The McAuley Tucker Show
by McAuley Tucker
Join McAuley Tucker as he delves into the captivating journeys of many exceptional guests who have made a name for themselves in the glittering world of Hollywood and beyond. The show serves one purpose: to educate and inform people.
Episodes
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How I Got Into Film School Directing Actors Who Spoke No English┃Dara Van Dusen Interview
A director sat her film school entrance exam in a language she didn't speak, and this conversation goes somewhere press days rarely do, all the way to whether we gave up on faith too fast. Before A Prayer for the Dying, Dara Van Dusen was a New Yorker studying directing in Łódź, Poland, where her...
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Why the Funniest Actors Never Know They’re Being Funny┃Jack Griffo & Violet McGraw Interview
Comedy only works when the actor takes it dead seriously, Jack Griffo says, and from there the talk moves well past the usual press-day loop into producing, Nickelodeon notes and the sister who has been beside Violet McGraw since the start. You may know Violet McGraw from The Haunting of Hill…
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The Violinist: Why a 10-Year Film Almost Never Got Finished┃Ervin Han & Raúl García Interview
On this episode, the directors of an Annecy-winning animated film talk about the 10 years it took to finish, the signed book that sent one of them back to school to learn English, and what keeps a production alive when it keeps stalling. Ervin Han has directed and produced animation for Disney…
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The 1968 Question That Made Me Pause Mid-Interview┃Demián Bichir Interview
Two Disney roles, one of them landed under a different name, is where this conversation begins, and it ends somewhere much quieter than a press junket usually goes. Demián Bichir, the Mexican actor Oscar-nominated for A Better Life and a voice a generation of Latin American kids grew up with…
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Why I Hated Reenactments Until a Heat Fan Changed My Mind┃Mila Aung-Thwin Interview
Tibi Useriu learned to run in a prison yard 27 steps long, and his story is the reason for this conversation, but the real fight turns out to be the one between a director who hated reenactments and a producer who only wanted to make Heat, and from there the talk drifts into mentors, family and a...
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She Made This Same Story Once Before, About Her Own Father┃Tessa Blake Interview
Tessa Blake spent twenty years directing other people's television before anybody handed her a story she could originate herself. When one finally arrived, she took it to the very top of northern Minnesota for a month and made it with a cast she still sounds surprised said yes. She is the…
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We Wrote Coach as a 65-Year-Old White Guy. We Were Wrong┃Lauren Meyering & Lillian Carrier Interview
A festival debut discussed without a single line of festival talk, and most of it is about what went wrong first, from unavailable equipment to a character who was written as the wrong person. Lauren Meyering is the director of Horsegirls, a debut feature about hobby horsing that premiered at...
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They Shot the Film First and Then Rebuilt It Live On Stage Every Night┃Daniel Askill Interview
A film shot in 2016, replicated on stage around the world, and then assembled into a feature nearly ten years later. The director explains why that order was deliberate and what it made possible. Daniel Askill is a director whose long collaboration with Sia produced Sia: Nostalgic for the…
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Spider-Noir's Megawatt: "The Actor Is Just the Cover"┃Andrew Lewis Caldwell Interview
On this episode, one of Spider-Noir's villains explains why he thinks the actor is the most replaceable person on a film set, and the conversation goes everywhere a junket never does, from a homicide-detective father to the studio he left Hollywood to build. Andrew Lewis Caldwell is the actor...
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"If You Are Brave and You Die in That Ring, I Will Still Be Proud"┃Joe Taslim Interview
Eight minutes of allotted junket time, and not one of them goes on choreography, because the first question is about a song he learned as a boy and it visibly resets the whole conversation. Joe Taslim is the Indonesian actor known for The Raid, Fast and Furious 6, Warrior and Mortal Kombat, now...
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My Drama Teacher Mailed My Audition Out on VHS When I Was 14┃Adelaide Clemens Interview
The whole career traces back to a school Shakespeare festival and a drama teacher with a VHS camera, and from there the conversation goes into faith, fear, and what an actor protects when a shoot is moving too fast. Adelaide Clemens is the Australian actor behind Tawney in Rectify, Rebecca in…
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Grown Men Cried on My Shoulder at Sundance and Barely Anyone Speaks in It┃Cole Webley Interview
Men who could not finish a sentence were waiting for this director after his Sundance screenings, and the conversation traces that back through a nearly silent lead performance, a self-funded first feature, and two years spent on dirt floors in the Dominican Republic. Cole Webley is a commercial...
