The A.V. Club - Interview

Books: Interview:Richard Dawkins

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:25:00 -0600

When Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion in 2006, he was at the forefront of a movement some have retroactively dubbed “the new atheism,” which also includes bestselling authors Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) and Sam Harris (Letter To A Christian Nation). Though The God Delusion became the British scientist’s most famous work, Dawkins had already written more than half a dozen books about evolution and genetics, beginning with The Selfish Gene in 1976. In his most recent book, The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution, Dawkins makes his case for evolutionary theory. With the increasing ...

TV: Interview:Ty Burrell

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0600

Though Community was an early favorite for funniest new show of the 2009 TV season, it’s had heated, unexpected competition from ABC’s Modern Family. The show is a single-camera, mock-documentary sitcom about three families, all related: The patriarch (Ed O’Neill) is in a May-December marriage, his son (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and the son’s partner (Eric Stonestreet) have a new adopted baby, his daughter (Julie Bowen) is married with three kids. The show’s loose, rambunctious style earns plenty of unexpected laughs—it feels improvised, but the majority of each episode is scripted—and Ty Burrell, who ...

Books: Interview:Steven D. Levitt

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

University Of Chicago professor Steven D. Levitt is probably the only economist who can also lay claim to being a genuine worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. His book Freakonomics (written in collaboration with journalist Stephen J. Dubner) has sold more than 4 million copies since its publication four years ago, coining a whole new subgenre of study, while reshaping the very idea of what economics means to most people. Never wary of controversy, Levitt stands by his data even if the numbers point to unpleasant conclusions. While his notion that the legalization of abortion eventually led to reduced crime rates didn’t ...

Books: Interview:Jonathan Safran Foer

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

With his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (2005), Jonathan Safran Foer became a literary celebrity. Actor Liev Schreiber optioned the former novel, and shot it as his directorial debut, starring Elijah Wood; the film rights for the latter have been sold as well. He’s married to the novelist Nicole Krauss, he lives in Park Slope, and he’s probably the envy of every other writer also in their 30s living in Brooklyn and still desperately scratching out first books. Awaiting the birth of his first child, Foer, an off-and-on-again vegetarian, determined it was ...

Film: Interview:Costa-Gavras

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:45:00 -0600

Beginning with 1969’s Z, recently added to the Criterion Collection, Costa-Gavras established himself as a master of the political thriller, using the tools of suspense to attack repressive ideology. Born Constantinos Gavras—the name change was courtesy of a title-card typo—he was raised in Greece by politically active parents; his father fought in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II. While there’s no mistaking his targets, Costa-Gavras prefers allegory to direct confrontation, although the distinction can be a fine one. Centered around the assassination of a popular left-wing leader, Z is set in an unspecified time and ...

Books: Interview:Bill Simmons

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:56:00 -0600

Known simply as “The Sports Guy,” Bill Simmons is a popular columnist for ESPN.com’s Page 2 website and host of the B.S. Report podcast, but the nickname only describes the most prominent of his obsessions. As conversant in the intricacies of Mad Men and The Real World as he is with the weekly NFL betting lines or the epic Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, Simmons is rare among sports writers for his playful integration of well-reasoned, provocative opinion and pop-culture references. Though he currently resides in Los Angeles, his passion for all things Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox-related would ...

TV: Interview:Rich Sommer

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Mad Men is finished until next summer, and fans of the show are eager to find out what’s going to happen after the big events of the season finale. (Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the episode yet… The season ends with Don Draper leading a core group of co-workers from the Sterling Cooper ad agency on an exodus to start a new company. Also, he grants his wife a divorce, after some fairly heavy, borderline-abusive moments.) Among those who are eager to learn what Mad Men’s fourth season has in store: the cast of the ...

Music: Interview:Glen Hansard of The Swell Season

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová both have long, relatively low-profile personal histories in music, and their debut album as a duo, 2006’s The Swell Season, was just another step in the continuum for both of them. But the same year, they starred in John Carney’s independent film Once as a pair of star-crossed musicians forming a tentative relationship, and suddenly they were media darlings, cast both in the film and in the public eye as an endearing, endangered couple producing achingly vulnerable music. And their real-life relationship seemed to make the love story particularly irresistible, particularly once ...

TV: Interview:Wanda Sykes

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:32:00 -0600

Wanda Sykes got a relatively late start in show business, beginning her stand-up career in earnest when she was nearly 30 years old. But it didn’t take her long to become a familiar face (and voice) in comedy. From starting as a writer and performer on The Chris Rock Show, Sykes has gone to become a reliable supporting player in sitcoms like Curb Your Enthusiasm and The New Adventures Of Old Christine, as well as a go-to voice actress in animated features like Over The Hedge and Barnyard. Lately, Sykes has become more involved in political causes, coming out ...

Film: Interview:Lee Daniels and Gabby Sidibe

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

In his movie Precious, producer-turned-director Lee Daniels has the kind of cinematic success story that gives hope to generations of independent filmmakers and other assorted dreamers. On paper, the film looks almost comically non-commercial. It’s a kitchen-sink melodrama about a morbidly obese, illiterate black teenager in 1980s New York who is physically abused by her monstrous welfare-cheat mother and sexually abused by her father, who is also the father of her two children. Throw in a complete unknown in the lead (Gabby Sidibe) and a director whose only other directorial effort (2005’s Shadowboxer) came and went without a ...

