After nearly four decades of working in Hollywood, actor Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent, Pieces of April) says her portrayal of women’s rights activist Lilly Ledbetter is “the greatest privilege” in her storied career.

We sat with the legendary actress as part of this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival to discuss her powerful turn in Lilly (3:00), her colorful New Orleans upbringing (9:56), and the educator who first recognized Patricia’s talent (15:00). Then, she reflects on her life-changing move from Louisiana to New York City (19:00), years of training at the Yale School of Drama (24:00), and her early film roles opposite Kevin Costner in The Untouchables and Clint Eastwood in The Dead Pool (25:00).

On the back-half, we discuss her transformation in the groundbreaking 1998 film High Art (27:30), her process of “total immersion” on set (34:00), and how that commitment led to a call from director Martin Scorsese and a pivotal part in Shutter Island (42:00). To close, we talk through Patricia’s raucous role in Easy A (44:00), her ongoing fight for equal pay in Hollywood (46:00), and her lifelong love of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (51:00).

Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

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“I wanted to be good, but I completely burned up the morning,” said Joaquin Phoenix on day 1 of Eddington. “Ari and I stayed on set when everyone left for lunch—and, slowly, something emerged. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it didn’t make me want to end everything.”

With the film’s arrival in theaters, we return to our candid, long-form talk with Phoenix. At the top, we unpack his transformation in Joker: Folie à Deux (7:10), his free-wheeling collaborations with director Todd Phillips (9:32), and the nomadic upbringing that marked his early years (13:00). Then, he reflects on his childhood television debut in Hill Street Blues (20:27), the brilliance of Robert De Niro (25:53), and his formative performances in To Die For and Parenthood (32:45).

On the back-half, we discuss how the polarizing mockumentary, I’m Still Here (45:15), inspired his singular collaborations with directors Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, James Gray, and Lynne Ramsay (49:30). We also talk about the evolution of his acting process (50:47), the impassioned Oscars speech he delivered accepting Best Actor for Joker (56:15), and whether he’ll ever turn in what he believes is a ‘great’ performance (1:00:40).

Hear our episode with Ari Aster and watch on YouTube.

Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

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“Eddington is a film about a bunch of people who know that something is wrong,” says writer-director Ari Aster. “It’s just that nobody can agree on what that thing is.”

Aster joins us this week to unpack his controversial, COVID-era western: his time back home in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he wrote through lockdown (9:30), the works of Robert Altman (18:00) and Oliver Stone (19:15) that served as sources of inspiration, and how Beau Is Afraid (5:54) cleared the path for Eddington. Aster also shares his early adventures in moviegoing: including Brian De Palma’s Carrie (22:10), Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (23:45), Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (23:47), and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (24:50).

On the back-half, we talk about how he found his voice in film school (30:28), his divisive AFI senior thesis film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (31:16), the seven years, post-college, that it took to break through with Hereditary (34:18), followed by his breakdown on Midsommar (38:30), and his ‘novelistic’ approach to screenwriting (40:30). To close, we read from Paul Schrader’s infamous Facebook post (45:48) on how AI will change moviemaking (46:05) and a Nietzsche quote that Ari says helps explain this moment in American life (52:45).

Watch this conversation on our new YouTube channel.

Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.