Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

By NPR

Society & Culture

What's Bullseye with Jesse Thorn about?

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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I Wish I'd Made That: Nick ...

09.17.2021

Artists, musicians, and filmmakers are often inspired by what they see or hear. Sometimes that thing is so great, they tell us they wish they made it themselves. It happens so often we made a segment about it called I ...

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn episodes:

09.17.2021 I Wish I'd Made That: Nick Offerman Artists, musicians, and filmmakers are often inspired by what they see or hear. Sometimes that thing is so great, they tell us they wish they made it themselves. It happens so often we made a segment about it called I ...
09.14.2021 Remembering Michael K. Williams Actor Michael K. Williams died earlier this month. He was 54 years old. He was best known for playing Omar Little on The Wire. Michael began his career in entertainment first as a dancer in New York, then an actor ...
09.07.2021 David Byrne David Byrne! The one and only. The founder of the Talking Heads talks with Jesse about his latest project American Utopia, and his return to playing live music. He also shares some of the music he's been listening to lately ...
08.31.2021 Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have been working together for 40 years, producing some of the biggest R&B records of all time. In their four decades of working together, the fedora-wearing giants of R&B music have written and produced over ...
08.27.2021 Rostam on the Paul Simon song that changed his life The Song That Changed My Life is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite artists about the music that made them who they are today. This time around we're joined by singer songwriter ...
08.24.2021 Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham Hannah Waddingham stars alongsie Jason Sudekis in Ted Lasso. She plays team owner Rebecca Welton in the series. Hannah joins guest host Linda Holmes of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour to chat about her role in Ted Lasso. Plus, she ...
08.20.2021 Uzo Aduba: In Treatment, Orange is the New Black and more Uzo Aduba first rose to fame playing a character known as Crazy Eyes. It was on Orange Is the New Black, a part of the first class of original TV shows on Netflix. Crazy Eyes, whose real name is Suzanne, ...
08.19.2021 Bonus: Remembering Zumbi, of Zion I Zumbi, born Steve Gaines, made up half of the Oakland duo Zion I, who were stalwarts of the Bay Area hip-hop scene for decades. Zumbi died at 49 and what follows is an appreciation of his art and music. Jesse ...
08.17.2021 Sam Richardson On the latest episode we welcome back Sam Richardson! His breakthrough role came in HBO's Veep. The political satire starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus where everyone is terrible, mean, incompetent, and they all hate each other. Everyone, except Sam's character, the cheerful, ...
08.13.2021 Aidy Bryant on Shrill, Saturday Night Live, and more Odds are, you probably know Aidy Bryant from Saturday Night Live. She's been on the cast now for almost a decade. She's been on the cast now for almost a decade. On the show she's done killer impressions, sang on ...
08.10.2021 Jonathan Majors Jonathan Majors has been acting professionally for just under five years now. He's done theater, TV, and starred in movies. In that short amount of time, he's become one of the most captivating performers in Hollywood. He was in two ...
08.06.2021 Alice Waters, chef and activist 50 years ago, in Berkeley, Calif., a restaurant called Chez Panisse opened its doors. It wasn't super buzzy at the time. The chef, Alice Waters, hadn't opened a restaurant before. The night they opened, they had a lot of friends ...
08.03.2021 Kamasi Washington We're revisiting our conversation with Kamasi Washington, one of the greatest living saxophone players. In the studio, he's played saxophone and arranged for hitmakers like Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Run The Jewels, Snoop Dogg – and that's just naming a ...
07.30.2021 Busy Philipps Busy Phillipps has well amassed over 60 credits on the big and small screen. Her first big break came when she was just 20 years old on the acclaimed and influential TV show Freaks & Geeks. She followed that up ...
07.27.2021 Tom Scharpling For over 20 years, Tom Scharpling has hosted The Best Show. It aired on the New York public radio station WFMU until around 2013, and now it's a podcast. Tom's also a comedy writer who's worked on shows like Monk, ...
07.23.2021 Andrew McCarthy The Brat Pack, as you might know, is a term for a group of 8 or so actors who starred in about a dozen movies in the 1980s. There's Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, a bunch of ...
