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 at a CBS party during the 2016 summer Television Critics Association press tour, but if I did an interview with her there, I don’t think it was a full interview, and if any portion of it ran anywhere, I can’t produce it.

Anyway, my point is that we've talked about a lot of stuff over the years, and this time we talked about a lot of stuff, too, including - but not limited to - Criminal Minds, Friends, Two and a Half Men, Grandfathered, Drunk History, DuckTales, and The Thrilling Adventure Hour. We also talked about some of her failed pilots, including the inevitable Ghost Cop. (He’s a ghost, she’s a cop… You get it. But I still have to recite the line anyway.) Oh, and we also talked about the time she created botulism for a comedy sketch.

Yeah, we really covered the gamut. You'll love it. She's delightful.

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 Mouth's cover of "Every Word Means No," he has...thoughts. But you'll have to listen to find out what they are.

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 music career. Fair warning, though: we barely touch on his time on The Brady Bunch at all.

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 out, we also have more than a few similar pop culture touchstones, from SNL and Police Squad! to Edgar Wright and R.E.M. In the long run, it’s basically a conversation between two guys who are geeking out on their pop culture faves, but – spoiler alert – this is not the first time a podcast has descended into such a conversation, and it damned well won’t be the last.

Listen, enjoy, and if you haven't already, please subscribe! 

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 Is as Pretty Does.” After releasing their fourth studio album, 1989’s Flip Flop, the band made a collective decision to go their separate ways, but Murray soldiered onward, signing a solo deal with Geffen Records and releasing his solo debut, 1993’s In Thrall. I, for one, loved it, but let’s just say that it didn’t exactly go platinum, and it was pretty soon thereafter that Murray and Geffen parted ways.

Since then, Murray certainly hasn’t been completely absent from the world of music – for one thing, Guadalcanal Diary reunited for a performance in the late ‘90s that resulted in a live album entitled At Your Birthday Party – but those who were waiting for him to release anything new under his own name were left wanting…until this year, that is, when he finally released a sophomore solo LP entitled Tense Music Plays.

Naturally, you'll want to head over to Murray's website and order yourself a copy of Tense Music Plays. But that's after you listen this episode, of course...

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 working steadily ever since, perpetually mixing things up between film and television but always keeping busy. The amount of TV series he’s been in is kind of ridiculous. We’re talking about a list that includes Baretta, M*A*S*H, Charlie’s Angels, The White Shadow, Magnum P.I., and even the short-lived Vincent Price series Time Express, although I literally had to send him a link to the episode to prove to him that he’d done it, because he had zero memory of it.

During the course of the conversation, we hit on topics including – but not limited to – The Long Riders, First Blood, The Hidden, Patti Rocks (as well as its prequel, “Loose Ends,” and the sequel he’s hard at work on getting into production), Gas Food Lodging, Ghost in the Machine, Bulworth, Radio, Captain Phillips, Whiplash, and a bunch more. He’s a guy who’s full of stories, and he’s happy to share them. There’s definitely enough untouched material for a sequel, so definitely let me know how you enjoy this.

Just a couple of notes up front: Chris did the interview in a cabana, and he shows off his surroundings, so only  those watching the video will really appreciate that. Also, at one point he froze and vanished, and I’ve edited it down so that the downtime isn’t significant, but I kept in the moment, so when it happens, don’t worry, it won’t last long, and he explains what happened, which is pretty funny and the direct result of where he was doing the interview.

And just to speak off the cuff, since this is the last new podcast episode of 2025, with many more to follow in the new  year, God willing, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who’s listened and supported me in this endeavor. It’s already lasted longer than my last podcast, and it’s because I haven’t been limiting myself to a particular niche or gimmick, I’m just been inviting people whose work I enjoy onto the podcast and, like it says, letting them talk. As of this writing, we’re less than 25 downloads away from hitting a grand total of 1,600 downloads, and for a podcast that has zero advertising budget and is strictly being discovered by word of mouth, that seems pretty decent to me. And I have you to thank, so…thanks. And please keep it up. Please share an episode whenever you’ve listened to it and liked it. And rate the podcast. I hear that’s important, too.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro and a thank-you. Happy New Year, everyone. It’s time to let Chris Mulkey talk.

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, Angelo also works under the guise of Dr. Madd Vibe. I interviewed him years ago, way back in 2001, and it was a decidedly freewheeling conversation, but it was also one that led to him signing my copy of Fishbone’s The Reality of My Surroundings with the words, “Thanks for the accurate article.” Accuracy should be pretty easy when all you’re doing is literally transcribing what someone said, but you’d be surprised how many people are grateful for you simply for typing out their actual words.   

During the course of this freewheeling conversation – and truth be told, I’m pretty confident that freewheeling is the only sort of conversation that Angelo is capable of having, but I’m 100% good with that – we talked about as much of Fishbone’s career as possible, including John Cusack’s support of the band, the time Fishbone opened for the Beastie Boys, Angelo’s appearance in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and much  more.

I should probably mention a few things up front, however.

First of all, this is inarguably the most visual episode of the podcast that’s happened to date, so if you’ve ever thought about joining the ranks of the paid Substack subscribers or the Patreon supporters, this is the one. Angelo spends the early part of the conversation taking me and his camera on a tour around the entirety of his new apartment, and then he later takes me on a visual tour of some of his more recent releases, which are pretty amazing. Given that he’s talking the entire time, it feels wrong to trim it from the audio version, but just know that you’re definitely not getting the full experience without seeing the video.

He also gets a few calls during the course of the interview, but I kept those in as well, since he proceeds to introduce the people who are calling, even holding the phone up to the camera. How could I cut those out? That’s gold, Jerry! GOLD!

