Here's The Thing - 5. Lena Dunham/Elaine Stritch

HERE'S THE THING - 5. LENA DUNHAM/ELAINE STRITCH (320kbs-m4a/123mb/54mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 5th March 2020

More in depth interviews from WNYC Radio in New York hosted by Alec Baldwin.

Alec Baldwin offers a unique insight into the lives of artists, policy makers and performers, sidestepping the predictable by taking listeners inside the dressing rooms, apartments, and offices.

Concluding the series specially curated for BBC Radio 4 Extra, Alec talks with two female stars that have comedy at the heart of what they do so well.

In 2013, Alec talked to Lena Dunham, the creator of HBO’s Girls. Says when she was younger, she thought she’d be a "Gender and Women’s Studies teacher who showed movies at the occasional film festival." Instead she's trying to figure out what to wear to shoot the cover of Rolling Stone. Dunham talks with Alec about getting a dog and her first date with her boyfriend Jack Antonoff. She’s not ready for children—yet—but they are on her mind: “I was raised to think that the two most important things you could do in your life were to have a passionate, generous relationship to your work and to raise children.”

Also in 2013, Alec sat down with the late stage and screen veteran Elaine Stritch, who, among many famous roles, played his mother Colleen Donaghy on 30 Rock. Stritch spoke to Alec about her transition from the Sacred Heart Convent and finishing school to finding herself in the New York theater classes sitting between Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. She performed for nearly 70 years and throughout her career, Stritch comments, "I was the funny kind of offbeat girl. I was never the romantic lead.”

Produced by WNYC in the USA.

Acquired for BBC Radio 4 Extra. First heard on the Here’s The Thing podcast in 2014.