Terry Gross

In a talk he titled "Persistence of Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema," the famed director spoke passionately about the history of cinema and the films that stoked his love for the medium.

Even as a child, Patricia Volk knew she would never measure up to her strikingly beautiful mother. But after reading the memoir of fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Volk found a new understanding of beauty that had more to do with personality than a pretty face.

On Showtime's dark comedy series, Laura Linney plays a terminally ill cancer patient. The actress's own father died from lung cancer while the series was being made; her mother was a cancer nurse when Linney was young. These experiences, she says, inform her performance.