Guest: Simon Rich is an author who got his start in TV when Seth Myers read one of his books of comedic short stories and hired him as a writer on Saturday Night Live. Since then Simon has gone on to create his own TV shows like Man Seeking Woman and Miracle Workers, which is in its second season on TBS and stars Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi.…

Guest: Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy wrote and directed the Amazon film Blow the Man Down. The film is about two sisters living on the Eastern seaboard who attempt to cover up a gruesome run-in with a dangerous man. To conceal their crime, the sisters must go deep into the criminal underbelly of their hometown, uncovering the town's darkes…

Guest: Nick Cuse wrote the film The Hunt with Damon Lindelof. The controversial film was supposed to release in 2019, but Universal pulled it after two mass shootings and criticism from right wing media. It's finally out in theaters and will most likely surprise people when they learn who the good guys are in the movie. Nick talks about learning to…

Guest: Carlo Mirabella-Davis is the writer/director of the striking new body horror film Swallow starring very talented Haley Bennett as Hunter, a young wife who swallows dangerous objects in secret. The film dark, but it’s also gorgeously shot and at times even funny. Carlo tells me about his very personal and ultimately tragic inspiration for the…

Guest: Leigh Whannell is best known for the Saw and Insidious horror franchises. Now he's written and directed the new monster film, The Invisible Man, starring Elisabeth Moss. Leigh chats with me about strengthening your horror protagonist by making your antagonist as vicious as possible, keeping your antagonist mysterious to create suspense, and …

Guest: Chris Henchy is best known as the producing partner with Will Farrell and Adam McKay, working on movies like Daddy's Home and Tammy, and TV shows like Eastbound and Down, and Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. Now he's making his directorial debut with Impractical Jokers: The Movie based on the hit hidden camera show. Chris talks abou…

Guests: Andrew Heckler wrote and directed the independent film Burden. This powerful independent film won the Audience Award at Sundance and stars Garett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson and Usher. It’s based on a true story about what happens when a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan opens in a small South Carolina town. The idealistic Rev…

Guests: Alexi Pappas and Jeremy Teicher met when they were undergrads at Dartmouth. Alexi pursued her Olympic dreams as a long distance runner while Jeremy pursued his artistic dream as a filmmaker. Eventually, they decided to combine the two. Their latest film Olympic Dreams tells the story of a cross-country skier and volunteer dentist (Nick Krol…

Guest: Brian Presley started his career as an actor, finding success on the ABC daytime show Port Charles, which earned him two Emmy nominations. He's now making his directorial debut with The Great Alaskan Race, which he wrote, produced and starred in along with Treat Williams, Henry Thomas and Bruce Davison. Based on a true story from 1925, the m…

Guests: LUCY ALIBAR, screenwriter and playwright, discusses her new Amazon film Troop Zero along with her 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild that was nominated for four Oscars including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. She discusses her lonely childhood in northern Florida, reading plays in the school bathro…

Guests: JAKE KASDAN (Director, Co-Writer, Producer) made his feature film debut as writer and director of Zero Effect. The following year, he directed the pilot episode for the short-lived, highly acclaimed television series “Freaks and Geeks,” on which he also served as a producer. Since then, Kasdan has continued to straddle both mediums, working…

Guest: Krysty Wilson-Cairns was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, then trained at the National Film and Television School in London. Her script Aether landed on the Black List, got her an agent and the attention of director Darren Aronofsky, who hired her to adapt the novel The Good Nurse. It was this script that got the attention of another di…

Guest: Charles Randoph, screenwriter of Bombshell and Oscar-winner for the 2015 film THE BIG SHORT. Bombshell tells the sensational true story about Fox News CEO Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), and the female news anchors, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron), who brought Ailes down. This is a story of power, hubris and a …

Guest: Sophia Takal is an American actress, writer and director best known for her work in indie films such as All the Light in the Sky, Supporting Characters and Gabi on the Roof in July. Filmmaker magazine named Takal one of the "25 New Faces of Film" in 2011. Her latest film is Black Christmas, which she directed and co-wrote with April Wolfe. T…

