The Empire Film Podcast Ft. California Schemin’ Director James McAvoy

Ok, first things first. Let’s get it out of the way. Yes, the Empire Podcast team — Chris Hewitt, Helen O’Hara, James Dyer, and John Nugent — spend a great deal of this week’s podcast answering a listener question about great movie quartets. They also spend a great deal of time, in the Movie News […]

The Empire Film Podcast Ft. California Schemin’ Director James McAvoy

Ok, first things first. Let’s get it out of the way. Yes, the Empire Podcast team — Chris Hewitt, Helen O’Hara, James Dyer, and John Nugent — spend a great deal of this week’s podcast answering a listener question about great movie quartets. They also spend a great deal of time, in the Movie News section, talking about The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. And yes, despite all that, they spectacularly fail to mention Bilbo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin in the former category. So, just letting you know that now lest you wish to shout at your podcast device of choice. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. Or maybe fourwarned is more apt in this case.

Anyway, it’s a fun episode in which our own quartet also talk Taskmaster series 21, discuss other nuggets of movie news, and review James McAvoy’s directorial debut, California Schemin’, Francois Ozon’s The Stranger, rom-com You, Me & Tuscany, and podcasting horror, Undertone. And Chris has a lovely chat with James McAvoy, who pops into the podbooth to talk about directing for the first time. [41:45 — 1:00:32 approx] Oh, and the group make tentative and fun plans with this week’s work experience person. Enjoy.

And if all of the above isn’t quite enough Empire Podcast for you, then there’s plenty more where that came from. You can listen to this week’s episode (which, if you’re counting, is #712) on the pod app of your choice. There, you’ll also find the latest episode of Empire Pod regular The Interviews, which brings you even more chat with the cast and crew behind the biggest new releases. The most recent instalment sees Chris Hewitt talking to actual Richard Kind about his role as Max Bialystock in the West End production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers; Chris again, chatting with You, Me & Tuscany stars Regé-Jean Page and Halle Bailey; and finally, Mike Muncer has a lovely chat over Zoom with Ian Tuason and Nina Kiri, the director and star of Undertone. You lucky, lucky lot!

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