Michael Osborne has been podcasting for a long time. He launched his first show, Generation Anthropocene, in 2011 during his PhD studies in earth science at Stanford University. The podcast later partnered with Smithsonian Magazine. After finishing his PhD, he developed Raw Data in 2015, a narrative podcast that collaborated with PRX/PRI. In 2021, he launched Famous & Gravy, a dead celebrity biography podcast that partnered with Wondery in 2024.
Famous & Gravy explores the lives of recently deceased celebrities in a nuanced and cathartic way. It should appeal to fans of The C-Word and You're Wrong About, and might be a more satisfying alternative for those disappointed by the recent launch of Big Lives.
Six months ago, Wondery went through a major restructuring, and Famous & Gravy left the network in December 2025. After a period of reflection on both the format and the "video question," the podcast is back with an episode on beloved actor Robin Williams. The podcast is now with full video and a newsletter on Substack.
I'm a big fan of Famous & Gravy. Michael's careful and buoyant approach is grounded in his life experiences, and his choice of segments is not only unique but highly underrated in the industry. I spoke to Michael last year about indie podcasting, his biggest inspirations, and helping fans find closure when their idols pass away.
Alice Florence Orr: It's great to talk to you, Michael. Especially since the air con is out in your studio. Can you remember the first podcast you ever loved?
Michael Osborne: I'm discombobulated. I did a recording two days ago in the heat — it was a total mess. But things are good.
There was a show called Open Source, put out by Public Radio International — this was around 2005, so I was an early adopter. At the time they said they were “reporting from the blogosphere.” There’s one episode in particular that stands out: Stephen Colbert was invited to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during the George W. Bush administration — a fairly famous moment — and what was interesting was how misinterpreted it was by mainstream news outlets. Open Source understood its impact: the audience wasn’t traditional news consumers, it was people online. Their analysis was spot on, and it was something I didn’t hear anywhere else. The show also opened with this drumbeat — every time I heard it, there was a little dopamine hit. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for it.
AFO: You just relaunched Famous & Gravy, which you record with rotating guest hosts. I have been a guest three times now. But apart from me, who are your dream guests?
MO: Chuck Klosterman, the cultural critic. He’s written a lot of books, he was with Spin Magazine and The New York Times, and any time he’s on a podcast there’s something about his conversational style that feels like a kindred spirit to the way I approach conversations. He’s also brilliant at pop culture thought experiments. It’s genuinely a dream of mine to make him aware of Famous & Gravy. I’ve tried to find him online and I don’t quite know how to network my way there — but I do think he’s been the single most important influence on the show.
AFO: Who are the podcasters you admire most — the ones who’ve been most influential on what you do?
MO: Three come to mind. Michael Hobbes first — host of You’re Wrong About, Maintenance Phase, and If Books Could Kill. He is, appropriately, described as snarky, and whatever he’s talking about, I find something about the emotion of participating vicariously in that kind of conversation genuinely compelling. I also think there’s something more innovative happening structurally in his shows than people have remarked on. I don’t think I’d enjoy meeting him in person, and the purely deconstructive attitude isn’t something I love — but I appreciate the catharsis, and what always strikes me is his fandom. People who like his shows don’t just like them: they live for them. That level of parasocial resonance is rare.
Then there is Bill Simmons — eclectic, smart, been doing it forever. There’s a casualness about his approach that just makes him easy to listen to, and that’s always been an influence.
And third, Marc Maron. I don’t think his show is as vital as it once was, and he’s at his best talking with other stand-up comics — but his neuroticism is compelling, and he carries a certain culture and a certain moment in time into his conversations in a way that really appeals to my nostalgia.
AFO: What’s next for you, and for Famous & Gravy? Imagine I’ve never heard of it — I’m a reader picking you up for the first time.
MO: That’s actually the hardest question. One thing I want to do is open up the process — how the show was created, how it was built, how it’s executed — so that other creators can use it as a "indie to industry" case study if they want to. I’ve been inspired by the Michael Hobbes-style of show because I think the opportunity for audio-first podcasters to innovate around a designed conversation is largely untapped. I’d love to see people try that approach with science or history – subjects beyond celebrity.