Guest: Director Tom Harper is a BAFTA-nominated film and television director. His credits include the fantastic 2016 miniseries WAR AND PEACE, PEAKY BLINDERS, and WILD ROSE. His current film THE AERONAUTS is stunning visually and thematically. Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the fil…

Guest: Minhal Baig is the writer/director of Hala, a deeply personal film about a teen girl struggling to please her Muslim family while navigating her sexuality. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at Sundance earlier this year. Actress Geraldine Viswanathan is from Australia and currently stars as the lead character Hala. She can also…

Guest: Christopher Pratt is the author of Remember the Future: How Steve Jobs Used Time Travel to Think Different (Chaite Press, 2013). He wrote UNTITLED FAIRYTALE TEAMUP and adapted the graphic novel DEAD DAYS. In 2010, he Executive Produced the LIONSGATE film KILLERS, starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Tom Selleck, Rob Riggle and Catherine…

Guest: Dan Ewen is an L.A.-based writer, producer and longtime improv performer hailing from Athens, Georgia. His new film PLAYING WITH FIRE is currently playing in theaters. He is also both writing and producing the reboot of the ERNEST franchise. He has several feature and television projects in development at various studios, including 20th Cent…

Guests: John Green, author of THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, Maureen Johnson, author of TRULY DEVIOUS: A MYSTERY, and Lauren Myracle, author of UPSIDE DOWN MAGIC. The three authors came together to write the book LET IT SNOW: THREE HOLIDAY ROMANCES that has just been turned into a Netflix film of the same name. Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Fil…

Guest: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is an Emmy-nominated director known for American Horror Story (2014), and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015). His stunning new film The Current War: Director's Cut tells the story of how three men, Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch), George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) and Nicola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), fought to b…

Guests: Dawn Luebbe and Jocelyn DeBoer wrote, directed and star in the new feature film GREENER GRASS, a surreal comedy of manners that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Luebbe and DeBoer based this feature on a short film they made several years ago. They talk about the symbolism behind the over-the-top situations in the film, why all the c…

Guest: Max Eggers and his brother Rob Eggers wrote the screenplay for THE LIGHTHOUSE, with Rob directing. The movie is a hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s. This is a Promethean story like you've never seen before. If you're a fan o…

Guest: Timothy Greenberg. As executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Greenberg won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. He received another Peabody for Comedy Central’s Endangered List. Prior to The Daily Show, he was named one of Shoot Magazine's "Up and Coming Directors” for his commercial work. He began his directing car…

Guests: Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan again collaborate on the new animated film The Addams Family, having previously collaborated on Sausage Party in 2016. Vernon is best known for directing Shrek (2001) and Shrek 2 (2004), while Tiernan is best known for directing Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. They discuss finding the right tone and story el…

Guest: Kevin Smith is an American writer/director and actor. His first movie, Clerks (1994), was filmed in the convenience store where Smith worked and he was only allowed to shoot at night after the store closed. This movie won the highest award at the Sundance film festival and was brought to theaters by Miramax. He went on to make numerous films…

Guests: Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi initially got attention when their biopic about Shel Silvertein made the Black List, allowing them to take numerous meetings where they were able to pitch Lucy in the Sky to studio executives. Eventually, they earned the attention of Reese Witherspoon, who ultimately produced the film. Born and raised O…

Guest: Robyn Paris started her career as an actress and can be seen as Michelle in the cult favorite film The Room (2003), which inspired the 2017 film The Disaster Artist starring James Franco. Now a writer/director, Robyn's experience has inspired her to make a funny mockumentary web series called The Room Actors: Where are They Now? For anyone w…

About: The new film Haunt, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, is the perfect follow up to A Quiet Place (2018) and scared the living daylights out of me. If you like haunted houses, oh-so-creepy masks and intense gore, you’ll love this more traditional slasher movie. I sat down with Scott and Bryan to find out how to write a charac…