The other thing is that when I asked Angelo one of my stock questions – the one about the first person who ever made him have to fight to keep from going full fanboy – he thought I was asking about Fishbone fans who went full fanboy on him. Given the title of this podcast, I didn’t interrupt him, I just let him answer it the way he thought was accurate, and the end result was still a really great story, so…no complaints whatsoever.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. Now brace yourself accordingly, because I’m going to let Angelo Moore talk.

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 didn’t come about because of comics. It came about because Mike and I are Facebook friends, and it caught my eye when he offered up an R.I.P. post for Gilson Lavis, the drummer for Squeeze, and said that he’d seen Gilson live more than any other drummer. I immediately thought, “Okay, here’s a conversation I want to have: Mike Carlin on Squeeze.”

And we did indeed talk about Squeeze. We also talked about some of his other favorite music, and we talked a whole lot about his favorite comedy, including how he was such an SNL nerd that he spend a good chunk of the show’s first five seasons standing in the stand-by line in order to attend tapings of the show. As a result, he saw a few of the most iconic musical performances in the history of the show…but I’ll let him tell you about those.

But, of course, we also talked about comics, and how Mike’s sense of humor influenced his writing. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that over the course of his career he’s managed to write for the humor magazine trifecta: Crazy, Cracked, and Mad Magazine. He’s also worked with some of the most legendary artists of all time – perhaps you’re familiar with a gentleman by the name of Steve Ditko? – and he was even part of a cable access sketch comedy show with a couple of other guys from Marvel Comics, including the late, great Mark Gruenwald. Oh, and if you remember the Superboy TV series that was in syndication in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s… Well, I think Mike would be surprised, but even if you didn’t, he’s got some great stories about working on that, too.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Mike talk.

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 presence. In fact, it even spawned an animated sequel last year called – what else? – Everybody Still Hates Chris.

The original run of Everybody Hates Chris was from 2005 to 2009, but before it had even come to a conclusion, Vincent had already begun work on a new series, one that continues to keep him gainfully employed even now: Phineas and Ferb. Yes, that’s right: he’s the voice of Phineas. Mind you, just because he’s pulling a steady paycheck from voice acting doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still find himself in front of the camera on occasion as well, as fans of The Walking Dead well know. But having said that, as of this recording, Phineas and Ferb is still going strong, possibly even stronger than ever.

During the course of our conversation, we talk about all of these projects in great detail, as well as a few others from throughout his filmography. We also talk about how he found his way into acting in the first place, and I even found an excuse to ask him about the time he was nominated for a Teen Choice Award, and…let’s just say that, in retrospect, he still can’t believe who won the award over him that year.

But that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Vincent Martella talk.

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 it from the get-go, for reasons which I explain during the course of today’s episode. But I interviewed Riz and his co-star Parvesh Cheena at the TCA tour, and I’ve stayed connected with the both of them via social media ever since. As such, when I saw that Riz was in the cast of a new Adam Saunders film called Re-Election and was doing virtual interviews to promote the film, I immediately reached out to get on the list to chat with him.

Since our initial meeting, Riz has been a part of a ridiculous number of impressive projects – these days, I think most people may recognize him from his recurring role on Schitt’s Creek – but he’s been doing high-profile stuff even before I met him. During the course of our conversation, we talk about his work with Mike Nichols and Tom Hanks on Charlie Wilson’s War, auditioning for Scorsese for his role in The Wolf of Wall Street, and his reflections on having done a few episodes of 24.

Of course, we also talk about Schitt’s Creek and the surrealness of working with two of his comedic idols on his very first day of shooting, his love of the underseen sitcom Perfect Harmony, his son’s reaction to his appearance in the opening credits of Peacemaker, embarrassing himself in front of Antonio Banderas, and much more.

Okay, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Rizwan Manji talk…

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 through the ‘80s, then you’re aware of the existence of Earth-2, a parallel version of Earth where superheroes started to emerge in the late 1930s, i.e. when DC Comics first started publishing their adventures. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then…you probably never even started listening to this episode in the first place, so let’s just keep moving.

Suffice it to say that my formative years of comic book reading involved falling head over heels with the characters of Earth-2 thanks to an ongoing series of crossovers with the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America, so when DC decided to launch a book about the World War II era adventures of Earth-2 called “All-Star Squadron,” I was all-in. And a few years later, when they decided to spotlight the children of some of these heroes in a series set in the present day called “Infinity, Inc.,” I was even more all-in.

This is how I became a fan of Jerry Ordway,  and it’s why I’ve remained a fan of his for lo these many years. In addition to being a great writer and artist, he’s also one of the best inkers in the comic book business. You’ve seen his work in comics for both DC and Marvel, including inside and on the covers of titles like The Adventures of Superman, The Power of Shazam, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Maximum Security, and more.

Jerry is a talker, and given that the name of this podcast is “Letting Them Talk,” I was happy to fulfill his destiny throughout this episode by allowing him to do just that. If you’re a comics nerd like I am, you’ll love his stories. If you’re not a comics nerd… Well, like I said before, you’re probably not even listening at this point anyway.

As such, I’m going to go ahead and let Jerry talk…

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 someone says, “I’ve just written a book called ‘The Films of Eddie Murphy’ and I’d like you to read it,” who’s gonna say “no” to that?

As it happens, it turned out to be a very worthwhile “yes,” since Mat did the full deep dive into Murphy’s career, either revisiting – or, in some cases, watching for the first time – every film in his filmography. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve seen them all, but this is one of those cases where he could say, “I did this so you don’t have to.” He didn’t say that, mind you, but it stands true nonetheless.