07.20.2021 Singer-Songwriter Liz Phair on her New Album "Soberish" Look at just about any "greatest albums of all time" list and you'll usually see Liz Phair's 1993 record Exile in Guyville. The album put her on the map as a singer-songwriter. The production was no frills, and the songwriting ...
07.16.2021 Remembering Gift of Gab We're remembering the life of rapper Gift of Gab, who died last month at just 50 years old. Gab was the co-founder and MC for the legendary Northern California hip-hop group Blackalicious. If you're a serious hip-hop head, you know ...
07.13.2021 Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone Melissa McCarthy has played some unforgettable parts, like in Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy. She met her husband, Ben Falcone, when they were members of the Groundlings theater in Los Angeles and have been performing together on stage and screen ...
07.09.2021 John Waters: I Wish I Made Pasolini's 'Salò' Content Warning: this segment contains some graphic descriptions of torture, sex and violence. It's an interview with John Waters for a segment we do called I Wish I'd Made That. In this episode, the director behind Hairspray, Crybaby, and Pink ...
07.06.2021 Patton Oswalt and Meredith Salenger Patton Oswalt and Meredith Salenger keep busy with various projects in show business. They're parents, too. The celebrity couple don't get much one-on-one time together. In their podcast Did You Get My Text with Meredith and Patton they take a ...
06.29.2021 Wendy and Lisa We're dedicating this week's show to music duo Wendy and Lisa. Together they recorded some stone cold classics with Prince's band The Revolution: Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret, Kiss, When Doves Cry and more. These days, they're known for their work ...
06.25.2021 Canonball: Writer Aaron Carnes on third-wave ska Canonball is a segment on Bullseye that gives us a chance to take a closer look at albums that should be considered classics, to find out what makes them great. This time, the writer Aaron Carnes tells us why Crab ...
06.22.2021 NBA Hall Of Famer: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest basketball players of all time: an NBA Hall of Famer, six-time MVP, 19-time All-Star and, of course, the master of the skyhook shot. He excelled at basketball in high school, went on to ...
06.18.2021 Will Forte: MacGruber, SNL and more The actor and "SNL" alum on making "Extra Ordinary," the mixed reception of "MacGruber" and staying healthy during a grueling work schedule
06.15.2021 Antonio Banderas on "Pain and Glory," "Mambo Kings" and more Antonio Banderas talks about the most challenging role of his career: portraying a fictionalized version of his close friend
06.11.2021 Ryan O'Connell on Netflix's 'Special' Content warning: This interview contains some explicit language and graphic, frank talk about sex that some listeners might be sensitive to. Ryan O'Connell is the creator and star of the Netflix show Special. It's a semi-autobiographical sitcom about Ryan's own ...
06.08.2021 City of Ghosts creator Elizabeth Ito City of Ghosts, the children's show on Netflix, is a bit hard to explain. It's animated in 3-D, and the characters — mostly children — look kind of like Wii avatars. It's set in Los Angeles, and the backgrounds are ...
06.04.2021 Comedian Chris Gethard on the time he got Diddy to play the UCB theater The Craziest Day of my Entire Career is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite people about some truly unbelievable stories. Stepping up to the plate this time around is longtime standup comedian ...
06.01.2021 Rick Steves Rick Steves is probably best known as a public media travel expert. He's mastered the art of travel in his public television programs: Rick Steves' Europe and Travels in Europe with Rick Steves. Rick always finds ways to travel around ...
05.28.2021 Desus Nice and The Kid Mero Desus Nice and the Kid Mero are longtime collaborators and friends, having met at summer school in their native Bronx. They started first as podcast hosts, and now they also make a TV show on Showtime (called, appropriately, Desus & ...
05.25.2021 Writer and Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt Lisa Hanawalt is a writer, cartoonist, and author of four brilliant books, including "Hot Dog Taste Test" and "My Dirty Dumb Eyes." You may be familiar with her work on the popular animated Netflix series "BoJack Horseman" where she was ...
05.21.2021 That time writer Jonathan Ames broke his nose in a boxing match The Craziest ******* Day of my Entire Career is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite people about some truly unbelievable stories. This time around, we're joined by novelist and creator of the ...
