The Parting Shot with H. Alan Scott

With the real world feeling more like a 24/7 breaking news nightmare, it is no wonder we are all escaping into the comforting "competence porn" of Netflix's The Diplomat. On this episode of the Parting Shot podcast, I sit down with the cast and creator of the Emmy-winning series to talk about its fourth season. Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell share why the show's fan base spans generations and the a...

From the biggest Oscars blunder in history to a museum full of nightmares and Mark Zuckerberg's latest onscreen reckoning, we have a lot to talk about. Newsweek Senior Reporter Lauren Giella and H. Alan Scott break down this week's biggest pop culture moments on the Parting Shot podcast. We kick things off with the Academy Museum's new The Horror Show exhibit in Los Angeles and why it's a must-vis...

Three of the most talked-about books right now share one thing: queer themes. Josh Silver, author of Fruit Fly, joins H. Alan Scott on Newsweek's Parting Shot podcast to talk about sharing the spotlight with Marlon James' The Disappears and Douglas Stuart's John of John. "These two authors are like my heroes," he says.  Silver explains how Fruit Fly found its readers with no marketing budget,...

In 2004, thousands of women applied for a Fox reality show that promised to turn "ugly ducklings" into beauties. It was called The Swan. Contestants spent three months cut off from friends and family while undergoing cosmetic surgery and intense fitness regimens, and most had no idea a beauty pageant was waiting at the end.  Now director Erin Lee Carr (Britney vs Spears, Mommy Dead and Deares...

From the Poltergeist curse to The Wizard of Oz, Hollywood runs on urban legends. But few have been snickered about longer than the baseless rumor involving Richard Gere and a gerbil.  Journalist Allen Salkin spent six years investigating it for Gerbil, a new 12-episode podcast from The Hollywood Reporter. He tracked down sources, ordered obscure magazines off eBay and visited Cedars-Sinai in...

It's time to talk about what's trending For the Culture. Newsweek Senior Reporter Lauren Giella joins H. Alan Scott to break down the week's biggest pop culture conversations.  First up: Taylor Swift has entered her nesting era. Now that she's married and in love, will her music suffer? Lauren argues it already has with The Life of a Showgirl.  Then, Saturday Night Live is back. We run t...

Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke and Donald Faison are back at Sacred Heart Hospital, and as the Scrubs reboot heads into its second season on ABC, the stars are still a little surprised at how well it's worked.  On Newsweek 's Parting Shot podcast, Braff (J.D. Dorian) admits he was terrified to come back: "We did it for the fans, and the fans are very passionate about the original show." Chalke (Ell...

This week in culture: royals and reckonings collide. Princess Diana's revenge dress is heading to auction decades after it delivered the ultimate wardrobe comeback and could fetch millions. Macklemore was booted from Ed Sheeran's tour for saying Free Palestine, and everyone collectively lost their minds. And Channing Tatum has a finsta? Here's everything you need to know this w...

Laura Baginski, co-founder of Earlybirds, joins host Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to talk about the dance party that starts at 6 PM and wraps by 10 so everyone gets home for a full night of sleep. "I'm not dead yet, so I do like to go out and have fun." Earlybirds was built around that idea, and it has grown into a movement of early evening dance parties for women and gender expansive people in 50 cit...

He almost missed the story of his career. Investigative journalist Joe Sexton sat down with Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to talk about HBO's A Killer Story, his six year pursuit of the Dana Chandler case, and the citizen sleuth who wouldn't let it go.  Sexton explains why it took roughly 3,000 emails from Eileen Umbehr before he took her tip seriously, how a unanimous Kansas Supreme Court reversa...

Senior Reporter Lauren Giella joins H. Alan Scott to dig into the week's biggest culture stories. Carole Radziwill returns to The Real Housewives of New York with her name tangled in the Epstein files thanks to her old friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, and she isn't backing away from the questions. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's Elizabeth Holmes film You Can See Everything shocked Telluride...

Ryan Murphy takes on the Lizzie Borden legend and turns Rebecca Hall and Charlie Hunnam loose on it. Hall and Hunnam break down their work on Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, from balancing camp with real tragedy to watching newcomer Ella Beatty carry the season as Lizzie. Hunnam talks reuniting with Murphy and writer Ian Brennan after making Jungleland with Max Winkler. Hall digs into playing Ab...