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What Fred Rogers Taught Me at Six That I Put Into a Film at Forty┃Nicholas Ma Interview
A six year old played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for Fred Rogers, and the idea he absorbed that day is still sitting under a film he made decades later, in a conversation that goes into loneliness, community, and eight extremely difficult plants. Nicholas Ma is the filmmaker behind Mabel, his...
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I Had Already Quit Acting. My Mom Made Me Do One Last Audition.┃Hudson Hensley Interview
A first feature with two very famous names on the poster, and the part of it he wants to talk about is the five years before, when nothing at all was happening. Hudson Hensley is a young actor from Nashville who appears in Song Sung Blue alongside Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, after five years of...
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I Had My Real Bruises Covered Up So They Could Paint Fake Ones On┃Daniel MacPherson Interview
A junket slot with a hard clock on it, and he uses it to give away the one lesson he says changed how he acts, rather than the usual talking points. Daniel MacPherson stars opposite Russell Crowe in Beast, an MMA drama about a former champion returning to the cage, written by David Frigerio and...
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Fourth Time With the Same Team, and He Knows What That Means┃Berto Colon Interview
A working actor is asked why so many of his characters have influence over people they cannot control, says nobody has put it to him that way before, and then answers it properly. Berto Colon is an actor known for The Penguin, Orange Is the New Black, Power Book II: Ghost, The Night Agent and the...
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We Should Have Used a Blue Screen: Making Bob Ross in Space┃Skinner & Allen Cordell Interview
Two hours of unscripted painting in outer space, an artist who is genuinely startled by his own show, and a green screen decision that a junket would never let anyone apologise for on the record. Skinner is an Oakland artist whose work has landed on murals, album covers, and Adult Swim, and Allen...
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We Gave Kevin James a Fake Account and It Got Away From Us┃John Kinnane & Jeffrey Azize Interview
An in-character social account was supposed to get a film noticed, then strangers started giving the character advice, and the conversation opens up the parts of the shoot a press day would never touch. John Kinnane co-wrote Solo Mio, the romantic comedy starring Kevin James, and Jeffrey Azize...
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He Cancelled Part of His Honeymoon for One Interview┃The Movie Dweeb Interview
Ask a professional interviewer whether he still gets nervous and the answer is not reassuring. He cannot think of a single one where he was not, and he is the one pacing the waiting room while everybody else shares snacks. The Movie Dweeb is a UK entertainment journalist and interviewer who…
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They Called Weird Al Two Days Before the Shoot and He Just Said Yes┃Todd Edwards Interview
A shot for shot rebuild of a legendary movie scene, four hundred dancers on a Tulsa street, and then one last-minute idea that put a very familiar figure on a plane with a day and a half of notice. Todd Edwards is a screenwriter, producer and director who worked on Hoodwinked, primarily on its...
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Malik Does Not Have a Family. Let Me Clear That Up.┃Grace Chan & Dinesh Thyagarajan Interview
Contains discussion of Superman plot details. Two people at completely different points in a career sit in the same conversation about the same film, and neither of them tells it the way a press day would. Grace Chan is a dancer and actor who plays one of the robots in Superman, and Dinesh...
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I Spent Years Climbing Up From PA. It Was the Wrong Path.┃Nicholas Tabarrok Interview
A producer who has been on both sides of the desk explains what the job actually consists of, and it contradicts almost everything an aspiring producer gets told about paying dues on set. Nicholas Tabarrok is a film and television producer based between Toronto and Los Angeles, whose credits...
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He Had the Money, He Just Could Not Prove It to a Landlord┃MikeManik Interview
A viral song written on a lunch break, a feature that took months of contracts to prove was real, and a tent in a back garden that had nothing to do with running out of money. MikeManik, also known as Kanye East, is a rapper and producer who went viral in around 2022 and has since built a career…
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He Applied for a Job in Canada and Ended Up on the Other Side of the World┃Hiram Garcia Interview
He sold the house, moved his wife and nine year old to the other side of the world, and started a job with a three month probation before their shipping container had even cleared customs. Hiram Garcia is an environmental scientist working in New Zealand, and he appears in A Minecraft Movie as...
