The late, great Terence Stamp's death at the age of 87 has left behind an incredible body of work, but what a gamble The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert was. He'd never headlined a comedy, he'd never done a musical, he wasn't keen on Australia - and yet he agreed to sign up for a low budget Australian indie that over three decades later, is still awash with stories.

The second half of this episode is handed over to director Jay Roach meanwhile, who talks about his new movie, The Roses. The chat also covers bits of Recount, Meet The Parents, the big film he never made, and even a dab of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy...

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Returning to the Film Stories podcast is writer/director/producer Chris Columbus, as his new movie - The Thursday Murder Club - arrives in cinemas, with Netflix release due at the end of August 2025.

He talks Simon through the movie, and where it was when he came to it. They also chat about Hugh Grant's hair in Nine Months, films he's produced such as Didi and Patti Cake$, and we get a bit of a guided tour of his office, too...

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Writer/director Roger Kumble had never made a film as he approached the back end of the 1999s, but had two very acclaimed plays under his belt. This, he figures, was his moment, and in under two weeks, he wrote the first draft of what would become Cruel Intentions. And while the project would soon pick up momentum, it still required him to get on his knees and basically beg one of his lead stars to appear in the movie.

The second half of this episode is then a chat with filmmaker Akiva Schafer, about the new The Naked Gun movie. He talks tiny details, finding jokes, and the movie's very, very long credits list...

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In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon chats to cinematographer and director Mikael Salomon.

The pair go through Mikael's extraordinary career, that's taken him from Denmark to Hollywood and back again. And Mikael tells his stories: his early years, how he came to the attention of James Cameron, working on The Abyss, Arachnophobia, Always and more, and then turning to direct (not least with the challenging Hard Rain.)

It's a clickbait-free, AI-free conversation, with a filmmaker telling their stories. Please do subscribe and spread the word if you like it!

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In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by director Matt Shakman. They were chatting at the junket for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is now in cinemas. But this conversation went in lots of different directions.

For your eardrums here, we go into Dick Tracy, Gremlins 2, the Star Trek film that never was, and the career-changing letter he wrote when he was young. Quite the chat this, with a movie junket question that struck gold...

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The very future of the James Bond movie franchise was resting on The Spy Who Loved Me. Producer Albert R Broccoli was contending with the dissolution of his business partnership, a potential rival film, and an underperforming previous 007 film. Plus, questions about his leading man.

And it was a leading man causing conversations when it came to Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach. Where was Steve Guttenberg? Come to think of it, where was Bobcat Goldthwait? And could the enduring franchise survive?

The behind the scenes stories of both movies are told in this episode. Please note this is the last regular episode of Film Stories for a few weeks, while I take some summer downtime. Specials will follow...!

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The behind the scenes stories of two movies, starting with Naked Gun 33 1/3, a movie that saw franchise director David Zucker opt to step back, and thirtysomething Peter Segal make his directorial debut. The problem? There was a comedy to make, and Segal was struggling to get a connection with his leading man, the late Leslie Nielsen.

2000's Cast Away meanwhile would be a movie that contributed to health problems Tom Hanks has put up with since. It made a volleyball famous, and notably, it's a film that took so long to make, that director Robert Zemeckis shot and released another movie entirely in the midst of Cast Away's production schedule.

Stories of both films are told in this episode...

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He's currently - at the time of recording - touring the UK with his Mr Swallow show, but Nick Mohammed is also one of the leads in Deep Cover, a really impressive UK film that's riding high on Prime Video.

In this Film Stories special, he talks to Simon about his ventures into movies, joining Slow Horses, the impact of Ted Lasso, and his love of magic...

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Nearly 500 episodes in, and the Film Stories podcast finally arrives at a Godfather film. Specifically, The Godfather Part III, a fascinating project whose behind the scenes story went on for over a decade. The number of attempts to get the film made climbed into double figures, named such as Sylvester Stallone, Madonna and John Travolta were amongst those linked.

But also: writer/director Francis Ford Coppola was not keen to make the movie.

Writer/director Amy Heckerling had an opposite problem with Clueless. She was keen to make the story, but for a while, she couldn't get anyone to stump up the bill. When they did? Well, Heckerling finally got some of the respect she deserved...

Stories of both are told in this episode...

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In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, director Ilya Naishuller joins Simon to talk about his new film, Heads Of State.

Thing is, they talk about a hell of a lot of other things too before they get there. Nunchuks, sausages, Hardcore Henry, grief, CG on a pint of bitter, Nobody, trying to work a clapperboard... quite a conversation this, with some fruity language included.

Heads Of State is now streaming on Prime Video.

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