Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Todd Rundgren is in a class all his own. Whether scoring Top 40 hits, playing all of the instruments on his albums or wildly experimenting with musical genres, Rundgren is continuously pushing the boundaries of creativity. That ethos and ingenuity can be found in his numerous solo albums from the 70s to present day, with his band Utopia and as a record producer for musicians like Patti Smith, The Psychedelic Furs and MeatLoaf. The trailblazing Rundgren is also a pioneer in computer technology and multimedia – creating the first color graphics tablet, first interactive album and first interactive concert tour. Todd Rundgren tells Alec how he pulls off making the music he wants to make, how he almost changed careers to become a computer programmer and how psychedelics helped him rethink music completely.

You can listen to all of the music from this episode and other selections from Todd Rundgren in a curated playlist here.

Originally released May 23rd, 2022.

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Lou Gramm is a legendary singer and songwriter best known as co-founder and original frontman of Foreigner. Gramm is considered among the greatest and most successful rock vocalists of his generation. He co-wrote many of Foreigner's hits with bandmate Mick Jones. Together, they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame class of 2013 and in 2024, Gramm was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Foreigner. Gramm is the voice behind hit songs such as “Juke Box Hero”, “Urgent", and “I Want to Know What Love Is”. In March 2026, Gramm released his first full-length solo album since 1989. Paired with this conversation is Here’s The Thing’s 2017 conversation with another legendary singer-songwriter: Jon Anderson. The co-founder of the progressive rock band Yes and renowned for his unmistakable vocals and songwriting, Anderson is the voice behind timeless hits including “Roundabout,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” and “I've Seen All Good People”. In 2017, Anderson was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Yes. With a career spanning more than five decades, Anderson continues to tour worldwide.

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To celebrate 15 years of great conversations, we're revisiting Alec's first episode from 2011. Michael Douglas has lived in the same apartment overlooking Central Park for decades. Alec joins him there for a compelling conversation about what makes a great director and why playing the villain is so wonderful. Douglas reveals how competition with his father, legendary actor Kirk Douglas, shaped both his career and his life as a parent. He says he’s much more honest with his young daughter than he ever thought he’d be. Douglas explains how his father’s early brush with death, and his own cancer diagnosis affected them each in different ways.

Originally released October 23rd, 2011.

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Mark Twain once likened biographies to “the clothes and buttons of the man” saying “the biography of the man himself cannot be written.” The quote is a favorite of Patricia Bosworth, a 1950s model-actor turned biographer known for capturing the lives of Diane Arbus, Montgomery Clift, and Marlon Brando. All three were revered and haunted by internal demons—a narrative she knows too well. Bosworth's own father, Bartley Crum, was a left-wing lawyer who famously defended the Hollywood Ten before succumbing to his own psychological pain. It was her father's suicide, as well as her brother's six years earlier, that instilled a strong desire to seek out the stories of other tormented souls. Patricia Bosworth's book The Men in My Life turns that voyage inward, painting a picture of a resilient woman with a tragic story of her own.

Originally released August 22nd, 2017. Patricia Bosworth passed away on April 2nd, 2020.

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Dubbed “the hottest artist on the classical music planet” by The New York Times, pianist Lang Lang has reached a level of stardom rare for classical musicians. But his prominence is hard-won. Alec, who adores Lang Lang's charisma and talent, elicits from his guest stories of hardship during his childhood in northeastern China, and of his slow climb to the top, via Philadelphia. That's where fish-out-of-water Lang Lang showed up at the age of 15 and enrolled in public high school as well as conservatory. Throughout the interview, Lang Lang plays pieces from his latest album, Piano Book, a collection of pieces normally reserved for young learners, reinterpreted with brilliance and respect by the great master.

Originally aired September 17th, 2019.

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Illeana Douglas is an Emmy-nominated actress, writer, producer, director, and author whose career spans film, television, and classic-cinema preservation. The granddaughter of two-time Academy Award-winning actor Melvyn Douglas, Illeana Douglas has appeared in acclaimed films such as as “Goodfellas”, “Cape Fear”, “To Die For”, “Grace of My Heart", "Chasing Amy", "Ghost World", and "Factory Girl”. Her television credits include “Ugly Betty” and “Six Feet Under”, for which she received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress. She is also the creator and star of the award-winning web series “Easy to Assemble”. A lifelong devotee of classic cinema, Douglas has hosted several Turner Classic Movies Spotlight series and contributed to numerous film documentaries. Douglas is also an accomplished author. Her memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived in and Out of the Movies, was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s best books of 2015. Her other books include Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia and the recently published Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women.

