Sam Fragoso’s Talk Easy Podcast Joins Pushkin Industries

Talk Easy, the weekly interview show hosted by writer and director Sam Fragoso, who is represented by UTA, has entered a production deal with Pushkin Industries, the innovative podcast production company co-founded by bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, and iHeartMedia, the No. 1 podcast publisher globally according to Podtrac. Talk Easy joins the home of other acclaimed podcasts at Pushkin, including Revisionist History, Against the Rules with Michael Lewis, Broken Record, Lost Hills, A Slight Change of Plans, The Last Archive and The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. 

Since 2016, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso has hosted revealing and researched conversations with artists, activists, and politicians. A space where people sound like people. Every Sunday. The weekly show has aired over 270 episodes with guests including Steven Soderbergh, Lorde, Ocean Vuong, Roxane Gay, Laura Dern, Norman Lear, Janelle Monáe, Fran Lebowitz, Gloria Steinem, Run The Jewels, Ts Madison, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Dr. Cornel West, and George Saunders. The program has been featured in The New York Times, AV Club, Nylon, The Cut, Refinery 29, and Paste.

The show has garnered the praise of New Yorker writer Nathan Heller who says, “The sort of podcasts that carry the next wave are going to be the ones that connect to listeners, especially younger listeners, in a direct way by giving people room to actually be themselves. Talk Easy is that podcast. It’s a generational mediator in an era that seems to desperately need one.”

“After five years of making this show independently, I’m overjoyed to be part of Pushkin. Their vision is singular, programming superb. Above all, though, they do what I’ve always hoped a creative partner would do: they care,” says Sam Fragoso.

Fragoso’s rigorous preparation and signature curiosity are the heartbeat of the show. The dialogues are beloved by its listeners and also by Talk Easy guests, who have called the podcast host “a remarkable soul and a master of intriguing, wanderlust conversation” (Holland Taylor, actor), “by far and away the most careful, thoughtful, and best prepared interviewer” (Gloria Steinem, activist) and “a breath of fresh air” (Juliette Lewis, performer).

“Why do people open up so much to Sam Fragoso? It’s because he studies their work ahead of time, dives all the way in, and really, really listens to what they have to say,” says Jacob Weisberg, CEO of Pushkin Industries. “Sam might be the world’s greatest student — fully prepared, endlessly curious, never in a hurry.” 

Coming up this Fall, Talk Easy has guests including Nick Offerman, Janaya Future Khan, Melanie Lynskey, Wole Soyinka, and Noam Chomsky. Executive Producers Janicza Bravo (Zola, Lemon) and Karoline Ribak will continue working with Host and Creator Sam Fragoso on the show, along with illustrator Krishna Shenoi, whose original paintings of each guest have become a weekly fixture. Justin Richmond, Managing Producer at Pushkin, will provide production support. 

This deal was negotiated by UTA. Talk Easy is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network.

This is the second of seven planned co-productions between Pushkin and iHeartMedia. The first was last summer’s launch of Be Antiracist with Ibram X. Kendi. 

Listeners can find Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and all other major podcast listening platforms.
Pushkin recently launched two new shows: Bad Women with historian Hallie Rubenhold about the victims of Jack the Ripper and Backstage Pass with celebrity vocal coach Eric Vetro which features interviews with musicians like Ariana Grande and John Legend. The rest of 2021 brings new seasons of A Slight Change of Plans with Maya Shankar and Dana Goodyear’s Lost Hills. Pushkin has also just announced that they will be publishing an original audiobook called Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon written by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam. This unique audio biography will be available wherever audiobooks are sold on November 16, 2021, including Pushkin.fm, where you can purchase and listen on your favorite podcast player.