Letting Them Talk with Will Harris

willharrisinva
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Performing Arts
  • Updated Weekly

Longtime pop culture journalist Will Harris, perhaps best known for his work at the A.V. Club (or, more specifically, for his Random Roles interviews), finally embarks on a straightforward interview podcast, chatting with actors, writers, musicians, political pundits, comic book artists... The world is his oyster, and he's planning to make the most of it!

  1. 3d ago

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Stopgap Edition #2 - Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music / Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country / Starcrash)

    This time I'm letting Christopher Plummer talk...because, yes, that's right, it's another stopgap episode, owing to the fact that I have no new episode in queue and I am currently in the process of trying to stockpile some additional episodes for your listening enjoyment. I suppose there are worse times that I could find myself in this situation than after dropping the 50th episode of the podcast. I had intended to draw attention to this pretty significant milestone when I recorded the intro to last week’s episode, but I got so focused on making sure you had the episode in your hands to enjoy over the weekend that I completely forgot. So let’s consider that accomplishment now: I started this podcast in November of 2025, and we’ve now hit 50 episodes. That’s 36 more episodes that I ever managed to record of my previous podcast, Obscurity Knocks. If you’re doing the math, that podcast effectively stopped after its 14th episode, which dropped in September of 2019, and over the course of that time, people have continued to download those 14 episodes on occasion, bringing its grand total of downloads to 4,400. Meanwhile, I’ve done 50 proper episodes of this podcast since November, and we’re currently sitting at 6,400 downloads, so even if I never did another episode… Well, there’s no point in continuing that sentence, because I obviously am going to do another episode. Several more, in fact. As many as I can manage. But having said that, I should also underline a couple of key points, the most important being that I have a mortgage to pay, and this podcast is not currently earning enough to pull off that task, so I’m definitely having to continue writing for various outlets. The other important thing at the moment is that I’m also in the process of working on a new book project, one that I’m excited to tell you about as soon as I get the go-ahead from my publisher, but suffice it to say that if you enjoy this podcast, there’s an extremely strong likelihood that you’ll think that it’s a very cool and extremely interesting topic…and to my knowledge, there’s never been another book that covers this topic quite like this, which makes it particularly exciting. I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re currently supporting Letting Them Talk with Will Harris through a paid subscription to my Substack or via my Patreon campaign, I really appreciate it, because even if it doesn’t pay the mortgage at the moment, it does help pay for gas or groceries or the occasional bill…and in some cases it provides enough to keep my account from going into overdraft, in which case it’s really, REALLY appreciated. And if you aren’t currently supporting me in either of those ways, well, this is the week of my birthday, so next to sometime in December, this is the best possible time to offer your support in that fashion. I’m working on some sort of gifts for supporters – I could maybe send you some DVDs for your trouble, because God knows I need to get rid of some of these things – so if that interests you, let me know when you make your pledge, and I can make that happen. For now, though, I’ll just go ahead and offer you an interview from my archives: it’s the audio for the interview I did with Christopher Plummer when he attended the Television Critics Association press tour in support of Stephen Frears’ HBO movie, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight. Yes, it was a Random Roles interview at the time, but you’ve most likely never heard any of the audio from the conversation…unless you’ve heard him talk about Starcrash, a film so classic that it was covered in an episode of How Did This Get Made? – one that included Paul Scheer reading a quote straight from my interview and giving me a shout-out. Otherwise, though, this is all previously-unheard material, so I hope you enjoy it. Well, that’s more than enough of an intro. It’s time to let the late, great Christopher Plummer talk…but brace yourself, because it was recorded in a hotel room on a handheld recorder, so it won't be up to the usual audio standards. The stories, however, are worth turning up your volume to hear!

