Terry Gross

Kyle Chandler plays Coach Eric Taylor on Friday Night Lights, the NBC-TV series about the big drama of small-town Texas high-school football. The third season of the series will be shown on DirecTV before airing on NBC in 2009.

Lincoln Chafee, former U.S. senator from Rhode Island, was often called the most liberal Republican in the Senate. In office, he bucked his party on a number of hot-button issues, including same-sex marriage and the war in Iraq. His book Against the Tide challenges the Republican Party on its rightward drift.

It's been four years since Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop of a rural Episcopal diocese in New Hampshire. He's faced challenges and controversies as that denomination's first openly gay bishop — and he's written about them in a new memoir, In the Eye of the Storm.

From dewy-eyed ingenue in Dangerous Liaisons to martial-artist mother in Kill Bill, Uma Thurman has played a range of singular roles. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her career — and her new independent film The Life Before Her Eyes.

With both the cost of and demand for oil rising, nations with large energy reserves are redrawing political and military alliances, and oil-rich countries like Russia and Venezuela are enjoying greater influence. Michael Klare, author of Rising Power, Shrinking Planet, calls it the "new international energy order."

While on assignment in Sudan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Paul Salopek was captured by pro-government militias, then charged with spying and imprisoned for 34 days. He writes about his experience in April's edition of National Geographic.

The band R.E.M. has released its first album in four years, Accelerate. Critics have been describing the disc as a "comeback," saying it's the band's best album in ages. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills join Terry Gross for a conversation.

As chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco helped plan the targets of laser-guided bombs during the invasion of Iraq. Now a senior analyst with Human Rights Watch, Garlasco visits war zones where he assesses the damage being done to civilians by bombs and lobbies for greater deliberation in the use of air power.

Julie Andrews has spent her life in the public eye, but she's never had much to say about her life before stardom — until now. The Sound of Music star joins Terry Gross to discuss her new memoir.

Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.