Interviews

Dustin Hoffman made his directorial debut with the film Quartet. He has starred in such classics as The Graduate, Kramer vs. Kramer and Tootsie.

Arts

'Quartet': Dustin Hoffman, Behind The Camera

11:03am July 05, 2013

The veteran actor recently made his directorial debut with a film about four aging opera singers who stage a concert at their retirement home. Starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay, the film explores friendship, memory and the time that remains.

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Anthony Nicodemo is head basketball coach at Saunders High School in Yonkers, N.Y.

'I Am A Gay High School Basketball Coach'

5:03pm June 30, 2013

by NPR Staff

When Anthony Nicodemo finally worked up the courage to tell his players he was gay, he was prepared for the worst. He didn't expect what happened next.

On Inside Amy Schumer, the comic (here with Jon Glaser and Adrian Martinez) deploys everything from scripted vignettes to stand-up comedy and man-on-the-street-style interviews.

Fresh Air Weekend: Amy Schumer, 'Bling Ring' And 'Americanah'

1:35pm June 29, 2013

Amy Schumer talks a lot about sex, but her comedy is about much more than that. A new film from Sofia Coppola is based on the true story of a group of California teens that broke into celebrities' homes. The novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores race in contemporary America in her new book.

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As kids, Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer were all obsessed with hip-hop and TV shows like Yo! MTV Raps.

Fresh Air Weekend: The Lonely Island, Kanye West And Carl Hiaasen

11:16am June 22, 2013

The brains behind the hip-hop parody group Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, talk about comedy, Yo! MTV Raps and adolescence. "Yeezus" is strikingly self-aware. Novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen writes with passion and purpose about the state he loves.

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Books
Arts

Oliver Sacks, Exploring How Hallucinations Happen

2:28pm June 21, 2013

The famed neurologist talks to Fresh Air about how grief, trauma, brain injury, medications and neurological disorders can trigger hallucinations — and about his personal experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s.

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Actor James Gandolfini speaks at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards in January 2013. He died on June 19.

Arts

Gandolfini Through The Eyes Of Those He Worked With

2:19pm June 20, 2013

The actor who brought mob boss Tony Soprano to life on the HBO drama The Sopranos died Wednesday at age 51. Fresh Air listens back to interviews with his co-stars Edie Falco and Jeff Daniels and Sopranos director David Chase, to hear their thoughts on Gandolfini's prodigious talent.

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Bobbie Hanvey as a child with his father, Johnny Hanvey. Johnny was a lumberjack who used to go everywhere with a camera. He gave one to his son, and set him off on a career as a photojournalist and documentarian.

Music & Culture

Like Father, Like Son: Creating Art In A Time Of Troubles

4:01pm June 19, 2013

by Coburn Dukehart

Bobbie Hanvey is a prolific photojournalist and radio interviewer from Northern Ireland. His son Steafán is a musician, currently on tour in America. In a video featuring their photos and music, father and son reflect on art, their relationship, and the period of turmoil in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles.

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Jo Lawry, Judith Hill and Lisa Fischer are three of the backup singers profiled in the new documentary 20 Feet From Stardom.

Fresh Air Weekend: Rogen, Goldberg, '20 Feet From Stardom' And 'Much Ado'

11:25am June 15, 2013

Writing partners Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg met as adolescents. Their new project is the disaster-movie spoof This Is the End. A new documentary profiles backup singers whose voices you know but whose names you probably don't. Joss Whedon's new production of Shakespeare's classic is a delight.

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Arts

John Oliver: Topical Comedy With A Crisp Accent

1:26pm June 14, 2013

With Jon Stewart on leave, The Daily Show's "Senior British Correspondent" John Oliver has stepped up to fill in as host. In a Fresh Air interview from 2010, he talks about moving to the United States to join the show — and the weird credibility his accent immediately gives him with Americans.

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Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, won this year's Man Booker Prize.

Books
Arts

Mantel Takes Up Betrayal, Beheadings In 'Bodies'

1:26pm June 14, 2013

Hilary Mantel is the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice, first for her 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, and then for that book's 2012 sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The novels are part of a historical fiction trilogy about Tudor England and the events surrounding the reign of King Henry VIII.

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