Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

• A Cup of Coffee with Director Benny Safdie (‘The Smashing Machine’)

  Director, writer, and actor Benny Safdie stops by Sam’s home this week to discuss his new film, The Smashing Machine (1:30)—an unflinching portrait of mixed martial arts icon Mark Kerr (7:00), played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (9:00). In the second half, we revisit our conversation from 2023. There, Safdie unpacks his collaboration with comedian Nathan Fielder on their television series The Curse (44:30), the timely premise that inspired the show (47:20), and his history of capturing real-life personalities on film (51:20). Then, he describes his early connection to the 1979 movie Kramer v Kramer (54:20), a New York encounter with photographer Robert Frank (59:20), and how directors Robert Bresson (1:03:20) and Frederick Wiseman (1:03:50) opened his eyes to the possibilities of street casting. We also dive into Benny’s co-directing work alongside his brother, Josh Safdie (1:05:15), a heartbreaking scene from their debut feature Daddy Longlegs (1:09:26), and the projects that followed (1:14:15): Good Time, Lenny Cooke, and Uncut Gems. To close, Safdie talks about why he worked as a boom operator while directing (1:20:00), his recent pivot to acting (1:21:23), and his full circle moment of playing an astrophysicist in Oppenheimer (1:33:20). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Ta-Nehisi Coates Has a Message to Deliver. Can We Hear It?

  Few writers have examined the tension between history and morality more urgently than Ta-Nehisi Coates. Last fall, on the heels of his new book The Message, Coates joined Sam for a conversation live in Los Angeles. At the top, they discuss how his Atlantic piece The Case for Reparations guided these three new essays (6:10), Coates’ early education growing up in West Baltimore (14:57), and his powerful dispatches from South Carolina (22:00) and the Middle East (29:30). On the back-half, Coates unpacks why he believes the mainstream media prioritizes “factual complexity over self-evident morality” (37:47), his advocacy for Palestinian journalists (39:20), and his reflections about the U.S. election (47:28). To close, a formative passage from James Baldwin's The Lost Generation (52:38) and a story about love and writing (57:45). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• And In Our Hour of Darkness, Writer Arundhati Roy

  “Sometimes I feel that I’m not going to write again,” says Arundhati Roy, “but then it becomes harder to keep quiet than to write it.” Few writers have bridged the personal and political as powerfully as Arundhati Roy. With her first memoir, fittingly titled Mother Mary Comes to Me, she turns to her turbulent relationship with her late mother, Mary Roy, a pioneering feminist who reshaped Indian law. Act I: Let It Be We begin with the imagery that animates the new book (4:10), her tumultuous household growing up (10:00), and how she sifted through those memories while writing The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (15:40). Act II: She’s Leaving Home Roy reflects on her mother’s impact as a teacher (22:00), navigating her severe asthma as a child (24:30), and the moment she ultimately left home (27:20) for architecture school where she worked on film sets (30:00) and discovered The Beatles. Act III: Revolution Then, finally, how her writing sprung from her past (32:00), the political attacks that followed the success of her debut novel (35:00), bearing witness in the age of authoritarianism (41:00), and the timeliness of her 1998 essay The End of Imagination (1:01:00). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Director Francis Ford Coppola Keeps His Dream Alive

  Director Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t just want to make movies. He wants to change them. This was true in 1969 when he co-founded Zoetrope Studios with George Lucas, and it remains true today. Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. We return to our talk with Coppola upon the anniversary of his modern-day Roman epic fable Megalopolis, discussing his decades-long process developing the film (6:16) and the inspiration he’s taken from Georges Méliès (17:00) and Jacques Tati (19:07). Then, he reflects on the origin of how he became ‘Francis Ford Coppola’ (23:07), the irrepressible spirit he forged in childhood (26:34), and where he sees himself in films like The Godfather (33:17), Apocalypse Now (35:51), and Gardens of Stone (36:10). On the back-half, we unpack the parallels between the titular city of Megalopolis and Zoetrope Studios (42:35), his capacity to keep dreaming, even in the face of financial ruin (43:30), where he believes America is headed (49:04), and the lasting memory of his late wife, Eleanor (58:08). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]. Get 50% Off Monarch Money, the all-in-one financial tool at www.monarchmoney.com/TALKEASY.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Seth Rogen’s ‘The Studio’ Takes the Emmys

  At this year’s Primetime Emmys, Seth Rogen took home four major awards for The Studio, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. We sat with Rogen around the show’s release back in the spring to discuss his key influences (6:15), from Robert Altman’s The Player to The Larry Sanders Show (13:25), the evolving state of “show business” (15:36), and a life-changing piece of advice from director and producer Judd Apatow (25:00). On the back-half, we dive into his early years writing comedy in Vancouver (25:57), formative memories making Freaks and Geeks (33:19), and how This Is the End, the meta-comedy from 2013, was a precursor to this latest project (43:18) and solidified his enduring creative partnership with Evan Goldberg (58:30). Watch this episode on YouTube. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]. Original air date: March 30, 2025See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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