Interviews with leading figures from the arts
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Warren Ellis recalls how jungle horror and healing broke him open
Tuesday, 07 October 2025
Warren Ellis is Nick Cave’s wild-maned Bad Seeds right-hand man and The Dirty Three’s frenzied violinist. Justin Kurzel’s Australian film subjects meanwhile exist on the malign edge, from Snowtown’s suburban serial killer and Nitram’s mass shooter to Ned Kelly.
theartsdesk Q&A: Idris Elba on playing a US President faced with a missile crisis in 'A House of Dynamite'
Tuesday, 07 October 2025
Idris Elba has only just appeared as the British Prime Minister in the action comedy Heads of State (2025) – now he's portraying the American President in Kathryn Bigelow's tense political thriller A House of Dynamite.
theartsdesk Q&A: composer Donghoon Shin on...
Saturday, 27 September 2025
Donghoon Shin has a taste for the esoteric – a love of labyrinths, literary puzzles, and contradictory aspects of the self. One of his favourite...
Robert Redford: remembering All the President’s...
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
In the summer of 2005, Robert Redford, who died this week, attended the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, to collect a life...
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Sam Riley on playing a...
Friday, 12 September 2025
You won't find Sam Riley lying at the pool in a holiday resort – unless it's for work. "I'd rather stay home to be honest", says the Berlin-based...
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
theartsdesk Q&A: Suranne Jones on 'Hostage', power pants and politics
The star and producer talks about taking on the role of Prime Minister, wearing high heels and living in the public eye |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Leonie Benesch on playing an overburdened nurse in the Swiss drama 'Late Shift'
The Guildhall-trained German star talks about the enormous pressures placed on nurses and her admiration for British films and TV |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud on sex, love, and confusion in the modern world
The writer-director discusses first-love agony and ecstasy in 'Dreams', the opening UK installment of his 'Oslo Stories' trilogy |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Lars Eidinger on 'Dying' and loving the second half of life
The German star talks about playing the director's alter ego in a tormented family drama |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Athina Rachel Tsangari on her brooding new film 'Harvest'
The Greek filmmaker talks about adapting Jim Crace's novel and putting the mercurial Caleb Landry Jones centre stage |
theartsdesk Q&A: writer and actor Mark Gatiss on 'Bookish'
The multi-talented performer ponders storytelling, crime and retiring to run a bookshop |
Interview: Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on playing in London and why Mick Jagger's a fan
Music Director Julián Vat and pianist Matias Feigin compare notes on Piazzolla |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Emma Mackey on 'Hot Milk' and life education
The Anglo-French star of 'Sex Education' talks about her new film’s turbulent mother-daughter bind |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Andreas Dresen on his anti-Nazi resistance drama 'From Hilde, with Love'
The East German-born filmmaker explains why his biopic of the activist Hilde Coppi isn't bound to the 1940s |
Bleak landscapes and banjos: composer Bernard Hughes discusses his score for 'Chicken Town'
Our critic talks about his recent film project |
theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out psychiatrist in ITV's 'Malpractice'
She nearly became a dancer, but now she's one of TV's most familiar faces |
theartsdesk Q&A: Gary Oldman on playing John Cheever in 'Parthenope' and beating the booze
Exclusive: A candid interview with the master actor |
theartsdesk Q&A: film director Déa Kulumbegashvili on her startling second feature, 'April'
The Georgian filmmaker talks about her award-winning abortion drama, motherhood and her relationship with the unknown |
theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl discusses his sexual abuse drama 'Julie Keeps Quiet'
The Belgian filmmaker unfolds an all too familiar tragedy in the world of tennis |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Miguel Gomes on his latest exotic opus, 'Grand Tour'
The Portuguese director's comic melodrama takes a fantastical journey through Southeast Asia and the history of cinema |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apocalyptic musical 'The End'
The documentary director talks about his ominous first fiction film and why its characters break into song |
theartsdesk Q&A: director François Ozon on 'When Autumn Falls'
The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film |
theartsdesk Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'
The actor on her breakout screen performance capturing the frantic pulse of Mumbai, and living and working between London and India |
theartsdesk Q&A: Raoul Peck, director of the documentary 'Ernest Cole: Lost and Found'
Peck analyses his approach to the anti-apartheid photographer's work and to his methods as a political filmmaker |
theartsdesk Q&A: Oscar-winner Adrien Brody on 'The Brutalist'
The much-garlanded actor on what playing the architect László Toth meant to him |
Interview: Polar photographer Sebastian Copeland talks about the dramatic changes in the Arctic
An ominous shift has come with dark patches appearing on the Greenland ice sheet |
theartsdesk Q&A: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' - 'It became a question of self-respect'
The exiled filmmaker on authoritarian minds, reluctant radicalism and Iran's future |
10 Questions for Mark Gatiss, writer-director of 'A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone'
Gatiss explains why his eerie tale begins with its original Victorian-Edwardian author Edith Nesbit |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmakers Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson on 'Rumours'
Archetype-bending auteur Maddin and co. discuss their new film's starry, absurd G7, autobiography and artifice |
latest in today
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages...
