THE HOLLYWOOD PODCAST

Writer/director/actor Thales Corrêa (BATHROOM STALLS & PARKING LOTS—now streaming on Peacock; Cannes shorts MILVIO and PARENTS) was a member of the Second City Writing Program, where he co-developed the series concept "Poly People" with classmate Melissa Girard. Thales, in turn, engaged his fellow Brazilian production partner Anthony Moore, who, in the throes of a pandemic and unemployment-induced depression, saw the job as therapy and agreed to work on it right away.

Michael Simon Hall stars in the upcoming independent noir thriller "Women" released on May 28th from Gravitas Pictures both in theaters and VOD. From Islandic filmmaker Anton Sigurdsson making his US debut, this story is about a small-town detective who while investigating the disappearance of a local woman comes across an unassuming Sociology Professor (Hall) who leads a double life. And how far would you go to survive?  The film also Anna Marie Dobbins, Anna Maiche and Adam Dorsey.

After a life in the theater, Michael recently started breaking through on screen, quickly rising from having several short films at Tribeca, Sundance, MoMA and on PBS to appearing in HBO’s “I Know This Much is True,” with Mark Ruffalo, Season 2 of Netflix’s “The Politician,” HBO’s “The Leftovers,” and “The Life and Death of Robert Durst,” the feature film “The Dark End of the Street,” from Kevin Tran, and more.

You can check out his work on his website at MichaelSimonHall.com and follow him on Instagram and Twitter @MichaelSimonHall.

Amy Duddleston is the editor of the new critically-acclaimed HBO limited series Mare of Easttown. Amy chats with Max on the challenges shooting a series with several characters, ensuring the audience was following an incredibly complex murder case, and collaborating with creator Brad Ingelsby and director Craig Zobel.

Starring Kate Winslet as the titular character, a detective named Mare Sheehan in a Philadelphia suburb investigates the recent murder of a teenage mother while trying to keep her own life from falling apart. Mare is a local hero, having been the star of a high-school basketball championship game 25 years ago. She has also been unable to solve the case of another missing young girl for a year, leading many in the community to doubt her detective skills. Her personal troubles include a divorce, a son lost to suicide, and an ex-heroin addict former daughter-in-law battling for custody of Mare's grandson.

Amy's previous credits include the television series Hunters, Vida, American Odyssey, Dexter, In Treatment, The Killing and Big Love. Her past film credits include Nothing Like the Holidays, High Art, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, Laurel Canyon, and Gus Van Sant's Pyscho.

Ben Cavell is the showrunner, co-creator and executive producer of the CBS All Access miniseries The Stand, adapted from Stephen King’s seminal novel of the same name.  THE STAND, which features an all-star cast including Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgård, James Marsden, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Greg Kinnear, Nat Wolff, and Amber Heard, follows an apocalyptic vision of a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil. The miniseries released during a time that is eerily relevant given the real-world COVID-19 pandemic we've lived through over the last year.

Ben has an extensive career in television as writer and producer on critically acclaimed shows including JUSTIFIED, HOMELAND, SNEAKY PETE and SEAL TEAM, on which he also served as Creator. THE STAND and SEAL TEAM are both available to stream on Paramount+, formerly known as CBS All Access.

Ben has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Homeland in 2016, and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series for Justified in 2011.

Actress/singer/songwriter Darcy Rose Byrnes currently stars as Harper on the Disney+ series "Big Shot". In addition to starring in the series, Darcy Rose also wrote five original songs that are showcased throughout the season.

In her chat with Max, Darcy Rose shares how she got the part of Harper, her immediate connection with on-screen love interest Tisha Custodio, what it was like portraying an LGBT relationship for a Disney series, writing five original songs for the show, her experience working with TV veterans like John Stamos and Yvette Nicole Brown, and what she has in store for us next.

Darcy Rose's previous on-screen credits include Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, The Young and the Restless, and The Bold and the Beautiful. She's also known for providing her vocal talents to animated shows such as The Legend of Korra and Sofia the First.

Katori Hall is the creator, showrunner, executive producer and writer of the STARZ original series P-Valley, which made a huge splash with its first season premiere last July and quickly becoming a major critical and audience hit for the network. The series—which was immediately renewed for a second season, now filming—is produced by Lionsgate Television, with whom Hall subsequently signed her first overall deal last December. Under the new deal, she will continue to executive produce P-Valley and also develop and produce new scripted content across Lionsgate broadcast, cable and streaming platforms.

P-Valley—based on Hall’s acclaimed play Pussy Valley—focuses on the lives of strip club dancers working in the Dirty Delta of Mississippi. In creating the show, Hall made it a priority to hire a team that represented, both onscreen and off, the same diversity she aims to depict in the series, including a writers room made up almost entirely of women, including people of color and LGBTQ+ writers, as well as a diverse set of all women directors, and multiple women and people of color as department heads. P-Valley also has no shortage of breakthrough performances, with star-making turns from Nicco Annan, Brandee Evans, J. Alphonse Nicholson, Elarica Johnson and more.

