The Business

<p><span id="m_-7653287991337998421gmail-docs-internal-guid-d7dcf661-9bb6-350c-eb78-267d2506b19c"><span>‘The Looming Tower’ on Hulu follows FBI agent Ali Soufan as he tries to prevent an Al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil. The real Soufan says watching an actor play him has been weird, but could have an important payoff: teaching people what led to 9/11 and preventing another attack. </span><span>Soufan and ‘The Looming Tower’ author Lawrence Wright tell us how they adapted the complicated story for TV. </span></span></p>

<p>TV writer Nell Scovell’s credits include ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Murphy Brown,’ ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ and ‘NCIS.’ When she started working in TV in the late 1980’s, more often than not, she’d be the only woman in the writers room. And in a lot of places, she's found, that's still the case. She tells us about calling out Letterman in Vanity Fair and shares stories from her new book ‘Just the Funny Parts.’</p>

<p>Sometimes our guests have so many interesting things to say that we can’t fit it all into one show. This week we bring you delicious leftovers: stuff that was too good to leave on the cutting-room floor, including insights from writers facing distinct challenges. Listen in for stories from comedy writer Janis Hirsch, writer-director Armando Iannucci, and showrunners Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino.</p>

<p dir="ltr"><span>You might know puppeteer and filmmaker Frank Oz as Miss Piggy or Cookie Monster. He is also Yoda, and he directed movies including 'Little Shop of Horrors' and 'What About Bob?' A new documentary called ‘Muppet Guys Talking’ reunites Oz and some of the other talents behind the Muppets for the first time in years. Director Frank Oz and producer Victoria Labalme tell us about getting the gang together again. </span></p>

<p>Some of the scenes in Armando Iannucci’s new film, ‘The Death of Stalin,’ seem a bit over the top. But Iannucci says says he actually had to downplay the real story to make it believable. The political satirist behind ‘The Thick of It’ and ‘Veep’ tells us about his first time working on a project based on real people and how he had to work to balance comedy and terror when writing about the chaos that followed Stalin's death in 1953.</p>

<p>Kim Masters and Matt Belloni met up Monday morning to break down what happened at the Oscars. We're dropping this special banter here, but we'll be back with another new episode next week!</p>

As 'Black Panther' mauls box office records, we stopped by a theater showing the film in a new panoramic format called ScreenX. We get reactions from 'Black Panther' fans and talk to Paul Kim, the man who’s trying to make ScreenX take off in America. Plus, we revisit our interview with director Ryan Coogler.

<p>A year ago, a satirical horror film about race relations in America would not have sounded like an idea for a hit movie. But ‘Get Out’ was a box-office smash and it’s nominated for 4 Oscars, including best picture. Jordan Peele is also nominated for best director and best original screenplay--not bad for someone making his directorial debut. Peele tells us about the years-long process of getting to ‘Get Out.’</p>

<p>For the now Oscar-nominated Chilean film ‘A Fantastic Woman,’ director Sebastián Lelio cast transgender actress Daniela Vega as a trans woman dealing with the sudden loss of of her partner. Lelio says box office grosses were less than his last movie, but in terms of starting a social conversation in Chile, the film has been incredibly powerful. Both Lelio and Vega join us to talk about making 'A Fantastic Woman.'</p>

<p>‘Mudbound’ director of photography Rachel Morrison just made history as the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for best cinematography. She’s also the first woman to shoot a big comic book movie: the upcoming Marvel mega-hit, ‘Black Panther.’ She fought hard to get to the top of her male-dominated field, but says more women are getting a shot at getting the shot.</p>

<p>Documentarian Alex Gibney is known for his award-winning investigative films on Enron, Wikileaks and Scientology. For his newest project, he took on the Volkswagen diesel-car emissions scandal and this time, it was personal. Gibney tells us about his new Netflix series ‘Dirty Money,’ in which his look at VW is one of six documentaries in a series on corporate greed.</p>

<p>Tom Rob Smith seems like a nice enough guy, but many of his works are about grisly murders. His newest project is ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace,’ FX’s second entry in its American Crime Story anthology. The series examines the murder of the fashion icon, and looks at the lives of the other men who died at the hand of killer Andrew Cunanan. Smith tells us why writing about murder is a useful way of exploring a society.</p>

