Entertainment

Oscar Award-winning actor Paul Newman died on Sept. 26 of complications from lung cancer. In this 2003 interview, the star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Cool Hand Luke discusses his early work — both as an actor and as a salesman.

Once known as the awkward kid on the cult TV hit Arrested Development, he's become a bona fide movie star with roles in the hit comedies Juno and Superbad. Next up for him: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, another music-fueled teen love story.

In his latest movie, Traitor, Don Cheadle plays a CIA operative who goes undercover to work with a terrorist group — but then becomes a suspected terrorist himself.

Twitchy undertaker, cubicle fiend, sassy convenience-store clerk — Rainn Wilson has long gravitated toward eccentric characters. But is The Office actor attempting the leap to sex symbol through his titular role in The Rocker? Given the hair-metal coif and the still-goofy humor, probably not.

The team behind the car-racing comedy Talladega Nights is taking another lap. Director Adam McKay and actors Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly talk about their new film, Step Brothers, and the laughs they had making it.

The Dark Knight is the most successful film of the summer. Director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale can take much of the credit: They've revived a flagging franchise, offering a fresher, darker look at a legend.

Batman should be dark, reviewer David Edelstein says, but Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a sadistic film with "no wit, visual or otherwise."

The best little bar-band in Texas is back with more ballads of heartache and anthems for getting over it. The Old 97's have just released Blame It On Gravity. Front-man Rhett Miller joins Fresh Air to talk about the recording and to perform some new songs.

It's taken actor Jason Bateman a while to achieve real big-screen presence, but now the former child actor seems to be inescapable. In the past year, Bateman has appeared in Juno, The Kingdom, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, he's co-starring alongside Will Smith in the movie Hancock, which opens tomorrow. In Hancock, Bateman plays a PR executive who is rescued by a cocky superhero who leaves destruction in his wake.

Taking a break from the family-friendly Shrek series, the comic actor stars in the bawdy summer comedy The Love Guru. It's an irreverent — some say too irreverent — romp about a self-help specialist from the subcontinent.

Before Boogie Nights, before Far From Heaven, before Short Cuts, she appeared as identical half-sisters — one of them evil — on the soap opera As the World Turns. She won a Daytime Emmy in 1988; for her film work, she's earned four Oscar nominations.

Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow performs three songs from her new album, Detours, plus a portion of a song from an early album that she persuaded the record company not to release.

In his new biography, Kirby: King of Comics, TV and comics writer Mark Evanier details the life and career of noted comic artist Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the Marvel Comics characters the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and X-Men.

Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Iron Man, based on the Marvel comics hero. The film, directed by Jon Favreau, stars Robert Downey Jr. as a billionaire weapons inventor, alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a martial arts instructor in the new David Mamet film, Redbelt. Before starring in movies, Ejiofor was a prominent stage actor in England. Since then, he's appeared in Dirty Pretty Things, Children of Men and American Gangster.