Letting Them Talk with Will Harris

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 27 - Thomas Dolby

This time, I’m letting Thomas Dolby talk.
Thomas Dolby is a musician whose output throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s was part of the soundtrack to my life. Of course, anyone who came of age during the early days of MTV knows his music whether they know his name or not. Just play them a snippet of “She Blinded Me with Science,” and the memories will instantly come flowing back.
I had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Dolby some years ago when I was writing for Bullz-Eye.com and he was in the midst of doing a flurry of press for the reissue of Prefab Sprout’s STEVE McQUEEN album, which he produced. Of course, I completely nerded out, as any proper music geek would, and believe me, I wish I could produce the audio of that conversation, because if I could, I’d include at least a portion of it with this episode…at least partially because, as you’ve probably noted if you’d look at the length of this particular installment, it’s a bit shorter than usual.
That’s because I didn’t know until it was too late to do anything about it that I’d accidentally only been allotted 30 minutes for our interview, and he didn’t know that I thought I’d been allotted an hour, so when we hit the 30-minute mark, I found myself a bit blindsided by the sudden end of the conversation. I mean, it’s all fine and well, these things happen, but I’m sorry for you, the listener, that it didn’t go on longer.
Still, during the course of our half-hour together, we talked about as much of his career as I could manage, we discussed a bit about his soundtrack work, which resulted in a particularly great Ken Russell story, and we talked about some of his session and production work over the years, including a Thompson Twins song you may not have realized that he had a hand in. If you’re a fan of his work, I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you don’t know much about his career, I think you’ll find it fascinating.
And with that said, I’d say it’s time to let Thomas Dolby talk…and after you're done listening to him talk, maybe you'd like to go see him on tour. Here's a list of his upcoming tour dates!

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 26 - DeAnn Heline and Eileen Heisler (The Middle / Roseanne / Murphy Brown)

This time I’m letting two – count ‘em – two people talk: DeAnn Heline and Eileen Heisler.
They’re the pair behind Blackie and Blondie Productions, which should ring a bell if you’re a diehard TV fan, but in case you’re still drawing a blank, DeAnn and Eileen are the duo responsible for creating The Middle.
Yes, you may recall that we’ve had another duo on this show in the past, and they, too, were part of the Middle family: Eden Sher and Brock Ciarlelli, a.k.a. Sue and Brad, not to mention the host of the Middling podcast. When I interviewed them for the show, I made a comment about how I was planning to interview DeAnn and Eileen, and I said that my plan was to focus on their career before they created The Middle, thereby giving me an opportunity to discuss an era that I didn’t know that much about while also leaving the Middle stories to Eden and Brock. As it happens, Brock instantly said, “No, but you have to ask them about The Middle!” Almost as instantly as DeAnn said, “Uh, we created it, we can talk about it if we want!”
So there you go: we talked about The Middle. But we also talked about Blackie and Blondie: The Early Years. In addition to the inevitable secret origin of their long-running friendship and creative work together, we also discussed the various stages of their career, including their work on Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Ellen, Lipstick Jungle, and a few other short-lived series in their back catalog. They offered up stories about working with Norm MacDonald, Garry Marshall, Tom Poston, and another past guest, Peter Tolan, plus many others over the years.
And, yes, there was a decent amount of conversation about my personal connection to The Middle, how my family helped inspire a storyline in one of the episodes, and more.
Okay, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let DeAnn and Eileen talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 25 - Peter Tolan (The Job / Rescue Me / The Larry Sanders Show / Dave Chappelle)

