WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Brittany Howard always needs to keep moving forward. That’s part of the reason she made the difficult decision to take a break from her band Alabama Shakes and go out on her own. Now, for the first time as a Grammy-nominated solo artist, Brittany is trying to force herself to be present and reckon with the fact that she tried so hard to get away from the past...

Jimmy Tingle has a lot in common with Marc and many other Boston-based WTF guests. But what sets Jimmy apart is the merger of his comedy with politics and civic engagement. Jimmy tells Marc about his sobriety, his shift toward one-man shows and his focus on societal issues, which eventually led to him getting into Harvard in his mid-50s, giving the commencement address, and running for office...

Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney is always trying to understand why things are the way they are. He’s done so with Enron, Scientology, the War on Terror, Donald Trump and other topics where he often finds people believing that the ends justify the means. That’s true of his new documentary Citizen K about Russian oligarchs and Vladimir Putin...

Jay Roach went from directing major comedies like the Austin Powers series and Meet the Parents to making timely political films like Recount, Game Change and his new movie Bombshell. The transition makes more sense when you hear Jay tell Marc how he’s gone from one thing to another in life - teaching in college, making documentaries, meeting his wife, meeting Mike Myers, directing his first feature film with no track record - often without warning or any plan at all...

To play Richard Jewell, Paul Walter Hauser knew he needed to tap into a part of himself he thought he left behind in Saginaw, Michigan. Paul and Marc talk about his Christian upbringing as the son of a Lutheran pastor, the importance of faith in his life today, how show business initially beat him down and kicked him back to his home town, and how he got back in the game with an emotional audition that changed everything. They also talk about his performances in I, Tonya and Blackkklansman...

Before he was a King of Comedy, before he was even an entertainer, he was Cedric the Insurance Claims Adjuster. Cedric and Marc talk about his emergence in the St. Louis-area comedy scene and how the business of Black Comedy took off. Cedric also looks back on his brief but game-changing touring days with Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey and DL Hughley, his roles in movies like Barbershop and First Reformed, and his current CBS series The Neighborhood. This episode is sponsored by WHO by The Who, Zoro...

Photographer Ethan Russell is the only person to shoot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, which is quite an achievement considering he didn’t even want a career as a photographer. Ethan talks with Marc about going from the U.S. to England in the 1960s to become a writer, only to find himself working with Mick Jagger and taking rock and roll photographs that stand the test of time...

There was a point in Jessica Kirson’s life where she was living with too many secrets. She was a pot dealer, she had a hidden cocaine habit, and she was deeply in the closet. Jessica worked to unburden herself of all those secrets and found a breakthrough when her grandmother told her, at 29 years old, that she should be a comedian. Jessica and Marc talk about her therapist mom, her stepbrother Zach Braff, her ex-girlfriend Susan Powter, and her unexpected friend Robert DeNiro...

Keith Wager is a recovery friend of Marc’s who has a lot to be thankful for. Instead of doing drugs and getting arrested, like he did in the past, now he’s telling stories about his addiction and recovery on his podcast It’s All Bad. And because it always helps to talk about things, Keith and Marc talk about the bad decisions he made while drunk or on speed, his time in various detention centers, and his new life as a Hollywood wardrobe stylist...

Mike Sweeney tried on several different careers before becoming the head writer for Conan O’Brien: trial lawyer, standup comedian, warm-up comic. But it’s a miracle he was able to do any of them after growing up in a violent, unpredictable household. Mike tells Marc the truly shocking circumstances of his early life, as well as the better days doing comedy in New York City, the highs of Late Night on NBC, the chaos of Conan’s Tonight Show days, and the many hats he now wears in the Conan Empire...