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Terry Gross

Stories

  • Celebrating movie icons: Samuel Jackson

    In this 2000 interview, the Pulp Fiction star remembered watching movies in segregated theaters. Though he often plays tough guys he said, in real life, "I don't walk around looking for trouble."

  • Celebrating movie icons: Spike Lee

    Lee's first film, 1986's She’s Gotta Have It, helped make him a central figure in independent and Black cinema. In 2017, he talked about adapting that film into a 10-part Netflix series.

  • Celebrating movie icons: The films of Sergio Leone

    Once disparaged as "spaghetti Westerns," Leone's films helped revive the genre, and ushered in a unique visual style. In 2005, cultural historian Christopher Frayling reflected on Leone's influence.

  • Celebrating movie icons: Eli Wallach

    Wallach, who died in 2014, learned to ride horses as a young man. He later made a career playing villains in Westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Originally broadcast in 1990.

  • Celebrating movie icons: Clint Eastwood

    Eastwood's breakout role came in the 1964 Western A Fistful of Dollars. In 1997 he talked about his signature squint: "[There's a] bunch of lights ... and it's 90 degrees and it's hard not to squint."

  • Celebrating movie icons: Isabella Rossellini

    Rossellini talked about being the daughter of movie icons Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini and about playing playing an abused woman in Blue Velvet.