Tom Bissell, author & scriptwriter (Gears of War, Star Wars: Andor.)

My guest today is an award-winning author, journalist and writer for film, television, and video games. After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in English literature, he travelled to Uzbekistan as a volunteer for the Peace Corps. He then returned to New York where he worked as author and editor, reporting on the Iraq war for Harper's Magazine and contributing literary criticism to The New York Times Book Review.

A keen thinker on video games, in 2010 he published Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, a book that included a dissection of his experiences playing Grand Theft Auto IV while abusing cocaine. His 2013 book, The Disaster Artist, was turned into an Oscar-nominated feature film directed by James Franco, and his short story Aral inspired Werner Herzog's 2016 film Salt and Fire.

My guest has also written for video games such as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Uncharted 4, and Gears of War 5, and in 2021 he co-developed the Apple TV series The Mosquito Coast, based on the Paul Theroux novel of the same title. Recently he wrote three episodes for the second season of Star Wars: Andor, due to air in 2024.

Play the console:

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