Frank Bruni used to be a restaurant critic for the New York Times. Now, he’s a Contributing Opinion writer for the paper and a Professor of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. Bruni has written a book called The Age of Grievance about what’s going on in Trump World and the MAGA Universe. One of his theories is that the people who are t…

You may know him from his role as Murray Bauman in Stranger Things and as Martin in the BBC comedy Fleabag. Brett Gelman has dreamed of being a famous actor since he was a child growing up in Highland Park, Illinois, where he wanted to make the other kids laugh and wound up feeling like an outcast. Gelman has written about his childhood and his neu…

Bill Bradley is one of those wildly talented people, a star athlete with a brilliant mind. He went to Princeton University where he was the 1965 NCAA champion of the year. Then it was on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. But basketball still called to him and he joined the New York Knicks, playing on the dream team which won two NBA championships. Aft…

As a child, Ed Begley Jr. watched his dad act in films like Sweet Bird of Youth, a role that earned him an Oscar. His father’s career inspired the younger Begley to go into acting where he has appeared in hundreds of films and TV shows including Better Call Saul and Young Sheldon. In his twenties. Ed Begley, Jr. drank too much and abused drugs. Add…

Lucy Sante is a well-known author and critic who has written more than 10 books. Her latest is the memoir l Heard Her Call My Name. It’s the first book she’s written under the name Lucy. Lucy started out life with the name Luke. At the age of 67, she decided to fulfill a long-held desire to transition to a woman. It’s now been three years since Luc…

Who faces death at the age of 22? Suleika Jaouad did. After Suleika was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, she had a bone marrow transplant. At the age of 26 Suleika was declared cancer free. Suleika is the author of the best-selling memoir Between Two Kingdoms. She’s married to Jon Batiste, the former band leader for the Late Show with Stephen Co…

No one embodies the concept of change and durability in one lifetime like Jane Fonda. She started out as what some might call a Nepo Baby, the daughter of Henry Fonda, an actor who was considered Hollywood royalty. During her long career, Jane Fonda has appeared in more than 50 films, earning Oscars for Best Actress for her roles in Klute and Comin…

In 2023, 83-year old Dr. Anthony Fauci retired as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a job he’d held for 38 years. Once called “America’s Doctor,” Dr. Fauci had often been vilified for his role on the White House Coronavirus Task Force under President Donald Trump. In the past year, Dr. Fauci’s critics have o…

Filmmaker Lisa Cortes brought a 1950s rock ‘n’ roll legend to life again in her rollicking new documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything. Richard, who was known for hits like Long Tall Sally and Tutti Frutti, was a complicated personality who felt he never got the kind of recognition that he deserved. But in Cortes’ film, celebrated musicians tal…

I was so lucky to have spent a few hours with Norman Lear who recently died at the age of 101. Lear was 95 at the time we talked. In the 1970s he created a television empire with shows that dominated the network ratings like All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons and Maude. These series changed television forever by tackling subjects li…

Charles Busch made a name for himself as a playwright and a leading lady in drag with productions like the off-Broadway cult classic Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. That campy theatrical spoof was followed by Psycho Beach Party and Pardon My Inquisition, or, Kiss the Blood off My Castanets. Busch also appeared in the TV show Oz where he plays a cross- d…

Paulina Porizkova, who was a supermodel in the 80s, has one of those rags to riches stories which she talked with me about on “Now What?” in December 2022. That conversation has just been honored with a Clarion award for Best Podcast given by the Association of Women in Communications. Life has not always been star turns for Paulina who was born in…

When it comes to the word prolific, Walter Mosley fits right in. He’s written about 60 books. His latest is the sci-fi novella Touched. Mosley’s first work of crime fiction, Devil in a Blue Dress, features the character of a black private detective named Easy Rawlins who lives in the Watts neighborhood of LA. It was made into a film starring Denzel…

Roz Chast is an award-winning cartoonist who started working for the New Yorker 45 years ago. Her comics examine our everyday neuroses and anxieties. As an only child growing up in Brooklyn, Chast worried that a fire could break out in the wall and burn up her family. Or that she’d suddenly have an appendicitis attack and wind up in the hospital li…

Avi Loeb is probably the most famous practicing astronomer in the country. He’s the founding director of Harvard University’s Black Hole Initiative and was the longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy. Now, Loeb is also one of the most controversial astronomers in the country. In 2018, he proposed that an object named Oumuamua tha…

Gay Talese is known for his dapper wardrobe and distinctive writing style. He became famous as a writer who helped to define the New Journalism in the 1960s. He wrote block buster best sellers like Honor Thy Father about the Bonanno crime family. The Voyeur’s Motel focuses on a motel owner who spied on his guests. Talese also calls himself a voyeur…

