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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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"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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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_outlineIn Part 1 of a two-part series, Dennis is joined via Zoom by four different creative entrepreneurs who have products that are perfect for holiday gift giving. First up, is writer and film critic Alonso Duralde who is the co-author of I’ll Be Home For Christmas Movies: The Deck the Hallmark Podcast’s Guide to Your Holiday TV Obsession and the sole author of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas. Alonso talks about the cozy Christmas TV movie boom and how it shows no sign of letting up, which of these season's offerings are the best--and gayest, the clichés at play in these movies (Big city people are demons!) and how it feels for him to be the go-to Christmas movie experts. He's pulled a Mariah! Next up is Hollywood makeup artist Brett Freedman, the man behind Dennis’s favorite stocking stuffer; Dr. Kiss lip balm. Brett talks about the exhausting process of getting the balm just right, his retro influences like cherry Chapstick and how starting his own side-business has made him feel smart. Next is Tom Judson, the founder and sole designer behind Tom’s Trendy Tees, an Etsy shop that features T-shirts inspired by flop Broadway musicals, obscure classic movie logos and other niche oddities. Tom talks about how the business began as a way of recreating the old Broadway show shirts that his mom accidentally threw away, doing the graphic design himself and shares how starting the business has shown him there are "weird" people with offbeat taste like him all over the world. Finally, Yasir Naama, the founder of Sir Candle, talks about how every one of his candles tells a story and breaks down the stories behind his candles Smells Like Silverlake, Venice Daddy, Yosemite Trip and Holiday Spirit. And all four guests talk about how creating their business and getting their stuff out in the world has enriched their lives in unexected ways.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas Movies book: https://www.amazon.com/Ill-Home-Christmas-Movies-Obsession/dp/0762499354
Dr. Kiss lip balm (Discount code DENNIS): https://brettfreedman.com/
Tom’s Trendy Tees: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TomsTrendyTees?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=497169330
Sir Candles (Discount Code Sir25): https://www.sircandle.com/