Of course, we talked about this book during our conversation, and we also talked about some of his other work, including his book about the video-game adaptations by Uwe Boll and his deep dive into every Star Trek video game ever made…and if you’re like me, you’ll do a double-take when he tells you how many there actually are. I’m a Trekkie, and it *still* surprised me. I also asked him to offer up some of his favorite pop culture obscurities, which he happily did.

And with that, I’ll let Mat talk…

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 think just about everyone who listens to this podcast already knows this, but I reviewed The Middle for the AV Club from season three through season seven – plus the series finale – and during the course of that time, I was able to interview Eden a few times and Brock once, but the last time I interviewed either of them was during season seven for Brad’s coming-out episode, and that episode celebrated its 10th anniversary back in October, so...it’s been awhile.

As you might reasonably expect, I end up talking about my connection to The Middle a decent amount during the course of this episode, but in my defense, I was interviewed two podcast hosts, and Brock did not hesitate to turn the tables on me to satisfy his own curiosity, and I have no complaints. We talk about how both of them got onto The Middle in the first place, we talk about the Middle spinoff, Sue Sue in the City, that never made it to series, and, of course, there’s a whole lot of Middling…albeit in a general, non-episode-specific way that in no way steps on the toes of what they’re doing on their wonderful podcast.

I’ll also give you fair warning that there’s a point in this episode where Eden’s dog makes a cameo appearance, and at the time it was happening, I was considering editing it out, but after the fact, two things occurred to me: 1) it’s actually going to be pretty funny for the people who are watching the video version, and 2) it felt more than a little bit like a sitcom moment, so given the episode, why would I edit it out? So if you’re feeling lost as you listen to that portion of the proceedings, just remember:

If you sign up for either a paid subscription to my Substack newsletter – http://willharris.substack.com – or for my Patreon campaign – just go to Patreon and search for "Letting Them Talk" – then you’ll get access to the video version.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. Let’s get to…letting Eden and Brock talk.

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 during the course of our conversation. A lot of people know him as The Punisher, others know him from the HBO series Hung, still more of you may have been traumatized by watching him in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist. I know I sure was!

The film that brought him onto the podcast today is Frontier Crucible, a western based on the 1961 novel Desert Stake-Out by Harry Whittington. I was able to check the film out in advance of talking to Mr. Jane, and he delivers a tremendous performance, as does the rest of the cast, frankly. If you’re a fan of westerns, I highly recommend it.

Over the course of our interview, we touched on a number of projects from Thomas’s back catalog, from Arrested Development to The Expanse and much more, including what he learned from working with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman on the same film. I’m not going to say that we tackled everything that I wanted to tackle, nor did we get to many of the things that you probably wanted me to ask him about, but it was a conversation that kept me guessing throughout, and it led me to jump around to match the topics that were coming up, from film and TV to music and comics. I even got a chance to ask him about the best show he ever saw at the 9:30 Club, which… I mean, who else is going to ask him that?

Anyway, I’ll just say this: if we didn’t end up talking about something you were hoping we’d talk about, don’t worry, because he’s already said that he’s up for doing a sequel in the future. Whatever it was, we’ll get to it then.

And with that, it’s time to let Thomas Jane talk.

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 Nurses, and having gotten his foot in the door, he never looked back, quickly finding himself working for Dalton Trumbo in Johnny Got His Gun, sharing the screen with Gregory Peck in Shoot Out, and guest-starring ono a plethora of classic ‘70s series, including Mannix, Kung Fu, Adam-12, The Rookies, Cannon, Medical Center, and The Rockford Files. But it was film where he really got the chance to shine, including roles in Car Wash, The Jerk, Scarface – spoiler alert: he’s the one who meets his demise at the end of a chainsaw – and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. He also forged a longstanding friendship with Edward James Olmos that found the two actors sharing the screen in a number of projects, including Miami Vice, American Me, and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Pepe has lived a fascinating life that’s still going strong, but you can learn more about him by watching the very interesting documentary that’s been made about his life: “Pepe Serna: Life is Art.” Not coincidentally, he also has a book by the same name, with the subtitle “A Chicano’s Groundbreaking Life in Film.” Both of these are accessible via his website, PepeSerna.net.

We had a great chat, but I’ll warn you that as you listen, you’ll get the impression that he’s doing some physical bits to go along with some of the acting information he’s imparting during the conversation, and you’re right. If you haven’t already upgraded to either a paid subscription to my Substack newsletter or contributed to my Patreon campaign for the podcast, then this is a good excuse, because that way you’ll be able to check out the video footage of the interview as well.

And with that plug having been delivered, it’s time to let Pepe talk.

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 – there’s an episode where her costar, Billy Eichner, is hanging out in Julie’s childhood bedroom, and there’s a very prominent They Might Be Giants poster on the wall.

Yes, we talked about Difficult People during the course of our conversation, as well as how she found herself collaborating with Billy Eichner in the first place. We also chatted about the small part she played in a classic SNL "TV Funhouse" segment, her work on John Mulaney’s short-lived sitcom, the thrill of getting to write for the recent revival of Kids in the Hall, and the fun of working on the Apple TV+ series Schmigadoon!

Oh, yes, and she also has a Sabrina Carpenter connection in her back catalog, which we talked about that as well, and we talked about Juiie’s own music, specifically an amazing Kate Bush homage that you should check out as soon as you’re done listening to the podcast.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Julie Klausner talk.

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 basically hasn’t stopped working since kicking off his acting career in the ‘80s, and when you’re working more or less constantly, it puts you in a position where you find yourself working in all sorts of projects and with all sorts of people. For instance, once again, we have another guest who once worked with former podcast guest Paget Brewster, who referred to Billy as “dreamy,” to which he replied, “She’s pretty dreamy herself." 

