Letting Them Talk with Will Harris

This time I’m letting Jon Cryer talk.

I’ve interviewed Jon more than a few times over the course of the past decade or so, and  I’m always pleased to have a chance to talk to him again. That’s mostly because he’s a swell guy and we have a nice chemistry whenever we chat, but if I’m being honest, there’s always that little voice in the back of my head that’s going, “Dude, you’re talking to Duckie.”

Yes, Jon Cryer was Duckie in PRETTY IN PINK, and he was arguably the most relatable movie character of my teenage years, the poster boy for guys who were perpetually enduring unrequited love. I mean, I once made a mix tape that started out with a snippet of dialogue that still echoes in my head even now…

“I love this woman, and I have to tell her…and if she laughs, she laughs…and if she doesn’t love me, then she doesn’t love me. But if I don’t find out… Oh, I love her too much!”

But Jon Cryer is about so much more than PRETTY IN PINK, obviously, which is why – although of course we talked about it – we talked about a wide range of topics during the course of our conversation, starting with his current endeavor: a production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, in which he plays Vice Principal Douglas Panch. As of this recording, you can catch him at the New World Stages – Stage 3, located at 340 West 50th Street in New York. So if you’re going to be in NYC this summer, check and see if tickets are available, because I have it on good authority that it is a hoot.

Beyond that, we talked about his Broadway origins, how his movie HIDING OUT ended up having a duet between Roy Orbison and k.d. lang, why so few people saw MORGAN STEWART'S COMING HOME, how his big plans for a specific career arc led him from a punk rock western into what turned out to be the lowest-budgeted SUPERMAN movie ever, and how the latter experience kinda sorta resulted in him getting to play the baddest, baldest DC villain of them all. He also regaled me with stories of being up for Ferris Bueller, auditioning for BACK TO THE FUTURE, and not auditioning for RESERVOIR DOGS.

And,  yes, we talked about PRETTY IN PINK, including his audition for Howard Deutch, his first meeting with John Hughes, how he and James Spader planned out their quote – fight scene – unquote, and, yes, how Duckie was robbed.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Jon Cryer talk.

This time I’m letting Sally Timms talk.

Sally is a singer-songwriter who – since 1985 – has been a member and one of the lead singers of one of the longest-running bands to emerge during the UK punk explosion, even if it’s been quite a while since one would readily describe their sound as “punk.”

She recorded her first album in 1980 with the help of Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks – if you’re curious about how it sounds, you’re in luck, because it’s out there for streaming – but even after she released that record, it still never occurred to her that she might actually end up pursuing a proper career in music. That situation changed after she joined the Mekons in ’85, but even then, she probably never imagined that she’d still be part of the band’s lineup more than 40 years later. Granted, the band’s tendency toward cult status means that she hasn’t always been able to make music her full-time career, but she’s certainly been continuing to make music ever since.

Last year, the Mekons released HORROR, and this year they released an album of dub remixes called HORRORble (mekons v.s Tony Maimone in Dub Conference). If Tony’s name rings a bell, it’s because he’s a member of Pere Ubu, and he’s really transformed the songs in some unique ways. We talked about that collaboration, and we talked about some of Sally’s other work with the Mekons, too, of course, including the differences between major and indie label life and her thoughts about the documentary about the band. But beyond the Mekons, we also discussed her work with the Aluminum Group, her duet with Marc Almond, being Cowboy Sally, and even when she provided a voice for Cartoon Network’s Toonami.

That’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Sally Timms talk.

This time I'm letting Lukas Haas talk.

Lukas was still in single digits when he made his film debut, managed to make it through his teen years without succumbing to any sort of scandal, and is currently in the cast of a series that’s sitting at a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes…and that’s on both the Tomato-Meter and the Popcorn-Meter.

Not bad for a guy who – given that he only just turned 50 a couple of months ago – ostensibly still has an awful lot of acting ahead of him.

Lukas made his aforementioned film debut in the 1983 film TESTAMENT, starring alongside my former podcast guest Jane Alexander and our guest star on Jane’s episode, Ross Harris, who I met as a result of his work in AIRPLANE! When I told Jane that I was going to be talking to Lukas, I half-jokingly offered her the Zoom link, saying that if she was free at the time of recording, I’d love to have her do a pop-in. As it happened, she’d already gotten a better offer: at almost the same time as we were going to be recording, she was going to be doing a TESTAMENT panel with the film’s director, Lynne Littman. By an even more enjoyable coincidence, the panel ended up being moderated by another acquaintance of mine – fellow journalist Tim Grierson – so Letting Them Talk got a shout-out. What are the odds?

