Salon Talks

Through his roles in movies like "Warrior," "Exodus: Gods and Kings," and "The Gift," Joel Edgerton has cultivated an image as one of the industry's most reliable tough guys. But in real life, the director, screenwriter, and costar of "Boy Erased," has developed a different idea of what true strength looks like. 

"I grew up in the eighties, when the bigger your muscles, the bigger a movie star you were," Egerton told Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams on “Salon Talks.” "One of the myths about masculinity is that you're not allowed to show your sensitivity. It's the stereotype of the silent father. As a young man I identified with that. I thought strength was silence and stoicism and only speaking when necessary, and that weakness the opposite. Weakness was being open about feelings, about having words to describe what was going on for you internally." 

Now, he says, "I realized at too late an age that those definitions should be flipped. Strength should be expression, and weakness is limiting one's expression."

It's that respect for the courage of open expression which drew Edgerton to taking on the film adaptation of Garrad Conley's 2016 memoir of enduring gay conversion therapy as a teenager, “Boy Erased.”

Listen to this episode to learn more about Edgerton’s vision as a director on “Boy Erased” and his take why gay conversion therapy is so hard to abolish. 

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

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When Jill Soloway won an Emmy Award for their groundbreaking Amazon series "Transparent" two years ago, they enthusiastically encouraged the audience to "topple the patriarchy." Six weeks later, the election of Donald Trump reminded us all that the patriarchy remains still very much untoppled.

In 2018, Soloway is boldly calling out inequity and challenging established norms around power and gender in Hollywood. On “Salon Talks,” Soloway shared their book "She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy," a memoir, both personal and political, about coming out as non-binary and grappling with what to do when the MeToo movement inspired revelations about the star of their own show, Jeffrey Tambor.

Part of toppling the patriarchy, Soloway explained on “Salon Talks,” is wrapped up in how we see gender. “All these misconceptions about gender don’t do anything to help us,” Soloway said. Instead, Soloway is advocating for many definitions of gender.

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

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Delaney Tarr, a student journalist and graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who survived one of the most deadly school shootings in U.S. history joins “Salon Talks” to urge you to vote.

Tarr explains how she and her peers mobilized and built a movement around ending gun violence and in support of gun reform, known as the March for Our Lives. “I’ve never seen a community so unified in the way that it was after the shooting. It’s not just that something horrible happened, it’s that it’s a shared experience that we’ve all had,” Tarr told Salon. “We get it. We get not only going through this tragedy, but the huge weight of activism, the pressure of it.”

Tarr and her fellow Parkland survivors have turned to mobilizing young people to vote in a big way. “We are a huge group of the voting population, but only one in five people in our age demographic votes,” Tarr said. “If we were to change that, than we could sway pretty much every election in our favor. We could control who has the power in this country.”

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

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Paul Greengrass, the prolific director of the films “Captain Phillips” and “United 93,” is not shy about calling out the dangers of rising populist politics in Europe and the United States. Greengrass joins “Salon Talks” to discuss his new Netflix film “22 July,” which tells the story of Norway’s most horrific terror attack that left 77 dead in 2011 at the hands of right-wing extremist Anders Breivik. 

When talking about the film, Greengrass denounced current right-wing extremism. The Academy Award nominee explained, “Young people in large numbers are being drawn to alternatives. Some of which lie within democratic norms but towards the right-hand edge, but some of which, for sure, lie well outside.” 

The fear of ideologies like Breivik’s invading the mainstream is partially what drove Greengrass to make “22 July.” “These arguments that he articulated, and we show in the film, that he used in his trial, and were on the margins in 2012, now are in the mainstream,” Greengrass said.

Greengrass emphasized the importance of shedding light on shifting global politics. “This narrative of betrayal and rage is driving everything before it in our democracies and that is very, very troubling.”

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

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Actress Rosamund Pike joins “Salon Talks” to discuss her role as the late, intrepid war correspondent Marie Colvin in “A Private War.”

Colvin is the admired “Sunday Times” journalist who braved conflict zones to give voice to the voiceless faces of war and even lost an eye while reporting in Sri Lanka. However, Pike, who earned an Oscar nomination for her duplicitous role in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” insists that Colvin was more vulnerable than her fierce career leads on.

“One thing I really found was she was not fearless,” Pike told Salon. “I found that real courage is when, my goodness, you do have fear, but you feel that the pursuit of what you’re going after is worth quelling it, suppressing it and writing through it.” 

