Shows / The Interview
The Interview
Conversations with people shaping our world, from all around the globe. Listen to The Interview for the best conversations from the BBC, the world's most trusted international news provider. We hear from titans of business, politics, finance, sport and culture. Global leaders, decision-makers and cultural icons. Politicians, activists and CEOs. Each interview is around 20-minutes, packed full of insight and analysis, covering some of the biggest issues of our time. How does it work? Well, at…
Episodes
- The Interview
Brad Smith, Microsoft President: Washing machines are better-regulated than AI
Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI. Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and…
- The Interview
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor: There’s a vacuum in Israeli media
Rebecca Kesby speaks to Israeli film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Abraham and Szor gained international attention last year with their…
- The Interview
Navanetham ‘Navi' Pillay, 2026 Nobel Peace Prize winner
“When we suffered under apartheid, those were immoral laws, they institutionalised racism. Where could we go for relief? And I yearned for a better system of…
- The Interview
Cate Blanchett, actor: Art reminds us of our humanity
“There's a toxic narrative around displacement which has been politicised and part of the fund is to re-humanise and make the connection because those people…
- The Interview
Archbishop Paul Gallagher: Diplomacy means talking to all sides
“Diplomacy is about talking to lots of people with whom you don't agree. And that's what diplomats do. And I think we would do that... The Vatican has always…
- The Interview
Arundhati Roy, author and activist: Writing is universal
“When I was writing it I didn’t think it would touch such a universal chord, you know, because it seemed to me so weird, my childhood and my mother and my…
- The Interview
Peter Obi, Nigerian presidential candidate: The last election was rigged
“Nigeria can fight insecurity, head on. It only requires it for the commander-in-chief to be determined that this will end. Those criminals live with us. In…
- The Interview
Alexander Tah-ray Yui, Taiwan’s representative to US: We’re prepared for China to invade
“We don't have to have a fight, and we don't have to land in China, go to Beijing and win the war. All we have to do is prevent them to getting their objective…
- The Interview
Meredith Whittaker, Signal president: Privacy is a human right
“Private communication is a fundamental human right for a reason, because when those with power over you have access to your intimate thoughts and your…
- The Interview
Jerry Brown, former California governor: America then and now
BBC special correspondent James Naughtie speaks to former Governor of California, Jerry Brown. He was first elected governor in 1974, succeeding Ronald Reagan…
- The Interview
Shami Chakrabarti, human rights lawyer: Healthy democracies need a free media
“There aren't enough lawyers and judges on the planet if journalists are silent, because abuses of power just don't come to light, in my experience, without…
- The Interview
Olara Otunnu, diplomat: UN cannot be diplomatic ivory tower
“I do not want the United Nations of New York, Geneva or Vienna to be an ivory tower, a diplomatic ivory tower. I want to see the UN not of power and…
- The Interview
Kai Bird, Author: Roy Cohn, the man who shaped Trump?
“He had no guardrails. He had no rules. He told Donald Trump, you know, when criticised, attack, attack, attack, deny, deny deny, always go on the offensive…
- The Interview
Abhijeet Dipke, youth campaigner: There’s an underlying frustration in India
“I think there’s been this underlying frustration among the youth of India for a very long time. If we look at the unemployment data, India currently has the…
- The Interview
Estelle Brachlianoff, Veolia CEO: We need to rethink waste
Justin Rowlatt speaks to Estelle Brachlianoff, chief executive of environmental firm Veolia. The corporation’s origins can be traced all the way back to 19th…
- The Interview
Roelf Meyer, South African Ambassador: Trump has been misled
Ione Wells speaks to Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States. In the 1990s, Meyer was one of the leading negotiators in the talks that…
- The Interview
Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother: King Charles told me the world would forget her
“I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said. I've only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was…
- The Interview
Fally Ipupa, musician: Speak out on DRC suffering
“Not just African musician. Everybody, even journalist, even president, even football player, even promoter. We need to do it for those people who suffer, who…
- The Interview
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the ICRC: The rules of war are being ignored
‘I compare the erosion of international humanitarian law with bankruptcy it happens gradually at first and then all of a sudden instantly. This is what is…
- The Interview
David Vigneault, ex-intelligence chief: Democracies are being destabilised
“This is one of the exact aspect of hybrid warfare of Russia… They are targeting us specifically to create dissensions, to create and to prop up artificially…