<p><span>Amazon’s ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ tells the story of Midge Maisel--the perfect well-to-do 1950’s New York housewife who turns to stand-up comedy when her husband leaves her. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband and producing partner Daniel Palladino tell us about the work that goes into filming a period series in Manhattan and their painstaking process for selecting music for the show. </span></p>

<p>In 2012, director Ziad Doueiri broke Lebanese law by shooting a movie in Israel. His latest film,‘The Insult,’ has nothing to do with Israel, but Doueiri still has enemies in the Middle East who tried to stop the release of this movie. They failed, and now 'The Insult' is shortlisted for Oscar in the foreign language category and a box-office hit in Lebanon.</p>

<p><span>Now that Russia has been banned from the upcoming Winter Olympics, we thought it would be a good time to revisit our interview with ‘Icarus’ director Bryan Fogel. We talk about his crazy journey of meeting, befriending, and then very likely saving the life of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the architect of Russia’s state-run Olympic doping program. Plus, an all-new Banter about the effort to keep the #MeToo momentum going.</span></p>

<p><span>Sir Ridley Scott just pulled off a one-of-a-kind filmmaking feat--cutting Kevin Spacey out of his new film and reshooting with Christopher Plummer in the role--all in just six weeks. Scott tells us about his mad dash to refilm 22 scenes of the Getty family kidnapping drama <em>All the Money in the World</em>.</span></p>

<p><span>It's time for that annual tradition--the year-end mega-banter! Kim Masters, Matthew Belloni and Michael Schneider take stock of the year that was in Hollywood.</span></p>

<p>Guillermo del Toro's new film, <em>The Shape of Water</em>, is a visually stunning love story between a mute cleaning woman and an exotic sea creature. It looks expensive, but del Toro actually came in under his modest budget. He tells us about the creative ways he stretched a dollar making his awards contender.</p>

<p>For his new series <em>Wormwood</em>, documentarian Errol Morris used interviews and archival footage to tell the story of Frank Olson, an Army scientist who died a mysterious death in 1953. But he also cast Peter Sarsgaard to play Olson in scripted sequences. Netflix footed the bill, though no one quite knew what they were getting themselves into when they first took on the project.</p>

<p>Documentary filmmaker Neil Berkeley desperately wanted to make a movie about the screeching comedian Gilbert Gottfried. But when he started spending time with Gottfried and his wife Dara, he found someone who was much different from -- and quieter than -- his onstage persona. Berkeley tells us about getting to know the real Gottfried and following him on the road, where he is shockingly frugal.</p>

<p>We revisit our conversation with actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish, who had a star-is-born moment earlier this summer with the raunchy comedy <em>Girls Trip</em>. Haddish says the movie has already changed her life, and she has big plans for where her career goes from here. Haddish and <em>Girls Trip</em> director Malcolm D. Lee tell us about filming during the actual Essence Festival and yes, a certain scene involving a grapefruit.</p>

<p>For the new movie <em>Call Me By Your Name,</em> Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino started as a consultant but ended up as the director. He tells us about the decade-long journey making the film and how he convinced Armie Hammer to take the part of Oliver, a closeted graduate student who finds a passionate romance one summer in 1980s Italy.</p>

<p><em>Better Things</em> co-creator Pamela Adlon tells us about learning to stop second guessing herself and embracing many roles -- writer, director, producer and actor. And yes, we ask her about Louis C.K. We spoke to Adlon just days before the New York Times published a story alleging that C.K., her long-time collaborator, had a history of sexual misconduct.</p>

<p>Hollywood chased after Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund following his well-received 2014 film <em>Force Majeure</em>. But Östlund isn't so sure he wants to be caught. He tells KCRW's Matt Holzman about staying in Scandinavia and his new movie <em>The Square, a satirical dramedy that is his second film selected as Sweden's foreign language submission to the Oscars. </em></p>

<p>Two women who have carved out great careers in Hollywood share their stories of sexual harassment. Comedy writer Janis Hirsch and <em>Grey's Anatomy</em> showrunner Krista Vernoff talk about what they've had to put up with and their hope that the culture will finally change.</p>

