The Craziest Day of My Entire Career is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite people about the weirdest workday they have experienced so far. This week, our guest is Alan Tudyk. Alan is a brilliant character actor and a performer who can do a thousand and one impressions. He has worked in movies like Rogue One, I, Robot, and several Pixar films. His latest project is the SyFy series Resident Alien. In it, Alan plays an extraterrestrial tasked to live on earth as a human, a man named Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle. When we asked Alan Tudyk about the craziest day of his career, he took us way back. Back when he was mainly a Broadway performer but got a part in the 90s dramedy Patch Adams, which would change his life forever.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Alan Tudyk on the Craziest Day of His Entire Career

Big Boi and Sleepy Brown. Two legendary recording artists! Big Boi is one half of the legendary rap duo OutKast and a prolific solo-artist. Sleepy Brown is a veteran singer-songwriter and producer. Along with his team production team Organized Noize, he helped produce well over half of OutKast's discography. He's also worked with Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, and Ludacris. Their latest joint effort is an album: "Big Sleepover." Despite collaborating and representing the ATL for decades it's their first record together. We talk about the Big Sleepover with Sleepy Brown and Big Boi, and about the pleasure they get from working together after all these years. They also get into the history of Atlanta hip-hop, parenting, and so much more.

Big Boi & Sleepy Brown

Charlie Day is the star and co-creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. You probably knew that already, because Always Sunny is the longest running live-action comedy in the history of television. And it's still good! But Charlie Day, the actor, is more than Charlie from Always Sunny. He helped co-create the very funny TV show Mythic Quest. He's acted in movies like Pacific Rim, Horrible Bosses, The Lego Movie – and now, the romantic comedy I Want You Back, where he co-stars with the phenomenal Jenny Slate. We'll talk with Charlie about the movie and playing zany characters – plus, he's started rewatching Always Sunny episodes he hasn't seen in over a decade! He tells us what that's like.

Charlie Day

Kristen Bell joins the show this week to talk about her new series The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window. It's a parody of domestic thriller movies like The Woman in The Window and The Girl on the Train. Kristen plays the character of Anna in the show, a woman who lives in an upscale suburb and is having a rough go of it lately. Anna does not do much other than drink lots of red wine and stare out her window from a comfy looking chair. That is until one day when she witnesses a horrific crime across the street, or at least she thinks she does. Interviewing Kristen this week is our friend Helen Zaltzman. Helen hosts the language and linguistics podcast The Allusionist and Veronica Mars Investigations, which recapped Kristen Bell's breakthrough show of the same name. Helen talks with Kristen Bell about the new show and what it was like not only starring in it, but also to produce it. Kristen also talks about some of the extreme things Veronica Mars fans have done in the past to get the show renewed. Plus, she shares the name she preferred to go by when she was growing up.

Kristen Bell

John Bradley was around 22 when he got the part that changed his life. On Game of Thrones he played Samwell Tarly, John Snow's close friend for nearly a decade. In the beginning, it's clear that Sam isn't cut out for the world of Game of Thrones. He isn't a natural warrior. He's a bigger guy. Kind of soft. He's smart, but not especially cunning. He's nice, maybe a little goofy. And on any other show, you can pretty much guess his character's trajectory: maybe he stays a bumbling comic sidekick or maybe he gets killed off tragically. But instead the things he was bullied for: his kindness, his empathy, his bookishness... they turn out to be assets, not liabilities. These days, John Bradley keeps busy. He has two movies out this month – sci-fi disaster movie Moonfall and the romantic comedy Marry Me. We revisit our conversation with John from 2019. He talks with us about the surreal experience of watching the finale of Game of Thrones after it consumed most of his 20's. Plus, he shared the things that make him geek out, and answered some very fun questions from twitter.

John Bradley

Louie Anderson passed away last month at the age of 68. He was a veteran stand-up and comic actor who performed in movies and shows like Family Feud, Coming to America, and Life with Louie. When we talked with Louie Anderson in 2017, he had been starring in the FX series Baskets. We remember the life of Louie Anderson by revisiting this conversation with him on the latest episode. He talked with us about his role as Christine Baskets, who was loosely based on his mother, Ora Anderson. Louie shared his perceptions of his own career, including his comedy style and on-screen appearance. This extended interview also features material we never played when it originally aired – including one of his darkest jokes, and what it was like being the opening act for folks like Ray Charles and Dolly Parton in Las Vegas. Plus, he talked about how being able to laugh at some of the difficult moments in his life helped him heal from past struggles.

Remembering Louie Anderson

I Wish I Made That is a segment where we invite some of our favorite voices in pop culture to dive deep into a work of art they did not make but they really wish they did. This time around we are joined by John Darnielle. John is a writer and frontman of the folk rock band the Mountain Goats. He recently released his third novel which is called Devil House. It is an epic story that touches on the true crime fad of today, the Satanic panic of the 1980s and a spooky home in Milpitas, California. When we asked John to pick something he wished he had made, he sent us a list of a few different things. After narrowing down the list, he eventually settled on Speak & Spell, the debut album by new wave legends Depeche Mode.

