The Empire Podcast #636 ft. Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Josh Greenbaum, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar

Call us a hearty sandwich on The Empire Podcast this week folks because our latest episode is jam-packed! In a three interview, five guest week, first up our very own Chris Hewitt sat down to chat with Saoirse Ronan — producer-star of new drama The Outrun — and her co-star Paapa Essiedu to talk about bonding, improvisation, and shooting on location [19:13 - 33:45 approx]. Next up, director Josh Greenbaum talks to us about new Netflix offering Will & Harper, an excellent documentary that follows Will Ferrell and his writer friend of three decades, Harper Steele, on a cross-country road trip in the aftermath of Harper's recent transition to living as a woman [54:27 - 1:13:03 approx]. And last but most certainly not least, there's a big chunk of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice spoiler special goodness as we indulge in a spoilerific chat with the film's writers and executive producers, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar [1:40:01 - 1:55:27 approx].

Sandwiched between all that guest-based goodness, Chris is joined in the podbooth by Helen O'Hara and James Dyer to tackle a listener question on directors whose careers have received a boost from working in the MCU, and to dive deep into this week's movie news. This week's pod was recorded before we learned of the sad passing of Dame Maggie Smith earlier today, and so the team will pay tribute to the acting icon in a later episode. But on the news front in the meantime, there's Thunderbolts* and Sinners trailer talk, musings on Emerald Fennell's new Wuthering Heights casting announcements, and discussion of our on-sale-now new Terminator 40th Anniversary special issue of the mag. Plus, we also review Will & Harper, Apple TV+ Brad Pitt and George Clooney team-up Wolfs, The Outrun, and Francis Ford Coppola's mad opus Megalopolis, a review so immense it has added ballast in the form of Alex Godfrey. Oh, and the team discover Bump Juice. To find out what it is, listen on. Enjoy.

You can listen to this week's episode (and over 600 more) on the pod app of your choice.