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Edie Falco says she is nothing like Carmela Soprano. Nor does she have much in common with Nurse Jackie. But Falco made these characters two of the most identifiable and human women in television history. She has an armful of Emmys, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards—and a cadre of dedicated fans—to prove it. Along the way, she's battled cancer, raised two children on her own, and is a recovering alcoholic. But Falco doesn't want your sympathy; she tells host Alec Baldwin that her greatest professional accomplishment is creating a fun, respectful atmosphere on-set. She credits her multiple successes to good luck, great mentors, and says there's no predicting which way her career could have gone—or will go yet.

Originally aired April 28th, 2015.

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Daniel Immerwahr is a historian, scholar, professor, and author whose work explores U.S. and global history, with a particular focus on the ways the past continues to shape the present. He currently teaches U.S. and global history at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. Immerwahr is also the author of the nonfiction historical book Thinking Small, which won the Merle Curti Award, and How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, published in 2019 and named a national bestseller, one of the New York Times critics' top books of the year, and the winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Prize. In addition to his books and academic work, Immerwahr is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and his writing has also appeared in publications including The Atlantic and The New York Times. Immerwahr’s teaching and writing examine American history within a broader global context, drawing upon history to explore questions of politics, power, and the forces shaping the United States today.

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Mick Fleetwood is the drummer and a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful rock bands of all time. Fleetwood talks to Alec about how dyslexia led him to drumming, how supportive parents encouraged his talent and his move to London as a teenager, how his friendship with the band’s founder, guitarist Peter Green, evolved into a lifelong friendship, and how Fleetwood Mac balanced the weight of their interpersonal dynamics and the band’s wild, over-the-top success. The band’s 1977 album Rumors broke through the Billboard 100 again in 2020 thanks to a TikTok of a man on a skateboard lip-syncing to Dreams and introduced a whole new generation to Fleetwood Mac’s beautiful, enduring music.

Originally aired January 26, 2021

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Josh Fox is an independent filmmaker, playwright, and environmental activist best known for his Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning 2010 documentary, GASLAND. He is also the founder and artistic director of International WOW Company, a film and theater company working closely with actors, filmmakers, theater-makers, writers, activists, and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds, including activist communities in sustainable energy and design, creating work that addresses current national and global environmental, social and political crises. As a filmmaker, Fox’s work has been featured on HBO, Netflix, and premiered at both the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. His debut documentary film, GASLAND, earned a Special Jury Prize at Sundance as well as an Oscar nomination and Emmy win. As a theatrical director, he has been praised by the New York Times as "one of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde”. Fox has also contributed as a journalist to publications such as Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, NowThis, AJ+ and Huffington Post. Fox’s documentary work returns to HBO this summer 2026 with his latest film, THE WELCOME TABLE, which tells the story of climate refugees across six continents who were displaced from their homes by climate disasters.

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Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Justine Bateman. In 2023, as the writers’ and actors' strike in Hollywood stretched into the fall, many have called this moment “existential.” After negotiations with AMPTP, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, broke down, SAG-AFTRA and WGA members took to picket lines over dwindling wages and the use of artificial intelligence, which may change the entertainment industry forever. Writer, director, and producer Justine Bateman is one guild member warning of A.I.'s potentially devastating influence. Following her roles in Family Ties and Satisfaction, among many others, Bateman transitioned to working behind the scenes as a filmmaker and author. She earned her Computer Science and Digital Media Management degree from UCLA in 2016, which has become all the more relevant facing the rise of A.I. Bateman speaks with Alec Baldwin about the threat A.I. poses to the entire entertainment industry, how the business has changed since she first started in it, and what drives her creative work.

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Kurt Andersen has spent four decades chronicling America’s culture and politics in both fiction and nonfiction. In 1986, Andersen co-founded Spy Magazine, which became a cultural zeitgeist and influenced a generation of journalists. Andersen then co-created and hosted Studio 360, a Peabody Award-winning public radio show and podcast about art and pop culture which aired from 2000 to 2020. He is also a former editor-in-chief of New York magazine, columnist and staff writer for the New Yorker, Time magazine critic and columnist, and has written for television, film, and the stage. Andersen appears regularly as a commentator on MSNOW, and continues to contribute to The Atlantic and the New York Times. In addition to his work in print media, Kurt Andersen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History and Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History, as well as the bestselling novels You Can’t Spell America Without Me, True Believers, Heyday, and Turn of the Century.

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Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Jon Anderson. Many words can be used to describe singer-songwriter Jon Anderson; cautious is not one of them. Born in England in 1944, he began singing on his brother’s daily route as a milkman before falling head first for rock n’ roll. After meeting bassist Chris Squire in the late 1960s, he joined a rock group called Mabel Greer’s Toy Shop—and the two left to form a band that was later renamed Yes. Now 72, he’s sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. But for the adventurous Anderson—whose rendition of Goldfinger earned him the nickname "The Shirley Bassey of Rock and Roll," it’s still all about the music.