Of course, we talk about that project - a TV movie called Max Q - during the course of our conversation, and we hit on a pretty huge collection of other works from his back catalog, including the aforementioned projects, plus the ones I casually referenced by their location and era, like Crime Story, The Rocketeer, and the one-two punch of Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. Probably my favorite story is his remembrances of working on the various Tales of the City miniseries, although when I later asked him to tell me his definitive “Hollywood” story, he told me one that went in a direction that was different from the way most people answer the question, and that’s even knowing the reputation of the actor who features in the story. Suffice it to say that the reputation in question is definitively cemented by story's end. 

Even though he’s originally from Virginia, he now lives in Norway, although he maintains a residence in Canada as well, thanks to working there on such projects as The Killing and Cardinal. But, of course, he still works in the US pretty regularly, including on an upcoming film called A Better Place, which he filmed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and he’ll be back in Gettysburg next year for a special event that will provide him with the opportunity that’ll give him the chance to do another performance as - you guessed it - Abraham Lincoln. 

Oh, and did I mention that I made him cry? I just wanted to talk about how awesome Alan Arkin is, I swear! 

Anyway, that’s probably enough to secure your listenership for the remainder of the proceedings. It's time to let Billy Campbell talk.

This time I’m letting Raymond Ian Burns talk…although you’d know him better by his nom de punk: Captain Sensible.

As a founding member of the Damned, he’s a proper punk rock legend and a member of the band who famously released the first punk single in the UK and was the first UK punk band to play in the US. Mind you, he hasn’t been a consistent member of the band throughout the entirety of their existence, but it’s because of that absence from their roster that he was able to forge a solo career, one that provided him with some huge hits in the UK, including “Wot” and the still startlingly-successful cover of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Happy Talk,” from the musical “South Pacific.” No, for real, it was a #1 hit. Go figure.

These days, however, the good Captain is indeed back with his bandmates in The Damned, and they’ve just released a new album of covers called Not Like Everybody Else, with the songs selected as a tribute to their fallen Damned comrade Brian James, who died in March of last year. It’s a fun album, featuring songs by everyone from the Lovin’ Spoonful to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd…and, indeed, the cover of “See Emily Play” provided the perfect opportunity to for me to ask the Captain about how the Damned once tried to get Syd Barrett to produce an album for them.

During the course of our conversation, we obviously talked a great deal about the Damned’s career as well as the Captain’s solo work, including his songwriting collaborations with Robyn Hitchcock. As someone who’s been a fan of the Damned since purchasing and absorbing every bit of the band’s two-disc best-of collection, The Light at the End of the Tunnel, this was a bucket-list interview for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope you do the same.

And with that, it’s time to let Captain Sensible talk.

This time, the person I’m letting talk is Kathleen Chalfant.

Kathleen is an actress who got her start in the theater, moved into on-camera acting through the wonderful world of soap operas, and has become a familiar face in films as well as on television, most recently on the Peacock series “The Copenhagen Test.”

In the series, Kathleen plays the elusive character known as St. George, and while I’m not the first person to use that particular adjective to describe her, it’s accurate enough that she agrees with it, too. During the course of our conversation about the series, I tried my best to discuss it in such a way as to avoid spoilers, which means that we danced around a lot of things, but suffice it to say that if you enjoy a good thriller, you should definitely give it a watch.

We talked about a wide variety of other projects from Kathleen’s back catalog as well, including her recurring presence on the various Law & Order series as several different characters, playing the mother of the titular character in Bob Roberts, her stints on The Guardian and Rescue Me, being directed by Bob Balaban and Stephen Frears, and a number of her past theater projects, including Jules Feiffer’s Hold Me!, Angels in America, and Wit.

That’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kathleen talk.

This time, I'm letting Kyle Vincent talk.

Kyle is someone whose music I’ve been enjoying since the release of his self-titled 1997 album. Appropriately, it’s that very album that brings us into conversation today, since it’s finally made its way to streaming services for the first time.

Kyle has a deep history in music, but things really got rolling for him when he was fronting the band Candy, who you may remember for their single “Whatever Happened to Fun?” It’s arguably one of the catchiest power pop singles of the ‘80s, which makes it all the more cruel that the band never really made the commercial impact that they deserved. From there, Kyle went solo, and although it took awhile for him to find his footing on his own, it helped significantly that he found himself serving as opening act for none other than Barry Manilow.

That aforementioned self-titled album spawned a hit single, “Wake Me Up When the World’s Worth Waking Up For,” and if you didn’t hear it on the radio when it was originally released, you might’ve heard it in some TV series or film, because it’s popped up repeatedly. Kyle’s continued to release solo albums on a regular basis – the most recent, “Sunshine Soul,” came out in 2024 – but he’s also kept busy in other ways, including fronting a latter-day incarnation of the Bay City Rollers. Kyle’s got stories about all of these aspects of his career and more.

And with all of that said, I’d say it’s time to let Kyle Vincent talk.

Today, I’m letting Nathan Rabin talk.

I used to read Nathan’s work on the A.V. Club long before I began writing for the site myself, and every once in awhile it still strikes me as a little weird that he and I have become a mutual admiration society. And it’s not just me: during the course of the conversation, you’ll hear me mention that my daughter considers it her favorite low-key brag that her dad is friends with the guy who created the phrase “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.”

Nathan’s a legend amongst pop culture writers, thanks to his work not only at the aforementioned AV Club, but also the late, great Dissolve. These days, he splits the majority of his time between his Substack newsletter Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas and his website, Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, a.k.a. NathanRabin.com. That said, he also spent a little time recently in the hospital after a car accident, which we talk about during the course of our conversation, but thankfully he’s long since back home and recovering nicely, even if he’s still working his way back from the physical and financial damage it caused.

