I interviewed director Darren Aronofsky about his upcoming Biblical epic Noah, which is set in a timeless non-Biblical fantasy world, interestingly. Key concepts: “this isn’t your grandmother’s Bible,” giant monsters, theodicy, Patti Smith writing a lullaby for Russell Crowe to sing to Emma Watson and recording it with the Kronos Quartet and Clint Mansell.

Last week I posted the latest installment of my A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones podcast. This time out my cohost Stefan Sasse and I talk turkey with Adam Feldman of The Meereenese Blot, one of the best thinkers about this stuff around.

Over at The Comics Reporter, Joe “Jog” McCulloch and I talked about the year in the alternative comics business (as opposed to the art form) with Tom Spurgeon. Note: The end of the interview was cut off—it should read “we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep. THEY ARE COMING”

Last week, Frank Santoro interviewed me about the state of comics criticism for his column in The Comics Journal. Frank and I were concerned about the seemingly dwindling pool of people writing substantial reviews of alternative/art comics and all the attendant problems — the still smaller number of women writing about them despite the huge number of women making and reading them, the lack of critical evaluation provided to the newest generation of artcomix makers, the outsize influence of the foibles of those of us who are left, and so on. The interview sparked responses from Ng Suat Tong, Heidi MacDonald, and Frank himself that are worth reading, as are the comment threads attached to all those posts (particularly this comment by Peggy Burns); I also got a lot out of the twitter exchange I had with Sarah Horrocks.

I interviewed R.J. Mitte, aka Walt Jr., aka Flynn, from Breaking Bad. He told me it gets crazier. He made me nervous.

I interviewed Gomie for Rolling Stone! Am I happy about this?

I interviewed Bob Odenkirk, aka Saul Goodman, and reviewed the most recent episode of Breaking Bad for Rolling Stone.

I interviewed Betsy Brandt, aka Marie Schrader from Breaking Bad, for Rolling Stone. I got to use the phrase “purple reign,” which is my all-time favorite pun.

Last week I interviewed Dean Norris, aka Hank Schrader, for Rolling Stone. This week I reviewed the latest episode of the show. Usually I post quotes from these things but we’re so close to the end now that I’m afraid to screw anything up for anyone, so take my word that they’re worth reading, I guess.

Over at Rolling Stone, I spoke with writer/showrunner Brian K. Vaughan about Under the Dome, his ambitious summertime 13-episode adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. I’ve interviewed Brian for a pretty wide range of publications — Wizard, Maxim, a cover story for The Comics Journal, and now RS — and the local-boy-made-good feeling I got when I saw his name listed right after Stephen King and Steven Spielberg in the executive-producer credits was pretty delightful.

I interviewed Simon Hanselmann, creator of Megg, Mogg, and Owl, for The Comics Journal. We’ve both been looking forward to this for a long time, and I’m as proud of it as I’ve ever been of an interview I’ve done. Please check it out.

This is awkward to bring up, but you’re a good-looking guy. I think that’s safe to say.

[Laughs] Thanks, Sean.

My pleasure! There’s a sense that with your character, and then this season also with Robb and Jon and Jamie, that there’s now a movement within the show to show off the male characters the way the female characters have been shown off. When you have those scenes where you take your tunic or whatever off, people go berserk. I’m curious what that’s like as an actor.

It’s kind of weird, because from my personal point of view, you don’t really want to do nudity unless it’s appropriate, and unless it’s relevant to the storyline and it makes sense to do it in the scene. There’s a scene in Season Two where I’m forging a sword with no top on for no apparent reason. It’s amazing what a bit of soot and shaving can do for muscle definition, honestly. I didn’t recognize that torso.

I think David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss, the showrunners] still try to … there is a bit of a responsibility to try and even up the balance a little bit. You can’t let the ladies do it all. But I think they do try and keep it within reasonable parameters. That scene where I’m forging the sword, I’m saying that it’s gratuitous, but the idea they wanted to convey was that … it was more for Arya than anything to do with my character. It was them trying to imply that Arya’s becoming a woman now and she’s dealing with feelings that she’s maybe not experienced before. I think they just want to hint at that – I’m saying “subtly,” but … [Laughs] But it’s not something I want to make a particular habit of.

When I was cast as Gendry, I didn’t have any of the physical attributes the part required. I was astounded that I got the role, to be honest. But David and Dan said, “We need to die his hair black … and it’d be great you hit the gym before we start filming.” So I was told to get in shape. I suppose you’ve got to look like you’re made of steel for nudity. You’ve got to get some arms on you. The reaction is not something I pay too much attention to. You don’t want to be a torso. You don’t want that to be what you’re known for. I think if it’s overshadowing your acting, you need to up your game a little bit.

I interviewed Joe Dempsie, aka Gendry, for Rolling Stone. Another thoughtful, insightful, articulate, engaging actor from this cast. It’s really been eye-opening, talking to these people.

I had a nice long conversation about two of my favorite shows with one of my favorite critics, Alyssa Rosenberg, on her Bloggingheads.tv show Critic Proof. Topics include the Red Wedding (of course), Catelyn Stark, spectacle and gore, the horrors of war, world-historical events as “monster of the week,” whether character growth is necessary, repetition vs. novelty, and much more. At the link, you can even download an mp3 version if you don’t feel like watching it as a video. Enjoy!

I interviewed the King in the North for Rolling Stone.

You’ve spoken very frankly about how your unusual height has affected your life, and some of your modeling work seems to touch on this as well – taking ownership of your physical body. Brienne has struggled with her physicality as well. She’s gone a different road, obviously – she’s a warrior, not an actor – but I wonder if you see overlap between her and yourself.

