Terry Gross

Artist Chuck Close has been called "the most methodical artist that has ever lived in America" and the "reigning portraitist of the Information Age." He creates jumbo-size faces on canvas, copying them from photographs. They are painted in a dotted faux pointillist style.

In 1989 Close suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed from the neck down, gaining partial use of his hand with a brace, he learned to paint all over again.

In actor Richard Gere's latest film, The Hoax, he plays a scam artist who gets a major book publisher to pay him a seven-figure publishing deal. It's based on the true story of Clifford Irving, who claimed to be a Howard Hughes biographer. It's now out on DVD.

Gere has almost 40 films to his credit, including Days of Heaven, American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, The Cotton Club, Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Chicago.

This interview was originally broadcast on April 4, 2007.

In The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea, veteran journalist Steve LeVine writes about the high-stakes political gamesmanship over control of the rich oil resources in that region.

The latest CD from New Orleans trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard is A Tale of God's Will, whose subtitle is "A Requiem for Katrina."

Parts of the recording were heard in Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke. Blanchard, who's scored many films, including Eve's Bayou and Malcolm X, got his start with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

He is artistic director for the Thelonious Monk Institute at the University of Southern California.

By the end of The 40 Year Old Virgin, the title character had lost his virginity — and actor Steve Carell had become a star.

The actor, who was a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show for several years, has gone on to films including Little Miss Sunshine and Evan Almighty, and next summer he'll star as hapless secret agent Maxwell Smart in a Hollywood adaptation of the vintage TV series Get Smart. And of course he's got a central role on NBC's The Office.

In July 2003, newspaper columnist Robert Novak published the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame — shortly after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece contradicting President Bush's contention that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure yellowcake uranium from the West African nation of Niger.

Ben Karlin, former executive producer of both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is also an alumnus of the satirical newsweekly The Onion. He left the Comedy Central shows in December 2006 to focus on his family. This interview originally aired on April 4, 2006.

Rob Corddry left his Daily Show correspondent gig in 2006 to star in his own short-lived sitcom, The Winner.

He's also had roles in recent movie comedies, including The Heartbreak Kid, Failure to Launch and Blades of Glory.

He is also a regular performer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

This interview was originally broadcast on March 8, 2007.

We rebroadcast our conversation from earlier this month with one of fake news' most indelible personalities: Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert.

This interview originally aired Oct. 9, 2007.