Hasan Minhaj is best known for his political comedy on ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj,’ but his latest project hits closer to home. Minhaj sat down with Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to discuss Netflix's ‘Best of the Best,’ which he produced, co-wrote and co-stars in.  The film follows two Indian American best friends who compete in college Bollywood dance competitions, inspir...

Andrew Garfield has never been afraid of a message movie. From The Social Network to Under the Banner of Heaven to his upcoming turn as Sam Altman in Artificial, the Oscar nominated actor keeps gravitating toward roles that carry something bigger. On this episode of the Parting Shot Podcast, Garfield joins me to talk about his latest, The Uprising. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film sends Garfi...

Damien Warren-Smith performs every Penguin Classic novel in under an hour, mostly naked, as his alter ego Garry Starr. On this episode of the Parting Shot Podcast, Warren-Smith joins me to talk about Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, his new solo show making its Off Broadway premiere at Studio Seaview. Warren-Smith explains how a decade of theater acting led him to clown training in Paris with Philip...

Wynn Everett and Frankie A. Rodriguez join H. Alan Scott to talk about the second season of Hulu's "Chad Powers," where their characters give the rest of us a way into a football show. "We're both theater kids," Everett says, which explains a lot about how they approached it. They get into the straight-guy, gay-guy friendship at the center of the series and why it works without ever announcing its...

Kristen Johnston has been stealing scenes for three decades. She joins H. Alan Scott to talk about playing Leanne Morgan's sister on the second season of Netflix's "Leanne," what auditioning opposite John Lithgow taught her about comedy and why her life splits neatly into before Lexi Featherston and after. Plus, what Michael Patrick King told her right before the biggest speech of her career.&nbsp...

Leanne Morgan spent 27 years in stand-up before Netflix handed her a sitcom in her 60s. She joins H. Alan Scott to talk about season two of "Leanne," what Kristen Johnston taught her about working a multicam set and the wave of women over 60 currently running the format. "We must be the new it girls, I guess," Morgan says. Plus, what Netflix executives told her when she pitched the show, and why s...

Fifteen years of apologizing, fifteen years of not speaking and one dinner party. John Galliano pulls out of the 2027 Costume Institute exhibition that would have honored him, ending weeks of backlash over the antisemitic and racist remarks that got him fired from Dior in 2011. H. Alan Scott and Lauren Giella ask whether stepping away was the right call, whether the Met outsourced a decision it sh...

Microdramas are the vertical-video soap operas taking over your phone: one- or two-minute episodes stacked 60 deep, full of love triangles, betrayals and cliff-hangers. H. Alan Scott sits down with Newsweek's Lauren Giella and actor Jason Caceres, who has shot more than 100 microdramas since 2023 between roles on Hacks and Criminal Minds, to unpack how apps like ReelShort and DramaBox built an $11...

Dolly Parton has died at 80, and the loss is impossible to size. Newsweek's Lauren Giella joins H. Alan Scott to talk through a legacy that ran far past country music, from the "9 to 5" crossover to the movies to Dollywood to the Imagination Library to a business strategy that was, somehow, love. H. Alan also reflects on the hour he spent interviewing Dolly a few years back, what she was actually...

Anthony Bourdain was never just a chef. Dominic Sessa joins Newsweek's H. Alan Scott to talk about ‘Tony,’ the new film that follows a 19-year-old Bourdain through a summer in Provincetown after a rejection from Vassar, drawn from his 2000 memoir ‘Kitchen Confidential.’ Sessa came to the role with almost no relationship to the man: "I wasn't working from a place of trying to meet this standard of...

If it’s happening in the world of entertainment, it’s for the culture. And there’s a lot going on. For example, New York is insufferable right now and it kind of earned it. (Sam Smith is even writing love songs about it.) Oprah is out here discovering the mute button after four decades of letting the haters live rent free. Howard Stern is doing the math on what one show a week means for a man who...

Jeffrey Epstein's crimes were crimes against children. That is not how the country talked about them. Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD, who leads the Johns Hopkins Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, and journalist Luke Malone join Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to discuss their book ‘One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and What We Can Do to Stop It.’ O...

Summer's almost done, so let's see what it left behind. A festival that forgot what made it singular. A pop star who decided the conversation about her body was not one she had to attend. And a lot of men finally admitting they need somewhere to put their stuff. Three stories, all circling the same question: What do we do with the people we watch? Labor Day is fast approaching. Consider this the e...