I bring all of this up because, as you might expect, the first thing I mentioned to Lukas when he hopped on the call was that I’d had Jane as a guest and Ross as a guest star, and when I explained how Ross and I had first met, I discovered that Lukas is a huge AIRPLANE! fan himself. Instant bond achieved.

And just as a quick sidebar, after the interview I texted Ross to tell him how well it had gone, and he wrote back, “Brilliant human. Just straight out of the gate an incredible artist.” And then after a few minutes, he added, “Okay, maybe his drawing needed work straight out of the gate…” And with that, Ross sent me a drawing that Lukas had done for him when they were working together on TESTAMENT. Naturally, I instantly wrote back and said, “Holy shit, can I post that when I release the episode?” He said, “Absolutely.”

In other words, if you’re not currently subscribed to my Patreon or Substack, then you’re probably going to want to remedy that…

Getting back to the episode, Lukas can currently be seen in SPIDER-NOIR on Prime Video, so of course we started out by discussing his work on the series with co-stars Nicolas Cage and Brendan Gleeson, but from there his whole career was fair game. Lukas admitted that he often found himself remembering more about his early work than his later work, so we talked about working with Harrison Ford on WITNESS without having any idea who he was at first (and then revealing the moment when he really figured it out), having Alex Rocco play his dad in THE LADY IN WHITE, roller-skating his way through SOLARBABIES, and having an amazing time working with Steven Spielberg. We discussed BRICK a bit, as well as CRIMINAL MINDS including the role he initially auditioned for on that series; how he basked in the big-budget bizarreness of MARS ATTACKS! and the more reasonably budgeted bizarreness of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS; being on Broadway with Steve Martin and Robin Williams; getting a rare chance to do comedy on THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES; having a close encounter with Paul McCartney; and, yes, we even discuss RAMBLING ROSE and his feelings on how a particular scene probably wouldn’t play today…and why that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Okay, I’m not sure I could possibly do any more teasing on this thing. It’s time to let Lukas Haas talk.

This time I’m letting Kevin Rowland talk.

He's been a recurring figure on the UK charts since the early ‘80s, and on the US charts… Well, okay, he hasn’t exactly made any headway there in quite some time, but even in 2026, the sheer inevitability of “Come on Eileen” has continued to keep the name “Dexys Midnight Runners” a familiar one.

Rowland founded Dexys Midnight Runners in 1978, with the band releasing their debut album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels in 1980. It was a massive success in the UK, climbing into the top 10 and spawning the #1 hit “Geno,” but neither managed to chart in the States. Knowing this makes it a little more startling that the band’s next album, 1982’s Too-Rye-Aye, spawned a song that topped the Billboard Hot 100…and, yes, of course, I’m talking about “Come On Eileen.” The album even made it to #14 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart…and they haven’t had another album hit the charts since.

There’s just no accounting for taste, is there, folks?

But just because Dexys’ albums haven’t charted doesn’t mean that they haven’t continued releasing them, albeit with some gaps in there while Rowland was recording solo LPs. During the course of our conversation, we talked about all of them at least briefly, including their latest album, Love, which is due for release later this year. You can check out the first single, “My Life in England, Pt. 1” right now, and it’ll give you an idea of what to expect from the band’s sound nowadays…which, to be fair, isn’t so dramatically different than it’s ever been. Yes, there’ve been some changes along the way, but Rowland’s voice is still immediately familiar even after all these decades.

I’ve talked to Kevin a couple of times in the past, but it’s been long enough that I’d kind of forgotten that sometimes he’s got quick answers to questions and sometimes, if you ask the right one, he’s got lengthy answers to questions. Thankfully, I managed to ask enough in the latter category to result in an interesting conversation…but with that said, brace yourself for the occasional moments of silence as well, mostly because I wanted to make sure there wasn’t more to come.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kevin Rowland talk.

This time, I’m letting John C. McGinley talk.

I’ve wanted to interview John for many years, so the fact that that dream came true just as he’s delivered not one but two Emmy-worthy performances made it all the more exciting.

I no longer remember where I first saw Mr. McGinley, mostly because he was in so many films throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, but like most people, he made the jump from “character actor” to “actor I know by name” when he picked up the role of Dr. Cox on  Scrubs. It’s a role he recently picked back up when the series was revived for a new season on ABC, and it’s since been renewed for a second season, thank the lord, but what’s also been keeping him busy is another Bill Lawrence-created series, HBO’s Rooster, where he plays Walter Mann, president of Ludlow College and boss to Steve Carell’s character, Greg Russo. I’m not kidding around about McGinley’s performances being Emmy-worthy, either; he’s great on Rooster – as well he should be, as you’ll soon hear – and Scrubs has taken Dr. Cox in a direction we haven’t seen before, giving McGinley a chance to flex his acting muscles in a different way with the character.

