Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Actor Sebastian Stan has built a career out of shapeshifting. This week, he joins us to discuss the process of transforming into Donald J. Trump in The Apprentice (8:27), his personal relationship to the American dream (15:35), and the extensive research that went into recreating 1970s-1980s New York City in the film (

For the past 50 years, Nikki Giovanni has been one of our preeminent poets. Rest in Power to the legendary writer and activist, who passed this week at the age of 81. Today we return to our conversation from 2021, reflecting on how her childhood led to a life of writing (6:21), the enduring impact of a televised conver

It’s been a year. And while we’re not quite done with it (3:15), we wanted to take a moment to celebrate some of our favorite episodes and guests from 2024.  On the front half, we revisit passages from actor-turned-director Dev Patel (5:45), the legendary Francis Ford Coppola on Jacques Tati and failure (11:45), filmma

To close out the holiday weekend, we're revisiting our conversation with writer, food expert, and television host Padma Lakshmi. At the top, we discuss her Hulu docuseries Taste the Nation (4:40), a formative episode in El Paso, Texas (8:14), and how the show connects to Padma’s personal history (11:59). Then, she refl

Today, for your holiday week, we’re returning to one of our favorite 2024 conversations with actor Jeff Daniels. Daniels is always writing. Plays, songs, a script or two. Even in interviews you get the sense the Michigan native is trying to relay the stories of his life in a way he’d find compelling as a reader, or lis

Actor, writer, and director Jesse Eisenberg’s latest project, A Real Pain, is perhaps his most personal to date. He joins us today to unpack the journey that shaped the film (9:18), memories from his travels to Poland (15:40), and what he observed about his family growing up in East Brunswick (22:23). Then, Eisenberg r