Event, Show and Podcast Host/ Alum of and Contributor to: Hollywood Reporter, NY Mag/Vulture, Fortune, Vanity Fair, IndieWire, People, Playboy, NYT, et al / Media Consultant
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Gets Season 4 Aftershow at Hulu (2021)
As announced in this story, I am the host of Hulu's first-ever aftershow for one of its original series, "One Burning Question," which centers on the platform's Emmy-winning series "The Handmaid's Tale."
"The Making Of: A Nat Geo Podcast" (2021)
I am the host and a writer/producer of this podcast, which takes listeners behind-the-scenes of Nat Geo's most compelling original series and documentaries. Episodes include interviews with: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Gal Gadot, Cynthia Erivo, Ron Howard, Jeff Goldblum, Dr. Jane Goodall, Gordan Ramsay, and many more.
‘To Die For’ at 25: An Oral History of the Risky Indie-Meets-Studio Triumph (2020)
Director Gus Van Sant, star Nicole Kidman — who almost lost her killer role to Meg Ryan — and a dozen others reflect on the pain and payoff of making art for the masses.
With his seminal 1995 film “To Die For,” Gus Van Sant proved what many assumed was an impossibility at the apotheosis of indie filmmaking: A director known for making movies apologetically in the margins of Hollywood (“Drugstore Cowboy,” “My Own Private Idaho”) could collaborate with a major studio without the former sacrific...
Missing The Sopranos? Christofuh and Bobby Bacala Have a Podcast for You! (2020)
No single moment may have been more heartbreaking for TV fans than the literal fade-to-black final frame of The Sopranos. The most-debated—and in some cases, ire-inducing—series finale of all time, creator David Chase’s gutsy 2007 coda not only ended the run of his lauded drama (Sopranos netted 21 Emmy wins during its six seasons), it also commenced in earnest modern TV’s so-called golden age. Without the show, we never would have known the names Walter White, Don Draper, or even, perhaps, Te...
‘Billions’ creators on debuting season five in uncertain times: ‘We all just wish we could do more’ (2020)
There's little that Brian Koppelman and David Levien haven’t tackled in their artistic careers. From early forays in the music business (Koppelman), to novel-writing (Levien), to the ups and downs of screenwriting-in-tandem—including 1998’s Rounders and 2007’s Ocean’s Thirteen—to making one of Showtime’s most-watched drama, Billions, the New York natives have curated an almost Zen-like approach to their work: create cool, smart stuff and have a blast doing it.
But Koppelman and Levien faced t...
Ricky Gervais on releasing ‘After Life’ season two during a global pandemic: ‘Everyone is grieving all the time’ (2020)
The writer, director, and star of the tragicomic series about a middle-aged widower—which premieres its second season April 24 on Netflix—reveals why viewers may need the show now more than ever.
As quarantined TV fans clamor for escapist entertainment to binge during the current global coronavirus pandemic, could a series about a suicidal Brit grieving his dead wife be a panacea for our collective fear and suffering?
Ricky Gervais, the Emmy-winning creator and star of Netflix’s After Life, s...
Hollywood’s Pandemic Diaries: How execs and creatives are working, and coping, at home (2020)
There are few industries that rival Hollywood’s in rigor or relentlessness.
So how do those who work inside one of the world’s most lucrative and cutthroat businesses continue to thrive from home during a global pandemic? To find out, Fortune polled eight top creatives and executives via email about how they are coping, staying productive, and not losing hope (or too much sleep) after transitioning their hectic livelihoods to the home front.
Whom did we talk to?
Helen Estabrook
Producer (TV: ...
20Q with Sir Patrick Stewart (2020)
"Picard" star Sir Patrick Stewart reflects on his life, loves and what makes him most happy on the eve of his 80th birthday.
How Emmy season is proceeding, with caution, amid the coronavirus crisis (2020)
As Hollywood absorbs the lasting, grim impact of shuttered theaters and delayed tent-poles, those on the inside of another showbiz economy—the Primetime Emmy Awards’ long, lucrative campaign season—are working to create a new normal amid the world’s unprecedented battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
Even the most ardent TV fan is most likely not aware of the Emmys...
How history-making wins for ‘Parasite’ and ‘The Farewell’ can shift Hollywood’s diversity narrative (2020)
In the days leading up to director Bong Joon Ho’s history-shattering Oscar wins for Neon's Parasite, which earned four trophies including Best Picture, there was a rare giddiness in the air among pundits as they debated one key question: Could the year’s most audacious, thrilling movie actually beat Universal’s World War I epic 1917?
Bong’s incendiary satire about a poor Korean family whose con of an upper-class couple ends in tragedy didn't just sweep this year’s Oscars. The film may have al...
Pamela Adlon wants you to know she has your back (2020)
It’s a frigid-for-California Monday morning in early February, and Pamela Adlon has been rendered nearly speechless. Kind of.
“Okay, I’m done,” says Adlon. “What the fuck you wanna interview me for? She hid from fucking Nazis in a basement. What are you interviewing me for? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Seated inside Corbin Bowl, a bowling alley in L.A.’s Tarzana neighborhood, she’s just had a near-gutting conversation with an octogenarian bowler from Hungary named Georgie. On her way out, the...
‘Bombshell’s’ Charlize Theron and John Lithgow reflect on the film’s indelible impact (2020)
In a season accented by portrayals of beloved icons such as Judy Garland and Fred Rogers (brought to life by Oscar nominees Renée Zellweger and Tom Hanks to boot), Bombshell had the unique task of chronicling the downfall of cable news’s most predatory figure at the hands of his polarizing onscreen protégé.
The film's producer and Oscar-nominated lead actress Charlize Theron—who plays ex–Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly—and Ailes's alter ego, actor John Lithgow, joined Fortune on Jan. 12 for a liv...
Taika Waititi on Kiwi humor, directing as Hitler, and why kids should see ‘Jojo Rabbit’ (2020)
Few helmers this awards season had a tougher gig than Jojo Rabbit's Taika Waititi.
Actually, make that four gigs.
The Directors Guild Award–nominated Waititi appeared in front of a live audience on Jan. 8 in Los Angeles, alongside Jojo costar Thomasin McKenzie, to discuss their complex, wrenching, and, yes, funny film.
What follows are highlights of Waititi's portion of the conversation, which was hosted by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
Tackling “Jojo”
I learned from making Thor that my follow-up...
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and ‘Fleabag’ cast reflect on love, religion, and saying goodbye (2020)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag could become the most feted two-season series of all time.
In the past year, Waller-Bridge's pitch-black comedy swept the Emmys, TV Critics Awards, Golden Globes, and Critics' Choice and is now primed to make a similar showing at the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Jan. 19.
What follows is an edited, condensed version of that conversation.
Before we dig into Fleabag, I’d love to know what each of you was most obsessed with growing up i...
The oral history of Laura Dern—in her own words (2020)
It’s easy to think that Laura Dern is “having a moment.” Her widely acclaimed role as a cutthroat divorce lawyer in Noah Baumbach’s Netflix film Marriage Story just earned her a fifth Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. She wholly reinvented the nurturing matriarch Marmee in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation from Sony. Dern wrapped a gangbusters second season of HBO’s Big Little Lies. And she’s also slated to reprise her role as Ellie Sattler in the forthcoming Jurassic World 3.
But on...