I have listened to a lot of famous people answer the same four questions. It gets old fast. So these ten were chosen on one thing: a format that makes the press answer impossible. One host hides the guest. A stranger calls in mid-divorce. A film nerd who has seen the whole filmography asks about the flop. Shows that only book whoever has a film out this month did not make it. You get comedy roundtables, two hour confessionals, film talk and one gleeful celebrity gossip podcast. The best interview podcasts with celebrities all break the script somewhere. Each has a player below, so pick one and press play.
1. SmartLess: two hosts never know who is walking in
Here is the hook. Only one of the three hosts knows who is coming in. Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett take turns booking, and the other two stay in the dark until the tape rolls. So an episode opens with two grown men guessing, stalling and quietly panicking. SiriusXM carries it, weekly. Laura Dern, Timothy Olyphant, Jeremy Renner and Mel Robbins have all walked into that. Matthew McConaughey too. The blind hosts ask beginner questions because they have read nothing at all, and beginner questions are frequently the good ones.
What keeps me here is the ribbing, which is constant and mostly self-inflicted. Sean gets mocked. Will commits far too hard to a bit. Jason plays the tired adult in the room. The three of them do talk a lot, and the guest sometimes waits a while for a turn. That is what you pay for a show built on friendship rather than homework, and it is exactly why guests stop performing. Put it on for a long drive when you want company. If you want the host to vanish and the actor to talk, Happy Sad Confused in section six is your show.
2. Good Hang with Amy Poehler: every episode has a second guest
Open the credits on any episode of the Amy Poehler podcast and there are two guests, not one. Steve Carell came in with Stephen Colbert beside him. Tom Holland brought Jacob Batalon. Matt Damon's hour also lists Christopher Nolan. Poehler makes it through her own Paper Kite Productions with The Ringer, and Bill Simmons is an executive producer. It runs weekly, around seventy minutes. Aubrey Plaza, Ryan Coogler and Hayley Williams have all come by. Poehler chases the daft, specific thing, so you learn what somebody eats in the car rather than how they built the character.
This is a professional improviser politely refusing to conduct an interview. She teases, wanders off, and lets people be weird for a while. Nothing is being extracted, so nobody leaves with a headline. If you want a star pressed on something, you will not get it here, and that is the deal. The looseness is why guests sound like themselves within ten minutes. Kim Kardashian turned up as the second name opposite the writer Paula Pell, which tells you how wide the door swings. Save it for a walk. It is the friendliest hour on this list.
3. Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard: two hour sit-downs, three times a week
Dax Shepard tells you up front that he is not qualified for any of this. Sobriety, an anthropology degree, some improv classes. Then he sits with Jennifer Aniston for two hours and gets somewhere real. Monica Padman is in the room, arguing back live and fact checking him afterwards. Wondery distributes it, and episodes land Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, which is a lot of podcast. Edward Norton, Olivia Wilde, Mindy Kaling and Lukas Gage have all been through. Authors and scientists get the same two hours, so the feed lurches from Hollywood to neurology without apologising.
The thing regulars wait for is Armchair Anonymous, where listeners phone in a confession on a theme. Shepard offers up his own damage before he asks for anyone else's, and that trade is the whole engine. He talks about himself a great deal. Some weeks that will be more Dax than you wanted. It also means the guest never has to go first, which is why a celebrity interview here lands where a junket never could. Save it for a plane, a road trip or a very long walk. Two hours was never trying to be background noise.
4. Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend: guests rate the friendship out loud
Every episode starts the same daft way. The guest finishes a sentence: I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Then The White Stripes come in and you know exactly where you are. O'Brien started this in November 2018, after decades of interviews that never turned into one friendship. His assistant Sona Movsesian and producer Matt Gourley sit in and flatly refuse to be background. Team Coco went to SiriusXM in 2022. Will Ferrell took the first chair. Charli XCX, Andrew Scott, Kevin Nealon, Tom Hanks and Barack Obama have all followed him in.
The middle is a real interview. The top and tail belong to the crew, who bicker about money, work and O'Brien's ego, and a spin-off strand puts ordinary fans on the mic. Ask a regular why they subscribe and half will name the crew, not the guests. If you came for a tight half hour with an actor, the digressions will grate on you. They are the show. It is a workplace comedy that happens to book Carol Burnett. Weekly, properly funny, and safe to play with other people in the car.
5. Where Everybody Knows Your Name: the co-host turns up sometimes
Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson met on Cheers, then drifted into separate lives. This is the reunion, and the title is honest, because Woody only turns up sometimes. It began on 12 June 2024, Team Coco makes it for SiriusXM, and it runs weekly. Mostly it is Danson alone, calling in people he has known for forty years. Harrison Ford came and talked about his years as a carpenter. Candice Bergen, Henry Winkler, Alfre Woodard, Ken Burns and Seth MacFarlane have sat down. Danson asks about parents and regret long before he asks about anybody's film.
The tempo is the reason to stay. Nobody sprints to a punchline, and a long pause is allowed to sit there. If you want chaos and hot takes, this will feel slow, and slow is exactly the trade being made. Gentle questions are what get a man like Ford talking properly. This is an evening show, or a walk with no destination. Among the best celebrity podcasts for anyone who grew up watching these faces and now wants the person underneath. It is unhurried in a way almost nothing else here is.
