Filmmaker & Author Sam Irvin (I Was A Teenage Monster Hunter): “All I Want To Do Is Be On A Set Saying Action & Cut”
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Release Date: 06/01/2023
Filmmaker Lovell Holder & Writer-Performer Roger Q. Mason ("Lavender Men"}: "Mother’s Got Her Flashlight On All The Time"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Director Lovell Holder & Writer-Performer Roger Q. Mason, the duo behind the provocative and beautifully-crafted new film Lavender Men, which is based on Mason's hit stage play of the same name. The story centers on Taffeta (they/them, played by Mason), the put-upon stage manager of a play about Abraham Lincoln. After one too many backstage indignities, Tafetta cracks and decides to take the whole show over and narrate it as their fantasia and things get wild from there. Roger talks about the film's central themes of why do we, as humans, like what we like...
info_outline
Writer-Director Sarah Kambe Holland (Egghead & Twinkie): "I Know There's Somebody Who Needs This Movie"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by filmmaker Sarah Kambe Holland whose new film Egghead and Twinkie flips the gay guy-straight girl trope on its head with the story of a gay girl-straight boy friendship that undergoes some changes after the girl comes out. Sarah talks about starting work on the project at 19, taking inspiration from her own coming out story, shooting a road movie within one hour of Orlando, Florida and having most of her crew be under 25 years old. She also talks about moving to the U.S. from Japan at nine and undergoing serious culture shock, incorporating her own love of animation...
info_outline
Chef Steven Havens (Winner of Season 3 of The Floor): "We Call Ourselves The Floor-mily"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
In this special bonus episode, Dennis interviews his friend Steven Havens, who just won $250,000 as the last man standing on Season 3 of the Fox game show The Floor. Steven talks about how he came to be on the show, the months of rigorous coaching provided by his game designer husband Jeb (who happens to be Dennis's co-creator on the game You Don't Know My Life!), shooting the entire season over one week in Ireland and the moment, minutes before he actually won, when he thought to himself, 'I got this.' Other topics include: promising his husband that he wouldn't talk smack about the...
info_outline
Author and Designer Hillary Carlip {"Willis Wonderland"} "It’s Like a Pop-Up Book On Steroids"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Hillary Carlip the designer and co-author of the most fabulous pop-up book you'll ever see Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch, which is a book dedicated to the home, kitsch collection and all-round fabulousness of Hillary's friend, the late great songwriter and visual artist Allee Willis. (Allie is also the subject of a documentary that was featured on this podcast last year; The World According to Allee Willis. It's now streaming on Hulu.) Hillary talks about how the pop-up book project came to her, finding illustrator in Ireland and "paper...
info_outline
"Patreon-ize me, People!" The Dennis Anyone: The Patreon Project Sample Pack
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
As a Bonus on the main Dennis Anyone, here are two back-to back sample episodes of Dennis's brand new Patreon offering: DENNIS ANYONE: THE PATREON PROJECT, which you can subscribe to for $5 by going to Patreon.com and searching Dennis Anyone. Topics in Episode 1 include: the Late Night With the Devil actor Fayssal Bazzi learning that I put him on my dreamboard and his response, Four Rooms author David Wichman does the Observation Deck, the Oscar-nominated doc Black Box Diaries, a magazine flashback with the late Michelle Trachtenberg and Dennis's decision in January 2020 to try...
info_outline
Author Paul Rudnick (Farrell Covington and The Limits of Style): "I Know What People Have Been Through"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by writer for Part 2 of their conversation about Paul's new novel What Is Wrong With You? as well as his previous novel Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style, both of which offer readers sides of Rudnick they haven't seen before. In Part 2, Paul talks about the raw rage and freedom he felt while writing Farrell alone in a room during the pandemic, the lost gay Koch brother who loosely inspired the book and his early 20's club days in NYC, dancing the night away at Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, both of which are featured in Farrell. He also talks about why...
info_outline
Author Paul Rudnick (What Is Wrong With You?): Part 1: "I Cry Years Later"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by one of his literary heroes, author, screenwriter and playwright Paul Rudnick, to discuss Paul's new novel What is Wrong With You?, which is about an offbeat assortment of gay and straight characters whose lives and lovelives collide at the destination wedding of a tech billionaire on the billionaire's private island. Paul talks about the stranger whose despondent blog post provided the spark of the book. He also talks about the straight personal trainer-gay client friendship that is at the heart of the book, why he chose to make the billionaire character way...
info_outline
Filmmaker Roshan Sethi ("A Nice Indian Boy"): "Love Occurs In The Context Of Your Family"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis connects via Zoom with Roshan Sethi, director of the new film A Nice Indian Boy, which is about and Indian-American doctor named Naveen (Roshan's real-life boyfriend Karan Soni) who falls who falls for a photographer named Jay (Jonathan Groff), who is white but who was adopted and raised by Indian-American parents. Complications ensue when Naveen brings Jay home to meet his family. Roshan talks about the film's origins as a stage play, directing his real life boyfriend Karan Soni in love scenes with Jonathan Groff and the movie's theme of negotiating life after coming out and how...
info_outline
Author Bruce Villanch ("It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time"): "I Have A Nine Inch Tongue And I Can Breathe Through My Ears"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom and telephone by writer to talk about his new book It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time: The Worst TV Shows In History And Other Things I Wrote. The book attempts to answer the question, "How did this project happen?" about such so-bad-it's-delicious shows like The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special as well as the feature films Can't Stop The Music and Ice Pirates. Bruce shares stories about working with Florence Henderson and Robert Reed on The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and reveals the famous socialite...
info_outline
Playwright Audrey Cefaly & Actor Carolyn Messina (Alabaster): "I’m Very Serious About My Comedy"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom my playwright Audrey Cefaly & Actor Carolyn Messina from the play Alabaster, which is showing at the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles through March 30th. The play is a darkly Southern tale about a woman named June and her two goats who all survived an Alabama tornado and lived to tell the tale. June's sheltered world is rocked when a New York photographer named Alice comes to photograph her on her farm for an art project and a romance blooms. Oh, and one of the goats, Weezy (played by Carolyn) talks. In the interview, Audrey talks about how the play was...
info_outlineDennis is joined via Zoom by filmmaker Sam Irvin. Sam is the author of the memoir I Was a Teenage Monster Hunter, which is about his childhood obsession with horror movies and the interviews he conducted with horror personalities for his fanzine Bizarre. Sam talks about his Cinema Paradiso-esque childhood; working at his family-owned movie theater, having to change the marquee when he was afraid of heights, getting to take home the posters after a film’s run and cleaning up vomit after screenings of The Exorcist. He also talks about his creative and personal relationship with Cassandra Peterson AKA Elvira Mistress of the Dark. He recalls how he got the job directing Elvira’s Haunted Hills, bonding over sad Joni Mitchell music and how just this year, he and Cassandra took a tour group of 30 Elvira super fans to visit the Haunted Hills locations in Romania and Transylvania. Sam also talks about being more in demand as a director at 67 than ever before. He’s directed seven Hallmark and Lifetime films in the past 12 months, including this month’s Love In Zion National: A National Park Romance and the holiday film Check Inn to Christmas. Other topics include: cold-calling his way into becoming Brian DePalma’s assistant, Ian McKellan’s naked prank on the set of Gods and Monsters, directing three seasons of the gay vampire series Dante’s Cove and getting to visit the set of the James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun when he was 18 and hearing sex stories from a drunk Herve Villechaize in the back of a Rolls Royce afterwards.