Terry Gross

The film Hustle & Flow follows the story of a Memphis pimp who dreams of becoming a rapper. Relative newcomer Craig Brewer wrote and directed the film, which won the 2005 Audience Award at Sundance. Brewer and star Terrence Howard discuss the gritty movie.

Albert Brooks has a new movie: Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. In it, he plays himself — and the comedian is sent to India and Pakistan by the State Department to find out what makes Muslims laugh.

The idea that priests, like all men, are not perfect might seem like a tame one. But NBC's effort to translate the premise into a TV series has brought protests that the show is anti-Christian. Jack Kenny is the creator and executive producer of The Book of Daniel.

For his latest release, producer and troubadour Joe Henry worked with giants in soul music, from Allen Toussaint to Mavis Staples. It was quite a departure for Henry, whose songs include "Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation."

Terry Gross talks with author Taylor Branch, who has written the third in a trilogy of biographies on Martin Luther King Jr. The book is called At Canaan's Edge.

The new documentary Grizzly Man by German filmmaker Werner Herzog tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, who lived for 13 years -- and died -- among the bears in Alaska. Treadwell and his girlfriend were found dead in October 2003, killed by the animals he had grown to love so much.

Record executive Simon Cowell is a judge on the talent show American Idol, which begins a new season this month. The hour-long show is a spin-off of one Cowell helped create in Britain, Pop Idol.

James Farmer was a co-founder of CORE, the Congress On Racial Equality, where he was national director from 1961-1966. In the 1960s, CORE helped organize the Freedom Rides movement against Jim Crow laws in the South. Farmer died in 1999. This interview was originally broadcast in 1985.

In 1961, the Freedom Riders set out for the Deep South to defy Jim Crow laws and call for change. Their efforts transformed the civil rights movement. Raymond Arsenault is the author of 'Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice'.

In October 2003, Mark Etherington became governor of the Shiite-majority Wasit Province in Iraq. Six months later, Etherington, isolated from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, was forced to flee his headquarters in al-Kut, the province's capital.