With Chris Hewitt away on an actual holiday, this week's Empire Podcast sees Helen O'Hara slide into the host's chair as she, Ben Travis, and Amon Warmann tackle a hat-trick of listener questions, including musing on male damsels in distress, movies-turned-plays, and the ongoing role of Bluey in saving the world. Then the trio tackle movie news, most of which comes out of this week's CinemaCon, including the revelation that Jamie Dornan, and not Leo Woodall, will be filling Aragorn's boots in The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. Finally, they review not one but SIX movies, including Lee Cronin's The Mummy, Jonah Hill's Outcome, and Brian Cox's directorial debut, Glenrothan. Speaking of Cox, the legendary Scottish actor pops into the podbooth to have a delightful, and delightfully foul-mouthed, chat with Chris about popping behind the camera at almost 80 years of age, singing Spice Girls with Alan Cumming, and his complicated relationship with Scotland. Oh, and if there are any glaring editing errors on this week's show, it was edited on a cruise ship, so please bear that in mind. Oh, and due to the absence of several key members of personnel, our next Daredevil: Born Again spoiler special will be next week. Sorry about that. In the meantime, enjoy!

It's another jam-packed edition of The Interviews this week, folks. First, Chris Hewitt talks fillums, scary and otherwise, with the wonderful Jack Reynor, star of Lee Cronin's The Mummy. [1:35 - 18:44 approx] Then he has a chaotic, recorded-on-iPhone-because-reasons, chat with Seamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley, the stars of James McAvoy's California Schemin' [20:48 - 37:01 approx]; and finally there's a fun chat between Chris and Kat Coiro and Will Packer, director and producer respectively of the frothy rom-com You, Me & Tuscany.[37:59 - 52:47 approx] Enjoy.

Ok, first things first. Let's get it out of the way. Yes, the Empire Podcast team — Chris Hewitt, Helen O'Hara, James Dyer, and John Nugent — spend a great deal of this week's podcast answering a listener question about great movie quartets. They also spend a great deal of time, in the Movie News section, talking about The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. And yes, despite all that, they spectacularly fail to mention Bilbo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin in the former category. So, just letting you know that now lest you wish to shout at your podcast device of choice. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. Or maybe fourwarned is more apt in this case. Anyway, it's a fun episode in which our own quartet also talk Taskmaster series 21, discuss other nuggets of movie news, and review James McAvoy's directorial debut, California Schemin', Francois Ozon's The Stranger, rom-com You, Me & Tuscany, and podcasting horror, Undertone. And Chris has a lovely chat with James McAvoy, who pops into the podbooth to talk about directing for the first time. [41:45 - 1:00:32 approx] Oh, and the group make tentative and fun plans with this week's work experience person. Enjoy.