Not that Nathan and I need a reason to chat, but what brings us together for this particular conversation is his latest book, THE FRACTURED MIRROR, which is devoted to as many American movies about filmmaking as he could fit into its pages before he finally had to just stop and publish the damned thing. We’re talking almost 550 pages, and even though – as I freely admit to him – I haven’t finished it yet, I’m loving every page of it thus far, and I’m excited to keep working my way through it and, God help me, watching a lot of the films covered within its pages.

Well, I think that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Nathan Rabin talk.

This time, I’m letting Jane Alexander talk.

Jane is a four-time Academy Award nominee, a seven-time Tony nominee, and a two-time Emmy winner (with six additional nominations to her credit), so…there’s really no good reason why she should be talking to me for this podcast.

The only explanation I can offer: she and I got along swimmingly when I did a piece for Smithsonian about the play and film versions of The Great White Hope and chatted with both Jane and her co-star, the late, great James Earl Jones. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch, and when I found out that one of the films that scored her one of those aforementioned Oscar nods – Testament – was being added to the Criterion Collection, I pitched her on the idea of this conversation, and she was kind enough to agree.

I also took advantage of the opportunity to do something I’ve never done before during an interview: spring a special guest on someone. As you may or may not know, I did all of the interviews for the book Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!, and one of those interviews was with Ross Harris, who – in addition to being the boy who visits Peter Graves in the cockpit – also played Jane’s son in Testament. This is another one of those moments that plays particularly well if you’re a paid subscriber and have access to the video, but even without it, you can hear the unbridled joy in Jane’s voice when Ross joins us for a portion of the conversation.

Of course, Testament isn’t the only thing we talk about during the episode. Jane has plenty of stories about other projects, including meeting Muhammad Ali while doing The Great White Hope, acting alongside Johnny Cash and being invited to introduce him at one of his concerts, working with Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood in City Heat, and – more recently – being part of the runaway Apple TV+ hit Severance.

Well, that’s probably enough of an introduction. It’s time to let Jane Alexander talk.

This time, I’m letting Dennis Quaid talk.

Dennis has grinned his way through an acting career that started in the ‘70s and has continued unabated ever since. Sure, he’s had a few ups and downs over the decades, as he’ll freely admit (and, indeed, does so during the course of our interview), but he’s still going strong and acting up a storm.

The project that brought us together for this conversation is  “I Can Only Imagine 2,” the sequel to a biopic about Bart Millard, lead singer of the band MercyMe, and if you’ve seen the first film… Well, no spoilers, but suffice it to say that you’re probably a little surprised to see Quaid back in this film. Yeah, it’s not what you’d call a big role this time around, but it’s big enough that he was still up for doing some press for the film, so of course I put in a request. I’ve talked to him before, but it’s never been for long enough to work as a Random Roles, so you can imagine my surprise when I got the go-ahead to talk to him for this podcast. No, we don’t share the same politics, but his films have been a major part of my life, so I was psyched to have the opportunity to talk to him for such an extended period of time…and, better yet, as you’ll hear at the end of the conversation, he was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the time passed.

What did we talk about? A ridiculous amount of stuff, ranging from his earliest work – we’re talking an episode of Baretta and a role as a bellhop in an early Jonathan Demme movie – to things like The Right Stuff and Innerspace. We discussed how important the career of his brother Randy was to his own beginnings as an actor, and he offered up stories about working with Mickey Rooney to teaching mandolin to Marlon Brando. And, yes, we did talk about his work on Reagan, so of course I had to ask him what it feels like to be canceled…and, yes, he actually answered.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Dennis Quaid talk.

Today, I’m letting C. Thomas Howell talk.

I’ve been watching this man’s work since I was 11 years old and went to see “E.T.” with my family. A line like that might make some actors feel old, but given that Tommy – and I’m not being overly familiar here, this is actually how he’s listed on his official Facebook page –  was only 12 years old himself when he was hired for that particular film, I think he’ll probably be cool with it.

I first interviewed this gentleman when he was in the midst of his run on the cop drama Southland, and we did a lengthy Random Roles that, if I’m being honest, included a discussion of decidedly more projects that we managed to hit in this particular conversation. By which I mean to say that if you’re looking for tidbits about Kindred: The Embraced or Soul Man, you’ll want to head over to the A.V. Club and read that piece after you’ve listened to this episode. And, yes, there were a couple of encore stories that I knew from that interview that I pointedly asked him to tell in this interview because I knew listeners would enjoy actually hearing them straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. But what we had was, for the most part, an extremely organic conversation where I was able to easily jump from one topic to the next…and that’s on the occasions when he didn’t do that himself. He’s done more than a few interviews at this point in his career, and given that the name of this podcast is “Letting Them Talk,” well, you know exactly what I opted to let him do.

We started our chat by talking about his latest project, “One Mile,” which is available for your digital purchasing pleasure as of this recording, and since it’s a villainous role, that led into talking about “The Hitcher” and “Criminal Minds.” A question about how he’d considered following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a stuntman led into talking about “E.T.,” which in turn led to talking about “The Outsiders.” But talking about his dad also led to some great stories about how he got to visit some of the film sets that he worked on, including one of the “Planet of the Apes” films.

Oh, sure, we talked about other stuff, too. But that’s probably enough to keep you listening for the long haul.

It’s time to let C. Thomas Howell talk.

Unabashed plug: WE HAVE MERCH!

https://www.teepublic.com/user/lettingthemtalk

This time I’m letting Peter Tolan talk.