Absolutely. That’s why I wanted to play the part so much. I never thought I’d ever come across a part like this. I was always told about this in drama school, that occasionally you might come across a part where you say, “Yeah, I know that. I know it. I don’t have to pretend to try and get there. I know this.” As soon as I read about the character, I had to play it.

And it’s a character that we don’t see that often. I’m certainly really rather tall at 6 foot 3, and I’ve been this way since I was 14, but for years women who are even 5 foot 10 have come up to me in the street and said, “Oh, it’s so nice to see a woman who is taller than me. I’ve always felt like a giant.” They describe it to me like outsiders. It sounds a bit worthy, but I genuinely feel that as an actor part of my job is to highlight those recesses of human life and human psychology that we don’t see that often. And if I have the opportunity, which I very luckily have, to play the part of an outsider, then I felt like I might be doing some good. Occasionally I get messages from women saying that I’ve brought them some joy, and that’s unbelievably thrilling.

An additional wrinkle for Brienne is that she’s pretty much universally seen as ugly. When you’re made up to look that way, when you change your hair and your demeanor and your physicality to look that way, does it change how you feel?

Yeah, totally. As a woman, we all want to feel attractive. We all want to feel that we’re making the very best of ourselves so we can accept ourselves. It’s like all of these gorgeous, devastatingly beautiful actresses in the show, and then there’s me harrumphing around. [Laughs] So it can be tough to look like that.

But you have to step outside of that and think about what these things really mean. I am still a person with a sense of superficiality that I’m trying to challenge. I hope that it makes us examine exactly what “unattractive” is. Perhaps it’s not the conventions that we have or the blueprint in our minds. And if it makes people question for a minute what unattractive is, and the way in which we may respond as people to what we think unattractive is, then it’s worthwhile.

I interviewed Gwendoline Christie, aka Brienne of Tarth, for Rolling Stone. Man, this interview. Even by the high standards of this (in my experience) extraordinarily insightful cast, this was something.

How do you avoid mustache-twirling supervillain stereotypes while performing [Littlefinger’s malevolent monologues]?

Keep the mustache short. That helps.

I interviewed Aidan Gillen, aka Lord Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, for Rolling Stone. This was a fun one.

She obviously has family on her mind in this episode. But when she tells Gendry “I can be your family,” it sounds like she might mean something very different – even if she herself barely realizes it yet.

When I first read that scene, it really got to me. I always knew that Arya and Gendry were going to take separate paths, but when you actually see it… I was really getting on well with Joe [Dempsie], and it was just like “Oh, this is going to end now.” Then you go in do it. At first I read it as “You can come to Winterfell, I’ll show you how everything goes, and you can come and sit at the table with us.” I thought it would be a bit like Theon. But when I was doing the scene, [director] Alex Graves said “When you say that last line, ‘I can be your family,’ say it like ‘I love you.’” And that’s the take that they used. On the day, we didn’t cut in between. We kept going, and going, and going again, which I really liked; otherwise, you get out of it and you have to try and build yourself back up to that point again. Sometimes I was really crying, and then we’d pull it back. I don’t know how many we did, but the last one we did…We settled on the one when I said it like “I love you,” and it really works.

I interviewed Maisie Williams about her amazing work as Arya Stark in this past weekend’s Game of Thrones.

When you look at Theon’s situation, where do you come down on what he wound up doing? Do you find fault with it? Aside from the child-murdering, of course, which I’d hope you do.

I would say that the worse thing he does is the kids, yeah, but I definitely think he’s just trying to prove himself in a really fucked-up way. With the child-murdering … I’ll be honest with you, mate. When I was shooting it, I had a bit of a problem. There’s this look of regret that I gave when the bodies of the two children bodies get raised on the ropes. I look torn about it. And I always thought Theon would just enjoy playing the trick on the whole village. That’s how I would’ve liked to have played it. Then we sat down with David and Dan and [director] David Nutter and decided that there needed to be some sort of regret there, to make it morally correct. But I always thought for Theon that he would just sort of enjoy playing the trick on Winterfell.

I interviewed Alfie Allen about playing Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones for Rolling Stone. It got kind of dark.

[NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU:] The thing that I love about all these things that happen – some of these really horrible incidents – is that the characters actually are really truthful. I can totally understand why Locke gets so angry with Jaime. I mean, I don’t know anything worse than when I meet someone who has a sense of entitlement just because of who they are – “Hey, I’m famous, so I should be treated differently.” When you meet people like that, you just want to punch them. And that’s exactly what Locke does. Granted, he takes it to an extreme because he’s also a bit of a psycho, but I think you still understand where he comes from.

Same with some of the things that Jamie says to other characters, like Brienne. They’re very hurtful, but most of the time he actually comes from a coarse truth, which makes it bite so much harder.

[ROLLING STONE:] That’s what was devastating about what happened to Jaime: For the first time we see him perform a truly selfless act, putting himself on the line to save Brienne from Locke and his men, and he’s immediately punished for it.

[Laughs] I know, I know. Now, what if the question was put to Jamie – “You can either save this lady or you can save your hand.” I’m pretty sure he would save his hand, I’m sorry to say. Maybe losing his hand will make him answer that question in a different way later on in his life. For him as a character, for him as a person, I think, he needs to lose that hand.

I interviewed Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, aka Jaime Lannister, aka the Kingslayer, about Game of Thrones for Rolling Stone.

I interviewed Sophie Turner about playing Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones for Rolling Stone. She’s terrific in the role and very very smart about the character, who’s become maybe my single favorite in the series.