As I mentioned, however, McGinley was acting well before he got that first full-time prime-time gig with Scrubs, and we talk about as much of that career as time would allow…and when time started to run out, I read him all of the various things that you folks wanted me to ask him about, and it’s clear that he’s got stories yet to tell. During this conversation, however, we managed to discuss Stan Against Evil, Platoon and his relationship with Oliver Stone, Watch It (a personal favorite of mine), Car 54, Where Are You?, Office Space, and Three to Tango. Oh, yes, and we sort of talked about Point Break and On Deadly Ground, but…you’ll, uh, have to listen to find out what I mean by that.

Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let John C. McGinley talk.

This time I’m actually letting two people talk. One of them I was expecting, one of them I wasn’t, but I was thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with them together, even if it had only been a little over a week since I’d last talked to them separately.

To try and make that slightly confusing sentence a bit more comprehensible, I should explain that my wife and I recently took a trip to London to visit our daughter, who’d just wrapped up a semester abroad and was on the cusp of heading home. Having already finished her semester, she met up with us in Reading, where all three us stayed with family friends (hello, Toni and Stu, and thanks again for the hospitality), after which we spent some time in London, did an overnight trip to Galway, Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher, and – most importantly for this story – headed to York to see Haircut One Hundred in concert!

I must admit that I never would’ve expected that I’d ever have the chance to see them live, mostly because Nick Heyward parted ways with the band in 1983! But against all odds, the guys mended whatever fences they needed to mend, started playing together again, and not only are they back together full-time and touring, but they’ve even got a new record coming out on June 19! And owing to a combination of the band having a wonderful publicist and having interviewed Nick during my brief tenure as a senior editor of Q Magazine, my family and I were not only able to see the band live in York (along with openers Stone Foundation, who were also pretty damned great), but we met up with them after the show. And while I was of course thrilled to have a chance to meet Nick, as a proper music nerd, I was also excited to meet the band’s drummer, Blair Cunningham, who was sitting behind the kit the first time I saw Paul McCartney in concert.

Nick and I were originally going to do an interview before my trip to London, but then it became clear that it would be easier to do it once I was back home and Haircut One Hundred was done with their tour. What I was not expecting, however, was for Blair to pop in a few minutes after we started and join us, but talk about a pleasant surprise. Plus, it kept me on my toes as an interviewer, having prepped questions about Nick’s solo career to fill the hour. Instead, I got both of their perspectives about the Haircut One Hundred experience, Blair had some amazing stories of his own, including some great McCartney tales as well as a hilarious story about working with Echo and the Bunnymen, and I still managed to get a question in about Nick’s songwriting collaboration with the late, great Terry Hall.

Well, that’s enough of an intro: it’s time to let Nick Heyward and Blair Cunningham talk.

This time I’m letting Kevin Dunn talk.

Kevin is a gentleman who’s been working in front of the camera since the mid-1980s, but it’s arguable that the role that transformed him from “oh, that guy” to being an “oh, that guy” from a very specific thing was playing White House Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty on VEEP. At the moment, however, he’s doing press for Tyler Kornack’s new film, MERMAID, which premiered at last year’s SXSW Festival, received a brief theatrical run earlier this month, and is on the cusp of receiving a digital release.

I made this remark to Kevin during our conversation, but it bears mentioning here as well: MERMAID is a weird fucking movie, but it’s a weirdness that sucked me in and kept me glued to the screen until the very end. SPLASH it is not, nor is it THE SHAPE OF WATER, but all three films share a certain amount of DNA, and… Well, I don’t really want to say much more about it, except that Kevin’s role, while relatively small in the grand scheme of things, is one that provides him with a moment that would be a must-add to any actor’s clip reel.

Of course, we talked about other topics as well, although I’ll tell you right now: Kevin’s a guy who has plenty of stories, and given the name of this podcast, it should go without saying that I didn’t get to ask him about everything that you rowdy lot wanted me to ask him about. This, of course, means that a sequel is a must if we can get it scheduled. For now, though, just know that we discussed VEEP, of course, along with MISSISSIPPI BURNING, LUCK, THE PRACTICE, SNAKE EYES, MARKED FOR DEATH, THE BEACH BOYS: AN AMERICAN FAMILY, and HOT SHOTS! And I’m sure a few other things came up as well, but suffice it to say that there’s a lot of great material to be found within those topics.

And with that said, I think that’s plenty enough of an intro. It’s time to let Kevin Dunn talk.

This time I’m letting Sam Anderson talk.