<p>Actor Andy Serkis is best known for his pioneering motion capture work. Now Serkis has stepped behind the camera to direct the new movie <em>Breathe.</em> The film is a very personal one for producer Jonathan Cavendish; it tells the true story of his remarkable parents. Serkis and Cavendish tell us why they wanted to make an old-fashioned love story like <em>Breathe,</em> give a <em>Jungle Book</em> update and talk about some of the new projects in the works at their performance capture studio Imaginarium.</p>

<p>First, a news banter checking in on the Harvey Weinstein saga. Then, filmmaker Sean Baker, known for shooting movies on the iPhone, tells us why he went old school 35mm with <em>The Florida Project</em>, and how the discipline required when using real film actually helped him work with five- and six-year-old actors.</p>

<p>We have interesting guests on <em>The Business</em>, and sometimes our conversations are too long to fit into one show. This week we give you stories that were too good to leave on the cutting room floor, including some sharp insights on making it in the industry from David Mandel, David Simon, Shawn Levy and Matt Reeves.</p>

<p>Filmmakers and married couple Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton planned to release their film about the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs before the 2016 presidential election. Then their star, Emma Stone, signed on to make <em>La La Land</em> and <em>Battle of the Sexes</em> got pushed back. Now their film -- about a battle against misogyny, gender discrimination and homophobia both on the tennis court and off -- suddenly has more resonance than they expected.</p>

<p>When <em>Will & Grace</em> co-creator Max Mutchnick went to his long-time writing partner David Kohan with the idea of reuniting the cast for a one-off web video, Kohan humored him. Little did he know the reunion would end up going far beyond that one short video. Will, Grace, Karen and of course, just Jack -- are now coming back to NBC for two new seasons.</p>

<p>In writer-director Mike White's new movie <em>Brad's Status</em>, Ben Stiller plays a man consumed with jealousy of friends from college, based on their social media. White tells us why he wanted to make a movie about ambition in the age of Instagram, and the challenge of making humanist movies when the studios only want the next superhero franchise.</p>

<p><span>When David Simon started shopping his new show <em>The Deuce</em>--about the rise and legalization of the porn industry--he quickly realized a lot of networks didn’t quite grasp his seriousness of purpose. The creator of<em> The Wire</em> and <em>Treme</em> tells us how <em>The Deuce</em> ended up back at his longtime TV home, HBO, and why he ended up making a show about porn in the first place.</span></p>

<p>Director Shawn Levy built a career on the <em>Night at the Museum</em> franchise, but wanted to break out of his box. He set out to produce, and this past year scored with the Netflix mega-hit <em>Stranger Things,</em> now up for 18 Emmys. He tells us how he went about getting the industry to reconsider him.</p>

<p>TV writer-producer Chuck Lorre has created some of the most successful multi-camera broadcast sitcoms ever, including <em>Two and a Half Men,</em> and <em>The Big Bang Theory.</em> Now he's entering a new stage in his career with two projects -- the Netflix pot comedy <em>Disjointed</em> and the single camera show <em>Young Sheldon</em> for CBS--that are pushing him outside his previous purview.</p>

<p>Billy Eichner has had recent roles in Hulu's <em>Difficult People,</em> Netflix's <em>Friends from College,</em> and in the upcoming season of <em>American Horror Story</em> on FX. But it's through his truTV game show, <em>Billy on the Street,</em> that he's in the Emmy race. He tells us about the evolution of his person-on-the-street antics and why not every celebrity is a good fit for the show.</p>

<p>Gigi Pritzker didn't plunge headlong into the movie business -- her original life plan was to run an NGO in Nepal. An accidental journey to film school set her on a path to producing lots of films, including the Oscar-nominated <em>Hell or High Water</em>. But she'd never done television until <em>Genius,</em> on the life of Albert Einstein, demanded to be made as a series. The first season of the National Geographic anthology series is now up for 10 Emmys.</p>

<p>Bryan Fogel's original plan for his documentary <em>Icarus</em> was to investigate pervasive doping in cycling by becoming a human guinea pig. He recruited chemist Grigory Rodchenkov in Moscow to guide him. Then Rodchenkov was revealed as the architect of Russia's state-run doping program -- and he was ready to blow the whistle. Fogel helped Rodchenkov flee, and then things got really scary.</p>

