Movie Interviews

In Blindspotting, the friendship between hotheaded Miles (Rafael Casal, left) and ex-con Collin (Daveed Diggs) is a window into the race and class politics of a gentrifying Oakland.

Arts

In 'Blindspotting,' A Cinematic Love Letter To A Changing Oakland

4:58pm July 22, 2018

by Michel Martin

Actors and spoken-word artists Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal wrote and star in a buddy comedy finely attuned to race and class politics. Of course, they set it in their hometown.

A Pakistani Squash Player Profiled In 'The War To Be Her'

8:12am July 22, 2018

Maria Toorpakai was stopped from playing squash in her native Pakistan. Today she's one of the best players. Her story is told in The War to Be Her by Erin Heidenreich. Korva Coleman speaks to them.

Daniel Wu plays the starring role in the TV series Into the Badlands, and also serves as one of its executive producers.

Arts

A Superstar In China, Daniel Wu Emerges In His Native California

8:15am July 21, 2018

by Chloe Veltman

The Chinese-American actor became an action movie mainstay abroad over the last 20 years. Thanks to his leading role in the TV series Into the Badlands, he's finally getting noticed in the U.S.

Writer and director Bo Burnham talks with Elsie Fisher on the set of Eighth Grade. Burnham says the anxiety he felt as a young performer helped him understand the social pressure teenage girls can experience.

Arts

Director Bo Burnham On Growing Up With Anxiety — And An Audience

1:09pm July 19, 2018

by Terry Gross

The former YouTube star explores adolescence in the age of social media in his film Eighth Grade. "This awful D-list celebrity pressure I had experienced onstage has now been democratized," he says.

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Fernando Cardona, a real-life construction worker and Mexican immigrant, was cast in the lead role in En el Séptimo Día. His character Jose is a restaurant delivery worker and the star of his amateur soccer team.

Arts

On The Seventh Day, They Played Soccer

4:45pm July 18, 2018

by Rick Karr

Jim McKay makes movies about New Yorkers who don't often make it to the big screen. His newest, En el Séptimo Día, is about Mexican undocumented workers who gather on the pitch on their only day off.

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Director Gus Van Sant Discusses 'Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot'

5:48pm July 15, 2018

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with director Gus Van Sant about his new film, Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot, which chronicles the fall and rise of cartoonist John Callahan.

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Arts

Remembering 1950s Hollywood Heartthrob Tab Hunter

5:09pm July 13, 2018

by Terry Gross

Hunter, who died Sunday, made more than 50 films, including Damn Yankees, Battle Cry and That Kind of Woman, before coming out as gay later in life. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2005.

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Lakeith Stanfield stars as telemarketer Cassius Green in Sorry to Bother You.

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Actor Lakeith Stanfield: 'We All Have Images That We're Attempting To Push'

5:31pm July 09, 2018

Stanfield has had a number of oddball roles, most recently in the telemarketing satire Sorry to Bother You, where he plays a character who learns to get ahead by using a "white voice" on the phone.

Marsha Hunt played a maid who penned a tell-all memoir opposite Richard Carlson in the 1942 romantic comedy The Affairs Of Martha.

Arts

Actress Marsha Hunt, 100, Has Matters Of Principle

8:07am July 07, 2018

by Ina Jaffe

Born in 1917, she was part of Hollywood's golden age and a survivor of its McCarthy-era blacklist — and emerged on the other side as a humanitarian activist.

Dwayne Johnson plays a U.S. military veteran framed for setting the world's tallest building on fire — while his family is trapped in it — in the new movie Skyscraper.

Arts

'Skyscraper' Director Made A 'Love Letter' To The Classic Action Blockbusters

8:07am July 07, 2018

by Linda Wertheimer

Rawson Marshall Thurber describes his movie's place on the summer calendar, its comic relief and getting Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to jump onto the world's tallest building while it's on fire.