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James Gunn Remembered Me 12 Years After a Part With Almost No Lines┃Gerardo Davila Interview
Not the version where somebody gets discovered, but a working actor explaining exactly what got him hired again, including a contract term most people sign without reading and a class he did not leave for sixteen years. Gerardo Davila is a Dallas based actor whose credits include James Gunn's...
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He Turned ILM Digital and Profitable, Then Got Walked Off the Lot┃Scott Ross Interview
The number two executive at Lucasfilm turned a division profitable and moved it into the digital age, and then found out in a Mexican restaurant that the founder had no idea who he was. Scott Ross is an American digital media executive who ran Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic through its...
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He Played the Dad Dumb Because Everyone Else Was Playing Him Smart┃Mark DeCarlo Interview
Winning a hundred thousand dollars on television at twenty did not make him rich. It made him unbothered in an audition room, and he thinks that is the reason the commercials started landing almost immediately. Mark DeCarlo is an actor, comedian and television host, best known as the voice of…
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He Would Have Followed Brad Bird Into a Garage to Make The Incredibles┃Lou Romano Interview
Ask him what he would have done if The Incredibles had been a hand drawn film made in Brad Bird's garage, and the answer is immediate: he would have gone there instead. This is a conversation about following people rather than jobs. Lou Romano is a production designer, art director, illustrator…
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The Word No Got Him More Meetings Than Any Yes Ever Did┃Cory Edwards Interview
An eight million dollar animated film funded by one man who invented a vodka, made partly in the Philippines, and the ownership conversation at the end that decided whether its creators would come back for the sequel. Cory Edwards is a writer and director who created, wrote and directed…
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I Kept the Casting Email That Described the Character as Me┃Harrison Houde Interview
A conversation that gets past the credits and into the actual mechanics, right down to the moment he goes and finds the twelve year old audition email and reads the character description aloud. Harrison Houde is an actor, producer and director from Vancouver Island, known for Some Assembly...
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It Was Never About Making It, It Was About How He Made It┃Derek Minor Interview
There are master recordings sitting in a closet that will probably never come out, made by a jazz guitarist who never had a platform. His son has one, and thinks a lot about what to do with it. Derek Minor is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, entrepreneur and screenwriter whose...
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We Filmed the Chaos Every Thanksgiving in a Different City┃Lake Markham Interview
The videos people still quote were shot on Thanksgiving weekends in whichever city the group could get to, and the conversation goes into the craft underneath the chaos rather than the chaos itself. Lake Markham is a photographer, musician, and writer who played Dade in the Filthy Frank series…
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Nobody at Disney Knew Why He Had to Direct This One┃Stephen Anderson Interview
A Disney director explains that his biggest creative problem was never drawing or story structure. It was fear, and the fix turned out to be refusing to plan anything before he started. Stephen Anderson is a director, storyboard artist and voice actor at Walt Disney Animation Studios, known for...
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A Case of Mistaken Identity Put Him Inside New York Fashion┃Christiaan Houtenbos Interview
A stylist whose work has been printed millions of times explains that he never once set out to be the best at anything, only to do a good job that day, and that the label came from other people long after the fact. Christiaan Houtenbos is one of the most published hair stylists in the world, a...
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Ten Years Old, Four Months in Canada, and It Never Felt Like Work┃Ruby Barnhill Interview
Her parents took her to an audition partly so she would learn what rejection feels like. She booked it on the first try, which is not the lesson anybody had planned. Ruby Barnhill is an English actor who played Sophie in Steven Spielberg's The BFG, appeared in the CBBC series 4 O'Clock Club, and...
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They Told Us Superhero Comedies Do Not Sell┃Brent Simons Interview
Two writers had an idea nobody wanted, kept plugging away at it for years, and by the time it actually sold their own agents had stopped telling them about the offers so they would not get their hearts broken again. Brent Simons is a screenwriter who created and wrote Megamind with Alan...
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Seven Minutes to Twenty Five Overnight, From One Note┃Mark Christopher Lawrence Interview
An actor with thirty eight years of credits declines to call television work hard, points out that nobody is saving lives on a set, and then gets much more interesting about what a comedy hour actually costs to write. Mark Christopher Lawrence is an actor, comedian and producer with almost four...
