KCRW The Business

Julianne Moore joins us with her husband, writer-director Bart Freundlich, to talk about their careers and their new drama, ‘After the Wedding,’ the fourth film they’ve made together. Moore offers some advice to actors just starting out, tells us how she picks her projects, and she and Freundlich discuss the struggle that comes with trying to get an indie melodrama like ‘After the Wedding’ financed.

When Gurinder Chadha set out to make a movie based on journalist Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir about the effect of Bruce Springsteen music on his life, she had one small problem. The movie couldn’t work without Springsteen’s songs. So when she and Manzoor snagged a moment with The Boss on a red carpet, they took their shot. Incredibly, it worked. Chadha and Manzoor tell the tale of their film ‘Blinded by the Light.'

When filmmaker Lulu Wang set out to write and direct a personal movie based on a real-life family saga, she had a clear vision for an American film, largely set in China, mostly in Mandarin. But buyers weren’t biting. Wang tells us about her circuitous route to finally making ‘The Farewell,’ which has turned into the indie success story of the summer.

In Lynn Shelton’s new comic caper film 'Sword of Trust,' Marc Maron plays a pawnbroker who gets caught up in a scheme to sell a Civil War artifact of dubious provenance. Shelton and Maron tell us about making the movie in 12 days in Alabama, and about shooting an extended, improvised, soul-baring monologue in the back of a sweltering box truck...for nine hours. 

Sarah Scott was a working actress in Hollywood with the usual ups and downs of a life in the entertainment industry. But, last year while shooting a pilot, Scott says she was harassed and assaulted by a fellow actor. She took the case to her union and the result was not completely satisfying.