She used to make her living standing in Harvard Square as a statue known as the Eight Foot Bride. Now, Amanda Palmer is the leader of the punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls. And she’s not afraid to tell you what’s on her mind. Her fans are passionate about her. Palmer has 1 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) and 10,000 patrons on Patreon wh…

Ben Smith had a front row seat to momentous shifts in the media that changed newspapers and magazines forever. In the early 2000s, readers began flocking to websites like Gawker and the Huffington Post for gossip, news and information. After Smith became the founding editor of BuzzFeed News, he decided to publish the Steele Dossier, the controversi…

John Waters is having a moment. The filmmaker, who's also known as the Prince of Puke and the Duke of Dirt, is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He says he hopes it will be near the one celebrating Alvin and the Chipmunks. Plus, LA’s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is honoring Waters with an exhibit that features some of his old camer…

At 6 feet 8 inches tall, people say Jim Comey could have been a basketball player. Instead, he became the top law enforcement official when President Barack Obama appointed him FBI Director and he led an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. After concluding that there was no national security…

Dave Barry wrote a humor column in the Miami Herald for more than 20 years that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He also writes books. His latest is called Swamp Story. It’s very funny with a totally ridiculous plot that takes place in the Everglades. There's a character who runs around pretending to be a creature called the Melon Monste…

In June 2023, something shocking happened to Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste, which was once one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. OneTaste defined itself as a sexuality-focused wellness company dedicated to spreading the word about OMing or orgasmic meditation. That’s a practice that involves an individual methodically stroking a pa…

Andrew McCarthy was still a teenager when he acted in his first film and became a member of what’s called the Brat Pack. That’s the group of actors including Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald who starred in 1980s films like Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire. There were a few bumps along the road like drinking too much alcohol and taking drugs before M…

She’s a long-time activist for women’s rights and she’s also a Founding Editor of Ms. Magazine. Letty Cottin Pogrebin is the author of 12 books including How to Make it In a Man’s World. Her latest is called Shanda which means shame in Yiddish. It’s about the secrets families keep and the ones that Pogrebin uncovered that wound up changing her own …

It’s hard for me to believe that “Now What?” has just celebrated its 100th episode. We marked the occasion with a first: a conversation taped in front of a live audience at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. V (formerly Eve Ensler) and creator of “The Vagina Monologues” told stories about her remarkable life. The room was filled with fans of the p…

Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle became an international bestseller that sold over 5 million copies. Walls’ father Rex was an alcoholic who dreamed of inventing a gold-detecting gizmo that would make him rich enough to build a glass castle. The family moved around a lot, usually before the rent came due. At one point Jeannette and her sibli…

She was my first guest on “Now What?” and now she’s come back to help me celebrate the 100th episode. There’s no one quite like Gloria Steinem. But don’t call her an icon. She doesn’t like it. Gloria thinks of herself as a writer and an activist. She dressed up as a Playboy bunny for a Show Magazine article to tell the intimate story of what it’s l…

She comes from a famous musical family. And she’s always felt like she was number 4 on the totem pole behind her brother Rufus, her father Loudon Wainwright III and her mother Kate McGarrigle. These days Martha has come into her own, talking about her life in a memoir called Stories I Might Regret Telling You. There are tales about her parent’s div…

Tig Notaro had been doing stand-up for more than 10 years when she got up on stage in 2012, grabbed the mic and began her set with these words: “Hello, Good evening. Hello. I have cancer.” Many critics called the set historic and ground breaking. When it was released as an album called “Live” it shot to number 1 on the comedy charts. in her Netflix…

Bruce Jackson grew up in a public housing project in Manhattan and got arrested when he was 10. Some of his friends became drug dealers but Jackson went on to become the first person in his family to go to college. After earning a law degree from Georgetown, Jackson represented hip hop figures like LL Cool J, Heavy D and Busta Rhymes before leaving…

When the U.S. was hit by the Covid 19 pandemic, President Trump often praised unproven treatments. While trying not to contradict Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top infectious disease experts in the country, became a calming presence, advocating practical remedies like social distancing. He also became the target of right-wing conspira…

Judy Woodruff got her start in the news business at a time when you didn’t see many women on the air. Her first job was getting coffee for her bosses at a local TV station in Atlanta. That was nearly 50 years ago and she’s covered Presidents and crises ever since. She’s also spent the last decade as an anchor on the PBS NewsHour. No happy talk, no …

Dani Shapiro is a writer who is very interested in family secrets. After Shapiro sent a sample of her saliva to a DNA company to find out more about her heritage, the results that came back rocked her world. Shapiro discovered that the man she spent her life calling dad was not her biological father. We talk about identity, what we hide from one an…

