Trailer
Synopsis
PBS SoCal and Variety take you inside the biggest movies and T.V. shows of the past year through candid conversations with today's hottest actors. Hosted by Variety Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis and Variety Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, each episode brings together pairs of actors engaging in intimate one-on-one discussions about their craft and work.
Episode 12 : Seth Rogen & Jennifer Jason Leigh
December. 18,2015
Seth Rogen (“Steve Jobs”) and “The Hateful Eight” star Jennifer Jason talk about awkward auditions and the challenges of shooting their acclaimed new dramas.
Episode 11 : Paul Dano & Joseph Gordon-Levitt
December. 17,2015
This year, both Paul Dano and Joseph Gordon-Levitt portray real-life legends on screen; Dano plays the young Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in “Love & Mercy,” while Gordon-Levitt takes on the role of wire-walker Philippe Petit in “The Walk.
Episode 10 : Kate Winslet & Saoirse Ronan
December. 17,2015
Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet each won acclaim as teenagers. Ronan was 13 when she earned an Oscar nom for “Atonement,” while Winslet was 17 when she burst onto the scene in Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures.” In their new films, both use accents that are not their own. Ronan headlines “Brooklyn,” playing an Irish girl who immigrates to New York in the 1950s. Winslet disappears behind a wig, glasses, and a Polish accent for “Steve Jobs” to portray Joanna Hoffman, a friend and adviser to the Apple founder.
Episode 9 : Carey Mulligan & Elizabeth Banks
December. 17,2015
Elizabeth Banks and Carey Mulligan are earning buzz for their portraits of strong women: Banks won some of the best notices of her career playing Melinda Ledbetter, the wife of Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson in “Love & Mercy”; and Mulligan portrays a working-class wife and mother who joins the fight for British women’s right to vote in “Suffragette.”
Episode 8 : Brie Larson & Joel Edgerton
December. 17,2015
Brie Larson (“Room”) and “Black Mass” actor Joel Edgerton talk about the making of their new films.
Episode 7 : Will Smith & Benicio Del Toro
December. 12,2015
Benicio Del Toro landed an Academy Award for 2000’s “Traffic,” in which he played a conflicted police officer. His new film, “Sicario,” puts him back in the world of drug trafficking, but as a very different character — a mysterious, dangerous man bent on revenge. Will Smith has earned two Oscar nominations for playing real-life people in “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness.” He stands to earn his third nod for his portrayal of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a doctor who fought against the National Football League to expose the danger of head trauma in players. Among many topics, the two spoke about their mutual love of Roger Deakins and Eddie Murphy.
Episode 6 : Steve Carell & Rooney Mara
December. 12,2015
After earning Oscar nominations for their breakthrough film roles — Rooney Mara as the hardened sleuth Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and Steve Carell channeling John du Pont in “Foxcatcher” — the two actors are back with very different performances. Mara is shy and subtle as a young woman in the 1950s who falls for Cate Blanchett’s lead character in “Carol.” And Carell is all manic energy and heart in “The Big Short,” which details the individuals who cashed in on the recent housing collapse.
Episode 5 : Samuel L. Jackson & Michael Keaton
December. 12,2015
Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton have shared the screen several times, in comedies like “The Other Guys” or dramas such as Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown.” Jackson is reunited with Tarantino for “The Hateful Eight,” in which he plays a bounty hunter in post-Civil War Wyoming. Keaton leads an impressive ensemble in “Spotlight,” Tom McCarthy’s drama about Boston Globe reporters who broke the story of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child molestation by priests.
Episode 4 : Charlotte Rampling & Isabella Rossellini
December. 12,2015
Veteran actors Charlotte Rampling and Isabella Rossellini trade stories about Hollywood and their new dramas.
Episode 3 : Cate Blanchett & Ian McKellen
December. 12,2015
After journeying to Middle-earth together for the “Lord of the Rings” movies, Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen are playing more grounded roles in this year’s films. In “Mr. Holmes,” McKellen stars as the famous detective in old age. Blanchett pulls double duty in “Carol,” as a 1950s housewife who falls for a younger woman; and in “Truth,” in which she plays embattled “60 Minutes” producer Mary Mapes.
Episode 2 : Bryan Cranston & Jason Segel
December. 12,2015
Both Bryan Cranston and Jason Segel established themselves with long-running TV shows. Now both are playing real-life writers on the big screen: Cranston as the titular blacklisted screenwriter in “Trumbo” and Segel as “Infinite Jest” author David Foster Wallace in “The End of the Tour.”
Episode 1 : Amy Schumer & Lily Tomlin
December. 12,2015
Amy Schumer and Lily Tomlin tackled tough roles this year. Schumer wrote and starred in “Trainwreck” as a hard-partying journalist who reluctantly falls in love; in “Grandma,” Tomlin’s character must drive her granddaughter to an abortion clinic. At Variety‘s Actors on Actors studio, they discuss the joy of playing unlikable women.
