“The very first Star Wars . . . it completely flipped my brain,” says Sir Ridley Scott on this week’s episode of the Little Gold Men podcast. Asked if he and The Martian feel some healthy competition with Star Wars: The Force Awakens as another hit movie set in space, Scott reflect that seeing George Lucas’s first Star Wars film completely transformed his career, from a director of prestigious but unseen films to the visionary behind Alien. “I was doing Tristan and Isolde, for God’s sake,” Scott remembers, “and was going to go back for more leathering from the audience, and a pat on the head from the critics.”

The Martian has received much more than just a pat on the head—a smash hit and critical favorite, it’s nominated for several Golden Globes on Sunday, including a somewhat controversial nod for best comedy. Both Scott and writer Drew Goddard admit that “comedy” is not the first word they’d use to describe their film, a white-knuckle thriller about an astronaut (Matt Damon) trapped alone on Mars, but then again, that’s OK. ““If you asked me, my gut reaction, ‘Is ‘The Martian’ a comedy?,’ I would say no,” Goddard admitted. “But also, I like to work on things that are hard to classify.”

The duo behind The Martian aren’t the only exciting interview on this week’s podcast. We also caught up with Sarah Silverman, the star of the dark indie drama I Smile Back; she’s been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of depressed, drug-addicted housewife, Laney, and she wears that, while everyone says these nominations are a surprise, this one was really a surprise. And if you yourself are surprised to see the comedian take on such a dramatic role, you’re not alone. “It’s always interesting that in this creative field, it’s so rare that people can imagine you doing something they haven’t already seen you do before,” Silverman says.

To bring the sci-fi theme full-circle, Silverman also reminisces about the role that earned her a SAG card—a two-episode stint on Star Trek: Voyager in 1996, in which she’s kidnapped by Ed Begley Jr. and gets to be part of a futuristic action scene. “I remember I went to an acting coach...and he pored over the script, and finally he just looked up and he said, ‘Look, sometimes when you’re running from lasers, you just have to pretend you’re running from lasers.’”

This week’s bonus-sized show also includes conversation about the rush of awards season events taking place this week ahead of the Oscar voting deadline on January 8, and a look ahead to the most competitive categories at the Golden Globes. Finally we go big before we go home and make our picks for who will win the best original score Oscar.

00:00 – 1:25: Hello!

1:25 – 6:45: The awards circuit comes to New York

7:46 – 27:42: Interview with Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard

27:42 – 33:17: Predicting the Golden Globes

33:50 – 55:30: Interview with Sarah Silverman

55:30 – 59:08: Predicting the best original score Oscar

59:08 – 1:00:03: Goodbye!

Logo by Ho-Mui Wong.

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