I Wish I Made That: John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats

W. Kamau Bell, a comedian and host, directed a new documentary series. It's called We Need To Talk About Cosby. It's about Bill Cosby – who he is, what he's done, and how we deal with that. It's a complicated, difficult topic. One that intersects with the fabric of the American entertainment system, with race, the justice system, the MeToo movement and so much more. In this conversation we talk with Kamau about the documentary at length. He talks about what Cosby meant to him as a kid and as a comic. He talks about Cosby's pioneering work in civil rights and in television, and about how we struggle to square all that with the person we now know Cosby to be. We Need To Talk About Cosby will be available to watch via Showtime on January 30.

W. Kamau Bell on 'We Need to Talk About Cosby'

The Righteous Gemstones just kicked off its second season on HBO, and that's good news. It's a comedy about the Gemstones, a family of pastors and owners of a massive megachurch with hundreds of thousands of followers. The show centers around Dr. Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), the patriarch, who's been preaching on TV for decades; he's played by John Goodman. But the show itself centers around Eli's kids: their power struggles, their scheming, their scandals, their hamfisted attempts to curry favor with their father. Among a stacked cast, Edi Patterson stands out as the daughter, Judy Gemstone, bringing a manic energy to the part. We'll talk with Edi about her own church experience, improvising – and "Misbehavin,'" the Christian country tune from season 1 she sang on and co-wrote.

Edi Patterson of The Righteous Gemstones

Alfred Molina started his acting career almost 40 years ago. First on British TV and a couple of movies later on. Since then he's gotten over 150 roles. He's responsible for a bunch of other unforgettable scenes, in films like Boogie Nights, Chocolat and Magnolia. He played Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and has now reprised the role for Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is out now. When we talked with him in 2017, he'd just starred in the first season of Feud, the FX series. It's set in 1962, and it tells the story of the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford when they filmed the movie "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Jesse sits down with Alfred Molina to talk about his portrayal of director Robert Aldrich in the FX series, plus his memorable turns in films like Boogie Nights, Spider-Man 2 and more.

Alfred Molina

Just before Christmas this past year, the writer Joan Didion died. She was 87. Didion rose to fame for her journalism – she immersed herself in stories. In the late 60s, she broke through with Slouching Towards Bethlehem. In her career she covered a bunch of different topics – counter culture, war, immigration. She also wrote a handful of novels, a couple memoirs. We never got to interview Didion – she became a pretty private person in her last years. But in 2017, a documentary about her came out. The documentary was directed by Griffin Dunne, her nephew. Griffin Dunne is also an actor – he was in My Girl, the Martin Scorsese film After Hours, and the TV show This is Us. We remember the life of Joan Didion by revisiting this conversation with Griffin on the latest episode. We talked with him about the documentary, and the legacy of his aunt.

Remembering Joan Didion with Griffin Dunne

Glynn Turman is a brilliant actor who's lived an extraordinary life. His first big role was at 12, in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett Jr. He's played mayor Clarence Royce on The Wire and Doctor Senator on the most recent season of Fargo. Just the other week he portrayed Mose Wright, the great-uncle of Emmett Till, in the ABC miniseries Women of the Movement. Those are just some of his 150-plus credits. Oh, and did we mention he was married to Aretha Franklin? When we talked with Turman last year, he'd just finished performing in the Academy Award-nominated film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Glynn Turman

Winston Duke was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to Brooklyn when he was nine. He studied acting at Yale and went on to work mainly in TV during his early twenties. He did not break into movies until he was thirty. That first movie role was M'Baku in 2018's Black Panther. He followed that up with an appearance in Avengers Infinity War, then with a starring role in Jordan Peele's Us. Last year, he starred in a very different movie. It was the Edson Oda film Nine Days. It is a sci-fi drama where Duke stars as an otherworldly entity who interviews souls for the chance to inhabit a body on earth. We are thrilled to have Winston Duke on the show, and just as excited to have our friend and correspondent Jarrett Hill interviewing him.

Winston Duke

Living legend John Cameron Mitchell joins us on the latest episode. He's directed the movies Shortbus and Rabbit Hole, acted on shows like Shrill and Girls. But he's probably best known for his iconic work is the cult hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It's a story about queerness, about identity, about the threads rock and punk music shares with other live performances, like drag and cabaret and Broadway. These days, John Cameron Mitchell has gotten back to writing and recording new music. He's put out an ongoing benefit called New American Dream, in which he collaborates with Ezra Furman, Xiu Xiu and Stephen Trask – co-creator of Hedwig. Jesse Thorn talks with John Cameron Mitchell about his childhood, punk rock, his songwriting process, creating Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and how his relationship with the piece has changed over the years. Plus, he takes a deep dive into the making of his film Shortbus – a conversation that was too spicy for radio.

John Cameron Mitchell

Bullseye from NPR is your curated guide to culture. Jesse Thorn hosts in-depth interviews with brilliant creators, culture picks from our favorite critics and irreverent original comedy. Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney's, which called it "the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world." (Formerly known as The Sound of Young America.)

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Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

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