- The Interview
Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghan FM: Not everything is banned for women
Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, meets Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi as the Taliban seeks greater international…
- The Interview
Sophia Amoruso, Nasty Gal founder: I was out of my league
“I had hired a CEO for the last two years. The company was at a place where revenue had plateaued. I wasn’t someone who could look at a spreadsheet 50 tabs…
- The Interview
Vadym Skibitsky, Ukrainian intelligence: We are fighting for survival
“We don’t have another way for surviving, because we are an independent state, it's our territory, it's our land, it’s our culture, it’s our history, and we…
- The Interview
Rene Haas, Arm CEO: AI demand won’t slow
“Let's go back to the timeframe with the internet building out. We didn’t have an issue that the internet 20 years later is not a valuable utility… If you…
- The Interview
Leah Solivan, TaskRabbit founder: How the gig economy falls short
“People just wanted to own the way they worked, but with that comes these institutional structures that have been built around the history of work that doesn’t…
- The Interview
Daron Acemoglu, Economist: Liberal democracy is in crisis
BBC Newsnight presenter Paddy O’Connell speaks to Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu about why he thinks liberal democracy is in crisis, and how…
- The Interview
Michelle Bachelet, UN Chief candidate: Time for a woman to lead
“For 80 years, we only have men [lead the UN] and I think it is not about women because she is a woman … The idea is a woman because she has the experience…
- The Interview
Kristina Wilfore: Male anxieties being weaponised
“It's a distortion of real pressures. When I'm analysing trends around men…they are wanting to lean into what being a man means. In many cases strength…
- The Interview
Joe Ngai, McKinsey: Domestic rivalry drives Chinese firms
“More Chinese companies are put out of business by other Chinese companies. Chinese companies are not put out of business because of Western companies, so this…
- The Interview
María Fernanda Espinosa, UN secretary general candidate: The UN risks becoming irrelevant
“Sometimes we confuse activity with impact. And here I think the way we measure results should be different. How many lives has the UN saved? How many people…
- The Interview
Mopreme Shakur on Tupac: The sensitive man behind the music
“I think Pac was actually traumatised by the poverty. You know, poverty can be very, very traumatic. Having no lights, having no food from time to time, having…
- The Interview
Hunter Biden: Father’s pardon not good for country
“Was it good for our Constitution? Was it good for the American people? Was it good for my dad's legacy? No, on all counts. It was not. All I know is that I'm…
- The Interview
Celeste Saulo, WMO: Extreme weather is the new normal
“[This weather] is a new norm, and we need to make sure that we are prepared to deal with that…these extreme wildfires put more responsibility onto improving…
- The Interview
Dmitry Muratov, journalist: Putin can’t claim victory in Ukraine
"There are repressions, political repressions, against freedom of speech, against elections, against the rights of citizens to hold mass events. To such an…
- The Interview
Yemi Alade, singer: I wanted to be a mega superstar
“I just knew that I wanted to be a mega superstar and I didn't know how…I feel like Africa chose me before I even chose Africa, and I feel music chose me…
- The Interview
Sonam Wangchuk, Indian activist: Hunger strike for education reform
“This movement was by young people who had hardly anything to lose. We had no fear and that's what spread across the country and today people are raising their…
- The Interview
Carlos Acosta, dancer: Ballet is for everyone
“It's very important that we expose this work early on, so that people from different cultures see ballet as a way of a career. But in the 1990s or 2000s, it…
- The Interview
Srinivasan Muralidhar: The trauma of Palestinian children
‘When it comes to humanitarian crisis, we should not allow children's future to be subject to geopolitics. We can't say that there are politically compulsions…
- The Interview
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s Foreign Minister: Slavery scars our collective conscience
“The time has come for the international community to be honest, not to be hypocritical, not be selective, not engage in erasure, but to admit that the gravest…
- The Interview
Sumant Sinha: Green tech to triumph over drilling
Leanna Byrne speaks to Sumant Sinha, the founder of ReNew, one of India's largest renewable energy companies about why he thinks green and clean energy will…
- The Interview
Gayton McKenzie, South African minister: Immigration unrest
“This is a legitimate concern of South Africans, where there’s illegal foreigners, people with no paperwork. No country in the world allows that to happen. Why…
- The Interview
Rohan Kanawade, film director: My parents accepted my sexuality
‘Their love was so innocent, so sweet, so organic and we just wanted them to end up together because even they knew that some of the queer films always end in…
- The Interview
Rafael Grossi, IAEA: Nuclear back on the table?