Welcome to 2023. It’s a good time to take a fresh look at who we are and how we might want to change. Dr. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist and a Buddhist. In his new book, The Zen of Therapy, Epstein writes about how he uses his spiritual beliefs to help his patients understand the importance of their own personal and unique stories. We talk about th…

She’s been called one of the most beautiful women in the world. Paulina Porizkova also had what many considered a fairy tale marriage to Cars lead singer Ric Ocasek. But after Ocasek died in 2019, the former supermodel found she’d been cut out of his will. Porizkova writes about that in No Filter: The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful. We talk about…

Lucy Sante is the award-winning author of numerous books. Her latest, Nineteen Reservoirs tells the story of the massive and disruptive project undertaken to bring a clean water supply to New York City. While Lucy was writing the book, she was also going through a major change in her own life. Named Luke at birth, at the age of 66, Sante decided to…

If you’ve seen the Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc. you’ve been introduced to One Taste Founder Nicole Daedone who created a company dedicated to spreading the word about a practice called orgasmic meditation. OneTaste closed its doors after a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article included complaints of sexual assaults and financial improprieties. Daaedone…

Woodstock, New York is famous for the music festival that actually didn’t take place there. It’s also known for famous musicians like Bob Dylan who once lived there and for its writers like Larry Beinhart who wrote the political satire American Hero. The film Wag the Dog is based on Beinhart’s book. Beinhart has also written a mystery series featur…

Constance Wu first gained attention playing a tiger mom on the TV series Fresh Off the Boat. While she was in the series, Wu was cast in a movie called Crazy Rich Asians, a critical and commercial success that made Wu a movie star. But then she made a mistake. She tweeted about how disappointed she was that Fresh off the Boat had been renewed. The …

The midterms are right around the corner. With politics in the air I found a couple of interesting people to shoot the breeze with about where we’re heading. Brad Tusk is a political consultant and venture capitalist who helped a company called Uber gain a foothold in New York and became very rich as a result. Tusk has opened a book store called P&…

Pa. Lt. Governor John Fetterman is running for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania against Dr. Mehmet Oz. He’s a most unusual politician. Fetterman is 6 feet 8 inches tall. He’s got a row of tattoos on his right arm that memorialize the dates that people were killed by gun violence in Braddock, Pa during the 13 years that Fetterman was Mayor. He’s also k…

What does it take to create a work of art with another person? Talent, inspiration, hard work. But the most important part of the equation may be whether the creators hit it off and find themselves on the same wavelength. James Lapine found his best collaborator in Stephen Sondheim, one of the greatest theater composers ever. Their first work toget…

When people ask me who are the most interesting characters I’ve ever talked to for “Now What?” I always think of the Irish actor Gabriel Byrne. Byrne has been in many iconic movies including Miller’s Crossing and The Usual Suspects. He also played the brooding psychiatrist in the series In Treatment and became a heartthrob at the age of 59. He’s no…

This is a special episode. It’s about my brother-in-law Joel Zimmer who was diagnosed with back of the tongue and tonsil cancer caused by the HPV virus. If you were to tell people that there’s a form of cancer that’s sexually transmitted they’d probably look at you as if you’re crazy. But there is and cases are on the rise. HPV now causes most of t…

Since 2017, more than 80 women have come forward to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault. In 2022, the former movie studio mogul was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape. Throughout his career Weinstein was riding high with films like Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love. So the question is how did Weinstein manage to lead a …

His breakthrough movie was Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, the buddy film where the stoners ride a cheetah in New Jersey to get burgers. Penn’s parents came to the U.S. from India and the actor is a long time vocal advocate for more diversity in Hollywood. Penn played a doctor on the TV series House and the son of Indian immigrants in the film…

Writer Delia Ephron ran into a rough patch that lasted for years. First, her sister Nora died. After Delia’s husband passed away, Delia was diagnosed with the same type of leukemia that killed Nora. Doctors told Delia her own chances of surviving were not good. She tells that gripping story in a memoir called Left on Tenth. But not all is doom and …

His book about healing trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, has been on the paperback bestseller list for more than 4 years. So why are people so interested in trauma, terrible events that sear themselves into our minds and won’t let go? Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk has spent decades working on ways to free people from the traumatic events that ha…

Queen Elizabeth is celebrating 70-years on the throne with people pouring into the streets to toast the longest-reigning British monarch. But the 96-year old Queen has had her challenges in recent years. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle quit their royal duties and took off for southern California. Prince Andrew got himself in trouble with al…

He’s known as the Prince of Puke. John Waters’ film Pink Flamingos starring Divine is about a woman who’s competing for the title of Filthiest Person Alive. In Multiple Maniacs Divine gets sexually assaulted by a giant lobster. Waters’ films like Hairspray and Cecil B. Demented have become cult classics. Waters may be a counter culture hero but he’…