Hall's groundbreaking work on Season 1 led to the series being named to countless ‘Best of 2020’ lists including Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire, New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, Time Magazine, TV Guide, Variety, Vulture, and more. It also received nominations from the Gotham Awards; Film Independent Spirit Awards; an ‘Outstanding Drama Series’ nomination from the GLAAD Media Awards; and six NAACP Image Award nominations, including two for Hall in the ‘Outstanding Breakthrough Creative (Television)’ and ‘Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series’ categories.

The past year, Hall also received two Tony Award nominations for ‘Best Musical’ and ‘Best Book of a Musical’ as a producer and the writer of the smash hit Broadway musical, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, which received 12 nominations overall.

Currently, Katori appears as a talking head in HBO’s hit documentary film, Tina, offering her unique observations on the legacy of the icon alongside such contributing luminaries as Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett, and more. Her upbringing in the same Memphis area where Tina Turner came of age greatly informed Katori’s writing of the musical, and her observations throughout the documentary further confirm how beautifully she connected with Turner’s life story. Unsurprisingly, she brings the same authenticity to her work on P-Valley.

A renowned playwright, Katori won an Olivier Award in 2010 for ‘Best New Play’ for The Mountaintop, which fictionalizes the last night in Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and is based on her own mother's experiences in Memphis during that time. The play opened Broadway in October 2011 in a production that memorably starred Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett.

Rachel Lee Goldenberg is the writer and director of the critically acclaimed HBO Max Original film Unpregnant, co-starring Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira. The film is now a top Emmy contender for Outstanding Television Movie and the directing and writing categories for TV movie.

Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Ted Caplan and Jenni Hendriks, Unpregnant follows a pregnant teen whose decision to get an abortion leads her on a 1000-mile hilarious road trip to New Mexico over three days with her ex-best friend, where they discover sometimes the most important choice you’ll make in life is who your friends are. The film was produced by Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Erik Feig and released on the platform September 2020.

Rachel previously won a Primetime Emmy award for “Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program” for producing Between Two Ferns with President Obama in 2014. Prior to Unpregnant, she directed MGM’s Valley Girl, a musical remake of the 1983 cult classic, and she can next be seen directing and executive producing Minx, an upcoming comedy series from HBO Max, which will follow an earnest young feminist (Ophelia Lovibond) who joins forces with a low-rent publisher to create the first erotic magazine for women.​

Danielle Brooks stars as the iconic gospel legend and civil rights activist Mahalia Jackson in Lifetime's latest biopic "Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia".

The Tony Award nominee, SAG and Grammy Award-winner also serves as Executive Producer on the film. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon premiered on Lifetime on April 3, Mahalia ranked as cable’s #1 telecast for the night with Brooks now considered a top contender for Best Actress in Limited Series or Movie at this year's Primetime Emmy Awards.

Brooks spoke with Max on how she prepared for the role of Mahalia Jackson, what it was like working with Robin Roberts, and shares her experience currently filming the upcoming DC Comics series/Suicide Squad spin-off Peacemaker & co-starring with John Cena. Peacemaker is created, executive produced, written, and directed by James Gunn. Peacemaker will be premiere January 2022 on HBO Max.

Tisha Custodio stars in the new ABC/Disney+ series "Big Shot" where John Stamos plays a temperamental basketball coach who is fired from his current job and ends up in an elite girls private high school. The show's cast also includes Yvette Nicole Brown and Jessalyn Gilsig. Custodio plays Carolyn "Mouse" Smith, one of the players on the basketball team at the high school. Custodio chats with Max on what it was like working with Stamos and the other cast members, how she got the part of Mouse, and what she learned about acting that she'll take with her to future projects.

Big Shot was created by David E. Kelley, Dean Lorey, and Brad Garrett and is streaming now on Disney+

Film and television costume designer Lizz Wolf chats with Max on her new Netflix superhero series Jupiter's Legacy, which premiered on the streaming service this past Friday.

Based on the original comic book series by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, Jupiter's Legacy is about three superheroes - The Utopian (Josh Duhamel), Brain Wave (Ben Daniels) and Lady Liberty (Leslie Bibb), known as the first generation of superheroes - who have kept the world safe for almost a century. They are stepping down, as their children take on the role of living up to their potential and legacy. This epic drama is spanning multiple decades through the trials and tribulations of family, power and loyalty.

Wolf chats about what it was like designing costumes of superhero characters for the first time, planning looks across the multiple time periods of the show, and what it was like working with Millar, Quitely, and recurring collaborator Steven DeKnight (director/executive producer). Wolf's previous credits include The Expendables film franchise, Creed II, and Pacific Rim: Uprising (also directed by DeKnight).