The Gray Area with Sean Illing

  • Does China control Hollywood?

    Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson talks with Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel about Red Carpet, his new book detailing the myriad ways that Hollywood movies are affected by China. They discuss how Chinese markets are essential…


  • Steve Bannon is still at war

    Sean Illing talks with Jennifer Senior, the Pulitzer-winning staff writer at the Atlantic, about her recent piece on Steve Bannon called “American Rasputin.” Through incredible firsthand access and detailed reporting, Senior shows how Bannon is…


  • The Fortress of Solitude saw it all coming

    Vox’s Constance Grady talks with writer Jonathan Lethem about his 2003 work The Fortress of Solitude in this recording from a live Vox Book Club event. They discuss the prescient and still-relevant themes of the…


  • The Philosophers: Stoic revival

    Sean Illing talks with author Ryan Holiday about Stoicism — a philosophy with roots in ancient Greece and which flourished in early imperial Rome — and how it can help us live fulfilling lives today.…


  • Station Eleven’s creator on the end of the world

    Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos sits down with Patrick Somerville, the creator and showrunner of HBO’s critically-acclaimed series Station Eleven, adapted from the novel by Emily St. John Mandel. They talk about the weirdness of making a…


  • The racist origins of fat phobia

    Vox’s Anna North talks with Da’Shaun Harrison, the activist, author, and 2022 Lambda Literary Award recipient for their book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. Da’Shaun explains the ways in which…


  • The fight for Ukraine — and democracy

    Sean Illing talks with historian and author Timothy Snyder about the war in Ukraine, the stakes for Europe and the rest of the world, and the battle between Putin’s autocracy and democracy being waged. They…


  • The war on trans people

    Vox’s Emily St. James talks with Chase Strangio of the ACLU about the assault on the rights of trans Americans taking place in many states across the country. They explain why laws that recently passed…


  • Michael Ian Black on being a better man

    Sean Illing talks with comedian and author Michael Ian Black about his book A Better Man, in which Black writes a letter to his son about masculinity, vulnerability, and the importance of empathy, among other…


  • Carmen Maria Machado’s haunted feminine

    Vox’s Constance Grady talks with writer Carmen Maria Machado, whose 2017 short story collection Her Body and Other Parties was a National Book Award finalist. In this episode, which is a recording of a live…