What’s it like to be suddenly famous at 16? Justine Bateman found out when she was cast as Mallory in the hit NBC sitcom ‘Family Ties.’ More than 30 years later, she has a lot to say about fame--so much, in fact, that she’s written a book on the subject. 'Fame' explores having it, losing it, and the country's undying obsession with it.

In 2008, ‘The Sentence’ director Rudy Valdez was working low-level production jobs when, out of the blue, his sister received a lengthy mandatory prison sentence on charges related to years-old drug crimes committed by her ex-boyfriend. Valdez tells us about becoming a filmmaker after setting out to document the lives of his sister’s kids and to show the impact of mandatory sentencing policies on...

A new documentary about Quincy Jones looks at his incredible life and career that connected him to musicians from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson. Jones also composed dozens of film scores and produced movies and TV shows. We talk to Jones and director Alan Hicks, who made the documentary with Jones’ daughter Rashida. Plus, a banter bonus with journalist Keach Hagey about her new book, ‘The King...

As a teenager, Ethan Hawke had a breakout role in ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Hawke’s agents said they could make him into a huge star, and they were not thrilled when Hawke said he had something else in mind. Hawke tells us about pushing back against uberagent Michael Ovitz, marching to his own drumbeat and about directing his newest movie, ‘Blaze,’ a drama on the life of country singer-songwriter Blaz...

Writer-producer Carlton Cuse devoted six years of his life to the ABC megahit 'Lost.' When the show ended, he realized he'd have to figure out what to do next. Now showrunner of Amazon’s new 'Jack Ryan' series, Cuse talks about life after 'Lost' and why it took three-and-a-half years and many millions of dollars to bring the renowned Tom Clancy character to television for the first time.

Over the weekend, the New Yorker published a second story by Ronan Farrow about Les Moonves. This one chronicled six more allegations of graphic sexual misconduct by the CBS CEO. Moonves is now out at the company.

Laurie Kilmartin had some thoughts after Louis C.K. did a surprise set at a New York comedy club less than a year after revelations of his sexual misconduct. She tells us what a path to redemption in the era of Time’s Up might look like, and why C.K.’s recent appearance wasn’t it. Kilmartin also tells us about bout the challenges that still face female comedians in 2018 and her book, ‘Dead People...

Soon after Tanya Saracho got the green light to write a pilot for her first TV series, she contracted a dangerous spinal infection that left her stuck in bed for months. But Saracho rallied and her show 'Vida' premiered on Starz. This week, we’re revisiting our conversation with Saracho, a former Chicago-based playwright. She tells us how she ended up running the first all Latinx writers room in c...

When John Cho got an offer to star in the new movie ‘Searching,’ a thriller set entirely on computer screens, he didn’t have to search for an answer: it was no. Cho explains his initial hesitations about the digital drama, and first-time feature director Aneesh Chaganty tells us how he convinced his dream lead to swipe right on ‘Searching.’

Growing up in Rockford, Illinois--a city outside Chicago that’s seen better days--Bing Liu was obsessed with making skateboarding videos. Over the course of more than a decade, one of those mini-movies morphed into a feature-length documentary. ‘Minding the Gap’ uses 12 years worth of verite footage to tell the story of 3 young men--Zack, Keier, and Liu himself, each coming of age in the shadow of...

Author Kevin Kwan and director Jon M. Chu passionately wanted the movie version of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ to play in theaters. So they turned down a huge offer from Netflix and took their chances with Warner Brothers. Chu and Kwan talk about what they did for love when they made the first major studio movie to feature an all Asian cast in years.