Peter is one of the best TV writers in the business as well as one of my favorite storytellers, either of which would be plenty enough excuse to have him as a guest. But when I traded emails with him a few weeks back, he said he was confident that I’d be able to come up with a legitimate reason to bring him on as a guest, and he was right: as I record this intro, which will also be the day that I release this episode, it will be the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the ABC series THE JOB, a.k.a. the first collaboration between Peter and Denis Leary.

Maybe you remember the series, maybe you don’t, but as Peter and I discuss, it was definitely an anomaly on ABC’s prime-time landscape at the time, in that it was a half-hour single-camera comedy with occasional dramatic elements. It was also a pretty great show, but despite that, it only lasted for two short seasons…although to be fair, the fact that it lasted for more than a single season was a legit shocker to everyone involved, so there’s that achievement, at least.

So, yes, Peter and I discussed THE JOB at length, but of course we talked about other things from his back catalog as well, including his subsequent collaboration with Denis Leary – RESCUE ME – as well as his work on THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, including his favorite guest-star story and why he feels like he was able to get along with Garry Shandling when others weren’t. We also talked about a couple of his screenplays, including MY FELLOW AMERICANS and WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM, with the latter leading to some great Mike Nichols stories. I also got him to talk about the Dave Chappelle pilot that led to a major squabble with Fox, his recent experiences with a pilot for FX that were a little disappointing, to put it mildly, and he even teases a new series that he and Denis Leary are trying to get off the ground, one that would reunite them with a former RESCUE ME guest star…

Well, that should keep you listening for the long haul. It’s time to let Peter Tolan talk.

http://willharris.substack.com

https://www.patreon.com/LettingThemTalk

This time I’m letting Kevin Dunn talk.

Kevin is a gentleman who’s been working in front of the camera since the mid-1980s, but it’s arguable that the role that transformed him from “oh, that guy” to being an “oh, that guy” from a very specific thing was playing White House Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty on VEEP. At the moment, however, he’s doing press for Tyler Kornack’s new film, MERMAID, which premiered at last year’s SXSW Festival, received a brief theatrical run earlier this month, and is on the cusp of receiving a digital release.

I made this remark to Kevin during our conversation, but it bears mentioning here as well: MERMAID is a weird fucking movie, but it’s a weirdness that sucked me in and kept me glued to the screen until the very end. SPLASH it is not, nor is it THE SHAPE OF WATER, but all three films share a certain amount of DNA, and… Well, I don’t really want to say much more about it, except that Kevin’s role, while relatively small in the grand scheme of things, is one that provides him with a moment that would be a must-add to any actor’s clip reel.

Of course, we talked about other topics as well, although I’ll tell you right now: Kevin’s a guy who has plenty of stories, and given the name of this podcast, it should go without saying that I didn’t get to ask him about everything that you rowdy lot wanted me to ask him about. This, of course, means that a sequel is a must if we can get it scheduled. For now, though, just know that we discussed VEEP, of course, along with MISSISSIPPI BURNING, LUCK, THE PRACTICE, SNAKE EYES, MARKED FOR DEATH, THE BEACH BOYS: AN AMERICAN FAMILY, and HOT SHOTS! And I’m sure a few other things came up as well, but suffice it to say that there’s a lot of great material to be found within those topics.

And with that said, I think that’s plenty enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kevin Dunn talk.

This time I’m letting Sam Anderson talk.

Sam is someone who’s been a working character actor since the 1970s, popping up in dramas and comedies alike. At the moment, he’s living the character actor’s dream, in that he’s a series regular on one of the most entertaining dramas on network television, playing Kathy Bates’ husband on CBS’s extremely creative reboot of Matlock.

Like so many actors, Sam got his start in the theater, but once he made the move to California, he jumped in front of the camera and has rarely found himself without work. As far as where you might know him from, it’s virtually impossible to know, given the width and breadth of his filmography, but some key moments from his career have found him playing an obstetrician obsessed with Arthur Fonzarelli on Friends, being stranded for several seasons on Lost, playing principal to a young Forrest Gump, and sparring with just about every doctor at Cook County General on ER. From Perfect Strangers and Growing Pains to four episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati, each one of which found him playing a different character, Anderson has been all up and down your TV dial and then some.

Basically, if you look at this man’s list of credits, you’ll realize that he’s been in just about everything at some point, and while that might be hyperbole with some actors, with Sam Anderson, it’s way closer to the truth than not. As such, there was never any chance that we’d get to everything that you folks asked me to ask him about, but I did my best, and he offered up some great stories to go with all the things that I threw at him.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Sam Anderson talk.

This time I’m letting Jay O. Sanders talk.

Jay started in the theater, quickly found his way in front of the camera, and has successfully forged an extremely substantial career as a character actor. Before that, though, he made his New York theater debut in a “Shakespeare in the Park” performance of Henry V alongside such fellow cast members as William Hurt, Meryl Streep, Michael Moriarty, and Bruce McGill, which – all things considered – is a pretty amazing way to kick off a career. Thankfully, he didn’t stop there, but since it’s statistically unlikely that most listeners have had the opportunity to catch Jay in his various theater performances, don’t worry, you’ll almost certainly recognize him from any number of TV or film appearances.

For me, as I mention in the course of our conversation, he’s instantly Kevin Costner’s right-hand man in JFK. If you’re a fan of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, you might recognize him either from his first appearance, which was as a bad guy working alongside a funeral home owner played by Jim Gaffigan, or you might remember him when he stepped in to keep Goren and Eames in line for the series’ final season. More recently, you might’ve seen him on NBC’s Blindspot, Prime Video’s Sneaky Pete, USA’s The Sinner, or Discovery’s Manhunt: Deadly Games, i.e. the season about the Unabomber.

