Our Conversation with Ed Zwick

Talking history and movies with an Emmy and Oscar winning Producer and Director

About a year ago I saw filmmaker Ed Zwick talking on twitter about his new book and his forty years in Hollywood. On a whim I tweeted that I’d love for him to come on the podcast. To my surprise, he said he’d love to. Fast forward all the way to January 21, 2025 and I found myself face to face with one of my favorite directors for an hour and a half talking about movies and history and everything under the sun.

If you follow me, you likely know Ed’s work. He’s the guy behind movies like About Last Night, The Last Samurai, Defiance, Shakespeare in Love, Blood Diamond, Love & Other Drugs, The Siege, and more. He also produced several tv shows you know such as thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again. And of course, for history fans, he is the director of Glory, arguably the best “history” movie ever made. More recently, he is the author of a memoir of his life in movies, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Forty-Something Years in Hollywood.

Ed was kind enough to sit down with me and talk about so many things—his movies, his love of history, relationships he’s proud of, and how as a filmmaker you balance history and storytelling. In the clip below, Ed talks about the “necessary truths” in telling stories on the big screen.

Guys, I can’t thank Ed and his team enough for agreeing to be on this little podcast and for humoring me while I asked him all kinds of questions spanning his career in Hollywood. I’ll write a separate piece on this experience but for now, I want to share my gratitude to Ed for agreeing to be on the pod and sharing with us his thoughts. This was easily the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my career and I want to thank both him and you guys for making this happen. What an amazing experience.

About our guest:

Ed Zwick is an Academy Award– and Emmy Award–winning director, writer, and producer of film and television. A graduate of Harvard and the AFI Conservatory, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Liberty Godshall.

Get his book (I read it twice):

Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood

And without further ado, please find below our interview with filmmaker Ed Zwick.

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