Sam is someone who’s been a working character actor since the 1970s, popping up in dramas and comedies alike. At the moment, he’s living the character actor’s dream, in that he’s a series regular on one of the most entertaining dramas on network television, playing Kathy Bates’ husband on CBS’s extremely creative reboot of Matlock.

Like so many actors, Sam got his start in the theater, but once he made the move to California, he jumped in front of the camera and has rarely found himself without work. As far as where you might know him from, it’s virtually impossible to know, given the width and breadth of his filmography, but some key moments from his career have found him playing an obstetrician obsessed with Arthur Fonzarelli on Friends, being stranded for several seasons on Lost, playing principal to a young Forrest Gump, and sparring with just about every doctor at Cook County General on ER. From Perfect Strangers and Growing Pains to four episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati, each one of which found him playing a different character, Anderson has been all up and down your TV dial and then some.

Basically, if you look at this man’s list of credits, you’ll realize that he’s been in just about everything at some point, and while that might be hyperbole with some actors, with Sam Anderson, it’s way closer to the truth than not. As such, there was never any chance that we’d get to everything that you folks asked me to ask him about, but I did my best, and he offered up some great stories to go with all the things that I threw at him.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Sam Anderson talk.

This time I’m letting Jay O. Sanders talk.

Jay started in the theater, quickly found his way in front of the camera, and has successfully forged an extremely substantial career as a character actor. Before that, though, he made his New York theater debut in a “Shakespeare in the Park” performance of Henry V alongside such fellow cast members as William Hurt, Meryl Streep, Michael Moriarty, and Bruce McGill, which – all things considered – is a pretty amazing way to kick off a career. Thankfully, he didn’t stop there, but since it’s statistically unlikely that most listeners have had the opportunity to catch Jay in his various theater performances, don’t worry, you’ll almost certainly recognize him from any number of TV or film appearances.

For me, as I mention in the course of our conversation, he’s instantly Kevin Costner’s right-hand man in JFK. If you’re a fan of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, you might recognize him either from his first appearance, which was as a bad guy working alongside a funeral home owner played by Jim Gaffigan, or you might remember him when he stepped in to keep Goren and Eames in line for the series’ final season. More recently, you might’ve seen him on NBC’s Blindspot, Prime Video’s Sneaky Pete, USA’s The Sinner, or Discovery’s Manhunt: Deadly Games, i.e. the season about the Unabomber.

But Jay’s done so much stuff that there’s really no telling where you might’ve seen him. AfterMASH? Crime Story? Roseanne? Eddie Macon’s Run? Okay, that’s kind of an outlier, but if you’re from my generation, they played that thing incessantly on HBO back in the day. He’s also in The Young Riders, Angels in the Outfield, The Big Green, Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, The Day After Tomorrow… He’s definitely an actor where you can comfortably use the phrase, “And the list goes on…” And suffice it to say that he’s got at least as many stories as he’s got roles in his back catalog.

That feels like a more than sufficient intro. It’s time to let Jay O. Sanders talk.

This time I’m talking to someone who was once named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Not that it came up in the conversation, but it just feels like a real pop culture badge of accomplishment, so I felt like I needed to mention it.

Mark Harmon has been acting since the ‘70s,  but while he earned an Emmy nod for his work in the 1977 miniseries Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, it really wasn’t until the ‘80s that he started to hit his stride in terms of mainstream popularity. From Flamingo Road to St. Elsewhere, playing Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger to playing against Kirstie Alley in Carl Reiner’s film Summer School, he was a major figure on both TV and film.

In the 1990s, however, despite working steadily in film and on TV, Harmon struggled to find a long-term foothold on the small screen. That situation changed in a big way in the early 2000s, when an arc on The West Wing led to a backdoor pilot on JAG that turned into the most popular role of his lengthy career: playing Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS.

In the series 19th season, Harmon stepped away from NCIS, and although he’s kept a foot in that world by narrating the prequel series, NCIS: Origins, and continued to act when he’s of a mind to do so, he’s spent more time writing of late, collaborating with Leon Carroll, Jr. on a series of books: Ghosts of Honolulu, Ghosts of Panama, and the just-released Ghosts of Sicily. Military history buffs will particularly enjoy the series, and as I mention to him during the course of our conversation, the latest book could be subtitled Military and Mobsters. It’s a great read.

Given how carefully Gibbs used to choose his words on NCIS, it may surprise you that Harmon is a talker, and as a result, I didn’t get to hit on every topic I would’ve liked, but I’ll say that just about anything we didn’t touch on in this conversation, we talked about it in my Random Roles interview with him, which can find in the AV Club archives. Suffice to say, however, that we had a great chat that makes for a fun listen.

And with all of that said, it’s time to let Mark Harmon talk.