Unabashed plug: WE HAVE MERCH!
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This time I’m letting Peter Tolan talk.
Peter is one of the best TV writers in the business as well as one of my favorite storytellers, either of which would be plenty enough excuse to have him as a guest. But when I traded emails with him a few weeks back, he said he was confident that I’d be able to come up with a legitimate reason to bring him on as a guest, and he was right: as I record this intro, which will also be the day that I release this episode, it will be the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the ABC series THE JOB, a.k.a. the first collaboration between Peter and Denis Leary.
Maybe you remember the series, maybe you don’t, but as Peter and I discuss, it was definitely an anomaly on ABC’s prime-time landscape at the time, in that it was a half-hour single-camera comedy with occasional dramatic elements. It was also a pretty great show, but despite that, it only lasted for two short seasons…although to be fair, the fact that it lasted for more than a single season was a legit shocker to everyone involved, so there’s that achievement, at least.
So, yes, Peter and I discussed THE JOB at length, but of course we talked about other things from his back catalog as well, including his subsequent collaboration with Denis Leary – RESCUE ME – as well as his work on THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, including his favorite guest-star story and why he feels like he was able to get along with Garry Shandling when others weren’t. We also talked about a couple of his screenplays, including MY FELLOW AMERICANS and WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM, with the latter leading to some great Mike Nichols stories. I also got him to talk about the Dave Chappelle pilot that led to a major squabble with Fox, his recent experiences with a pilot for FX that were a little disappointing, to put it mildly, and he even teases a new series that he and Denis Leary are trying to get off the ground, one that would reunite them with a former RESCUE ME guest star…
Well, that should keep you listening for the long haul. It’s time to let Peter Tolan talk.
 
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Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 24 - Jane Alexander (Testament / The Great White Hope / Severance)

This time, I’m letting Jane Alexander talk.
Jane is a four-time Academy Award nominee, a seven-time Tony nominee, and a two-time Emmy winner (with six additional nominations to her credit), so…there’s really no good reason why she should be talking to me for this podcast.
The only explanation I can offer: she and I got along swimmingly when I did a piece for Smithsonian about the play and film versions of The Great White Hope and chatted with both Jane and her co-star, the late, great James Earl Jones. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch, and when I found out that one of the films that scored her one of those aforementioned Oscar nods – Testament – was being added to the Criterion Collection, I pitched her on the idea of this conversation, and she was kind enough to agree.
I also took advantage of the opportunity to do something I’ve never done before during an interview: spring a special guest on someone. As you may or may not know, I did all of the interviews for the book Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!, and one of those interviews was with Ross Harris, who – in addition to being the boy who visits Peter Graves in the cockpit – also played Jane’s son in Testament. This is another one of those moments that plays particularly well if you’re a paid subscriber and have access to the video, but even without it, you can hear the unbridled joy in Jane’s voice when Ross joins us for a portion of the conversation.
Of course, Testament isn’t the only thing we talk about during the episode. Jane has plenty of stories about other projects, including meeting Muhammad Ali while doing The Great White Hope, acting alongside Johnny Cash and being invited to introduce him at one of his concerts, working with Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood in City Heat, and – more recently – being part of the runaway Apple TV+ hit Severance.
Well, that’s probably enough of an introduction. It’s time to let Jane Alexander talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 23 - Dennis Quaid (I Can Only Imagine / The Right Stuff / Innerspace / Jaws 3-D)

This time, I’m letting Dennis Quaid talk.
Dennis has grinned his way through an acting career that started in the ‘70s and has continued unabated ever since. Sure, he’s had a few ups and downs over the decades, as he’ll freely admit (and, indeed, does so during the course of our interview), but he’s still going strong and acting up a storm.
The project that brought us together for this conversation is  “I Can Only Imagine 2,” the sequel to a biopic about Bart Millard, lead singer of the band MercyMe, and if you’ve seen the first film… Well, no spoilers, but suffice it to say that you’re probably a little surprised to see Quaid back in this film. Yeah, it’s not what you’d call a big role this time around, but it’s big enough that he was still up for doing some press for the film, so of course I put in a request. I’ve talked to him before, but it’s never been for long enough to work as a Random Roles, so you can imagine my surprise when I got the go-ahead to talk to him for this podcast. No, we don’t share the same politics, but his films have been a major part of my life, so I was psyched to have the opportunity to talk to him for such an extended period of time…and, better yet, as you’ll hear at the end of the conversation, he was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the time passed.
What did we talk about? A ridiculous amount of stuff, ranging from his earliest work – we’re talking an episode of Baretta and a role as a bellhop in an early Jonathan Demme movie – to things like The Right Stuff and Innerspace. We discussed how important the career of his brother Randy was to his own beginnings as an actor, and he offered up stories about working with Mickey Rooney to teaching mandolin to Marlon Brando. And, yes, we did talk about his work on Reagan, so of course I had to ask him what it feels like to be canceled…and, yes, he actually answered.
Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Dennis Quaid talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 22 - C. Thomas Howell (One Mile / The Outsiders / Criminal Minds)

