Sam Smith sat down with Marc Fennell to talk about their queer awakening at Mardi Gras, fame, and why being on the cusp of a breakdown feels ‘good.’
Sam Smith's queer awakening
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed, Fav
interview
Louis Theroux doesn't trust Scientologists
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed, Fav
He's usually the one asking the questions but this time Louis Theroux sat down in, well, my hotseat to discuss which group of people push his buttons, what he was like as a teenager and what it was like getting his start with Michael Moore.
Edgar Wright: Studios should make one original for every franchise movie
in comedy, Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
So, I spent a weekend chatting to One Nation voters and it was fascinating.
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
When we talk about One Nation we invariably talk about one person: Pauline Hanson. We often don't tend to talk about - or to - the people that actually vote for her. So myself and excellent producer Simon Cunich went to find out what matters to them. What makes them angry? Why are they turning away from both major parties? You may be surprised by their responses. You may be offended. Let me know in the comments what you think.
Kasabian's Tom Meighan opens up about anxiety.
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
After the death of his friend, and a break-up with his partner, Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan is back for the first time in over a year. He opened up to Marc Fennell about his dreams and his depression.
Emeli Sandé: sexism in music, Zambia, and Long Live The Angels
in blogpost, comedy, music, Interviews
She's one of the UK's most successful singer-songwriters and iconic voices: I sit down with Emeli Sande.
'People don't know how sensitive and emotional I am': Jean Claude Van Damme
in Film, Interviews, SBS
He was one of the skinniest kids in his martial arts class as a kid. He went on to be one of the defining action men of the 80's and 90's. But what is JCVD *really* like in person? Well, the answer is below.
Shot by David May & Mark Tadic
Edited by Marc Fennell
Adrien Brody on how hard the Australian accent is and his deep love of Notorious B.I.G
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
Back in 2014 Adrien Brody quietly made a ghost story movie called Backtrack in Australia. It was emotionally taxing & he talks about the challenges of stepping out of a dark, pained character, he explains just how hard it is learning the Australian accent and why he thinks Biggie Smalls is one of America's finest poets.
Meet the new Lara Croft: Alicia Vikander on Brexit, winning an Oscar & making Ex Machina.
in The Feed, SBS, Film, Interviews
Swedish actress Alicia Vikander has had a bloody good year. She was out in Australia promoting the latest Bourne movie but she has a swag of titles in the last few years including Ex Machina and her Oscar winning tilt in The Danish Girl. And she is about to take on the role that turned Angelina Jolie into a bankable star: Lara Croft. Vikander talks about Brexit, Oscar quirks and much more.
Matt Damon on Edward Snowden, surveillance and Ben Affleck
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed, Film
Matt Damn talks about how he and Ben Affleck had 'business lunches', funded their teenage auditions, and begged Michael Bay to watch Good Will Hunting.
Shot by David May
Edited by Marc Fennell
David Bowie's best lessons (According to his son Duncan Jones)
in The Feed, SBS, Film, Interviews
Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie talks about his new movie Warcraft: The Beginning, ethnic diversity in fantasy movies, and growing up on the set of Labyrinth.
"Women have to help other women" Hollywood pioneer Paula Wagner on feminism
in Film, Interviews, SBS, The Feed
She's the woman behind some of Hollywood's biggest success stories (the Mission: Impossible franchise, War of the Worlds) and Paula Wagner has plenty to say on gender equity, working with Tom Cruise and the movie she wishes that people had loved more.
Quentin Tarantino: Piracy, Learning Curves & Hateful Eight.
in Film, Interviews
You’ll never get an easier job as an interviewer than Quentin Tarantino. He is a total pleasure. He responds to pirates uploading his movie, he talks about his steepest learning curve and, of course, his brand new film The Hateful 8. Enjoy, share:)
Making Sherlock: Steven Moffat Interview
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Sherlock's creators on sending him back to the Victorian era for their upcoming special, and why Matt Smith was a perfect Doctor Who.
Albarn keeps his sunglasses on, but opens up about Blur's recent surprise album, North Korea, and the Britpop phenomenon
Damon Albarn: Blur & North Korea
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed, music
Blur. They are one of the most iconic British bands of all time, and after over a decade apart they reformed with lead singer Damon Albarn to create an album largely recorded in one tiny Hong Kong studio.
It’s been eighteen years since Blur performed as a band in Australia, and Albarn has a reputation for being slightly difficult in interviews…
I hope you don’t mind me wearing sunglasses I just haven’t had any sleep in about five days, I’ve got terrible jetlag.
It doesn’t look that bad.
You don’t know you haven’t seen it.
If I asked very nicely, would you consider taking them off?