  2. 6d ago

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 50 - Wesley Stace a.k.a. John Wesley Harding [The Smithereens]

    This time I’m letting Wesley Stace talk. Wes is a singer-songwriter whose work I’ve enjoyed since the release of his debut LP for Sire Records, Here Comes the Groom. That LP, his first full-length studio album, came out in 1990, so not only have I been a fan for 26 years, I’ve even seen him through the loss of his musical pseudonym, John Wesley Harding, in favor of his birth name. Wes has consistently remained prolific with his releases, and he’s got another one that’s coming up fast: One Last Heist, which comes out on September 2. He’s already teased the record with a couple of singles – the title track, “A Funny One,” and “I Say Lots of Things” – but I’ve had the opportunity to hear the whole thing, and I can testify that it’s great from start to finish and one of the best albums he’s released in recent memory. The last time Wes and I talked was when I was briefly a senior editor for Q Magazine, and it was a conversation that was focused heavily on his then-impending tour of the UK, so this time we were able to mix things up a bit more. Of course we talked a fair amount about the new album, but we also discussed some of the other records in his back catalogue, including the recent vinyl reissue of Here Comes the Groom and a couple of other albums that’ll hopefully be joining it on that format. We also talked about some of his songwriting collaborations outside of his own work, including Eleanor Friedberger and Tanya Donnelly, and his recent opportunity to serve as one of the recurring frontmen for The Smithereens. If you ever get a chance to catch Wes in concert, either with a band or without, I highly recommend the experience. He always puts on a good show and chats with the audience during the course of the performance. And I’m not just saying that because I might be doing some writing for him sometime in the semi-near future…but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what that means. All right, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Wesley Stace talk.

  3. Aug 10

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 49 - Robin Shorr (The Middle / Samantha Who? / Galavant / The Carmichael Show))

    This time I’m letting Robin Shorr talk. I hadn’t actually seen or talked to Robin since the summer of 2013, but despite the fact that 13 years had passed since our previous conversation – which was, in fact, the only conversation we’d ever actually had – you’d never know it from the way she and I were chatting about her life and career. But there’s a reasonable explanation for that connection: Robin used to write for The Middle, I used to review The Middle, we’ve got a bunch of friends and acquaintances in common, and – perhaps most importantly – she’s the credited writer on “Stormy Moon,” the episode of The Middle which was partially inspired by a real-life incident experienced by the Harris family. The quick nutshell summary for anyone who hasn’t listened to the previous two Middle-centric episodes of this podcast: our family once got a summons from the sheriff’s department because of library fines – it happened because we lost a disc from a book-on-CD set, and the cost to replace it was just over the amount that causes a summons to be issued – and when my wife and I visited the Middle writers room, she told that story, and we were informed that anything said in the writers room was fair game. Fast forward a few months later, and “Stormy Moon” aired. I really only tell this story again because it comes up almost immediately in my conversation with Robin, but don’t worry, we talk about a lot of other things besides The Middle, including our mutual love of the ‘80s sitcom It’s Your Move and her being in awe of Jason Bateman, attending sitcom tapings in the late ‘80s and going to college with Seth and Josh Meyers, writing on the MTV Movie Awards with the guys from The Lonely Island, coming up with The Hills: A Staged Reading, writing for Samantha Who?, working on short-lived – but very funny – Fox series like Sons of Tucson and Traffic Light, her friendship with David Hornsby and Adam Goldberg, being a part of Galavant and The Carmichael Show, and much more. Oh, and she also has a podcast of her own, Los Feliz: The Podcast, which she does with Morgan Murphy, and which I can assure you is entertaining whether you live in Los Feliz or not…although if you live in Los Feliz, I can only imagine that it’s an absolute must-listen. Anyway, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Robin Shorr talk.

  4. Aug 7

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 48 - Michael Hampton (Parliament Funkadelic / Golden Palominos)

