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. 21h ago

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 55 - Jeneva Rose (The Perfect Marriage / Sometimes I Scare Myself / Dating After the End of the World)

    This time I’m letting Jeneva Rose talk. Jeneva is an author who became a full-fledged phenomenon when she released her novel The Perfect Marriage during the pandemic and found that TikTok was an amazing marketing tool. As a result, the thriller sold millions of copies, thereby making her into a pretty big deal and someone whose name immediately became one of those that you include on your lists of People Whose New Books I Always Want to Check Out. Jeneva’s work isn’t just limited to thrillers, however, as you can quickly discover if you check out her website, which is – you guessed it – JenevaRose.com (and that’s “Jeneva” with a “J,” by the way). In fact, she’s just released her first proper horror book: “Sometimes I Scare Myself,” a collection of three tales which take some familiar concepts and turn them on their head. Mind you, as I discuss with Jeneva, that’s a trademark of her work: taking established concepts and scenarios and tweaking them in ways that you might not necessarily expect. We talk about that and various other aspects of her career, including her origin story, various other books in her back catalog, and what’s coming up in terms of adaptations of her work. For the most part, however, we spend the conversation unabashedly asking her about her favorite horror stuff, from books to TV to films, and sharing a few recommendations with her along the way. It’s what I was always planning to do with the conversation, and when her publicist found out that I was interested in doing that, the instant response was, “I can’t wait for you two to nerd out together.” Mission accomplished. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro: it’s time to let Jeneva Rose talk.

  2. 4d ago

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 54 - John Ross Bowie on STUART FAILS TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE - Season One

    This time I’m letting John Ross Bowie talk. Yes, that’s right: I’m letting John Ross Bowie talk again…although in my defense and his, you may recall that during the course of his initial appearance on the podcast, he was promoting the premiere of his HBO Max series “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” a series which – at the time we recorded the episode – I hadn’t actually seen. As such, at the very end of that episode, I said, “We’ll need to do a follow-up after I’ve actually gotten my screeners,” and he said, “I was about to suggest the same.” And here we are. HBO’s publicity department was kind enough to send out the entire 10-episode first season of the show, and I promptly devoured them, so once John got finished with his promotional duties at Comic-Con, we regrouped and went through the season episode by episode…and so as not to make it chock full of spoilers, I vowed to wait until after all of the episodes of the season had dropped before I dropped my episode. Just a few things to mention before we enter into the proceedings, the first being that due to a slight scheduling hiccup on my end and not wanting to have to ask John to reschedule, I actually started recording the episode while I was in my car, driving back to my house and – more importantly – to my computer. Trust me, you can tell that I’m not in my usual surroundings from the sound quality on my end, but John sounds great…and don’t worry, I made it home before we were finished talking about the second episode, and it’s instantly evident when I’m back on my proper microphone. The other thing is that, as of when we recorded the episode, “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” had yet to be renewed for a second season…and now it has, so hooray! But at the end of our conversation, you can hear my ridiculous optimism as well as John’s realism. Needless to say, however, we’re both thrilled about it now, so again I say, hooray! All right, that’s probably enough of an intro: it’s time to let John Ross Bowie talk…about “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” – Season One.

  3. Sep 21

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 53 - Allan Havey (The Paper / Mad Men / Billions / Seinfeld / Curb Your Enthusiasm / The Office)

    This time I’m letting Allan Havey talk. I was introduced to Allan way back in the days when there were two cable stations devoted to comedy: The Comedy Channel and HA! In short order, they combined to form a single entity known as – you guessed it – Comedy Central. If you were watching back then, you may remember a quirky talk show called NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, and if you do, then like myself, you presumably also remember Allan. That’s not to say that he hasn’t been continuing to work since then. In addition to being a well-respected stand-up comedian – perhaps you’ve seen one of his many appearances on Letterman, or maybe his HBO special – he’s more recently become recognized for his work as an actor. For me, it was particularly interesting watching his acting career evolve, having known him from that earlier incarnation of his career, but he’s really mixed it up a lot over the past few decades, doing both comedy and drama in relatively equal measure. Perhaps you remember him from playing Lou Avery on MAD MEN or Karl Allard on BILLIONS. Maybe his face stands out to you because you saw him on SEINFELD or CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. If you’re a Prime Video aficionado, you could’ve seen him on THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE or BOSCH. Or you could’ve seen him on GOOD LUCK CHARLIE, like my daughter did. Most recently, however, the best place to catch Allan has been on Peacock: in addition to having done a couple of episodes of THE OFFICE in  2013, he’s also part of the recurring ensemble cast of THE PAPER, playing Marv Putnam, the CEO of the company that owns The Toledo Truth Teller. In addition, Allan’s got his own YouTube channel – @allanhaveycomedy – and he’s got a continuing series of videos called “Best Stand-Up Advice.” He’s up to 43 of them so far, and the overwhelming majority of them are under three minutes in length, but they’re all worth a watch. To be honest, I could’ve spent a full hour just talking about NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, but I tried to mix things up as much as possible during the course of the conversation, and I think it’s a fun one. All right, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Allan Havey talk.

