Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode 233 of the Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip! Pure actorial and directorial treats for you this week, a real powerhouse flooded with gems and gold nuggets… People, Pip is joined by DESIREE AKHAVAN!

Gems and gold nuggets all over the place. A real pleasure of a chat, as Desiree talks openly and honestly about every aspect of her creative process and inspiration, moving so gracefully from one angle to the next. You may know her from 2015’s ’Appropriate Behaviour’, or maybe more recently 2018’s ’The Miseducation Of Cameron Post’, both of which received and are in the process of receiving excellent reviews - either way, you are most definitely about to know her even more personally with the release of her new series ‘The Bisexual’, on Channel 4 this week! If you’re reading this on Podcast Wednesday, that means TONIGHT!

So indulge in this fascinating chat as Desiree goes into her Iranian-American heritage, her early playwright longings and how Iranian characters often fall into either the victim or villain category, the reinvention of narrative structure, how accurate her view of Britain is from an American perspective, how weird it is to write about love and where exes play into the mixture, life in London, her previous films including the acting maturity of ‘…Cameron Post’s Chloë Grace Moretz, honesty and preservation of dignity and not making films based around the traditional male gaze, a theory from Pip about French cinema, Desiree’s confidence in the cast and the freedom this grants and some good old fashioned social media talk. Glorious. Ladies and gentlemen and beyond - your new best friend, Desiree Akhavan!