While retaining his leading-man looks, Josh Duhamel has branched out into writing and directing, having just piloted the ultra-raunchy comedy Buddy Games: Spring Awakening, which hits theaters today and VOD on June 2. (He also costars in the film.) But it doesn’t take long to learn that he has an old-fashioned work ethic. It helped to earn him a daytime Emmy twenty-some years ago for All My Children and it stood him in good stead on the recent Disney TV series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. Leonard and Jessie talked to Josh about working with Michael Bay, turning to a fellow school parent for advice before making his first comedy, and much, much more.

Tom Sito is a master animator and a walking encyclopedia of animation—not only for his credentials, which range from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Scooby-Doo—but for seeking out pioneers and masters of the art form and telling their stories. He’s a teacher, a scholar, a union leader, an author and also a terrific guy who used to drop in to Leonard’s animation class at the New School for Social Research in NYC back in the 1970s! Jessie marvels at the longevity of their friendship, which shows no sign of ceasing anytime soon. Tom’s books include Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson, Moving Innovation, A history of Computer Animation, and Eat, Drink, Animate: An Animator’s Cookbook.

He directed the new theatrical release Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. But George Tillman, Jr. is as much a film enthusiast as he is a filmmaker. It was seeing Michael Schultz’s Cooley High and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver that set him on his career path, which began with Soul Food and Men of Honor. Now he is in a position to give other talented young black filmmakers a helping hand—and he does just that, as a prolific producer of films and television. Leonard and Jessie thoroughly enjoyed talking movies with someone who is so clearly passionate about what they do.