  4. Sep 14

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 52 - Tommy Stinson (The Replacements / Bash & Pop / Guns 'n' Roses / Perfect)

    This time I’m letting Tommy Stinson talk. Tommy was busy touring the world and elsewhere when he was still in his teens. Of course, that necessitated dropping out of school, but considering the journey that he went on as a member of the Replacements, it’s easy enough to argue that he made the right decision. Of course, the Replacements haven’t really been a going concern – at least as a full-time band – since the early ‘90s, so Tommy  has had to make his own music, something he’s been quite happy to do. First came the band Bash & Pop, which was followed by Perfect. Then came Tommy’s unexpected stint as a member of Guns ‘n’ Roses, after which he finally made his belated debut as a solo artist in 2004 with the album Village Gorilla Head. Since then, Tommy has continued to do some solo stuff, but he also did a stint as a member of Soul Asylum, reteamed with his Replacements bandmates for a few years to do some shows, and unexpectedly revived Bash & Pop for a second album in 2017. His most recent solo album was 2023’s Wronger, but he’s got plans for new material that we’ll hopefully be hearing in the near future. I must admit that the reason that Tommy and I did this interview was to promote an intimate live show in Norfolk, but before the original planned drop date for the episode, I got word that the show was canceled. The reason? By unfortunate coincidence, it ended up being the same day at a free Dinosaur Jr. concert in Virginia Beach, which… I mean, it’s virtually the same demographic, and it’s free, so of course everyone opted to go to that show instead. But don’t worry, Tommy will almost certainly be back, and hopefully after listening to this episode, you’ll be inspired to go see him on his next tour. Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Tommy Stinson talk.

  5. Sep 4

    Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 51 - Mark Sheppard (Ever After / Supernatural / Battlestar Galactica / Firefly / Doctor Who)

    This time I'm letting Mark Sheppard talk. Mark's availability for an interview came up with a press release for his latest film, a horror movie called EVER AFTER, but my reasons for asking him to do the podcast were admittedly tied to the fact that he plays a key role on my wife’s favorite TV series of all time. Yes, Mark Sheppard plays Crowley on SUPERNATURAL, and given that my wife is part of that show’s substantial fanbase and has attended SUPERNATURAL conventions here in Norfolk, Virginia as well as in Rome (shout-out to JIB!), I’ve heard his name more than a few times. But I was already well aware of him as a character actor thanks to his work on a number of other series, including Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Doctor Who, NCIS… The list goes on. I was also aware of him because of his father, Morgan Sheppard, who I first discovered on Max Headroom but who I remember most fondly for playing the Klingon in Star Trek VI who delivers the rules of Rura Penthe to Kirk and McCoy. What I wasn’t aware of until I started prepping for our conversation, however, was the depth of Sheppard’s musical history. I knew that he was a musician, yes, but I hadn’t realized that he’d been a member of the Television Personalities in the early ‘80s and been one of Robyn Hitchcock’s live drummers. Mark is a man who was made for a podcast called “Letting Them Talk.” Indeed, when I told his SUPERNATURAL cohort Jim Beaver that I’d talked to him, he simply asked, “Did you get to say anything?” Spoken like a man who’s been on more than a few panels with him, but it’s a fair question. To be honest, I made good on the name of the podcast and let Mark talk. As a result, he brought up most of the topics I’d planned to ask about before I could ever get to them, and it felt a bit superfluous to return to them, so if you’d like a sequel to this episode that involves more specific questions, let me know, and I feel like it’s something we could make happen. As you’ll soon hear, we talked about the aforementioned EVER AFTER, which in theaters now (and I confirmed this via Fandango, because it’s playing in my area), we talked about his music career, as well as how his return to music was the direct result of his connection to SUPERNATURAL and its conventions. This is definitely not a conversation that’s heavy on SUPERNATURAL minutiae, but if you’re interested in Mark and his life and times, then I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you’re coming into this episode without knowing much about Mark, I think you’ll find him to be a fascinating individual. One minor technical note: during the course of the conversation, there were a few occasions where the video hesitated, making us both think that we were frozen, but the audio seemed to be fine throughout, so when you hear those moments of slightly confused conversation, that’s what was going on. All right, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Mark Sheppard talk.

  6. Aug 17

    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!

  7. Aug 14

    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.

  8. 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.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

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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