The Parting Shot with H. Alan Scott

Andrew Garfield has never been afraid of a message movie. From The Social Network to Under the Banner of Heaven to his upcoming turn as Sam Altman in Artificial, the Oscar nominated actor keeps gravitating toward roles that carry something bigger. On this episode of the Parting Shot Podcast, Garfield joins me to talk about his latest, The Uprising. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film sends Garfield back to 1381 England as a nameless ploughman crushed by King Richard II's taxes, whose fight against the crown becomes the true story behind the legend of Robin Hood. Garfield explains...

Damien Warren-Smith performs every Penguin Classic novel in under an hour, mostly naked, as his alter ego Garry Starr. On this episode of the Parting Shot Podcast, Warren-Smith joins me to talk about Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, his new solo show making its Off Broadway premiere at Studio Seaview.Warren-Smith explains how a decade of theater acting led him to clown training in Paris with Philippe Gaulier, how a scrappy clown troupe called The Plague of iDiots gave Garry Starr his name and why performing naked has become the least complicated part of the job. We dig...

Wynn Everett and Frankie A. Rodriguez join H. Alan Scott to talk about the second season of Hulu's "Chad Powers," where their characters give the rest of us a way into a football show. "We're both theater kids," Everett says, which explains a lot about how they approached it. They get into the straight-guy, gay-guy friendship at the center of the series and why it works without ever announcing itself, what Glen Powell is actually like as a number one on the call sheet, and how the show walks the line between camp and heartbreak. Plus, Rodriguez on why...

Kristen Johnston has been stealing scenes for three decades. She joins H. Alan Scott to talk about playing Leanne Morgan's sister on the second season of Netflix's "Leanne," what auditioning opposite John Lithgow taught her about comedy and why her life splits neatly into before Lexi Featherston and after. Plus, what Michael Patrick King told her right before the biggest speech of her career. Subscribe to H. Alan Scott's newsletter: https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com Follow me: https://linktr.ee/halanscott See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at htt...

Leanne Morgan spent 27 years in stand-up before Netflix handed her a sitcom in her 60s. She joins H. Alan Scott to talk about season two of "Leanne," what Kristen Johnston taught her about working a multicam set and the wave of women over 60 currently running the format. "We must be the new it girls, I guess," Morgan says. Plus, what Netflix executives told her when she pitched the show, and why she is still surprised anyone let her in the room. Subscribe to H. Alan Scott's newsletter: https://for-the-culture.beehiiv.com Follow me: https://linktr.ee...

Fifteen years of apologizing, fifteen years of not speaking and one dinner party. John Galliano pulls out of the 2027 Costume Institute exhibition that would have honored him, ending weeks of backlash over the antisemitic and racist remarks that got him fired from Dior in 2011. H. Alan Scott and Lauren Giella ask whether stepping away was the right call, whether the Met outsourced a decision it should have made itself and what enough would even look like. Then Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger, which documents Liam and Noel Gallagher's 2025 reunion tour and delivers their first...

Microdramas are the vertical-video soap operas taking over your phone: one- or two-minute episodes stacked 60 deep, full of love triangles, betrayals and cliff-hangers. H. Alan Scott sits down with Newsweek's Lauren Giella and actor Jason Caceres, who has shot more than 100 microdramas since 2023 between roles on Hacks and Criminal Minds, to unpack how apps like ReelShort and DramaBox built an $11 billion industry projected to top $20 billion by 2030. They get into the pay, the six-day shoots and why Marc Jacobs just launched one starring Rowan Blanchard. Somewhere, a former Quibi executive is punching a wall. S...

Dolly Parton has died at 80, and the loss is impossible to size. Newsweek's Lauren Giella joins H. Alan Scott to talk through a legacy that ran far past country music, from the "9 to 5" crossover to the movies to Dollywood to the Imagination Library to a business strategy that was, somehow, love. H. Alan also reflects on the hour he spent interviewing Dolly a few years back, what she was actually like in a room, and why the welcome she extended to every single person was always the real gift. There is never going to be another one.<...

Anthony Bourdain was never just a chef. Dominic Sessa joins Newsweek's H. Alan Scott to talk about ‘Tony,’ the new film that follows a 19-year-old Bourdain through a summer in Provincetown after a rejection from Vassar, drawn from his 2000 memoir ‘Kitchen Confidential.’ Sessa came to the role with almost no relationship to the man: "I wasn't working from a place of trying to meet this standard of who he was in my mind." What he played instead was a kid absorbing everything around him. "I'm a 19-year-old young guy who doesn't really know anything about the world but pretends they do...