Seasons
Season 18
PBS SoCal and Variety take you inside the biggest movies and T.V. shows of the past year through candid conversations with today's hottest actors. Hosted by Variety Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis and Variety Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, each episode brings together pairs of actors engaging in intimate one-on-one discussions about their craft and work. Get an insider’s look into the creative process and what it takes to finely hone the craft of acting.
Season 17
PBS SoCal and Variety take you inside the biggest movies and T.V. shows of the past year through candid conversations with today's hottest actors. Hosted by Variety Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis and Variety Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, each episode brings together pairs of actors engaging in intimate one-on-one discussions about their craft and work. Get an insider’s look into the creative process and what it takes to finely hone the craft of acting.
Similar titles
Paramount+
The Daily Show
The World's Fakest News Team tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and pop culture.
Dateline: Unforgettable
A series of reports chosen by "Dateline" correspondents that answers the question they most often get asked — what their most memorable story is and why.
The Real Murders of Los Angeles
In the City of Angels, everyone is striving for the unattainable high life, and some are willing to kill for it. Encompassing everything from beach communities like Venice and Malibu to the wealth of Beverly Hills and hip enclaves like Thai Town and Highland Park, Real Murders of Los Angeles exposes the dark underbelly of the city's glamorous façade. Follow the stories of those whose lust for fame and fortune led them to commit salacious, sinful, and scandalous murders.
Prime Video
I Dated a Psycho
Girl meets guy; girl falls for guy; guy turns out to have a dark and deadly secret. You know the drill. As women tell their real-life "I Dated An Axe Murderer" stories, police, psychologists and dating experts help unravel the mystery and explain how these relationships went tragically wrong.
The Way It Is
"The Way It Is," a Sunday night one-hour show, aired from September 1967 to June 1969. Under the executive production of Ross McLean, following the success of similar CBC programs, it attracted up to 60 contributors, aiming to challenge viewers with compelling content. Hosted by John Saywell and Barbara Frum, who honed her interviewing style here, it featured Patrick Watson, Warren Davis, Percy Saltzman, Ken Lefolii, Peter Desbarats, and Moses Znaimer. Segment producers like Perry Rosemond and Peter Herrndorf worked on the show, which covered diverse topics via studio interviews, music, commentary, panels, and documentaries. While not pushing controversy, it contributed to national dialogue. Notable productions included documentaries on airline safety and Vietnam, setting a serious tone for its era. Its influence extended to later CBC shows like the fifth estate and The Journal.
Max
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Investigating a murder is hard enough. But when detectives realize the killer knows how to stage a crime scene to throw them off, the job gets even more difficult. They’re hunting down criminals who are sworn to protect and serve -- killers with a badge.
Bring the Drama
Every performance counts. Bill Bailey champions aspiring actors from all walks of life. Will their raw talent and mentoring from top names in TV drama help with their big break?
Max
The Murder Tapes
Incorporating bodycam footage from the initial crime scene, surveillance video, and interrogation room recordings, homicide investigations unfold through dramatic real video footage providing an up-close perspective on homicide investigations.
Related
Max
Planet Earth II
David Attenborough presents a documentary series exploring how animals meet the challenges of surviving in the most iconic habitats on earth.
HULU
Prison Break
Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out, from the inside out.
HULU
Black Sails
The pirate adventures of Captain Flint and his men twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver. Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality.
Prime Video
Dexter
Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of justice.
Prime Video
Mr. Robot
A contemporary and culturally resonant drama about a young programmer, Elliot, who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.
HULU
True Detective
An American anthology police detective series utilizing multiple timelines in which investigations seem to unearth personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within or outside the law.
Prime Video
Goliath
Once a powerful lawyer, Billy McBride is now burned out and washed up, spending more time in a bar than a courtroom. When he reluctantly agrees to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the biggest client of Cooperman & McBride, the massive law firm he helped create, Billy and his ragtag team uncover a vast and deadly conspiracy, pitting them all in a life or death trial against the ultimate Goliath.
Max
Planet Earth
David Attenborough celebrates the amazing variety of the natural world in this epic documentary series, filmed over four years across 64 different countries.
Prime Video
Vikings
The adventures of Ragnar Lothbrok, the greatest hero of his age. The series tells the sagas of Ragnar's band of Viking brothers and his family, as he rises to become King of the Viking tribes. As well as being a fearless warrior, Ragnar embodies the Norse traditions of devotion to the gods. Legend has it that he was a direct descendant of Odin, the god of war and warriors.
Netflix
Breaking Bad
Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of only two years left to live. He becomes filled with a sense of fearlessness and an unrelenting desire to secure his family's financial future at any cost as he enters the dangerous world of drugs and crime.
Top Streaming TV Show
#1
Grey's Anatomy
March. 27,2005
7.6
#2
A Teacher
November. 10,2020
6.9
#3
The Mandalorian
November. 12,2019
8.6
#4
Station 19
March. 22,2018
7
#5
Game of Thrones
April. 17,2011
9.2
#6
The Undoing
October. 25,2020
7.4
#7
Supernatural
September. 13,2005
8.4
#8
The Last Dance
April. 19,2020
9.1
#9
Euphoria
June. 16,2019
8.3
#10
Fear the Walking Dead
August. 23,2015
6.8