    This time I’m letting Michael Hampton talk. Michael has been a professional guitarist since he was in his teens, earning his place in one of the most influential funk bands of all time by being able to reproduce a ridiculously difficult solo when he was 17. By the time he was done, there was no chance that he wasn’t going to be in contention for a spot in the lineup in the musical collective known as Parliament-Funkadelic. Michael has mostly kept his work within the ranks of the group, but recently he’s been making a concert effort to step out on his own and do some solo material. Last year saw the release of the album INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, and he’s just released a new album, KING KONG. It was a lot of fun talking to Michael, and it was absolutely entertaining, although I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes lost the thread of the conversation.  That said, I don’t think he ever did, because as you’ll hear, there are a couple of occasions where he goes on a tear about this or that, but when all’s said and done, he comes right back to the original question. You know how a certain politician refers to his manner of speaking as “the weave”? Not only does Michael Hampton put him to shame, but he’s a thousand times more enjoyable to listen to, even if you don’t always follow where he’s going. It’s all about the journey, baby. During the course of our chat, we talk about how he felt about having been crowned Kidd Funkadelic, whether it was weird for him when Eddie Hazel came back to sit in with the group, why he thinks funk remains such a popular form of music, and for my part, I was thrilled about how excited he got when I asked him what he remembered about recording with the Golden Palominos. I think I also threw him a bit when I referenced a quote about him from George Clinton’s memoir, but he gave a hell of an answer to my question anyway. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Michael Hampton talk.

  5. Aug 3

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 47 - Chris Loggins (PBS / Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood / Odd Squad)

    This time I’m letting Chris Loggins talk. Chris is someone I’ve been describing as an outside-the-box guest for this podcast. In realty, though, he isn’t, since he’s squarely within the realm of pop culture. It’s just that the pop culture in question is for a slightly younger demographic than most of the folks who’ve been guests thus far. Chris is supervising producer for Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and if you haven’t been around little kids very much in recent years – or unless you were still a toddler circa 2012 – then there’s a decent chance that you may not be familiar with this series, but it’s a predominantly-animated spinoff of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood that revolves around Daniel Tiger, who was a puppet in Fred Rogers’ original PBS program. It maintains a number of staples from that program – the Trolley is still very prominent – and  in addition to Daniel, there are also other animated adaptations of classic puppet characters, including Prince Tuesday, son of King Friday and Queen Sara Saturday. When PBS sent out a press release about how new episodes of Daniel Tiger would be dropping in the near future, it was right around the same time that my wife, an RBT who works with children with autism at a local ABA clinic, was telling me about one of her clients who is absolutely obsessed with Daniel Tiger. That got me thinking about the idea of interviewing someone from the show and finding out a bit about how someone gets into working for a PBS program and what it’s like to be part of a program that carries on Fred Rogers’ legacy, and then when I found out that Chris had also been a part of the PBS series Odd Squad, I decided to reach out and see if he’d be up for an interview. Thankfully, he was. We talked about both of these PBS shows, of course, and as you’ll hear, I took a few moments up front to talk about my own connections to PBS, but I also asked Chris about his unique office décor, which included both baseball and sci-fi. I also asked him some of the burning Daniel Tiger questions that listeners asked me to pose to him, and I’ll let you be the judge, but I think he was mostly amused by them. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro: it’s time to let Chris Loggins talk…and P.S. Ugga mugga. (If you don’t know what that means, your kids will.)

  6. Jul 27

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 46 - Josh Joplin (The Josh Joplin Group / Camera One / Among the Oak and Ash)

    This time I’m letting Josh Joplin talk. I’ve been enjoying Josh’s music for 25 years now. He’s actually been making music longer than that, but I don’t mind admitting that it wasn’t until the release of his single “Camera One” that I first found myself listening to Josh Joplin and his Group. Josh actually released his first single in 1989, and while it isn’t available for streaming on Spotify or anything like that, you can find it online, and you can hear just how much of an unabashed folk singer he was at the time. That was released under his own name, as was his debut album, 1990’s Facts of Fortune, but in short order he formed the Josh Joplin Band, which eventually evolved into the Josh Joplin Group. The release of 2001’s Useful Music was a major turning point for Josh, thanks to the aforementioned “Camera One” becoming the first independently-released single to hit #1 at Triple-A radio. The Josh Joplin Group promptly toured the world and elsewhere, and if the band’s next album, The Future That Was, didn’t necessarily hit the same commercial heights as its predecessor – and as we discuss, it did not – it hasn’t stopped Josh from continuing to write, record, and tour in earnest. During the course of our conversation, Josh and I talk about the various periods of his career, getting the opportunity to be produced by Shawn Mullins and Jerry Harrison, making a memorable appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, having close encounters with Pete Seeger, P!nk, and Jay-Z, being influenced by Dan Zanes, and doing a bit of musical reinvention with Among the Oak and Ash. At the moment, Josh is proudly revisiting Useful Music for its 25th anniversary, having issued it on vinyl and also releasing what would be best be described as a companion piece: Useful Music: The Silver Anniversary Sessions, which includes a variety of demos as well as a gorgeous piano version of “Camera One” which really does serve to reinvent the song. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Josh Joplin talk.