If it’s happening in the world of entertainment, it’s for the culture. And there’s a lot going on. For example, New York is insufferable right now and it kind of earned it. (Sam Smith is even writing love songs about it.) Oprah is out here discovering the mute button after four decades of letting the haters live rent free. Howard Stern is doing the math on what one show a week means for a man who built an empire on showing up every morning. Ryan Murphy is dangling a Glee reboot in front of a country that c...

Jeffrey Epstein's crimes were crimes against children. That is not how the country talked about them. Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD, who leads the Johns Hopkins Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, and journalist Luke Malone join Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to discuss their book ‘One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and What We Can Do to Stop It.’ On the coverage, Letourneau does not hedge: "I am outraged." The two unpack why "up to 70 percent of child sexual abuse is at the hands of other kids," why predator langua...

Summer's almost done, so let's see what it left behind. A festival that forgot what made it singular. A pop star who decided the conversation about her body was not one she had to attend. And a lot of men finally admitting they need somewhere to put their stuff. Three stories, all circling the same question: What do we do with the people we watch? Labor Day is fast approaching. Consider this the end of summer receipt. First up, comedian Coltown Dowling joined Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to break down why Lollapalooza should go...

It's no surprise that horror films are often allegories for larger societal issues, like racism with Get Out (2017) or male entitlement with Curry Barker's recent Obsession (2025). But rarely does the final girl, the last woman standing to confront the killer, get a redemption story of her own. That changes with Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. "I think just the genre ambiguity, the fact that it is not totally categorizable in one way," Hannah Einbinder told Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott about what drew her to the project. "The way that it...

Eric Goode and his producing partner Jeremy McBride have made a run of hit documentaries about what happens when humans get a little too into certain animals. With Netflix's Tiger King and HBO's Chimp Crazy, Goode explored the personalities behind the obsessions. In both cases, his subjects ended up in prison. Now, with Monsters of God, airing on HBO, Goode turns to exotic reptiles and the people who smuggle them. It is his most personal series yet. Goode, a turtle conservationist, comes to realize he is not only observing. He’s also part of the...

This has been quite a week in culture. First, Newsweek's H. Alan Scott reviews Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the latest chapter in Tom Holland's run as the wall crawler under director Destin Daniel Cretton. Then, Alan shifts gears to talk about Julien's Auctions putting one of television's most beloved props up for bid: Sophia Petrillo's purse from The Golden Girls. From blockbuster superheroes to sitcom history, this episode covers a lot of ground. Tune in for the review, the auction update and everything in between on this episode of Parting Shot. Subscribe to my n...

Crystal Methyd just became the first Drag Race winner out of Missouri, and she is not slowing down. She sits down with Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to unpack her All Stars run, why she waited to return after a pandemic-era original season, and the tour she just announced: the Enchanted Forest Tour, a full stage production with dancers, puppets and chaos hitting the road soon. Then runner-up Joey Jay talks through one of the wildest arcs the franchise has ever produced: eliminated in the third bracket, brought back for the final round, then storming all the way to th...

 In the 1970s, Tony Powell was a star defender for Norwich City. Then he vanished. Decades later, filmmakers Ramiel Petros and Nicholas Freeman found him living as the manager and sole resident of a fading West Hollywood motel, a gay man who walked away from everything at the height of his career rather than live a lie. Petros and Freeman join H. Alan to discuss their documentary 'The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel,' how a chance encounter on Santa Monica Boulevard became their directorial debut, why Tony's story matters now and his hope that it inspires other a...

Golf has never been the loudest sport, but Netflix's The Hawk is making the case that it should be. Will Ferrell stars as Lonnie Hawkins, a pro golfer chasing the fame he had at his 2004 peak, complete with a signature drink, a colorful camper and outfits that could stop traffic on the back nine. In this two-part conversation, Ferrell and Molly Shannon, reuniting on screen for the first time since Talladega Nights, tell me why golf is such an infuriating game and what makes Lonnie so fun to play. Then Luke Wilson, Jimmy Tatro and Fortune Feimster join to...

Reality TV is having a moment and Gibson Johns is here to break it all down. The podcast host and pop culture expert joins Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to unpack the Zach and Bryce bromance that took over Love Island USA this season, a friendship so beloved it arguably outshined every actual couple in the villa. Then it's on to Summer House, which just landed its first ever Emmy nomination after a season of scandal that gripped the Bravoverse. And finally, the two celebrate 20 years of The Real Housewives, a franchise so dominant it just spawned an entirely ne...

Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott sits down with Julie Klausner to talk New York's chaotic summer, the meaning of "cool" across generations and why Hulu’s Difficult People is finally getting a physical release on Blu-ray. They dig into chosen family on screen, from The Golden Girls to Will & Grace, and how friendship, not romance, has always been Julie's favorite story to tell. Julie reflects on the show's legacy, the shift from peak TV to algorithm-driven content and why she still believes in creating for its own sake. As she puts it, "my obligation as an artist" is "to make...