I Think You're Interesting

Ceyda Torun's film Kedi is Todd's favorite of 2017 so far. It's a charming but surprisingly weighty documentary following the lives of several Istanbul cats -- some from the streets and others with more comfortable lives. (One even lives near a fish merchant, which seems like a good kitty life.) It's both a movie about cats and a movie about its city, and that made talking to Ceyda a must. She told Todd about why cats are better actors than you'd expect, what makes Istanbul one of her favorite cities, and how she captured all those "cat's eye view" shots.

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The career of Broadway composer Dave Malloy can sometimes seem like a series of escalating dares. His works take on everything from the life of Rasputin to the pieces of classical musician Franz Schubert. But by far his biggest hit has been Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 -- a musical adaptation of a small slice of War and Peace, with many of the lyrics taken directly from Leo Tolstoy's novel. It's tremendous theater, invigorating fun, and finally on Broadway. Dave and Todd talk about adapting great literature, his musical background, and his next big dare: a musical of Moby Dick.

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How do you make a great web series, if you don't have the backing of a major corporation? That's a question the creators and producers of Her Story, a YouTube-based series about the lives of a diverse community of trans and queer women in Los Angeles, seem to have asked and answered. They were the first ever independently produced series to be nominated for an Emmy. Co-creator, star, and producer Laura Zak and producer Kate Fisher joined Todd to talk about making great independent TV, bringing voice to groups who haven't always been represented on TV, and going to the Emmys as a tiny YouTube show, up against giants.

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Desmin Borges is a vital part of what makes "You're the Worst," one of TV's most exciting comedies, so very good. The FXX series deals with serious topics in darkly amusing ways, and that includes Borges's character, Edgar, a veteran who suffers from PTSD and is trying to struggle through it without much support from his friends. Borges joined me to talk about his research into PTSD, the moment that made him realize he wanted to be a performer, and his secret dining nirvana in Los Angeles.

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Ryan Murphy is one of the most influential TV producers in the history of the medium. He's won Emmys for series like Glee and The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and with American Horror Story, he invented the now ubiquitous anthological miniseries -- where each season of a TV show tells a different story with a different cast. But he's also increasingly one of the most powerful people in the television industry pushing for better diversity and representation behind the camera. In this episode, Todd and Ryan talk about breaking into show business, working in Hollywood as a gay man in the 1990s, his diversity initiative, and the stories behind his newest series, the upcoming FX drama Feud.

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