  7. Jul 24

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 45 - Spencer Garrett (Dog Day Afternoon / Air Force One / Winning Time / 21 Jump Street / Star Trek: The Next Generation)

    This time I’m letting Spencer Garrett talk. I’ve been watching this guy’s work since he made an appearance in a season four episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “The Drumhead.” No, I didn’t know who he was at the time, nor should I have, since he’d really only just gotten started at that point, but in short order he began to appear in everything. No, but for real: Spencer Garrett truly is “that guy who was in that thing.” His list of credits is well into the 200s – and rapidly heading toward 300 – and if he hasn’t been in everything, it often seems as though he has, particularly when you start scrolling through his filmography and see how many one-off episodes he’s done over the years. As of when we recorded this episode, it had been just over a week since Spencer had wrapped a very successful run on Broadway in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ adaptation of the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, and I literally managed to catch him the day before he headed off for a well-deserved three-week vacation. In fact, even though we’d been talking about doing an interview for awhile, in the end it came together so quickly that I had less than 24 hours to get ready for the conversation. Fortunately, I was able to reach out to a few of our mutual acquaintances to get some suggestions for topics to discuss…so thank you to Jim Beaver, Xander Berkeley, and the ubiquitous Richard Kind for chiming in. Between their ideas and my research, we ended up having a wealth of material to cover during the course of the conversation. Among the topics tackled: Spencer’s mother, who – in addition to having been a cast member on The Real McCoys – is a former president of the Screen Actors guild, which put him in some pretty impressive company well before he ever became an actor himself; getting some significant screen time in  Air Force One; working with David Milch and Michael Mann on Luck; being part of the Sorkin-verse by appearing in Sports Night, The West Wing, and the Aaron Sorkin-penned Charlie Wilson’s War; how his episode of 21 Jump Street has a notable connection to his work on the HBO series Winning Time; and, yes, we talked about playing a part-human, part-Romulan character on Star Trek: The Next Generation. And given my history with Random Roles, I particularly enjoyed getting to hear about the formation and membership of the CADs, a.k.a. the Character Actors Dining Society. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Spencer Garrett talk.

  8. Jul 22 ·  Bonus

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Stopgap Edition #1 - Alex Rocco (The Friends of Eddie Coyle / The Godfather / Party Down)

    This one's a bit of an experiment, folks: since I knew I wasn't going to have two episodes available for download this week, I decided that I'd venture into the archives and find the audio from an interview that you've hopefully read but certainly have never heard. In this case, it's what I'm guessing is probably the last third of the Random Roles that I did with Alex Rocco for the A.V. Club when he was part of the cast of Starz' Magic City. Not that we talk about that series in this portion of the interview. In fact, my advice to you is that you don't go into this episode with any particular plans to hear about specific projects. Instead, just go in expecting to hear the voice of Alex Rocco, because you get that in spades for about 20 minutes. He seemed legitimately fascinated to talk to me, and you'll be able to hear that, just as you'll hear that that fascination required me to keep him on track, lest the conversation become more about me than him. He wanted to let ME talk! That's the complete antithesis of this podcast, for God's sake! Still, it's worth it just to hear him say that I'm ostensibly "pretty hip." I don't buy it, but it sure sounded good when he said it... Anyway, I just wanted you to have a little something to keep you happy until the next proper episode is live, which should be by the end of the week. But if you enjoy this, let me know, and I'll see what else I can find. The quality of these pre-Zoom interviews vary wildly, but they're still pretty fascinating...

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About

Longtime pop culture journalist Will Harris, perhaps best known for his work at the A.V. Club (or, more specifically, for his Random Roles interviews), finally embarks on a straightforward interview podcast, chatting with actors, writers, musicians, political pundits, comic book artists... The world is his oyster, and he's planning to make the most of it!

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