Author David Wichman (The Four Rooms): "I Think You're Great At Sex!"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Release Date: 03/13/2025
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Bryan Cooper who is one of the producers of Cinecon 61, a Labor Day weekend film festival in Los Angeles dedicated to rarely-seen classic films and the people who love them. Bryan talks about this year's honorees who will be appearing in person: Ann-Margret, Mamie Van Doren and Juliet Mills whose award will be presented to her husband Maxwell Caulfield from Grease 2. Bryan talks about how he learned to love classic films from his father as a child, his pubescent obsession with pinup girl Betty Grable and how in his home, there were often two VCRs recording classic...
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Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor Jeff Hiller to discuss his new memoir Actress of a Certain Age as well as his recent Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. Jeff talks about being completely surprised by the nomination, his plan to enjoy every moment of the Emmy experience and how happy he is to get to share it with the series' star Bridget Everett who is nominated in the writing category. He also talks about what it meant to play such a kind, nuanced character like Joel after years of often snarky smaller parts with names like Flight...
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On the eve of Xanadu's 45th Anniversary, Dennis is joined by six of his fellow Xanadu superfans--the XanaCrew--to preview the events they have organized for this coming weekend in Los Angeles. The events include a sold out screening on Saturday, August 9th featuring a Q & A with Michael Beck and multiple muses...bookended by a tribute concert on Friday, the 8th and a picnic on Sunday, August 10 from noon to 3 at Pan Pacific Park. The six XanaCrew members who appear on the pod do so in pairs: singers Lisa Donahey and Eric Seppala sneak preview their ONJ/Xanadu tribute concert on Friday;...
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In this episode, Dennis describes reuniting with his former cruise ship dancing colleague Monica who he hasn't seen in 35 years, sings the praises of the HBO Max movie Mountaintop, the classic rom-com Pretty Woman and DTLA's Summer Dance Nights. He also talks about the importance of friendship in his own life and shares insights from the famous Harvard Study on longevity and well-being and touts the new crowdfunding pre-order campaign for his new party game Search Party.
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There's a new theater company that opened about a mile from Dennis's home in North Hollywood called The Wisteria Theater and it's a magical place. The show that's currently running there is Xanadu: The Musical, based on the iconic Olivia Newton-John movie musical that Dennis has been obsessed with since 1980. In this episode, Dennis welcomes the team behind the show to play a couple rounds of his game You Don't Know My Life! The five guests are Renée Wylder (Producer and Wisteria Theater co-founder), acress Lexi Collins (Kira, Wisteria Theater company co-founder), actors Connor...
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Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-director-producer Ellen Geer who is the Producing Artistic Director of one of Dennis's favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topange Canyon. Dennis has been going to see plays at the outdoor amphitheater since the early 90's and has seen Ellen perform in scores of shows there as well as seeing just as many that she directed and produced. This season, she co-directed the play Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Galsworthy. The show, about a labor strike in rural Pennsylvania, was written in the early 1900's but feels like...
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A few weeks back, Dennis was invited to moderate a Queer Authors Panel at the first-ever Pride Live Hollywood festival. The panel was so fun, interesting and, in a few instances, downright dishy, that Dennis thought it would make a great podcast. The authors featured are Nancy Beverly (Shelby’s Vacation), Curtis Chin, (Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant), Jim Colucci (Golden Girls Forever), Frank DeCaro (Disco: Music, Movies, and Mania Under the Mirror Ball), Alonso Duralde, (Hollywood Pride), Rasheed Newson, (My Government Means to Kill Me), Mark B. Perry (And...
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Dennis is joined via Zoom from Los Angeles by Juan Pablo Di Pace, the writer, co-director and star of the new film Before We Forget. The film is about an Argentinian film director in his 40s named Matias (played by Di Pace) who's struggling to finish a movie he's making based on his first love, 25 years ago, when he was a student at an international boarding school in Northern Italy. The movie is inspired by Juan Pablo's own experience at the same school where they shot the film, the United World College in Duino, Italy. Juan Pablo talks about the challenges he faced getting the film made,...
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Dennis is joined via Zoom by his dance class friend and rising star, writer-director-actor Leah McKendrick to talk about her breakout comedy from last year Scrambled as well as this month's reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which she has a story credit on. Leah talks about how Scrambled was inspired by her own journey of freezing her eggs as single woman in her 30's, how she was able to get the film made, the challenge of wearing so many hats on the project and how audiences would often want to hold and comfort her after seeing the movie. She also talks about her realization that if...
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Dennis is joined via Zoom by two of the men behind his favorite indie of the year so far Rent Free, co-writer and director Fernando Andrès and actor-producer Jacob Roberts. The film is about two queer, down-on-their-luck best friends Ben (Roberts) and Jordan (played by David Trevino) who hatch a plan to live rent free for a year in Austin, Texas--on friends' sofas or whatever they can fanagle--while they save up to move to New York City to pursue their dreams. Fernando talks about his goal of making a buddy comedy set in a bleak contemporary economic landscape focusing on a kind of queer...
info_outlineDennis is joined via Zoom by author and sex worker David Wichman to talk about his new book The Four Rooms: An Inqueery On Sexual Freedom and Well-Being. David talks about why he wanted to write the book, the struggles he faced along the way to publishing it and how, once it was finished, he delighted in having AI read it to him in the plummy British voice of actor-director Richard Attenborough. David also talks about why he calls his book "a non-self help book," and how he tries in his writing and his sex work to create a place where gay men can take down their armor. Other topics include: being intentionally smiley in bathhouses and sex clubs, the sacredness of gay divas like Madonna and Kylie Minogue, hearing from fans of his sexual videos from places where being gay is illegal like Syria, being a superfan of Florence + The Machine, why he doesn't have an arrogant guru vibe, what his many exotic travel adventures have taught him about America, digging deep to write his previous book, the memoir Every Grain of Sand and how Stevie Nicks saved his life.