But Jay’s done so much stuff that there’s really no telling where you might’ve seen him. AfterMASH? Crime Story? Roseanne? Eddie Macon’s Run? Okay, that’s kind of an outlier, but if you’re from my generation, they played that thing incessantly on HBO back in the day. He’s also in The Young Riders, Angels in the Outfield, The Big Green, Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, The Day After Tomorrow… He’s definitely an actor where you can comfortably use the phrase, “And the list goes on…” And suffice it to say that he’s got at least as many stories as he’s got roles in his back catalog.

That feels like a more than sufficient intro. It’s time to let Jay O. Sanders talk.

This time I’m talking to someone who was once named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Not that it came up in the conversation, but it just feels like a real pop culture badge of accomplishment, so I felt like I needed to mention it.

Mark Harmon has been acting since the ‘70s,  but while he earned an Emmy nod for his work in the 1977 miniseries Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, it really wasn’t until the ‘80s that he started to hit his stride in terms of mainstream popularity. From Flamingo Road to St. Elsewhere, playing Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger to playing against Kirstie Alley in Carl Reiner’s film Summer School, he was a major figure on both TV and film.

In the 1990s, however, despite working steadily in film and on TV, Harmon struggled to find a long-term foothold on the small screen. That situation changed in a big way in the early 2000s, when an arc on The West Wing led to a backdoor pilot on JAG that turned into the most popular role of his lengthy career: playing Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS.

In the series 19th season, Harmon stepped away from NCIS, and although he’s kept a foot in that world by narrating the prequel series, NCIS: Origins, and continued to act when he’s of a mind to do so, he’s spent more time writing of late, collaborating with Leon Carroll, Jr. on a series of books: Ghosts of Honolulu, Ghosts of Panama, and the just-released Ghosts of Sicily. Military history buffs will particularly enjoy the series, and as I mention to him during the course of our conversation, the latest book could be subtitled Military and Mobsters. It’s a great read.

Given how carefully Gibbs used to choose his words on NCIS, it may surprise you that Harmon is a talker, and as a result, I didn’t get to hit on every topic I would’ve liked, but I’ll say that just about anything we didn’t touch on in this conversation, we talked about it in my Random Roles interview with him, which can find in the AV Club archives. Suffice to say, however, that we had a great chat that makes for a fun listen.

And with all of that said, it’s time to let Mark Harmon talk.

This time, I’m letting Corbin Bernsen talk.

As one of the leads of NBC’s long-running legal drama L.A. LAW, Corbin was one of the biggest TV stars of the ‘80s, and he’s managed to maintain a significant career ever since, not only as an actor but as a director as well.

On paper, he seems to be someone who was always destined to work in Hollywood, given that his mother, Jeanne Cooper, was a soap opera star on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, and his father, Harry Bernsen, Jr., was a producer. But as you’ll hear, Corbin really wasn’t all that enthused about the idea of becoming an actor. Obviously, he changed his mind, but it took a little while for him to come around.

Currently, Bernsen is busy talking up his latest film, THE YETI, a horror movie that centers around – you guessed it – a yeti, but it’s a period piece, and even with all of the horror movies emerging nowadays, it stands out both in its look and its substance. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of blood, too.

Our conversation starts with the new movie, of course, and from there we delve into various other highlights from his career, including as many listener requests as we had time to tackle. I also reached out to a couple of his former co-stars – including two of his PSYCH castmates – who I’ve interviewed over the years and got some questions from them. One of them is so well-considered and absolutely unlike the relationship he has with that actor that it completely blew his mind, but his response proved to be so philosophical that it blew my mind.

Anyway, yes, we talked about MAJOR LEAGUE, and, yes, I asked him about guest-starring on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION…and he teased that he has something else STAR TREK-oriented coming up. We also talked about his appearance on SEINFELD, some of his other horror films, most notably THE DENTIST and TALES FROM THE HOOD, briefly popping up in the blaxploitation classic THREE THE HARD WAY, how his version of faith-centered films doesn’t necessarily mesh with the general definition of that genre, and why he thinks the never-aired attempt at an L.A. LAW revival didn’t work. No, we didn’t hit everything that I would’ve liked to have hit, but that just means there’s plenty of material left for a sequel.

That’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Corbin Bernsen talk.

This time, I’m letting Thomas Dolby talk.

Thomas Dolby is a musician whose output throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s was part of the soundtrack to my life. Of course, anyone who came of age during the early days of MTV knows his music whether they know his name or not. Just play them a snippet of “She Blinded Me with Science,” and the memories will instantly come flowing back.

I had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Dolby some years ago when I was writing for Bullz-Eye.com and he was in the midst of doing a flurry of press for the reissue of Prefab Sprout’s STEVE McQUEEN album, which he produced. Of course, I completely nerded out, as any proper music geek would, and believe me, I wish I could produce the audio of that conversation, because if I could, I’d include at least a portion of it with this episode…at least partially because, as you’ve probably noted if you’d look at the length of this particular installment, it’s a bit shorter than usual.

That’s because I didn’t know until it was too late to do anything about it that I’d accidentally only been allotted 30 minutes for our interview, and he didn’t know that I thought I’d been allotted an hour, so when we hit the 30-minute mark, I found myself a bit blindsided by the sudden end of the conversation. I mean, it’s all fine and well, these things happen, but I’m sorry for you, the listener, that it didn’t go on longer.