As for where the show itself is going: every episode has both a personal and a topical component for me. One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about is evolving understandings of masculinity — specifically, what it means to be a progressive man right now, which I think is a genuinely urgent question, globally and especially in America.
But the deeper motivation for Famous & Gravy has always been to use celebrity as a mirror: "what does this say about us as individuals, as a culture?"
The analogy I’ve been using lately is dream interpretation. When your mother shows up in your dream, it’s not actually your mother — it’s the idea of your mother, a symbol from your own mind. Celebrities are public symbols in the same way. Understanding their creative journeys tells us something about our own ideals and aspirations. I’m attracted to applying those kinds of tools — literary analysis, dream analysis, whatever they might be — to understand what celebrity actually means at a deeper level. Every new episode still feels like a fresh opportunity, which is humbling.
AFO: As you were speaking, I was thinking about the way celebrities are so often held up as symbols of deep systemic problems — and used as scapegoats for them. Something happens, someone posts something, and years later we’re still analysing the backlash. Intellectually, it often makes no sense, and yet we keep doing it.
MO: I actually want both sides of that. There is obviously a place for public accountability, and in the past we gave celebrities a pass on genuinely egregious behaviour. What "cancel culture" does, if you want to use that term, is say: "that’s not okay." I agree with that. But I also wonder about the other side: "what does forgiveness look like in cancel culture? Do we have space for it?"
Famous & Gravy has always been at least partly a response to that question — it’s a lot easier to allow for forgiveness once somebody has passed on. I’m not philosophically opposed to cancel culture. I just think it’s incomplete.
AFO: I’ve actually been thinking about writing something on that — an essay on moral podcasting drawing a line from the War of the Worlds broadcast to the Rwandan genocide to vaccine denialism, and asking: can we actually apply moral ethics to media and what are the consequences of what we put out?
MO: I love that. One of the things I really like about both Michael Hobbes and Derek Thompson is that — whether or not you agree with them — there is a clear argument being presented. One of the things I’ve always loved about podcasting is that there’s room and space and grace to actually consider arguments; you’re inviting listeners into something they might not otherwise hear, but it has sound reasoning inside.
I meet a lot of creators who start a show to make a point rather than to explore one, and that’s such a fine line. Every creator needs to ask themselves: "what is the starting point of my learning journey?" Every episode needs a question underneath it — here’s what I don’t know yet.
AFO: I was reading John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction. He talks about the role of the critic not being to decide whether something is good or bad, but whether there’s genuine intellectual and cultural value in it. These are things people just don’t talk about as much anymore.
MO: It's interesting to hear you say that – because I think the challenge for critics is that it takes more than one episode. In fact, it takes a few episodes to understand what a show is really about. One episode never tells you. And if you want to do the hard work of identifying a show’s moral underpinning, you have to get to know it — which is, I think, one of the reasons discovery has always been so difficult.
I hear this anecdotally from our own listeners all the time. Someone will try one episode, and they enjoyed it, they thought it was fun. But when I meet someone who’s listened to three, four, or five, it’s: "I’m completely hooked." It’s only after a few that you start to read the subtext — to realise it’s not just revisiting someone’s life story, but doing so with a moral through-line running underneath.
AFO: What podcasts would you currently recommend to our readers?
MO: I’m an enormous fan of Plain English with Derek Thompson. He’s an Atlantic writer, but his show is on the Ringer network. For me he’s a case study in great interviewing — very bright, very clear, very natural, but he brings you into his thinking, and he genuinely lifts up his guests. When you hear those same guests on other shows, it’s not as clear, not as coherent. He covers science, tech, occasionally sport, and his science coverage is particularly strong. You walk away from every episode having actually learned something.
Thank you to Michael Osborne for speaking to me about podcasting. You can listen to Famous & Gravy anywhere you get your podcasts – and look out for my guest episodes on Anthony Bourdain and Joan Didion.