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One Note From Christopher Nolen About What Your Legs Are Doing┃Andy Luther Interview
The lesson was not about screaming, or about the character. It was about the fact that when a camera is at your feet, the audience can see your feet, and what you were trained to do with your whole body still applies. Andy Luther is an actor and small business owner who appeared in The Dark…
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We Made a Comedy Without a Single Comedian and Every Studio Passed┃David Zucker Interview
No anniversary victory lap here, just the practical account of how three men with no track record forced a film through a system built to say no, and the two specific things that nearly killed it. David Zucker directed and co-wrote Airplane!, The Naked Gun and Ruthless People, and is one of the...
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I Wrote It After a Shift and Got Kicked Out of Two Walmarts┃Sugar Pit Interview
The song came out of one bad shift, the video got shut down in two Walmarts inside twenty two minutes, and the conversation goes past the viral story into the gear, the teaching, and the father who built a house out of a trailer. Sugar Pit is a musician, producer, and music teacher out of…
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He Recorded a Whole Film in a Day and Was Never in the Room With Anyone┃Field Cate Interview
A decade of child acting described by somebody who is grateful for it and also very clear that it was not, on balance, good for him. Then a second career with no rules and no auditions at all. Field Cate is an actor turned musician, known for playing young Ned in Pushing Daisies and voicing…
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I Blacked Out My Front Tooth Before a Glamour Audition, On Purpose┃Chris Anthony Lansdowne Interview
It starts with a young actor sitting in a room full of competition, deciding that being memorable beats being pretty, and then going and doing something about it in a casting office bathroom. Chris Anthony Lansdowne is a voice actor who has voiced Barbie across decades of toys, games and films…
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A Talkback Mic Nobody Meant to Record Ended Up on the Drums┃Jason La Rocca Interview
A producer with more than two hundred credits explains that the reason he never became a professional player was one bebop tune called in the wrong key at a Palo Alto coffee house when he was in his twenties. Jason La Rocca is a producer, engineer and mixer whose credits run past two hundred...
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The Late Night Mistake That Gave the Lightsaber Its Glow┃Ted Eccles Interview
The lightsaber glow was a mistake made by exhausted people at the end of a long night, and the conversation keeps going past the Star Wars story into old Hollywood, a movie called 3000, and the mentor who set up a whole career. Ted Eccles was a working child actor from six months old, playing Sam...
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A Doctor Said He Would Never Do a Job That Involved Talking┃Stephen Hunter Interview
Thirteen dwarves auditioned for the same part in Scottish. He got a phone call three months later offering him a different one, and then watched every line he had disappear from the final cuts. Stephen Hunter is an actor best known as Bombur in The Hobbit trilogy, with credits including Thor:...
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The Biggest Risk I Ever Took Was Refusing to Move to Los Angeles┃Eduardo Sanchez Interview
The origin story of found footage told by the person who built it, without the tidy version, including two features that never got released and the piece of career advice he flatly ignored. Eduardo Sanchez co-wrote and co-directed The Blair Witch Project with Daniel Myrick, a film that sold at...
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Nobody Told Him He Looked Like Joaquin Phoenix Until He Was Cast as Him┃Armen Nahapetian Interview
An actor cast as the younger version of a much older, much more famous one admits he did not know much about him going in, had never been told they looked alike, and had to go and do the research after the fact. Armen Nahapetian is an actor who plays the younger version of Joaquin Phoenix's...
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I Read 45 Minutes of a Disney Ride Five Times, Identically┃Katie Leigh Interview
A working voice actor takes the mechanics apart instead of listing the credits, starting with the theme park job where every pause had to land in exactly the same place, five times over. Katie Leigh is a voice actor, writer and director whose credits include Muppet Babies, Adventures of the Gummi...
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I Studied Engineering at MIT and Then Played Shredder┃Tohoru Masamune Interview
An MIT engineering student decided that uncertainty and chaos were features rather than problems, went into acting because of it, and the conversation runs the whole way from that decision to Shredder, Inception, and the income curve nobody warns you about. Tohoru Masamune is the actor behind...
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She Learned Basketball for the Audition and Then Learned It Again for Real┃Tisha Custodio Interview
Thirteen years old, no idea who the Russian playwright was, so she snuck into the workshop anyway and was handed a scene to perform cold in front of the conservatory director. That is roughly how the whole career starts. Tisha Custodio is an actor and musician who appeared in the Disney+ series…
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About this show
Join McAuley Tucker as he delves into the captivating journeys of many exceptional guests who have made a name for themselves in the glittering world of Hollywood and beyond. The show serves one purpose: to educate and inform people.
Hosted by
McAuley Tucker
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