The Atlantic Monthly has helpfully indexed literary interviews from its archives. These include, among others, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, Dennis Lehane, Zadie Smith, Charles Simic, Salman Rushdie, Susan Sontag and John Irving.
posted on May 31, 2008 - View this thread

Tom Waits interviews Tom Waits. A charmingly rambling (but what else would you expect?) interview in advance of his PEHDTSCKJMBA tour. Includes these tantalizing words: I’m doing songs with them I’ve never attempted outside the studio. via reddit.
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

Post-hardcore/noise rockers No Age discuss their latest album, Nouns, track-by-track.
posted on May 1, 2008 - View this thread

"I mean he quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- [Paul Simon] stole the songs from us."
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

"My name is Mike Wallace. The cigarette is Philip Morris." Before there was 60 Minutes, there was The Mike Wallace Interview. Thirty minutes with Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kirk Douglas, Pearl Buck, and Salvador Dali, to name just a few.
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

Vladimir Nabokov discusses Lolita with Lionel Trilling.
posted on Apr 3, 2008 - View this thread

An interview with the artist behind one of the most linked-to videos on the internet.
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - View this thread

George Clooney meets the internet.
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

Errol Morris talks with Werner Herzog
posted on Mar 11, 2008 - View this thread

Om nom nom nom! NPR's In Character interviews Cookie Monster. In addition to the video interview, there is are articles (written and audio) about The Big C.
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

The King of Kong, continued. If you enjoyed "The King of Kong," check out the Onion AV Club's recent, impromptu, and insightful interview with Billy Mitchell. Also featured are responses by filmmakers Ed Cunningham and Seth Gordon.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

Haruki Murakami doesn't do many interviews. However, he granted one to a University of Hawaii journalism student and it was published in the January 2007 issue of GQ Korea. The text has been translated by the blog owner. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
posted on Feb 1, 2008 - View this thread

For the last year, the Vice TV program Soft Focus has presented an assortment of "discussions about art, culture, politics, personal history, personal feelings, fashion, and the like" with a series of noteworthy musicians. Host Ian Svenonius manages to wrangle dialogue with of some of the music world's most colorful and idiosyncratic characters: The Fall's Mark E. Smith, My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, The Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder, Crass' Penny Rimbaud, Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV's Genesis P. Orridge, Cat Power's Chan Marshall, Thee Headcoats' Billy Childish, The Specials' Terry Hall, Andrew WK, Fugazi's Ian Mackaye, and Palace/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Will Oldham.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Alfred Hitchcock reflects on his career in movies, discussing among other things, the origin of the term "MacGuffin", his creative process and what his earliest fear was.
posted on Dec 17, 2007 - View this thread

Dick Cavett interviews Mae West (1976). Part two. (YouTube)
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

Richard Paey Speaks - An interview with the paraplegic man sentenced to 25 years in prison for treating his own pain, but now out after a full pardon by the Florida Governor.
posted on Nov 20, 2007 - View this thread

Lengthy interview with The Bad Plus in All About Jazz
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

"About five years ago I had the idea of doing hand-written interviews with cartoonists I loved. I took a shot and wrote the top guy I could think of - Robert Crumb! And he wrote back!" Also featuring Joe Matt, Jeffrey Brown, James Kochalka, and Adrian Tomine. [Via Drawn!]
posted on Sep 7, 2007 - View this thread

"I don't know anyone who calls himself that" Bob Dylan insulted in Australia 20 years ago. It's a wonder he still does interviews at all, and he tours down under regularly. He's resiient (Part 2 of a double YouTube link).
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Frank Zappa - The Gigantic Spoken Word Project. Numerous volumes of a very large collection of Frank Zappa spoken word releases. They consist of radio interviews and journalist reporter type personal interviews. During the radio interviews sometimes music was played as background or added before the broadcast in between questions and answers. Sometimes FZ acts as D.J., plays records from his collection and talks to the radio audience. But the main focus of this series is FZ interviews which to me is as interesting as his music. (Just a quick warning; the download mechanism is a tad annoying)
posted on Jul 5, 2007 - View this thread

