Maltin on Movies

If you can judge a person by the company they keep, you'll know why Leonard and Jessie were eager to talk to Stephanie Laing. She has worked with Tracey Ullman, Julia Louis Dreyfuss and other comedy luminaries as a producer and director and has a new movie opening in theaters today: Tow starring Rose Byrne. Stephanie spoke to us from a shuttered hospital in Jersey City, which is the set of her next film.

Her career has taken her from Shakespeare to Stallone and she has wonderful stories to tell. Caroline Goodall has worked for Steven Spielberg twice—in Hook and Schindler's List. Now she's playing a military leader who cuts quite a figure in the science-fiction fantasy Storm Rider: Legend of Hammerhead, which is only in theaters March 13. Leonard and Jessie hit it off with Caroline, who zoomed with us from her home on a barge resting in the Thames River! Tune in for an especially lively conversation.

When your film career starts out with E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and The Outsiders people expect big things to follow. C. Thomas Howell has made good on this promise by working steadily ever since those early 1980s milestones—and promoting literacy through screenings of the S.E. Hinton classic. He has scores of film and television credits, but Leonard and Jessie are most impressed with his work ethic. The quality that Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola noticed so long ago still fires his work, most recently in the features One Mile: Chapter One and One Mile: Chapter Two, both now available on digital.

You know his face and have felt his presence. Israeli-born Oded Fehr studied acting at the Old Vic in London and first made a vivid impression on movie audiences in The Mummy andThe Mummy Returns. Since then he has dodged stereotype casting, agreeing to play a terrorist in the TV series Sleeper Cell because it was a three-dimensional character. He then forged a new path in Star Trek: Discovery and Starfleet Academy. He is a charming, well-spoken man who belies the villainous image that gave him his first opportunities on screen. You can see his latest feature film, Grizzly Night, on Video on Demand.

It's been a long time since Patty McCormack became a sensation—and a star—playing the title role in The Bad Seed on Broadway and then in Hollywood, but it's still a calling card. Her talent has taken her from soap operas to sitcoms and The Sopranos. She's onscreen again in Stop Time, happy to be working but content to live outside the spotlight. Leonard and Jessie got to know her when she found rewarding work at a local bookstore and were happy to get reacquainted for this week's podcast.