Today, I’m letting C. Thomas Howell talk.
I’ve been watching this man’s work since I was 11 years old and went to see “E.T.” with my family. A line like that might make some actors feel old, but given that Tommy – and I’m not being overly familiar here, this is actually how he’s listed on his official Facebook page –  was only 12 years old himself when he was hired for that particular film, I think he’ll probably be cool with it.
I first interviewed this gentleman when he was in the midst of his run on the cop drama Southland, and we did a lengthy Random Roles that, if I’m being honest, included a discussion of decidedly more projects that we managed to hit in this particular conversation. By which I mean to say that if you’re looking for tidbits about Kindred: The Embraced or Soul Man, you’ll want to head over to the A.V. Club and read that piece after you’ve listened to this episode. And, yes, there were a couple of encore stories that I knew from that interview that I pointedly asked him to tell in this interview because I knew listeners would enjoy actually hearing them straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. But what we had was, for the most part, an extremely organic conversation where I was able to easily jump from one topic to the next…and that’s on the occasions when he didn’t do that himself. He’s done more than a few interviews at this point in his career, and given that the name of this podcast is “Letting Them Talk,” well, you know exactly what I opted to let him do.
We started our chat by talking about his latest project, “One Mile,” which is available for your digital purchasing pleasure as of this recording, and since it’s a villainous role, that led into talking about “The Hitcher” and “Criminal Minds.” A question about how he’d considered following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a stuntman led into talking about “E.T.,” which in turn led to talking about “The Outsiders.” But talking about his dad also led to some great stories about how he got to visit some of the film sets that he worked on, including one of the “Planet of the Apes” films.
Oh, sure, we talked about other stuff, too. But that’s probably enough to keep you listening for the long haul.
It’s time to let C. Thomas Howell talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 21 - Nathan Rabin (A.V. Club / The Dissolve)

Today, I’m letting Nathan Rabin talk.
I used to read Nathan’s work on the A.V. Club long before I began writing for the site myself, and every once in awhile it still strikes me as a little weird that he and I have become a mutual admiration society. And it’s not just me: during the course of the conversation, you’ll hear me mention that my daughter considers it her favorite low-key brag that her dad is friends with the guy who created the phrase “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.”
Nathan’s a legend amongst pop culture writers, thanks to his work not only at the aforementioned AV Club, but also the late, great Dissolve. These days, he splits the majority of his time between his Substack newsletter Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas and his website, Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, a.k.a. NathanRabin.com. That said, he also spent a little time recently in the hospital after a car accident, which we talk about during the course of our conversation, but thankfully he’s long since back home and recovering nicely, even if he’s still working his way back from the physical and financial damage it caused.
Not that Nathan and I need a reason to chat, but what brings us together for this particular conversation is his latest book, THE FRACTURED MIRROR, which is devoted to as many American movies about filmmaking as he could fit into its pages before he finally had to just stop and publish the damned thing. We’re talking almost 550 pages, and even though – as I freely admit to him – I haven’t finished it yet, I’m loving every page of it thus far, and I’m excited to keep working my way through it and, God help me, watching a lot of the films covered within its pages.
Well, I think that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Nathan Rabin talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 20 - Captain Sensible (The Damned / "Happy Talk")

