The Empire Film Podcast

The star and director of Evil Dead, Jane Levy and Fede Alvarez, stop by the Empire Podcast studio to talk blood, body parts and chainsaws this week, with only two of us fainting during the process. Elsewhere, La Haine director and Amelie star Mathieu Kassovitz drops in in honour of his latest, Rebellion, and the podcast team talk embarrassing interview questions, yearly Star Wars outings and funerals in the movies (for some reason...).

When he was a kid, Aaron Eckhart lived in the UK. When he lived in darkest Surrey, he picked up the acting bug, attempted to become a singer/songwriter and played a bit of rugby. Since then, he's gone onto appear in The Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking and now Olympus Has Fallen, and in this week's Empire Podcast you can find out all about how it happened. Then there's Radagast The Brown himself, the one and only Sylvester McCoy, who is charm personified as he talks about his days as The Doctor and how tricky it is to act with hedgehogs. In the non-interview potion of the podcast, we discuss rocket deaths - don't ask - as well as Tom Cruise's latest, Oblivion, The Place Beyond The Pines and much, much more.

John Boorman is the legendary British film director behind Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General, The Tailor of Panama and many more. As he has been recently awarded a BFI fellowship - which is currenly showing a selection of his films in a special John Boorman season - we asked him into the podcast studio for an in-depth interview, and here, ladies and gentlemen, is the fascinating result.

Rufus Sewell refers to himself as "that twat on a horse" in his interview on this week's Empire Podcast, whereas Harmony Korine does no such thing, instead talking about James Franco phallating a gun in honour of his latest, Spring Breakers. Elsewhere, a very important discussion is blown wide open: which film director has the best voice? Also, we say goodbye to the one and only Roger Ebert...

The long Easter weekend may have finally arrived, but that's not going to stop us from unleashing a new Empire Podcast on your generic MP3 devices, no sir/madam. Boasting interviews from Danny Boyle (Trance), Jonathan Pryce (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) and David Holmes (Good Vibrations) as well as reviews of Trance, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Good Vibrations, it's chock-full of cinematic goodness, as well as an in-depth discussion of Star Trek's tribbles. Of course.

Danny Boyle is the man behind Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, The 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony and now Trance, a twisty-turny hypno-thriller that sees James McAvoy's art auctioneer taking part in a heist with professional criminal Franck (Vincent Cassel) - only he forgets where he put the loot, which is where Rosario Dawson's hypnotist comes in to try and salvage a solution from the back of his noggin. Here, then is an extended interview with the great man, touching on everything from Alien Resurrection to where in the world A Life Less Ordinary was a massive smash...

In this week's Empire Podcast, Ryan Reynolds talks about the proposed Justice League movie (as well as that infamous Deadpool spin-off script of his), and Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman tell the world the current state(s) of play for Bridesmaids 2 and the upcoming Arrested Development series on Netflix. Then there are reviews for this week's releases - including The Croods, Identity Thief and Jack The Giant Slayer - as well as your questions answered and more than a few news stories...

Harry Potter, Star Wars, Leprechaun, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Life's Too Short... Warwick Davis has appeared in many, many things, but nothing quite like his very own Empire Podcast special. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of his starring role alongside Val Kilmer in Willow, there's plenty on incantations, morphing and magical acorns, as well as some top baking tips, just because.

The Empire Podcast celebrates its first birthday in this very special (and extra silly) 52nd episode. Joining the usual gang of film-loving misfits are The Last Exorcism Part II's Eli Roth and Welcome To The Punch duo Eran Creevy and Mark Strong (yep, him again), making this an interview-packed spectacular. So get your downloading fingers at the ready and join us for bad jokes, movie birthday chat and reviews of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, The Paperboy, Red Dawn and more...

This week's episode boasts three special guests, namely Tim Roth, Sam Raimi and Zach Braff. Mr. Roth was here to talk Broken, lunchbox movies and working with Bette Davis, whereas Messrs. Raimi and Braff rocked up to the Empire Podcast studio to tell us all about that Oz chap everyone's banging on about. Elsewhere, the team tackle such tricky quandaries as how you solve a problem like Fassavoy - it'll make sense in context, promise - and which books should be adapted into films as soon as possible.