<p>Actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish is having a star-is-born moment with the raunchy comedy <em>Girls Trip</em>. Haddish says the movie has already changed her life, and she has big plans for where her career goes from here. Haddish and <em>Girls Trip</em> director Malcolm D. Lee tell us about filming during the actual Essence Festival and yes, a certain scene involving a grapefruit.</p>

<p>Character actor Curtis Armstrong auditioned for the 1984 comedy <em>Revenge of the Nerds,</em> hoping to play the lead. The filmmakers saw him in the lesser role of Booger. At first, Armstrong told his agent, no way. But that role became a standout in Armstrong's long career as a character actor in film and TV. He shares stories of Booger and beyond in his new memoir.</p>

<p>Filmmaker Matt Reeves knew his new film, <em>War for the Planet of the Apes</em>, had to work even without any help from computer-generated effects. He tells us about shooting whole film first with his actors in special motion capture suits, and shares early thoughts on his next project, <em>The Batman</em>.</p>

<p>Filmmaker Allen Hughes has been friends with music moguls Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine for years. But when he set out to make the new HBO documentary series <em>The Defiant Ones </em>-- about their careers -- Hughes found that getting them to open up on camera wasn't easy.</p>

<p>When Norman Lear decided to reboot the classic sitcom <em>One Day at a Time</em>, this time with a Latino family, he wanted a writer-producer who could offer an authentic voice to the project. He found that person in Gloria Calderón Kellett, who incorporated much of her own background into the show, including making the family Cuban.</p>

<p>As a Muslim comedian, <em>Daily Show</em> correspondent Hasan Minhaj found he could relate to political reporters when he agreed to the daunting challenge of doing the first White House Correspondents' Dinner of the Trump administration. Minhaj tells us about crafting his routine in just three weeks, and the far slower process of creating his new and very personal Netflix special, <em>Homecoming King</em>.</p>

<p>For the past two seasons, former <em>Seinfeld</em> and <em>Curb Your Enthusiasm</em> writer David Mandel has been showrunning HBO's <em>Veep.</em> And while the show can have eerie parallels to reality, Mandel tells us that more often than not, it's real life that ends up imitating <em>Veep.</em></p>

<p>Director Shawn Levy built a career on the ‘Night at the Museum’ franchise, but wanted to break out of his box. He set out to produce, and this past year scored with the Oscar-nominated movie ‘Arrival’ and the Netflix megahit ‘Stranger Things.’ He tells us how he went about getting the industry to reconsider him.</p>

<p>Scott Silveri has written and produced sitcoms for more than 20 years. In all that time, he never encountered a TV family that looked anything like the one he grew up in -- with a mom, a dad...and a brother with cerebral palsy. He changed that with his show <em>Speechless</em> on ABC. Silveri tells us about looking to his own past for stories, and why he was determined to make a family comedy and not just a "disability show."</p>

<p>Steven Bochco, the writer-producer behind record-breaking Emmy winners <em>Hill Street Blues, LA Law</em> and <em>NYPD Blue</em>, fought battles with everyone from out-of-control actors to network censors in his long career. He isn’t afraid to tell those tales in his memoir, <em>Truth Is a Total Defense</em>. This week we revisit the conversation where he shared some of his favorite stories with us.</p>

<p>The novel <em>American Gods</em> features countless mythological characters gearing up to fight an epic battle. The writer-producers of the new adaptation on Starz were determined to do justice to the book -- even if that meant constantly moving production and pushing the budget. Showrunners Michael Green and Bryan Fuller tell us why they're not worried about critics who say the show is confusing, and go into the thinking behind an especially memorable, explicit sex scene.</p>

<p>After selling out stadiums in India, comedian and actor Vir Das is looking to break through in the US with his new Netflix special, <em>Vir Das: Abroad Understanding</em>. He tells us about making the jump from Bollywood to Hollywood and how he hopes his pointed humor can redefine expectations in India and America.</p>

<p>Author Margaret Atwood realizes that Hulu's adaptation of her Dystopian 1985 novel <em>The Handmaid's Tale</em> has gotten a huge PR boost, thanks to a turn of events that hardly seemed possible when work on the series was underway. Atwood and showrunner Bruce Miller talk about adapting the story for television and the eerie timeliness of the new series. </p>