This time I’m letting Raymond Ian Burns talk…although you’d know him better by his nom de punk: Captain Sensible.
As a founding member of the Damned, he’s a proper punk rock legend and a member of the band who famously released the first punk single in the UK and was the first UK punk band to play in the US. Mind you, he hasn’t been a consistent member of the band throughout the entirety of their existence, but it’s because of that absence from their roster that he was able to forge a solo career, one that provided him with some huge hits in the UK, including “Wot” and the still startlingly-successful cover of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Happy Talk,” from the musical “South Pacific.” No, for real, it was a #1 hit. Go figure.
These days, however, the good Captain is indeed back with his bandmates in The Damned, and they’ve just released a new album of covers called Not Like Everybody Else, with the songs selected as a tribute to their fallen Damned comrade Brian James, who died in March of last year. It’s a fun album, featuring songs by everyone from the Lovin’ Spoonful to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd…and, indeed, the cover of “See Emily Play” provided the perfect opportunity to for me to ask the Captain about how the Damned once tried to get Syd Barrett to produce an album for them.
During the course of our conversation, we obviously talked a great deal about the Damned’s career as well as the Captain’s solo work, including his songwriting collaborations with Robyn Hitchcock. As someone who’s been a fan of the Damned since purchasing and absorbing every bit of the band’s two-disc best-of collection, The Light at the End of the Tunnel, this was a bucket-list interview for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope you do the same.
And with that, it’s time to let Captain Sensible talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 19 - Kathleen Chalfant (The Copenhagen Test / Law & Order)

This time, the person I’m letting talk is Kathleen Chalfant.
Kathleen is an actress who got her start in the theater, moved into on-camera acting through the wonderful world of soap operas, and has become a familiar face in films as well as on television, most recently on the Peacock series “The Copenhagen Test.”
In the series, Kathleen plays the elusive character known as St. George, and while I’m not the first person to use that particular adjective to describe her, it’s accurate enough that she agrees with it, too. During the course of our conversation about the series, I tried my best to discuss it in such a way as to avoid spoilers, which means that we danced around a lot of things, but suffice it to say that if you enjoy a good thriller, you should definitely give it a watch.
We talked about a wide variety of other projects from Kathleen’s back catalog as well, including her recurring presence on the various Law & Order series as several different characters, playing the mother of the titular character in Bob Roberts, her stints on The Guardian and Rescue Me, being directed by Bob Balaban and Stephen Frears, and a number of her past theater projects, including Jules Feiffer’s Hold Me!, Angels in America, and Wit.
That’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kathleen talk.

Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 18 - Kyle Vincent (Candy / Barry Manilow / Bay City Rollers)

This time, I'm letting Kyle Vincent talk.
Kyle is someone whose music I’ve been enjoying since the release of his self-titled 1997 album. Appropriately, it’s that very album that brings us into conversation today, since it’s finally made its way to streaming services for the first time.
Kyle has a deep history in music, but things really got rolling for him when he was fronting the band Candy, who you may remember for their single “Whatever Happened to Fun?” It’s arguably one of the catchiest power pop singles of the ‘80s, which makes it all the more cruel that the band never really made the commercial impact that they deserved. From there, Kyle went solo, and although it took awhile for him to find his footing on his own, it helped significantly that he found himself serving as opening act for none other than Barry Manilow.
That aforementioned self-titled album spawned a hit single, “Wake Me Up When the World’s Worth Waking Up For,” and if you didn’t hear it on the radio when it was originally released, you might’ve heard it in some TV series or film, because it’s popped up repeatedly. Kyle’s continued to release solo albums on a regular basis – the most recent, “Sunshine Soul,” came out in 2024 – but he’s also kept busy in other ways, including fronting a latter-day incarnation of the Bay City Rollers. Kyle’s got stories about all of these aspects of his career and more.
And with all of that said, I’d say it’s time to let Kyle Vincent talk.