In a week where his '70s-influenced thriller hits cinemas, the one and only Mark Wahlberg comes to the Empire Podcast studio to talk Broken City, Ted 2 and what to expect from his role in Transformers 4. Elsewhere, a whole heap of movies get reviewed - including Broken City, Stoker and Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters - and the director of Song For Marion, Paul Andrew Williams, gets quizzed about Terence Stamp's fitness regime.

The 2013 Academy Awards happened - and in the middle of the night on a premium channel, to boot. To help you make sense of what happened on Sunday night, three of Empire's Oscars reporting team stayed up through the night to record this special round-up edition of the show, just for you. So with this in mind, expect a distinct lack of coherence... even more so than normal.

Two Bond girls made their way to the Empire Podcast this week: two whole, real-life Bond girls. It might seem like we planned this, but that's just not true - it turns out Terrence Malick's To The Wonder, which happens to star Quantum Of Solace's Olga Kurylenko, is out in cinemas this week, and Skyfall is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray to boot. Elsewhere, the team review Song For Marion, Cloud Atlas and Mama, with the news section full of stories about apes.

The guests: Jai Courtney, David Morrissey, David Oyelowo, Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert. The films: A Good Day To Die Hard, Beautiful Creatures, This Is 40. The news: Robert Downey Jr., Quentin Tarantino, The BAFTAs. The questions: a bit weird. All this and more in this bumperiest of bumper-sized Empire Podcasts...

This week's Empire podcast is somewhat video game-flavoured this week, with J.J. Abrams' plans for a Portal and/or Half-Life movie in the news section and Wreck-It Ralph in the reviews department. In the readers' questions category, expect an in-depth discussion of those Star Wars spin-off movies everyone's talking about - Porkins: The Movie! - as well as some ruminating upon that tricky conundrum of whether certain deleted scenes should have actually remained in the movie. Then there are our interviews with John C. Reilly and Warm Bodies' Nicholas Hoult, making this a particularly jam-packed podcast this week.

With regular host Chris Hewitt away on a top secret mission to Los Angeles, Helen O'Hara takes his place in the podcast hosting chair, overseeing a show where reviews editor Ian Freer explains just how star ratings work, The Muppets sequel gets analysed and the week's releases - including Flight and Bullet To The Head - are reviewed. Plus, look forward to a snippet of the longer Denzel Washington and Robert Zemeckis interview and a fresh 15 minutes with I Give It A Year star Rafe Spall and I Give It A Year writer/director Dan Mazer. Just wait until you find out who (or what) a 'Rapscallion' is...

Flight unites Denzel Washington with Robert Zemeckis, and this Empire Podcast special does likewise, with the Oscar-winning actor and Oscar-winning director spending over 40 minutes talking about their new drama as well as their careers in general, Nelson Mandela's house and their favourite Beatles albums.

In a week where two five star movies hit cinemas - namely Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln - the Empire podcast is bumper-sized, boasting lengthy reviews of both films, as well as a discussion of the JJ Abrams / Star Wars: Episode VII rumours, your questions answered and news of Steven Spielberg's return to TV with Masters Of The Air. Oh, and The Governator drops by for a chat, as does the one and only Mark Strong.

This week, the Empire Podcast team mourn the (potential) loss of HMV on the high street, interview Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow and The Following star James Purefoy, review Django Unchained, The Sessions and Monsters, Inc. 3D and answer listeners' ever-so-slightly bonkers questions. Listen out for a passionate discussion of movie pet hates, and be sure to let us know your own over the next few weeks...

What are the curveballs thrown out by this week's Oscars nominations? Who's likely to trade blows (not literally) with Lincoln on the night itself? Empire kicks off the new year with an avalanche of analysis, chatter and Sebastian the Hedgehog references. (Yes, we're still doing that.) That isn't all this week, though. If you have a trip to Les Misérables planned then catch a fascinating chat with director Tom Hooper and Toby Jones talking about his portrayal of Hitchcock in The Girl.