A Brief History of Errol Morris. His landmark televison interview/documentary series called "First Person" (ex. Rick Rosner : One in a Million Trillion [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], an interview with a man who went back to high school three times just to try to get it right; Denny Fitch : Leaving the Earth [2, 3, 4, 5, 6], where a pilot tells a harrowing tale of his passenger plane crash; and Andrew Cappocia : Mr. Debt [2 , 3], an interview with a passionate man about credit card reform.) ... see also: Fog of War [excerpt], an award winning full-length feature about Robert McNamara, US Director of Defense during the Viet Nam War; as well as some very compelling commercials [2,3, 4, 5] that you may remember, and an interview with the man himself. (Previously)
posted on Jul 2, 2007 - View this thread

An "order of magnitude older than the dinosaurs," even older than clams, bugs, vertebrates, are jellyfish. At almost 600 million years old, jellyfish are some of the oldest animals on the earth that have survived the test of time. Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin, (yes, of that Gershwin family) is a scientist studying jellyfish in Queensland, Australia and was recently interviewed by the ABC. I was particularly disturbed by her gripping description of the tiny Irukandji jellyfish and how the venom affects humans. This summer, swim at your own risk.
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Readersvoice.com is a lovely, low key site that interviews authors in a down to earth fashion that you normally don't see. The whole approach is wonderfully refreshing and endlessly fascinating.
posted on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

“I wanted to try to capture the intelligence of the design, not just the outcome of the design.” “In 1977, [Donald] Knuth halted research on his books for what he expected to be a one-year hiatus. Instead, it took 10. Accompanied by [his wife] Jill, Knuth took design classes from Stanford art professor Matthew Kahn. Knuth, trying to train his programmer’s brain to think like an artist’s, wanted to create a program [TeX] that would understand why each stroke in a typeface would be pleasing to the eye.”—from a profile of Knuth in the Stanford Magazine (May '06). Salon calls him “computing’s philosopher king” (Sep '99). NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Knuth as “the founding artist of computer science” (Mar '05). Perhaps a MeFite somewhere has one of these? (Previously)
posted on Apr 23, 2007 - View this thread

Ira Glass sits at a soundboard and schools us on the art of storytelling.
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

Ever get the giggles at the most inappropriate time? It will never compare with the day this Dutch interviewer spoke to a man who tragically lost his testicles following a surgical error.
posted on Mar 14, 2007 - View this thread

Filmiholic interviews Kal Penn. The interview begins with a discussion of his new film the Namesake, but covers a lot of interesting topics. There is an also an interview with Jhumpa Lahiri, who wrote the book the Namesake is based on.
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

Kotaku interviews Dez , the producer of Whores of Warcraft (NSFW)(previously), as well as Mia Rose and Hannah Harper, 2 porn stars recently added to the rolls of addicted World of Warcraft players. Apparently, Dez has at least 2 level 70 characters, and plays in a guild with Hannah's husband, where she's taken her Blood Elf Priest to level 26 already. Talking about Phat Lewt not getting you hot? How about some Bare Maidens? (gee, NSFW, you think?). Dez also has a fascinating MySpace page, mostly for his ...interesting mix of friends.
posted on Feb 7, 2007 - View this thread

Korea, the Beats, Quality, and Mental Illness: A fantastic interview with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance's Robert Pirsig.
posted on Dec 6, 2006 - View this thread

GQ interviews Al Gore. "I have a battery-powered hubris alarm on my belt. And it's set on vibrate, and it's going crazy."
posted on Nov 30, 2006 - View this thread

In a rare interview out of character, Sacha Baron Cohen discusses his reaction to the controversy over Borat:

And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater. The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist -- who believe that there's a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old."

Maybe this Kazakhstan doesn't exist--but Borat's antics sometimes aren't far off the mark from other parts of the world where gang-rape and stoning are meted out as punishment. Is it so silly to appreciate Borat as a comical icon from these dark corners of the world? Who is ignorant of what is really happening in the world--Cohen or his unwitting interviewees?
posted on Nov 16, 2006 - View this thread

"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."
posted on Nov 15, 2006 - View this thread

"Can I ask you what your favorite commandment is?" Woody Allen interviews Billy Graham. Part 2. YouTube single-link FPP.
posted on Nov 3, 2006 - View this thread

"My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty." -Oriana Fallaci
posted on Sep 15, 2006 - View this thread

Science Live site I found this because of the live coverage of the Festival of Science 2006 from Norwich, but found lots of other great links! Great for kids, but good for anyone curious about science. "What if you could watch any popular science lecture you wanted to? What if you could participate in any popular science event? What if you could find out what scientists themselves have to say about the issues that are important in society today? ScienceLive is an initiative that seeks to bring some of the best popular science events (discussions, lectures, interviews) directly to your home, so that you can watch these events whenever and from whereever you can.
posted on Sep 6, 2006 - View this thread

