Terry Gross

As part of the first cast of Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd helped bring the Coneheads and the Blues Brothers to life.

He went on to star in a number of films, including Trading Places and Grosse Pointe Blank. He also received an Academy Award nomination for his role in Driving Miss Daisy.

We talk with Aykroyd about his two latest projects: the book Elwood's Blues: Interviews with the Blues Legends and Stars, and the upcoming movie Christmas with the Kranks.

His most recent film The Saddest Music in The World is now out on DVD. It stars Isabella Rossellini as a beer baroness in search of the saddest music in the world. It also stars Mark Kinney, best known for his work with the Kids in the Hall. The film is a Depression era musical shot mostly in black and white. This interview was originally broadcast on April 26, 2004.

Downey has a new CD, The Futurist, which includes songs that he wrote and performed. He received an Academy Award nomination and won the British Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin. He also starred in Wonder Boys, Two Girls and a Guy, Natural Born Killers, and The Pick-Up Artist. This interview was originally broadcast Oct. 22, 2003.

Writer Augusten Burroughs is the author of two best-selling, often bitingly funny memoirs. In his first, Running With Scissors, he recalled his mentally ill mother, who gave him away to her equally mentally ill shrink — who then adopted him. Of that experience, Burroughs wrote, "I then lived a life of squalor, pedophiles, no schools and free pills." His second memoir, Dry, was about getting sober in a 28-day stay at a gay alcoholism-rehab center. Burroughs' new book is a collection of stories, Magical Thinking.

James Bennet is the former Jerusalem Bureau chief for The New York Times. He recently returned to the Middle East to cover the death of Arafat and the jockeying for power among the Palestinian factions.

Caouette made his filmmaking debut with the autobiographical documentary Tarnation. He made it on his home computer for only $218. It includes snapshots, super-8 home movies, answering machine messages and dramatic reenactments from his chaotic upbringing in a dysfunctional Texas family.

Pickett's novel Sideways has been made into a critically acclaimed film starring Thomas Paul Giamatti and Haden Church (left). It's about two ex-college roommates, now middle-aged, who set off on a week's trip through California wine country.

He co-starred in the John Cassavetes films, Husbands, and A Woman Under the Influence. Falk is best known for his role as a rumpled L.A. detective in the TV series Columbo, where he garnered three Emmy awards. There's also a new DVD Columbo-The Complete First Season. This interview was originally broadcast on March 15, 1995.

Rowlands collaborated with her late husband, actor, screenwriter and director, John Cassavetes for 30 years. She won acclaim for her performance in A Woman Under the Influence and Gloria. This interview was originally broadcast on Dec. 2, 1996.

British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge traveled across America to write their new book The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America. The book examines the history of the conservative movement in the United States. Micklethwait and Wooldridge both write for The Economist.