Longtime TCM host Ben Mankiewicz will be returning for more in-depth tête-à-têtes with noted filmmakers.
Mankiewicz’s “Talking Pictures: A Movie Memories Podcast” has been renewed for Season 2 by TCM and Max. He announced the renewal on the Season 1 finale featuring guest Bill Hader, star, co-creator and director of HBO’s “Barry” and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member.
At the end of Tuesday’s podcast, Mankiewicz tells listeners, “So that’s a wrap on our first season of ‘Talking Pictures.’ I have loved every minute of it. We’re going to go away for a bit and make some more episodes — but we’ll be back with more interviews, more movie memories and more Super 8 questionnaires.”
In addition to Hader, guests in the 10-episode Season 1 of “Talking Pictures” included Mel Brooks, Nancy Meyers, Patty Jenkins, Emerald Fennell, Steven Soderbergh, Errol Morris, Damien Chazelle, Alexander Payne and Cord Jefferson (who recorded the episode prior to his adapted screenplay Oscar win for “American Fiction”). The podcast is available on Max (in audio-only format) and all major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
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“Talking Pictures” is produced under a partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery corporate siblings TCM and Max. Part of the strategy is to drive engagement with both brands: The podcast points listeners to where they can watch films that Mankiewicz and his guests chat about on Max and TCM. To wit: Mankiewicz signs off his convo with Hader by saying, “If you haven’t watched Barry on Max, go check it out. It is exemplary, cinematic television, through and through, from episode 1 to episode 32.”
Mankiewicz, who is the grand-nephew of Oscar-winning filmmaker Joseph L. Mankiewicz, has been the primetime host of TCM since September 2003, when he became only the second host hired in the network’s history (succeeding Robert Osborne).
On the podcast’s Season 1 finale, Hader, among other topics, talks with Mankiewicz about watching his first Stanley Kubrick film, “The Shining,” several times over, walking out of taking the SAT when he was 16 to see Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” instead, and being rejected by the film programs at USC, NYU and CalArts (which told him his film submission was “too entertaining”).
About “Barry,” Hader confesses that early on he was ambivalent about having the professional hitman commit indefensible murders. He recalls writing one scene and wondering if Barry might just let one of his victims go. “And Liz Sarnoff, one of our writers, said, I’ll never forget this, ‘Bill, if you’re going to go up to the bell, ring it,'” Hader says.
Prior episodes of “Talking Pictures” Season 1 featured Jenkins (“Wonder Woman,” “Monster”) on superheroes, female serial killers and being a woman director in Hollywood; Chazelle (“La La Land,” “Whiplash”) on his childhood as a budding filmmaker inspired by Walt Disney; Payne (“Election,” “Sideways,” “About Schmidt”) about the inspiration for “The Holdovers” and working with actors Paul Giamatti and George Clooney; documentarian Morris (“The Thin Blue Line,” “The Fog of War”) on interviewing, grave robbing and serial killers; and Brooks (“The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein”) about Gene Wilder, David Lynch, his wife Anne Bancroft, best friend Carl Reiner and a hilarious dinner with Alfred Hitchcock.
Also on the podcast, Mankiewicz hosted Jefferson, speaking about his path from journalist to TV writer and to first-time film director of “American Fiction”; Fennell (“Saltburn,” “Promising Young Woman”) on why she makes uncomfortable films and why she prefers directing over acting; Soderbergh (director of “Out of Sight,” Mankiewicz’s all-time favorite film, among others); and Meyers (“Something’s Gotta Give,” “It’s Complicated,” “The Holiday”) about casting Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, getting script advice from “Sunset Boulevard” director Billy Wilder and what it’s like to become famous for her interiors.