Taking on the work of becoming Colvin, who suffered extreme PTSD and alcoholism from the intense violence she witnessed, was the “most intimate” character yet for Pike. On preparing for the combat scenes in the film, Pike said, “You have to take your mind to a very scary place and just see what your body produces. You can’t plan for scenes like that as an actor.” 

Pike also spoke to playing a journalist, whose reflections and emotions were contained and solitary. “Some of the loneliest places are when you are by yourself,” Pike said. “Perhaps you’ve had the maelstrom of your brain, flooded with the images you witness, and then you have to go back to a hotel or wherever you’re sheltering—sometimes it’s a bombed out hospital—and file your copy.”

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

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Michael Kelly has been nominated for three Emmy Awards for his role as Doug Stamper on Netflix’s “House of Cards.” Kelly joins “Salon Talks” to discuss the show’s final season and why he credits Robin Wright with picking up the pieces and bringing the cast together after the firing of Kevin Spacey.

“We had the hiatus when the news broke, and one of the first calls I made was to Robin [Wright]. I said, 'We can't not do this,' and she said, 'We have to.' She sounded more like Doug Stamper at that moment than I did,” Kelly told “Salon Talks.” “With Robin driving the train, everyone agreed it was the right thing to do to continue. It very quickly became how.”

It was not an easy turnaround — as Kelly notes, "They'd already had all 13 episodes storyboarded. I was done with my first two episodes." But then, "Robin was the leader. She stepped up and brought us all together and made it happen.”

As far as his character Doug goes, following the death of Frank Underwood, Kelly says that Doug is now a man he describes as lost. "For the first time you see this character who's always had a gravitational pull that drove him with his job and the man he served," he says, "and now they're both gone. You see him trying to figure out what the next move is and where he fits in this new world."

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

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“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” author and chef Samin Nosrat is trying to change the food TV show format by appealing directly to home cooks. Based of her James Beard Award-winning cookbook of the same title, Nosrat stars in the new Netflix show “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.” The chef and the series’ director, Caroline Suh, joined “Salon Talks” discuss how the show prides itself on making the basics of home cooking easy and interesting.

“For me, I am very much a champion of home cooking and home cooks. There are so many food shows, really beautiful ones, that exist to elevate professional cooking and professional chefs. But there aren't that many that really celebrate home cooking, or are for home cooks especially,” Nosrat said.

Netflix’s “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” travels around the world for each respective topic (salt, fat, acid and heat). Nosrat emphasizes that the show is unique in highlighting the importance of women in the food world. Considering that most travel cooking shows are led by men, it’s a refreshing take. Making sure women were involved in-front of and behind the camera was intentional.

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

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Chris Gethard is, by any metric, a success. He's had his own HBO special called "Career Suicide," he's hosted a popular TV show, and is the host of the "Beautiful/Anonymous" podcast. That's exactly why he's uniquely qualified to talk about failure. 

Gethard joins Mary Elizabeth Williams on “Salon Talks,” to discuss his new book “Lose Well” and why failure is "not that scary." He recalls, "I've had a lot of things work out. I've had some successes. But I promise you that underneath of all that, the other 90 percent has been nothing but dismal failure. You get used to it. This idea that failure wrecks you is a fallacy, and it keeps us locked up. You just have to go out and learn how to do it. We've convinced ourselves it's a bogeyman. It's not. It can be an ally."

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

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Over his decades-long career, Rupert Everett has played his share of royalty. He's been both King Charles I and George VI; he's played the Prince of Wales and Prince Charming. But as "The Happy Prince," the English actor has created one of his most indelible and deeply personal performances yet. 

Covering the tumultuous last days of Oscar Wilde, "The Happy Prince" is a passion project for Everett, who also wrote and directed the film. Everett opens up on “Salon Talks” about how his vision for Wilde came together over the past decade and dives into politics with Salon.

About “Salon Talks”

Hosted by Salon journalists, “Salon Talks” episodes offer a fresh take on the long-form interview format, and a much-needed break from the partisan political talking heads that have come to dominate the genre. “Salon Talks” is a destination for information through conversation. Viewers can expect discussions with A-list actors, artists, authors, thinkers, and newsmakers as we explore the full range of the human condition. The show streams live on Facebook and Twitter and each episode is published in full on Salon.com.

Watch SalonTV, streaming live daily on Salon.com, and YouTube.

Subscribe to SalonTV on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/salontv

Like Salon on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/salon

Follow Salon on Twitter HERE: https://twitter.com/salon

Follow Salon on Instagram HERE: https://www.instagram.com/salonofficial