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You would recognize Emmy Award-nominated actor Stephen Root from over 300 film and television credits including iconic roles in “Office Space”, “NewsRadio”, “King of the Hill”, “Dodgeball”, “Idiocracy”, and “Barry” - for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Stephen Root’s illustrious career on screen includes five Coen brothers films and prestige television series such as “True Blood”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “The Man in the High Castle”, “Perry Mason”, “Succession”, “Barry”, and AppleTV’s new comedy-horror series “Widow's Bay” - which has earned Root his second Emmy Award nomination. Stephen Root got his start in a traveling Shakespeare company, then continued to perform on and off-Broadway for fifteen years before becoming one of Hollywood’s most beloved character actors.

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Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Becca Heller. On January 27th, 2017, Donald Trump issued the travel ban barring visitors and migrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Becca Heller, founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), had seen it coming. She foresaw that it would catch people in planes, turning passengers into undocumented immigrants midair. She prepared by setting up a network of volunteer lawyers who would show up at airports to help travelers being held there. On the 27th, the lawyers came, followed by thousands of protesters. The Trump administration, facing legal losses and "chaos at the airports," gave up enforcing the ban until officials could draft a new version. For a while, the good guys had won. Two years later, with a MacArthur "genius" grant under her belt, the 37-year-old Heller is strategizing about where to take refugee-advocacy next. Serious stuff, but she's still one of the funniest people ever to come on Here's the Thing.

The International Refugee Assistance Project is at https://refugeerights.org/.

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Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Richard Kind. Single-handedly redefining the term “character actor,” the accomplished Richard Kind is surely one of the hardest working people in show business. His resume is unfathomably wide and deep, with over 270 film and television credits, spanning roles that exploit his killer comedic timing, like sitcoms “Spin City” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and those that exercise his dramatic chops, like HBO’s “Luck” and the CBS procedural “East New York.” He’s an actor just as likely to appear in an Oscar-winning feature film as an animated one, to scene-steal a sketch comedy series as to star in an indie short. Kind is also a Tony-nominated stage actor, having appeared on Broadway in “The Producers,” “Funny Girl” and “The Big Knife,” among many others. Richard Kind speaks with host Alec Baldwin about the type of comedians that raised him, how he found his way to the profession after almost attending law school – and why he believes he is the “Costco of acting.”

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Jon Tenney is a Juilliard-trained actor and director whose work spans film, television, and theater. Best known for portraying FBI Agent Fritz Howard on the hit TNT drama “The Closer”, Tenney appeared on the series for all seven seasons and directed episodes of both “The Closer” and its spin-off, "Major Crimes”. His television credits also include roles in “Scandal”, “True Detective”, “And Just Like That…”, and “The Lincoln Lawyer”. Tenney has appeared in films such as “I See You”, “The Seagull”, “Tombstone”, “You Can Count on Me”, and “Rabbit Hole”. A respected stage actor, he has performed on Broadway and at Lincoln Center in works by playwrights including Tom Stoppard and David Mamet. His latest role is on the new MGM+ comedy series “American Classic,” which was a labor of love for Tenney, who is also an Executive Producer in addition to a principal cast member alongside Kevin Kline and Laura Linney.

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This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton. “Sound is very inspirational to me,” explains Frampton – and it always has been: he started playing guitar before he was 8 years old.

Frampton talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who he says is “sort of like my mentor, my older brother.” Eleven years later, Frampton was on stage in San Francisco, recording "Frampton Comes Alive," one of the biggest selling live albums of all times.

Frampton also talks about the challenges of his extraordinary success: “I don’t think anybody can be ready for that kind of success,” explains Frampton.

Peter Frampton recently completed a 35th anniversary tour of Frampton Comes Alive – a DVD will be available later this year.

Originally aired July 15th, 2012.

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Andres Veiel is an award-winning German filmmaker, writer, and director renowned for his incisive examinations of history, politics, memory, and moral responsibility. Trained in psychology before turning to filmmaking, Veiel’s acclaimed works include Black Box BRD, Beuys, If Not Us, Who?, and Riefenstahl. Sandra Maischberger is one of Germany’s most prominent journalists, broadcasters, and documentary producers. Best known as the longtime host of the political talk show Maischberger, she has spent more than three decades interviewing world leaders, artists, and influential public figures. Together, Maischberger and Veiel made the 2024 documentary Riefenstahl, which reexamines the life and legacy of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, director of Triumph of the Will. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material, the film investigates Riefenstahl’s relationship to the Nazi regime, the enduring power of propaganda, and asks the difficult questions surrounding her artistic achievement, complicity, and legacy.

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Jon Robin Baitz is a playwright who admits that writing plays is tricky. He’s a snob for Broadway, where the cachet and laughs are bigger. But deep down, this award-winning playwright considers it a privilege to be working in American theater at all. Alec speaks to Baitz about his Broadway debut play, Other Desert Cities, that came from a place of despair and loss—and his own personal experience writing for television in Hollywood.

Originally aired June 4th, 2012.

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