This week Alec talks with the Executive Editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson. Abramson grew up in a family that was steeped in The New York Times: two copies were delivered to her house. Her mother wanted her own for the crossword.

This week, Alec Baldwin talks with Lena Dunham, whose hit show on HBO, "Girls," just started its second season. Three years ago, Dunham made a low-budget art house film called "Tiny Furniture."

This week Alec talks with filmmaker Judd Apatow, whose most recent film, “This is 40”, may be his most personal. For Apatow, each movie he makes is “a letter to myself telling me something that I need to know about how to live my life."

Guest host John Lithgow raises the curtain on five comic tales, classic and cutting-edge. 

This week Alec sits down with Jamie and Alex Bernstein, to hear about growing up with the maestro, Leonard Bernstein. And while they knew him in the tux and tails, they also knew him as the dad who loved games.

Talking with Lewis Lapham gives you the sensation you’ve stumbled onto the set of a 1940’s film noir -- his stories evoke another era. This week he tells Alec Baldwin about being a rookie reporter at The Examiner and what it was like to go to India with the Beatles.

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with writer Paula Pell – whose been making people laugh at Saturday Night Live for the last 17 years.  Pell landed her dream job as a writer at SNL after working at a Florida theme park. Her agent told her that Lorne Michaels wanted to meet her – “it is not an audition, but he wants to fly you up and talk to you.” Pell wasn’t sure what she was headed up for, but she got a job writing for the show.

The Leonard Lopate Show won't be heard today. Instead, WNYC brings you one-hour specials of Alec Baldwin's Here's The Thing. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at the Leonard Lopate Show! We'll be back tomorrow with an episode of favorite recent interviews.

The Brian Lehrer Show won't be heard today. Instead, WNYC brings you a selection of Alec Baldwin's Here's The Thing. More information about the Here's The Thing specials here. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at the BL Show, and we'll see you back on the radio tomorrow!

This week Alec talks with Andrew McCarthy – about making movies, directing and what it’s like to reinvent oneself as a travel writer. Most people know McCarthy for his roles in "St. Elmo’s Fire" and "Pretty in Pink" – as a member of the “Brat Pack" -- but those movies were only one stop on Andrew McCarthy’s journey.

This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with two men who have spent much of their lives living and working in Africa.  Photographer Peter Beard first set foot on the continent in 1955. Richard Ruggiero, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, began his Peace Corps stint in 1981 in the northern Central African Republic.  

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with David Brooks on stage at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in Manhattan as part of the Public Forum series.  David Brooks has been a New York Times op-ed columnist since 2003.  He is known as a Conservative voice -- he was a senior editor at The Weekly Standard -- but former Obama advisor David Axelrod described him as a “true public thinker.”  

This week, Alec talks with Pulitzer-prize winner George Will, whose passion for politics began early: he remembers Truman’s election when he was seven years old. 

This week, Alec talks with Fred Armisen. Armisen has been a punk rock drummer, currently he’s a cast member on Saturday Night Live and is also the co-creator and co-star of IFC’s Portlandia. Armisen has always been ambitious; when he was a drummer, he recalls, he always "wanted much more." 

This week, Alec talks with Zarin Mehta who retired as president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic at the end of this past season. Mehta, an accountant by trade, grew up in 1940’s Bombay before it became the booming city of Mumbai. In Mehta’s memory, Bombay was more like a colonial fishing village. 

This week, Alec talks with documentary filmmakers Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery – each of whom has made a controversial political films, one about a golf course in Scotland; the other about whether 9/11 was a government cover-up.  

This week on Here’s the Thing – Alec sits down with fellow Long Islander Billy Joel – at the piano – for a conversation about life and the musical choices he’s made.