6. Happy Sad Confused: repeat guests get numbered volumes
Josh Horowitz has been at this since 2014, and the episode titles say it all. Stanley Tucci, Vol. II. Daniel Radcliffe, Vol. V. Actors keep coming back, so nobody wastes twenty minutes on where you grew up. He started as a producer and booker, and it shows in how fast he reaches the real question. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Millie Bobby Brown, Kate Winslet and Elijah Wood have all sat with him. Some episodes are taped live at the 92nd Street Y, and the video versions live on his YouTube channel.
He asks about the part they turned down and the sequel nobody will confirm, then leaves the silence alone. That is rarer than it sounds. Bookings track the release calendar, so the feed moves with whatever is opening in cinemas. If you do not follow film closely, some weeks will pass you by, and that narrowness is exactly why the conversations go deep. Search the archive for an actor you love before anything else. He has probably interviewed them twice. These are good interview podcasts hours where somebody finally answers straight.
7. Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa: taped in her son's bedroom
Kelly Ripa spent decades doing short television segments, and the good material always arrived after the cameras cut. The Kelly Ripa podcast is her keeping that part. She tapes in a room she cheerfully calls her son Michael's bedroom, and SiriusXM puts it out weekly. Goldie Hawn came on and talked about dancing in Vegas. Susan Lucci revisited the Emmy streak that finally broke. Michelle Obama came in with her brother Craig Robinson. Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler shared an hour about growing up on camera and living with MS.
Then she books a psychiatrist, and the same month that had Housewives gossip has narcissism explained properly. That mix is the actual show, and it is why the reality episodes never feel throwaway. If Bravo means nothing to you, some weeks will not land, so skip them. What is left is one of the best interview podcasts with celebrities of the daytime television generation, hosted by someone her guests plainly trust. For gossip with no expert segments at all, go to Not Skinny But Not Fat in section ten.
8. Las Culturistas: guests must deliver an I Don't Think So Honey
Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang started in March 2016 with an episode about the Grammys, and one segment has outlasted everything. I Don't Think So Honey gives you sixty seconds to eviscerate something in culture. Guests are expected to arrive with one ready. It sits with the Big Money Players Network and iHeartPodcasts, and it hands out its own Culture Awards. Allison Williams, Aidy Bryant and D'Arcy Carden have all played the game. The hosts open by digging for the culture that made you who you are, and they genuinely want an answer.
It is the funniest celebrity podcast here and the least interested in easing you in. Episodes run ninety minutes, and the in-jokes pile up until a newcomer feels like they wandered into a kitchen party. Pick a guest you love and the code cracks inside one episode. If running references annoy you, this will annoy you, and that same closeness is why famous people drop the act faster here than anywhere else. Best on a run, where laughing out loud in public becomes somebody else's problem.
9. Anna Faris Is Unqualified: strangers call, stars give advice
Nobody else on this list does what the Anna Faris Is Unqualified podcast does. Faris interviews someone famous, then the two of them take calls from listeners in real relationship trouble. A woman is not sure about her marriage. A man cannot work out where to meet anyone. The movie star has to answer, out loud, with no script to hide in. Ed Helms, Alison Brie, Elizabeth Banks, Gina Rodriguez and Dominic Monaghan have all had a go. The therapist Esther Perel has co-hosted, and the room rises considerably when she does.
Relationship advice from unqualified Hollywood types is the joke, and it works because nobody can retreat into an anecdote. You hear how a famous person actually thinks about jealousy, money and loyalty. The feed leans hard on flashback episodes now, so check the dates before you plan a binge. Treat it as an archive and it is a gift: hundreds of hours of famous interviews with a real person on the other end of the line. Play it while cooking, ideally beside someone who will disagree with the advice.
10. Not Skinny But Not Fat: reality stars and A-listers, one feed
Amanda Hirsch built an Instagram account about celebrity gossip, then turned it into a Tuesday podcast made with Dear Media. The booking policy is the whole trick. Kim Kardashian and Ryan Reynolds share a feed with Summer House and Love Is Blind cast members. Lili Reinhart came on to talk about acne and body image. Spencer Pratt talked about the Los Angeles fires and The Hills. Heidi Gardner talked about Kansas City. Hirsch asks the question a fan would actually ask, which almost no professional interviewer thinks to do.
She is a fan first, so she is warm, and the questions rarely turn adversarial. If you want a journalist pressing for accountability, that is not what is happening here. What you get instead is somebody unclenching, because nobody is trying to catch them out. That is the trade the best celebrity gossip podcast makes, and most weeks it pays off. Listeners keep saying they play it on a power walk, and that is exactly right. Start with a guest whose drama you already follow, then stay for whoever turns up next.
Pick by mood, not by name. Play the newest SmartLess this week and see whether the surprise lands for you. If it does, you are a roundtable person, and the two hour confessionals will bore you rigid. If you spend the hour wishing the hosts would move aside, go straight to Happy Sad Confused. One episode settles this faster than any list can, including this one.