Music: Interview:Jim O’Rourke

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:06:00 -0600

Jim O’Rourke is a storied musician and producer who has cut something of a Zelig-like figure in indie music in the 1990s and 2000s. He came up with the prescient avant-folk group Gastr Del Sol, made numerous records full of drones and noise, and played crucial roles in such big bands as Wilco (he helped conceive Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and Sonic Youth (he was temporarily a fifth member of the band). His studio credits, as a producer and/or mixer, include records by Stereolab, John Fahey, Joanna Newsom, Faust, Beth Orton, and many more. Alongside all that, O’Rourke ...

Music: Interview:Daryl Hall and John Oates

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

When Daryl Hall and John Oates met in 1967, both men had been kicking around the Philadelphia music scene for nearly a decade. They immediately found common ground, and they began collaborating a couple of years later, releasing their first album, Whole Oats, in 1972. In 1973, they notched their first hit single, “She’s Gone,” from the album Abandoned Luncheonette, though follow-up successes were more scattered throughout the ’70s, as the duo experimented with different sounds and styles. With the 1980 album Voices, Hall and Oates began to hit their stride, and for the next half-decade, they released an ...

Film: Interview:Charlotte Gainsbourg

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

The daughter of French singer-provocateur Serge Gainsbourg and Swinging London icon Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg was born to fame, but her career path hasn’t been a straight line. At the age of 12, she dueted with her father on “Lemon Incest,” a proclamation of paternal devotion whose ambiguous lyrics and semi-clad video prompted public outcry. She quickly followed it in 1986 with the album Charlotte For Ever, but it took two decades for her next album, 5:55, to arrive. She started young as an actress as well, playing the lead in 1988’s The Little Thief and an ...

TV: Interview:Chris Pratt

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Chris Pratt kicked around Hollywood for a few years following an inauspicious debut in the 2000 horror film Cursed Part 3, but in 2002, he got his first regular television gig, co-starring as Bright Abbott on Everwood. After a handful of other roles, he landed a high-profile gig as Ché on The O.C., but he found a whole new audience of comedy fans starting in 2008. In addition to bigger movie parts, he landed the choice role of Andy Dwyer, Rashida Jones’ hapless ex-boyfriend on NBC’s Parks And Recreation. Pratt recently spoke to The A.V. Club about ...

Film: Interview:Jemaine Clement

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Most people think of Jemaine Clement as part of a unit—the Costello, or possibly the Abbott, to pal Bret McKenzie in their New Zealand folk-comedy duo Flight Of The Conchords. But lately there have been signs that Clement is close to breaking out on his own, beginning with his “Best Actor” Emmy nomination for the Conchords’ HBO show and his starring role in Eagle Vs. Shark, and now his prominent role in Gentlemen Broncos, the latest from Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. Though his actual screen time logs him as a supporting character, it’s unquestionably Clement’s film ...

Film: Interview:Alfred Molina

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

From Doc Ock to Joe Orton’s homicidal lover, Alfred Molina has run the gamut. The quintessential character actor, he has stolen whole movies with a few minutes of screen time: He got impaled in Raiders Of The Lost Ark’s first reel, but he left an indelible impression as Dr. Jones’ traitorous South American guide, and he managed to upstage Mark Wahlberg’s prosthetic schlong with his turn as a cracked-out drug dealer with a fondness for Night Ranger in Boogie Nights. In An Education, he takes an affable turn as Jack, an aspirant patriarch in 1960s England who ...

TV: Interview:Nick Kroll

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Over the last few years, Nick Kroll has racked up an impressive résumé of comedic parts, though many of them were short-lived. He appeared several times on the talking-head version of Best Week Ever. He did voices for Mitch Hurwitz’s Sit Down, Shut Up and the underappreciated comic gem The Life & Times Of Tim. He took bit parts on Human Giant and Reno 911!, and enjoyed a substantial run on Worst Week and Cavemen. (Okay, that last one probably doesn’t count as “impressive.”) He’s been working himself to the bone on his own projects as well ...

Film: Interview:Lars von Trier

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The woolly career of Danish provocateur Lars von Trier might well be summed up with the phrase “chaos reigns,” uttered by an unexpected source in his new film Antichrist, and currently spreading through the culture like swine flu. From the beginning, his work has always thrived on the tension between chaos and control—both on the screen, where rigidly managed societies like those in 2003’s Dogville and 2005’s Manderlay start to break down, and behind the scenes, where von Trier has repeatedly tried to simplify and control his effects, from the “Automavision” camera in 2006’s The Boss ...

TV: Interview:Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark (and merchandising)

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Anyone seeking to learn how to create a lasting brand could take a lesson from Cassandra Peterson: As the beehived, bosomy Elvira, the former Las Vegas showgirl turned making fun of schlocky horror movies for a public-access station into a formidable media empire that’s lasted nearly 30 years. While it’s been some time since Elvira was making iconic cameos on TV shows like CHiPs, or exhausting Johnny Carson’s store of double entendres on The Tonight Show, she’s never lost her pop-culture cachet—she’s buoyed by a shrewd eye for self-promotion that’s seen her likeness ...

Film: Interview:Peter Sarsgaard

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

You won’t often see Peter Sarsgaard act. Between his regular contributions to specialty films, from Boys Don’t Cry to Kinsey, and mainstream forays like Flightplan and Orphan, the versatile performer keeps plenty busy, but he never lets people see him work. Without making a show of his ability to blend into characters, Sarsgaard never gives the same performance twice—or perhaps it’s just that the private-minded actor doesn’t let his core self interact with his roles. In either case, the part of An Education’s David fits him perfectly. A working-class Jew in 1960s England, David ...