Still, during the course of our half-hour together, we talked about as much of his career as I could manage, we discussed a bit about his soundtrack work, which resulted in a particularly great Ken Russell story, and we talked about some of his session and production work over the years, including a Thompson Twins song you may not have realized that he had a hand in. If you’re a fan of his work, I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you don’t know much about his career, I think you’ll find it fascinating.

And with that said, I’d say it’s time to let Thomas Dolby talk…and after you're done listening to him talk, maybe you'd like to go see him on tour. Here's a list of his upcoming tour dates!

This time I’m letting two – count ‘em – two people talk: DeAnn Heline and Eileen Heisler.

They’re the pair behind Blackie and Blondie Productions, which should ring a bell if you’re a diehard TV fan, but in case you’re still drawing a blank, DeAnn and Eileen are the duo responsible for creating The Middle.

Yes, you may recall that we’ve had another duo on this show in the past, and they, too, were part of the Middle family: Eden Sher and Brock Ciarlelli, a.k.a. Sue and Brad, not to mention the host of the Middling podcast. When I interviewed them for the show, I made a comment about how I was planning to interview DeAnn and Eileen, and I said that my plan was to focus on their career before they created The Middle, thereby giving me an opportunity to discuss an era that I didn’t know that much about while also leaving the Middle stories to Eden and Brock. As it happens, Brock instantly said, “No, but you have to ask them about The Middle!” Almost as instantly as DeAnn said, “Uh, we created it, we can talk about it if we want!”

So there you go: we talked about The Middle. But we also talked about Blackie and Blondie: The Early Years. In addition to the inevitable secret origin of their long-running friendship and creative work together, we also discussed the various stages of their career, including their work on Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Ellen, Lipstick Jungle, and a few other short-lived series in their back catalog. They offered up stories about working with Norm MacDonald, Garry Marshall, Tom Poston, and another past guest, Peter Tolan, plus many others over the years.

And, yes, there was a decent amount of conversation about my personal connection to The Middle, how my family helped inspire a storyline in one of the episodes, and more.

Okay, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let DeAnn and Eileen talk.

This time I’m actually letting two people talk. One of them I was expecting, one of them I wasn’t, but I was thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with them together, even if it had only been a little over a week since I’d last talked to them separately.

To try and make that slightly confusing sentence a bit more comprehensible, I should explain that my wife and I recently took a trip to London to visit our daughter, who’d just wrapped up a semester abroad and was on the cusp of heading home. Having already finished her semester, she met up with us in Reading, where all three us stayed with family friends (hello, Toni and Stu, and thanks again for the hospitality), after which we spent some time in London, did an overnight trip to Galway, Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher, and – most importantly for this story – headed to York to see Haircut One Hundred in concert!

I must admit that I never would’ve expected that I’d ever have the chance to see them live, mostly because Nick Heyward parted ways with the band in 1983! But against all odds, the guys mended whatever fences they needed to mend, started playing together again, and not only are they back together full-time and touring, but they’ve even got a new record coming out on June 19! And owing to a combination of the band having a wonderful publicist and having interviewed Nick during my brief tenure as a senior editor of Q Magazine, my family and I were not only able to see the band live in York (along with openers Stone Foundation, who were also pretty damned great), but we met up with them after the show. And while I was of course thrilled to have a chance to meet Nick, as a proper music nerd, I was also excited to meet the band’s drummer, Blair Cunningham, who was sitting behind the kit the first time I saw Paul McCartney in concert.

Nick and I were originally going to do an interview before my trip to London, but then it became clear that it would be easier to do it once I was back home and Haircut One Hundred was done with their tour. What I was not expecting, however, was for Blair to pop in a few minutes after we started and join us, but talk about a pleasant surprise. Plus, it kept me on my toes as an interviewer, having prepped questions about Nick’s solo career to fill the hour. Instead, I got both of their perspectives about the Haircut One Hundred experience, Blair had some amazing stories of his own, including some great McCartney tales as well as a hilarious story about working with Echo and the Bunnymen, and I still managed to get a question in about Nick’s songwriting collaboration with the late, great Terry Hall.

Well, that’s enough of an intro: it’s time to let Nick Heyward and Blair Cunningham talk.

This time, I’m letting John C. McGinley talk.

I’ve wanted to interview John for many years, so the fact that that dream came true just as he’s delivered not one but two Emmy-worthy performances made it all the more exciting.

I no longer remember where I first saw Mr. McGinley, mostly because he was in so many films throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, but like most people, he made the jump from “character actor” to “actor I know by name” when he picked up the role of Dr. Cox on  Scrubs. It’s a role he recently picked back up when the series was revived for a new season on ABC, and it’s since been renewed for a second season, thank the lord, but what’s also been keeping him busy is another Bill Lawrence-created series, HBO’s Rooster, where he plays Walter Mann, president of Ludlow College and boss to Steve Carell’s character, Greg Russo. I’m not kidding around about McGinley’s performances being Emmy-worthy, either; he’s great on Rooster – as well he should be, as you’ll soon hear – and Scrubs has taken Dr. Cox in a direction we haven’t seen before, giving McGinley a chance to flex his acting muscles in a different way with the character.

As I mentioned, however, McGinley was acting well before he got that first full-time prime-time gig with Scrubs, and we talk about as much of that career as time would allow…and when time started to run out, I read him all of the various things that you folks wanted me to ask him about, and it’s clear that he’s got stories yet to tell. During this conversation, however, we managed to discuss Stan Against Evil, Platoon and his relationship with Oliver Stone, Watch It (a personal favorite of mine), Car 54, Where Are You?, Office Space, and Three to Tango. Oh, yes, and we sort of talked about Point Break and On Deadly Ground, but…you’ll, uh, have to listen to find out what I mean by that.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let John C. McGinley talk.