Filmmaker Lovell Holder & Writer-Performer Roger Q. Mason ("Lavender Men"}: "Mother’s Got Her Flashlight On All The Time"
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Director Lovell Holder & Writer-Performer Roger Q. Mason, the duo behind the provocative and beautifully-crafted new film Lavender Men, which is based on Mason's hit stage play of the same name. The story centers on Taffeta (they/them, played by Mason), the put-upon stage manager of a play about Abraham Lincoln. After one too many backstage indignities, Tafetta cracks and decides to take the whole show over and narrate it as their fantasia and things get wild from there. Roger talks about the film's central themes of why do we, as humans, like what we like and the gulf that often exists between what we desire and what we need. Lovell talks about using the films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina as touchstones while making the piece, the day during the shoot when he ran out of steam and ideas and meeting Roger when then were both in their late teens. They both talk about working with the editor Morgan Halsey whose father Richard Halsey happened to speak at a screening of American Gigolo that Dennis saw on the very same day that he did this interview. Other topics include: eating an entire apple pie on stage, Mason refusing to take a nap during naptime at the YMCA as a child, the friends that pitched in to make the movie happen and Roger's belief that, "It’s never easy to tell the truth in a world that capitalizes on lies and illusion."
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1:05:45
Writer-Director Sarah Kambe Holland (Egghead & Twinkie): "I Know There's Somebody Who Needs This Movie"
Dennis is joined via Zoom by filmmaker Sarah Kambe Holland whose new film Egghead and Twinkie flips the gay guy-straight girl trope on its head with the story of a gay girl-straight boy friendship that undergoes some changes after the girl comes out. Sarah talks about starting work on the project at 19, taking inspiration from her own coming out story, shooting a road movie within one hour of Orlando, Florida and having most of her crew be under 25 years old. She also talks about moving to the U.S. from Japan at nine and undergoing serious culture shock, incorporating her own love of animation into the movie and the lesson she learned from her actors during one particularly emotional scene. Other topics include: becoming a YouTuber with thousands of subscribers at 15, casting an actress who had never had a speaking role in a film before as Twinkie the Flipcam her family gave her that started her love of filmmaking and her real-life coming out speech to her parents that occured at the chain restaurant First Watch. https://eggheadandtwinkie.com
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38:08
Chef Steven Havens (Winner of Season 3 of The Floor): "We Call Ourselves The Floor-mily"
In this special bonus episode, Dennis interviews his friend Steven Havens, who just won $250,000 as the last man standing on Season 3 of the Fox game show The Floor. Steven talks about how he came to be on the show, the months of rigorous coaching provided by his game designer husband Jeb (who happens to be Dennis's co-creator on the game You Don't Know My Life!), shooting the entire season over one week in Ireland and the moment, minutes before he actually won, when he thought to himself, 'I got this.' Other topics include: promising his husband that he wouldn't talk smack about the other players and then talking smack about the other players, keeping his win a secret for 8 months, how his watch parties gave the people in his life something positive and hopeful to engage with during this dark time, choosing to wear his chef's shirt on the show as an intimidation tactic, getting the "winner's edit," what he plans to do with the money and the moment he almost slipped on stage and brought Rob Lowe down with him. @chefsteveneats on Instagram
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57:22
Author and Designer Hillary Carlip {"Willis Wonderland"} "It’s Like a Pop-Up Book On Steroids"
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Hillary Carlip the designer and co-author of the most fabulous pop-up book you'll ever see Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch, which is a book dedicated to the home, kitsch collection and all-round fabulousness of Hillary's friend, the late great songwriter and visual artist Allee Willis. (Allie is also the subject of a documentary that was featured on this podcast last year; The World According to Allee Willis. It's now streaming on Hulu.) Hillary talks about how the pop-up book project came to her, finding illustrator Neal McCullough in Ireland and "paper engineer" Mike Malkovas in Paris and collaborating on this incredibly elaborate book all over Zoom. She also talks about creative endeavors from her past including the memoir Queen of the Oddballs, the photo book Ala Cart, which was inspired by the abandoned shopping lists Hillary's been collecting for years, juggling in the movie Xanadu and winning The Gong Show and host Chuck Barris's mad adoration. Other topics include: her long marriage to TV writer and producer Maxine Lapiduss, watching Olivia Newton-John fall for Matt Lattanzi on Xanadu, managing the ups and downs of a creative career while staying true to herself and the many times during the book's creation when she felt the spirit Allee guiding the way. www.williswonderlandpopupbook.com www.hillarycarlip.com
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1:05:22
"Patreon-ize me, People!" The Dennis Anyone: The Patreon Project Sample Pack
As a Bonus on the main Dennis Anyone, here are two back-to back sample episodes of Dennis's brand new Patreon offering: DENNIS ANYONE: THE PATREON PROJECT, which you can subscribe to for $5 by going to Patreon.com and searching Dennis Anyone. Topics in Episode 1 include: the Late Night With the Devil actor Fayssal Bazzi learning that I put him on my dreamboard and his response, Four Rooms author David Wichman does the Observation Deck, the Oscar-nominated doc Black Box Diaries, a magazine flashback with the late Michelle Trachtenberg and Dennis's decision in January 2020 to try and be happy anyway. Topics in Episode 2 include: The White Lotus's Leslie Bibb has a magazine flashback, Dennis sees Dancing With The Stars Live, High Art, A Nice Indian Boy and a stage version of Jane Eyre, Paul Rudnick answers a porny question from the Observation Deck, and film producer Lindsay Doran introduces Dennis to the idea of Positive Psychology. DENNIS ANYONE PATREON PAGE
"A podcast about making things up and making things happen." L.A.-based writer-performer Dennis Hensley believes that art and creativity make the world go around and make life worth living. Each week, he interviews a different creative person each about what they do, why they do it, and how they manage the ups and downs of a creative life. Some guests are famous, some are less so...all are what Dennis describes as "beautiful strugglers." Past guests have included authors, actors, photographers, musicians, screenwriters, acrobats and one visual artist who makes cartoons centered around dead houseflies.
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