The Big Interview
In-depth conversations with global leaders in art, design, literature, politics, business, and food. Learn from the best about their craft and successes.
Latest Episodes
Pipilotti Rist
Rist’s video and installation art is known across the world for its bold, resonant and often funny style. With a major retrospective of her work open at Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Monocle’s Augustin Macellari sat down with the Swiss artist to discuss everything from colour and collectivism to…
Chiwetel Ejiofor
The English actor has had a successful career in film as well as on stage – and earlier this year he launched his career as a writer and director with critically acclaimed debut ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’. Ben Rylan sat down with him to talk about the craft…
Steve McQueen
For our season finale, we sit down with the British Turner prize-winning artist and Oscar-winning director of ‘12 Years a Slave’, ‘Shame’ and ‘Hunger’. He talks to Robert Bound about his latest film ‘Widows’ and focusing on the work, not the accolades.
Christine and the Queens
The French singer’s first album ‘Chaleur Humaine’ launched in 2015 and topped the charts in France and beyond. Since then, Christine and the Queens has travelled the world, performed with Elton John and famously got spanked on stage by Madonna in Paris. Her new release ‘Chris’ is a funk-filled record…
Barry Jenkins
The director of ‘Moonlight’, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2017, has been on an extraordinary journey to Hollywood. In conversation with Monocle’s Ben Rylan, he talks about everything from getting into filmmaking while growing up in a rough neighbourhood, to adapting James Baldwin to the screen in…
Jane Mayer
Investigative journalist Mayer became the first female Washington correspondent for ‘The Wall Street Journal’ in 1984 and had been a staff writer at ‘The New Yorker’ since 1995; she has also published numerous non-fiction books. She talks about corruption in Washington, increasing press hostility and her determination to expose the…
Mary-Kay Wilmers
Wilmers has been the editor of the ‘London Review of Books’, Europe’s legendary literary journal, since 1992. She’s also the author of non-fiction work ‘The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story’ and, more recently, ‘Human Relations and Other Difficulties’, a collection of essays on women’s experiences. She talks to Monocle’s Megan Gibson…
Sally Field
She won an Oscar for best actress in ‘Norma Rae’ in 1980 and another in 1985 for ‘Places in the Heart’. She appeared in numerous sitcoms and Hollywood box-office hits: ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ and ‘Lincoln’, to name a few. She has now written a memoir,…
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The lauded Finnish composer and conductor, currently principal conductor for London’s Philharmonia and conductor laureate for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has spent his career tearing down the elitist labels associated with classical music. He experiments with VR and shaking up the classical-concert format to make orchestras and music more accessible.…
Agnès Varda
French film director Agnès Varda was a key protagonist in the new wave of French cinema in the 1960s. Her signature films include ‘Cleo from 5-7’, ‘Vagabond’ and ‘The Gleaners and I’. At age 90, ‘Faces Places’ is her latest documentary about a road trip to rural France with world-renowned…