I don’t normally do it, I just feel really tired.
I love the story about how the album came about. My understanding is you were on your way to festival in Japan, which didn’t happen. So how do you find yourself in a studio in Hong Kong? How did that come about?
I don’t know, we were just like, find us a studio.
How different is it recording now to recording when you were eighteen?
I think everyone is a lot more confident, and less reserved, and more trusting of our instincts. That was the great thing about Hong Kong; there was absolutely no pressure. No one knew what we were doing, and we didn’t think we had to necessarily achieve anything; it was just a nice thing to do. It was literally a way of using our time, so I thought, we’ll make it in five days and put it out next week.
You also found your way into North Korea, and there’s the song Pyongyang; why was it important to go to North Korea?
It wasn’t in the context of this record. I just had this experience and I had all this stuff to say about it, and that song in particular lent itself to that eulogy for a fallen city.
People have preconceptions about North Korea; what was the biggest preconception that you had?
There’s an Englishness in everything from Dr Dee to Parklife, a love of English history. I read that some of that evolved during that American tour before the explosion of the 90s.
Very much so. We found ourselves touring around America to quite a noticeable level of indifference. We definitely developed our stamina of touring. Any process which is difficult you’re going to benefit from it, if it doesn’t kill you.
My songwriting became a sort of imaginary England under the imminent influence of American mass culture. It just felt like, this is going to happen to us. What we’ve seen there is going to happen to us. This is an invasion that is about to happen, and it did happen in a sense.
In terms of the music you put out and the influence you had around the world - are happy with the impact that you had?
It has definitely been adopted by another whole generation. It’s really extraordinary for us, being in our late forties, to see kids having this strange connection with this stuff that we wrote when we were kids.
You can never really imagine that until it happens. I suppose clearly something resonates within those songs that is still meaningful today. Which is great. Lucky us, really.
I found it was quite a magical place in that everyone was under a spell. I found the people really interesting and, on a human level, really nice. I’m aware how terrible North Korea is, but you’re never allowed to see that.
Porter Robinson: DJing with Robots
How Dance Dance Revolution inspired a love of robots and raps.
He is one of the world’s most popular DJ’s. And he can sing with robots. Porter Robinson was just an 11 year old kid in rural North Carolina until he discovered the game Dance Dance Revolution. It sparked a deep personal love of all things electronic. Robinson began tinkering with electronic music & was signed to a record label before he finished school. At just 23 years old he plays to crowds of literally thousands at the biggest music festivals around the world. His last album Worlds shot to the #1 on the iTunes Dance Chart. But Porter Robinson is different to other DJ’s belting out bangers. Robinson has bucked the trend to create music that exists in a virtual world constructed with synthetically voiced raps, odes to Space Invaders and yes, he sings duets with Robots. If you’ve ever thought that dance music is mindless Porter Robinson is the man that will change the way you think.
Gillian Armstrong: Australian Film Pioneer
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
When Gillian Armstrong burst onto the scene with her film My Brilliant Career she because the first Australian feature film director in over 50 years. She is a pioneer. She turned Cate Blanchett and Sam Neill into international names. She talks about her experiences with rampant sexism in the early days of her career, how far we've really come as an industry. She also explains why she resisted directing arguably her most famous film Little Women and she reveals the biggest bullshit artist in Hollywood
Channing Tatum Interview
Star of Magic Mike XXL, Channing Tatum talks to Marc Fennell about his previous career as a stripper and how it inspired the Magic Mike films. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBS2Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbs2 Tumblr: http://sbs2australia.tumblr.com/
Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web
Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, E-Commerce, Wikileaks, Anonymous even LolCats would not exist without this man. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee created the web and irrevocably changed the course of humanity. He's been speaking in Australia and gave his one and only broadcast interview to Download This Show.
And if you'd like to know more on the topic of Net Neutrality, here's a piece I made for Hungry Beast in 2011
Emma Stone Interview
in Interviews, SBS, The Feed
There's at least one thing that you won't see in The Amazing Spider-Man: The Rise of Electro when it opens next week. And that is the character last made famous by Kirsten Dunst: Mary Jane Watson. She was due to be reprised by Shailene Woodley (best known for Divergent, The Descendants and being the new J.Law). All of her scenes have sadly been cut from the final edit of the big budget sequel though. In the above interview Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone talk about why her scenes were dropped.
The interview then shifts into what my wife has since declared to be Shameless-Flirting-With-Emma-Stone-You-Sleep-On-The-Couch-Tonight territory as the comedienne talks about moving to Hollywood at the age of 15 after convincing her parents with the aid of a Powerpoint presentation and clipart.
More importantly, she also made this face:
Which was pretty great.