#580 — Antoine Fuqua, Ira Sachs

This week's Empire Podcast sees the arrival of Chris Hewitt's pre-beloved The Equalizer 3, and that film's director, the delightfully sweary Antoine Fuqua, joins Chris to talk about that film, about the challenges of getting Denzel Washington to ride a horse (not for this film), and ultra-violence on the big screen. With blood and gore already covered off, our other guest, Passages writer/director Ira Sachs, talks about the challenges of shooting sex scenes, and battling censorship, for his new film, which sees Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, and Adele Exarchopoulos engage in a love triangle. Then, in the podbooth, Chris is joined for a raucous episode by Helen O'Hara and James Dyer and, making her debut in the fourth chair, Australian author and massive geek Maria Lewis. She tells us all about her encounters with a brown snake, her upcoming book The Graveyard Shift, and chats with the podteam about their favourite numerical system when it comes to sequels and franchises, the week's movie news (such as it is), and even chips in during the reviews section, when the team take a look at The Equalizer 3, Cobweb, Passages, Vacation Friends 2 and You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah. Oh, and the presence of an Australian in the podbooth can mean only one thing: hold onto your ears, the Aussie accents are coming out. Fair dinkum. Enjoy.