05.18.2021 Sons of Kemet's Shabaka Hutchings Shabaka Hutchings is a saxophone player and composer. He fronts the bands Sons of Kemet and Shabaka and the Ancestors. His music combines jazz, calypso, dancehall, hip-hop and African folk music, but it's more than the sum of its parts. ...
05.14.2021 Jason Schreier on the rise and fall of gaming's biggest studios For the better part of a decade, the video game industry has made more in revenue than Hollywood. Year after year, it's not even close. Some of the biggest blockbuster games can pull down a billion dollars within a week ...
05.11.2021 Ann Dowd Ann Dowd is a veteran actor. Her career began on the stage, first in Chicago, where she went to school, then in New York. She started appearing on screen in the '90s in shows like The Baby-Sitter's Club and Law ...
05.07.2021 The Song That Changed My Life: Doc Severinsen The Song That Changed My Life is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite artists about the music that made them who they are today. This time around, we're joined by American jazz ...
05.04.2021 Archivist and filmmaker Rick Prelinger Rick Prelinger is an archivist and professor at UC Santa Cruz. He's a collector of found and discarded footage: home movies, outtakes from industrial videos and never before seen b-roll from old feature films. Rick also co-founded the Prelinger Library ...
04.30.2021 William Jackson Harper William Jackson Harper won the hearts of fans as the sweet philosophy professor Chidi Anagonye on NBC's The Good Place. The role helped jump start his career and earned him a handful of award nominations including an Emmy nod. In ...
04.27.2021 Documentary Filmmaker Ric Burns Ric Burns has written, produced, and directed many documentaries over the last 25 years that capture fascinating narratives about different topics in American history. A few subjects he's covered include New York City, The American Civil War, The Chinese Exclusion ...
04.23.2021 Director Raoul Peck Raoul Peck makes sweeping, breathtaking, insightful films that marry the political to the personal. As a director, he's made both documentaries and feature films. That includes 2000's Lumumba about the assassinated Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, 2016's Oscar-nominated I Am Not ...
04.20.2021 Remembering Jessica Walter Last month, the actor Jessica Walter died. She was 80 years old, her family says she passed away in her sleep. Her career spanned over six decades. She's starred in hundreds of on screen performances, from Arrested Development, The Alfred ...
04.16.2021 Nicole Byer Nicole Byer is a force of nature. She hosts two game shows and four podcasts. She also writes and does stand-up and improv. She's an Emmy-nominated actor. And if all that wasn't enough for you, she's a great follow on ...
04.13.2021 David Mitchell and Robert Webb British comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb have been making audiences laugh for over two decades. They began their career performing on stage and eventually transitioned to the world of television with their breakout sketch comedy shows The Mitchell ...
04.09.2021 Killer Mike Killer Mike first joined Bullseye all the way back in 2009. Since then, he's formed the supergroup Run the Jewels with partner El-P, he's appeared in films like Baby Driver and he hosted his own television series "Trigger Warning with ...
04.06.2021 Adam McKay Adam McKay's had a pretty eclectic career. He started in sketch comedy. First as a founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, then as a writer on Saturday Night Live. He's collaborated with Will Ferrell to make some stone cold comedy ...
04.02.2021 Jon King of Gang of Four The post-punk band Gang of Four was an unstoppable force of danceable beats, abrasive guitar work and unflinchingly political lyrics. Formed in the late 70s in Leeds, England, core of the operation was vocalist Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill. ...
03.30.2021 Christopher Lloyd When you think of actor Christopher Lloyd, what's the first film of his that comes to mind? Is it the Back to the Future franchise where he starred as the unforgettable inventor Emmet "Doc" Brown? Perhaps it's the 1988 live ...
03.26.2021 Riz Ahmed Riz Ahmed has spent the last decade pursuing dual careers in acting and hip-hop. His work has been political, controversial, funny, subtle — the sort of stuff critics love — and it's found huge audiences, despite all that controversy. He ...
03.23.2021 Kim Deal of The Breeders With a little help from the smash hit "Cannonball" on their 1993 album "Last Splash," The Breeders became one of the biggest names in early '90s alternative rock. In 2018, we chatted with the band's lead guitarist and singer Kim ...

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