There are certain things I look for in a new podcast concept, and a clever use of archive audio is at the top of my list. You can imagine my excitement when I found out that Pushkin was partnering with the BBC for a new archival project to make good use of their 100+ years of recordings.
Big Lives, which launched March 23, is a new celebrity biography podcast that uses old radio and television recordings to color the lives of our shared icons. Hosted by Emmanuel Dzotsi and Kai Wright, Big Lives isn’t just a novelty listen for nostalgic types. It’s an exercise in empathy and skepticism. What can we learn from these “big lives,” and do they offer any lessons for today?
When I spoke to the hosts earlier this month, their enthusiasm for the source material was infectious. I was interested to hear how they sorted through the BBC’s extensive archives and if their debut episodes on Jane Fonda, George Michael, and David Attenborough had revealed any surprises.
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Alice Florence Orr: I have to start by saying, as a Brit in disguise, I really love the use of the BBC archives in Big Lives. Who are the favorite “big lives” you’ve tackled so far?
Emmanuel Dzotsi: Someone I was really excited for this season is Meg Ryan. I’m a huge fan of her rom-coms. Often in this process, you start prepping someone and you’re excited to get into the tape, but when you actually get into the studio to talk about it, you have this “wow” moment. I realized how much I really love this woman. I could tell Kai was looking at me like, “You’re really into this.”
Kai Wright: She was a woman who had not crossed my mind for a solid collective five minutes in my many years on this planet. [Laughs.] But I’ve had the most fun with the ones I didn’t expect to be curious about. I came to enjoy Liza Minnelli more than I did at the beginning; I respected her as an artist, but I didn’t have an emotional attachment. Now I kind of do.
AFO: Some of these celebrities, especially the older ones, have lived many different lives within one. Is it difficult to curate and condense that into 40 minutes?
KW: For the most part, we’re letting the archives lead us. There are really cool things in those archives and that shapes the conversation. Because [these recordings] are so rich, the big moments are usually right there in the tape.
ED: You’re right, though — these are long recordings. We look at the person and ask: what is the thing that animates us? What’s the framing question? Usually, that gets whittled down from a ninety-minute conversation to the 40 minutes you hear. We have a great team [including] producer Emma Weatherill, editor Annie Brown, and archivist Samira Choudry.
AFO: I loved how the Jane Fonda episode connected back to current affairs. Is celebrity selection driven by what’s relevant today, or is it purely archive-led?
KW: There is no science. It’s usually just that I was really into Jane Fonda and wanted to talk to Emmanuel about her. Or Samira finds an incredible piece of tape and we build from there. It’s driven by excitement more than anything else; if it happens to touch on today’s politics, that’s just a coincidence.
ED: We wrestled with that early on. What separates us [from other podcasts]? There are many shows that revisit pop culture or tie history to the present moment. But for us, it was about genuine curiosity. What are the things you don’t understand about the architects of our culture? Sometimes that leads to current events, other times it’s just: “I found this thing in the BBC archive and it makes me look at this person differently.”
KW: Quite often I go into the conversation with more questions than answers. More than once, I have stumbled into the “thesis” only through talking it out with Emmanuel.
AFO: Has there been a specific piece of footage that totally changed your perspective?
KW: You’ve got to listen to the podcast!
ED: I don’t want to ruin it, but I’ll say this: I’ve been living in America for 21 years, but I moved here at twelve. I remember the BBC, but if it’s before 1998, it’s not my jam. It’s challenging to hear someone being interviewed in the 60s or 70s — hearing the first major appearances of famous Black people in Britain or the way the media framed famous women. Even if you think you know what an interview with Muhammad Ali in the 70s sounds like, it’s another thing to actually dive into it.
KW: For me, it’s the emotional surprise. We are revisiting cultural history. I lived through the 80s and early 90s — that was my youth. It’s been quite emotional to remember those times. We have a lot of laughs on the show, but not everything is funny. Some of these big lives were at the center of some very tough times in the world.
AFO: I felt that listening to the George Michael episode — that was a tough one. If you are still doing Big Lives in forty years, which current celebrities do you think you’ll be covering?
KW: Alice, I will have lived a remarkable life if 40 years from now I am still podcasting. [Laughs.] If I’m still working at that age, I will not have gotten rich in the way I thought!
ED: I love this game. I could see us talking about Ayo Edebiri. She’s on a journey that reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg’s — her roles are all over the map, and she’s taking on parts that weren’t necessarily written for Black people. I’m also interested in Justin Bieber. He’s someone on a journey with multiple eras — the kid busker, the YouTube star, the Usher mentorship. Now he’s in his 20s sounding like an old man, stripped bare. I’m interested in that person.
KW: I think that’s an episode right now, Emmanuel. Let’s go! My answer would be Ryan Coogler. He has dramatically shifted what a big Hollywood film can be. He’s consistently made blockbusters that are unapologetically about Black spaces. I’m curious what comes after that.
AFO: Do you see any connections or personality traits — fatal flaws, perhaps — that are becoming consistent in the people you talk about?
ED: You see patterns generationally. With David Attenborough, you see a particular kind of guy born at a moment where, if you were white and male, everything seemed possible. But then you see someone like Richard Pryor in that same era figuring out his place in a new reality, trying to cross over to white audiences.
KW: They are all pushing culture. They were ambitious, brilliant people whose art or identity didn’t “fit” the time they were in. They had to push to make space for themselves. That’s where the tension — and my empathy — comes in. It costs you something when you push like that. How they pay those costs is the rub in almost every conversation.
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Thank you to Kai and Emmanuel for their time. You can find Big Lives wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Alice Florence Orr is Managing Editor of Podcast Review