HFPA in Conversation

Ryan Murphy taught Billy Porter to dream the impossible.   Like being a leading character on a network television show, Pose, that is about his community.

Lately, she has been in the headlines because of the #metoo movement, fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment and addressing fat-shaming on her new Netflix TV show Insatiable.   In this podcast, Alyssa Milano – known for TV series like Who’s the Boss, Melrose Place, Charmed, and Mistresses – tells HFPA journalist Helen Hoehne how she became the person she is today.

Tomorrow Never Dies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha are just a few of the hit movies Michelle Yeoh has starred.   The Malaysian-born actress has paved the way for younger Asian actors.

HFPA journalist Diederik van Hoogstraten met with renowned stage, film and TV actress and Golden Globe winner Glenn Close to talks about a variety of topics, ranging from her latest role to the #metoo movement, the constitution, mental health and our current administration.  In the drama, The Wife Close plays a woman who questions her own path in life after sacrificing so much to support her husband’ - a Nobel Prize-winning writer, career.

Director-producer Stanley Kramer’s legacy lives on through his widow Karen Sharpe and daughter Kat Kramer. They walked down memory lane and share stories from old Hollywood with HFPA journalist Silvia Bizio.

Will & Grace star and Golden Globe nominee  Debra Messing got together with HFPA journalist Barbara Gasser at the London hotel in West Hollywood. Messing talked about how she will celebrate her 50th birthday,  reflected on her life experiences as a young woman, and how she found a meaningful purpose to her life in college and later became a Global Health Ambassador for Populations Services International, which led her to visit HIV prevention programs in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

She is known for socially conscious TV shows like Ugly Betty and Transparent, but Judith Light didn’t search specifically for those projects.  Regardless of who she is playing, the character has to be important to her, Light told HFPA journalist Gabriel Lerman at the Rogers and Cowan office in Century City.

The Handmaid’s Tale Yvonne Strahovski tells why her character Serena Joy Waterford is like a can of worms to HFPA journalist Ana Maria Bahiana.   The Australian-born actress got her first Emmy nomination for the role  - a character she describes as 'an incredibly damaged person.

Golden Globe winner Mira Sorvino, star of the drama series Condor, talked to HFPA journalist Katherine Tulich about Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, how Hollywood and the world have changed since the #metoo movement started, and the United States’ current immigration policy, especially separating kids from their parents. Being an activist wasn’t a natural choice for Sorvino.

When English actor Jared Harris and the HFPA journalist Nellee Holmes met at the AMC offices he revealed what happened on the Mad Men set when he was directing the episode 'Time & Life': “There were some pretty crazy moments because by then it was season seven and all those guys, they knew each other really well and they were really comfortable with each other.   And the guys had started this game where when you weren't watching, they would whack you in the balls with their fingers and try to whip your nuts.