“Due to geopolitical divides, countries are having second thoughts about non-proliferation or their non-proliferation obligations, in the sense that many…
- The Interview
Amy Wallace, writer: We all need to speak up
“We all need to be speaking up about it. Not just the survivors. And we put so much burden on the people who've actually suffered the most, the most vulnerable…
- The Interview
Maggie Haberman, US journalist: Trump tests limits
“One of the things that’s fascinating about him simply as a historical study is the recognition that shamelessness is a superpower, and he refuses to be shamed…
- The Interview
Christopher Nolan, director: We need to take risks
“The biggest risk in motion pictures is to not take a risk. You have to be putting it out there and offering people something new, and that's what will get…
- The Interview
Jim Continenza, Kodak CEO: Reinventing a brand
“We were losing about $160 million a year. We burned through our cash and we had to make some changes. I don’t mean a financial restructuring. I mean…
- The Interview
Patrick Tiernan: War risk is being rewritten
“As there is more drone warfare, more artificial intelligence in the decision making, we’re going to have to completely reimagine how we cover [war]” Business…
- The Interview
Jacob Zuma’s daughters: Polygamy is a subject we lived
“It's a subject that I know I've lived, I've seen up close…That includes watching my father. That includes the relationships that I saw him have.” Presenter…
- The Interview
Steve Hilton: Brit running for California governor
“I'm a proud American. I became a citizen in 2021. I feel at home here both in America and actually, in a way I actually have never felt before. I feel like…
- The Interview
Victor Glover, astronaut: We went into sci-fi
“The last thing to come into view was this blue glow, and we could see craters and the surface of the Moon. But the Sun is on the other side, so what was…
- The Interview
Jackie Jantos, Hinge CEO: Gen Z struggle to connect
Sean Farrington speaks to Jackie Jantos, CEO of popular mobile dating app Hinge, about finding romance in today’s rapidly-changing digital world. Launched back…
- The Interview
Katie Sadleir, Commonwealth Games: They are still relevant
“It had grown to be quite an expensive event. Our members wanted to host the games, and because of the size and the scale of the event that was not possible.”…
- The Interview
John Kerry: Countries failing to deal with climate change
Waihiga Mwaura speaks to former US Secretary of State John Kerry about why he thinks governments are retreating from efforts to deal with climate change. He…
- The Interview
Michel Barnier, chief EU Brexit negotiator: We need to be together in a fragile world
Katya Adler speaks to Michel Barnier who served as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, on the 10th anniversary of the highly consequential referendum. On 23 June…
- The Interview
Patricia Cornwell, novelist: Imagination saved me
Jamie Coomarasamy speaks to Patricia Cornwell, one of the world’s best-selling crime writers, whose books have sold more than 120 million copies worldwide. She…
- The Interview
Catherine Russell, Unicef: War is the worst thing for children
Nada Tawfik speaks to Catherine Russell, executive director of Unicef, the United Nations agency responsible for protecting and supporting children. Before…
- The Interview
Jack Clark, Anthropic co-founder: put brakes on AI
“Right now, it’s like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn’t have a brake pedal in the car. And what we’re saying is we want to build that brake pedal…
- The Interview
Gebran Bassil, Lebanese politician: Hezbollah should disarm
“The state of Lebanon needs to have an exclusivity of arms. And definitely, Hezbollah needs to be disarmed… Disarming a group or a community is not possible by…
- The Interview
Dr Tedros, WHO: Viruses are invisible enemy
“There is more spending in defence and less spending in global health or in public health or health security, which makes us vulnerable...Because the invisible…