Pushkin Industries and BBC Studios Partner For First Time on New Podcast Big Lives - Profiling Cultural Icons Past and Present

Announced today at South by South West in Austin, Pushkin Industries and BBC Studios are partnering for the first time to launch Big Lives, a new podcast that will tap into the BBC’s extensive archive to profile iconic figures who have shaped our culture. The weekly show, co-hosted by Kai Wright (WNYC’s Notes from America) and Emmanuel Dzotsi (Serial, Reply All, This American Life), launches globally on Monday, March 23.

Each week on Big Lives, Kai and Emmanuel take one legendary individual, from musical trailblazers like David Bowie and Tina Turner to transcendent stars like Richard Pryor and Sir David Attenborough, and hear them in their own words, from the BBC’s archive. Kai and Emmanuel use these fascinating glimpses into their subjects’ inner lives to tell surprising, revealing, poignant and often funny stories about where they came from – and why they matter.

“A funny thing happens when people become super famous. They get so well known that they seem like caricatures of themselves — flattened into memes and scandals, or into a single, defining image,” said hosts Kai and Emmanuel. “We want to revive your curiosity in these larger than life characters, the people who have shaped our culture. And as we’ve dug through the BBC archives, we’ve found all kinds of surprises. We’re looking for the nuanced stories of how once relatable people became legends.”

Big Lives is smart, curious and full of heart. In the March 23 premiere episode, Kai and Emmanuel profile Jane Fonda, tracing her reinvention from 1960s “nudie cutie” to firebrand activist, conservative bête noire and accidental fitness mogul.

Richard Knight, Director of Audio, BBC Studios said: “Big Lives makes great use of the vast and unique BBC archive to shine a new light on extraordinary individuals whose lives made a difference to all of ours. Working with Kai, Emmanuel and our friends at Pushkin has been a joy. We have in common a shared desire to tell powerful stories that matter, and tell them well, and we are excited to share our work with audiences around the world.”

Added Gretta Cohn, CEO, Pushkin Industries: "Big Lives is for the cultural omnivore, and I’m excited for our audiences to hear such sharp, witty and contemporary takes on legends like LL Cool J and Sinead O’Connor. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about a given figure, Kai and Emmanuel will show you something more. And, it was a pleasure working with our partners at BBC Studios and tapping into their extensive archive to expand our views on these icons.”

Kai Wright is an award-winning writer, editor, and podcast host. Most recently, he hosted WNYC’s nationally-syndicated weekly show Notes from America. He was also host of the Peabody Award-winning podcast Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, which documents activism in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and of several documentary podcasts from WNYC Studios. Wright was previously an editor at The Nation, editorial director of Colorlines, and an investigative fellow of Type Media Center, among other roles.

Emmanuel Dzotsi is an award-winning journalist and podcast host. He is currently a producer at This American Life. Dzoti previously co-hosted and produced two of the most downloaded podcasts of all time, Serial and Reply All. Over the last decade, he’s reported stories on everything from backroom deals for political power and the strange phenomenon of white people sending Black folks Venmo payments as reparations to vast money-making phone scams hidden in plain sight.

Big Lives is a BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries co-production and launches globally, wherever you get your podcasts from Monday 23rd March. Presented by Emmanuel Dzotsi and Kai Wright, the series is produced by Emma Weatherill. The archive producer is Samira Choudry. Executive producers for BBC studios are Annie Brown and James Robinson. For Pushkin Industries, the executive producer is Constanza Gallardo and producer is Daphne Chen.