About: Set deep in the wilds of Appalachia, where believers handle death-dealing snakes to prove themselves before God, THEM THAT FOLLOW tells the story of a pastor (Walton Goggins) who digs deeper into his faith when he discovers his teenage daughter Mara (Alice Englert) holds a secret that threatens to tear their fragile community apart. Written …

About: Today I speak with Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock, writers of the adorable indie comedy BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, which Hannah also directed. Hannah and Jen star as sisters from a dysfunctional family who discover their birth mother (played by Judith Light) isn’t dead, but alive and acting on a popular soap opera. Mandy Patinkin and Alec Baldwin…

Guests: Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky writers of Good Boys (2019), Bad Teacher (2011) and The Office (2005-2010), talk about the challenges of making a comedy with kids (especially when shooting scenes with a sex doll named Peaches), the genius of Stephen Merchant on screen and off, and what they learned from writing for The Office for five sea…

Guest: First time writers/directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz chat with us about the challenges making this astonishing, heartfelt film. According to Tyler and Michael, writing the script was the easy part. Getting people to read it – well that was pretty challenging. Listen to find out the creative way they got producers to request their s…

Guest: Jennifer Kent is an actress and director, known for The Babadook (2014), The Nightingale(2018) and Monster (2005). Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won the Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a TV show about a f…

Guest: Andrea Berloff is a writer and actress, known for Straight Outta Compton (2015), World Trade Center (2006) and Blood Father (2016). Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won the Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a …

Guest: Affleck also directed I'm Still Here (2010), which he also wrote and produced starring Joaquin Phoenix. Affleck also co-wrote with and starred alongside Matt Damon in Gus Van Sant's independent road movie Gerry (2002). He has also appeared in Van Sant's Good Will Hunting and To Die For, Hamlet with Ethan Hawke and Julia Stiles, the Oceans tr…

Guest: Lynn Shelton is a director and actress, known for Humpday (2009), Sword of Trust (2019) and Laggies (2014). Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won the Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a TV show about a female e…

Guest: For film and TV, Weiko Lin has written projects for companies such as The Mark Gordon Company, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Ivanhoe Pictures (producer of box office hit CRAZY RICH ASIANS), Don Mischer Productions, The Unison Company (Taiwan), Wanda Pictures (China). His credits as original story writer and producer include Chinese romance …

Guest: John August's screenwriting credits include Go (1999), Big Fish (2003), Titan A.E. (2000), Charlie's Angels (2000), and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003). Born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, John earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Iowa and an MFA in film from the Peter Stark program at the University of Southern Ca…

Guests: James Vanderbilt was born in 1975 in the USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Zodiac (2007), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Basic (2003) and the recently released Murder Mystery. Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won …

Guests: Jeff Chan is an American director and screenwriter. He grew up in Ridgewood, NJ and graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2008. His directorial debut, Plus One, was produced by Ben Stiller's Red Hour Productions and stars Maya Erskine and Jack Quaid. He's directed for TruTV's Adam Ruins Everything and written for Hulu's Pen15. He…

Guest: Madeleine Olnek is a director and writer, known for Wild Nights With Emily (2018) and Countertransference (2008). She is also co-author of the book, A Practical Handbook for the Actor, which describes an acting technique developed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet and Oscar-nominated actor William H. Macy. Host: Shanee Edwards…

Guest: Tim Disney is a director, writer and producer, known for William (2019) and American Violet (2008). Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won the Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a TV show about a female engineer.…

Guest: Max Minghella is a director and writer, known for Teen Spirit (2018). He's also an actor known for his roles in Art School Confidential (2006), The Social Network (2010) and The Internship (2013). Minghella currently stars as Nick Blaine in the Hulu drama series The Handmaid's Tale. Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with a…

Guest: Mike Leigh is a director and writer, known for Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Secrets & Lies (1996) and Another Year (2010). Host: Shanee Edwards graduated from UCLA Film School with an MFA in Screenwriting and is currently the film critic for SheKnows.com. She recently won the Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a TV show about a…