60 Minutes interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Some have described Iran's president as just another middle eastern wacko along the lines of Saddam and Bin Laden. After viewing the 60 Minutes interview, what is your take on things?
posted on Aug 13, 2006 - View this thread

On May 14th, 1967, the new British pop group The Pink Floyd makes one of their first ever TV appearances. Despite a stellar performance of the song Astronomy Domine, the pretentious host of the show, Hans Keller, has nothing good to say about the band. During the interview (youtube, performance comes first, interview starts about 5:50 in. transcript here.), he chastises the band for their "continuous repetition", "terribly loud" volume, and their "proportionately a bit boring" sound.

However, it seems that all Hans' show will ever be remembered for is this single interview. Pink Floyd, on the other hand.. Well, we all know what happened to them. Syd Barrett, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
posted on May 29, 2006 - View this thread

BBC interviews news editor regarding the Apple/Beatles verdict. Only one problem: the gentleman in the hotseat was the news editor's driver. Hilarity ensues. (video of the interview here - the driver's expression when he realizes he's been mistaken is priceless.)
posted on May 14, 2006 - View this thread

Thought-provoking interview with former employee of hated spyware-maker 180 Solutions.
via /.
posted on Apr 2, 2006 - View this thread

Culture Catch is an online "magazine" featuring vid and podcasts of musicians such as Mark Kozelek, American Music Club, Les Paul and Tony Visconti. Plus: Todd McFarlane, Sir Richard Branson, Henry Rollins, Gisele, David Cronenberg and more.
posted on Mar 30, 2006 - View this thread

What became of Whit Stillman.
posted on Mar 6, 2006 - View this thread

Random Rules , a new[ish] feature of the Onion: A.V. Club. They ask a rocker/writer/comedian/whatever to set their MP3 player to "shuffle" and comment on the first few tracks that come up. This probably could have been very boring, but it actually ended up kind of interesting. See Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse call Belle and Sebastian a “one-fuckin'-trick pony”. Enjoy David Cross waxing poetic about R.E.M.’s Murmur. From the main link, read the description of the raw sexual chemistry that existed between David Berman of the Silver Jews and the actress that played Ginger on Gilligan's Island.
posted on Mar 1, 2006 - View this thread

"Don't talk to me. Don't speak to me. Stay with me." Three years later, the author of Atlantic Monthly's most popular essay sits down for an interview.
posted on Feb 20, 2006 - View this thread

"The iPod’s a great product. However our experience in dealing with them, as regards licensing music for iTunes, has been quite depressing." Coldcut member and indie label Ninja Tune co-founder Matt Black in a pixelsurgeon interview about the new album, the relative relaxation on sample licensing, and iTunes. For another independent perspective on iTunes see The 99c Question - addressing the pressures on iTunes from major labels to raise prices.
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

When the levees broke, he looked for was his camera and a boat. This Times-Picayune photographer tells his story of what happened next.
posted on Dec 13, 2005 - View this thread

DriveTime. Live in Boston? Need a ride to (or from) work? You could be a guest on Ravi Jain's weekly video blog/talk show/commute. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, (QT .mov)
posted on Nov 20, 2005 - View this thread

Chomsky gets his apology. The world's most famous public intellectual would appear to have been vindicated back after the hatchet job done on him in the Guardian by Emma Brockes two weeks ago. The Guardian has had to withdraw the offending article from its site and Ms Brockes has made no comment after her employer's Correction & Clarifications tore strips off of her article. The original article was previously discussed here.
posted on Nov 17, 2005 - View this thread

Staggering reading by Robert Fisk then an interview with Fisk by Amy Goodman - from a 9/2005 program at the ever-wonderful Lannan Foundation.
posted on Nov 8, 2005 - View this thread

Co-winner of the Nobel prize in economics Robert Aumann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem gave a very interesting interview about how he became interested in economics, math, and the "topology of bagels." How he applied logic from the Talmud to bankruptcy and other economic events was described nicely at Slate here.
posted on Oct 21, 2005 - View this thread

An interview with Margaret Atwood. [Sometimes bad interviews are the most interesting.]
posted on Oct 12, 2005 - View this thread