Society & Culture

Deviate

by Rolf Potts

Share this ranking Claiming needs an RSS feed. Contact us.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Chart positions today · Mexico

Not on the Mexico charts we track today.

If you like Deviate, try…

Conversations with Peter Boghossian

Also in Society & Culture

Good Good Running

Also in Society & Culture

Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky

Also in Society & Culture

Por Falar em Correr

Also in Society & Culture

Black Box: The Chatbots

Also in Society & Culture

Trade-Off

Also in Society & Culture

Latest episodes

Sense of place in cinema: Las Vegas Never Plays Itself, with Tod Goldberg

October 6, 2026 · 59 min

“Las Vegas is hard to capture in art without leaning on cliche. The movie Casino doesn't lean on cliche because it created the cliche. The Hangover created the cliche for this next generation. Culture is is causing people to act a certain…
Travel memoir lab: How your journeys can inspire fictional adventure stories

September 7, 2026 · 48 min

“That first day in Mumbai, there was the slum to the side of us, there were sports cars that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars next to people walking with no feet next to 200 people crammed into a bus. Separating those…
Best of Travel: Paul Theroux on the necessary obstacles of meaningful journeys

August 4, 2026 · 52 min

"All writing is trying to destroy a stereotype, and the individual that you're writing about -- the figure in the landscape -- is actually the ideal." —Paul Theroux Paul Theroux's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, My Other…
The geography of sports movies (with Chuck Klosterman and Michael Weinreb)

July 3, 2026 · 58 min

“"When I was in the third grade my teacher announced to our class that Ronald Reagan had been shot. When she asked if we had questions, I raised my hand and asked her if the Indiana - North Carolina basketball game was still going to…
Designing a creative life on your own terms (with Cedar Van Tassel)

June 2, 2026 · 54 min

“A joke is kind of like a little life-lesson in addition to being funny. If your joke is really good, there's a little nugget of truth in it.” – Cedar Van Tassel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Cedar discuss why kids want to be…

Show 7 more episodesShow fewer episodes

What movies (do and don't) show us about places before we travel there

May 5, 2026 · 42 min

“When we don't foster local filmmaking traditions, we end up making movies about what we think life is like in the cities we do see movies about.” – Jason Bailey In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jason talk about how being from Kansas…
Exploring the idiosyncrasies of male friendship, with Andrew McCarthy

April 8, 2026 · 51 min

“I asked everyone if they were lonely. All the guys my age said 'no, I'm too busy; too much going on.' When I answer that quickly I'm either lying or it's something I'm afraid of.” – Andrew McCarthy In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and…
Debunking the mythology of BEFORE SUNRISE, with co-writer Kim Krizan (in Paris)

March 10, 2026 · 38 min

"I think you have to pick your battles when you're collaborating with people." – Kim Krizan Kim Krizan (@kimkrizan) is the Oscar-nominated cowriter of the Before Sunrise movies, and the author of Spy in the House of Anaïs Nin. Notable…
Super Bowl special: Why football kind of matters, with Chuck Klosterman (kind of)

February 5, 2026 · 46 min

“I wish I loved sports, and particularly football, a lot less than I do. It consumes too much of my memory and too much of my time.” – Chuck Klosterman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about why he's talking to Chuck Klosterman's…
Time is your truest form of wealth (and travel helps you embrace your riches)

January 8, 2026 · 58 min

“In teaching us to appreciate rather than accumulate – to seek awe rather than outcomes – travel can be an ongoing exercise in gratitude.” – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf remixes his interview from the All the Hacks podcast…
Kansas Never Plays Itself: How movies lie when they take us places

December 16, 2025 · 1 hr 14 min

In this feature-length video essay that explores the role places play in storytelling, Rolf examines how Kansas -- his home state -- has been imagined, distorted, and mythologized in cinema and television for more than a century. Blending…
Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)

November 4, 2025 · 42 min

“I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr In…