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The Big Lie

By: John Mankiewicz, Jamie Napoli, Paul Jarrico
Narrated by: Jon Hamm, Kate Mara, Ana de la Reguera, Bradley Whitford, John Slattery, Giancarlo Esposito, David Strathairn, a full cast
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Episodes
  • Trailer

    Trailer
    Jun 1 2022

    Jon Hamm leads an all-star cast that includes Kate Mara, Ana de la Reguera, John Slattery, and Bradley Whitford in the riveting true story behind the making of the one American movie the FBI never wanted you to see.

    The Big Lie follows FBI special agent Jack Bergin (Jon Hamm), who is sent to investigate three blacklisted filmmakers—Academy Award-winning writer Michael Wilson, Academy Award-nominated producer Paul Jarrico, and director Herbert J. Biberman—who were inspired by a New Mexico labor strike to make a movie that dramatized their pro-labor, pro-feminist beliefs. Convinced the film is a recruitment tool for the Communist Party, Jack will do whatever is necessary to shut the production down.

    Featuring a star-studded cast that also includes Giancarlo Esposito, David Strathairn, Lisa Edelstein, Raymond Cruz, Troy Evans, Kirk Baltz, John Getz, and Lela Loren, The Big Lie is an explosive story of conspiracy, betrayal, and temptation that resonates with today’s divided America and reminds us all that fear spreads faster than the truth.
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    1 min
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  • Episode One: “The Man in the Hat”

    Episode One: “The Man in the Hat”
    Jun 16 2022
    From a John Wayne premiere to a late-night meeting at Griffith Observatory, the hunt for Hollywood Communists takes FBI special agent Jack Bergin on a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles. When a dangerous propaganda film secures a secret investor, Jack works around the clock to shut down the deal.
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    35 mins
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  • Episode Two: “Person to Person”

    Episode Two: “Person to Person”
    Jun 16 2022
    Jack follows the production to New Mexico and works to find an ‘in’ with the Communist filmmakers. Conflicts at home threaten to derail Jack’s mission.
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    38 mins
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About the Creator

John Mankiewicz is a screen and television writer whose most recent show is Interrogation, now streaming on Paramount Plus. A multiple Emmy nominee, Mankiewicz has served as an executive producer on House of Cards, Bosch, and House. Movie credits include an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ Rape: A Love Story. A former journalist, he has contributed to Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New Yorker.

Jon Hamm
Kate Mara
Ana De La Reguera
Bradley Whitford
John Slattery
Giancarlo Esposito
David Strathairn

About the Performer

Jon Hamm's nuanced portrayal of the high-powered advertising executive Don Draper on AMC's award-winning drama series Mad Men has firmly established him as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors. He has earned numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award in 2015 for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, Golden Globe Awards in 2016 and 2008, Television Critics Association Awards in 2011 and 2015, and a Critics Choice Television Award in 2011, as well as multiple Screen Actors Guild nominations. Mad Men concluded its seventh and final season on May 17, 2015.
Next, Hamm can be seen in the long-awaited and highly anticipated Top Gun sequel Top Gun: Maverick. He plays Vice Admiral Beau "Cyclone" Simpson in an all-star ensemble that includes Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, and Miles Teller. Hamm will return to the small screen in 2022, reprising his role as Gabriel in the second season of Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. In 2023 he will lend his voice to the animated detective comedy series Grimsburg for Fox, which he will produce alongside the Jackal Group's Gail Berman and Hend Baghdady, Connie Tavel, and showrunner Chadd Gindin.

About the Performer

Kate Mara’s impressive list of film credits include Random Hearts, in which she made her feature film debut at 15, Brokeback Mountain, We Are Marshall, Shooter, Transsiberian, Stone of Destiny, 127 Hours, Transcendence, Captive, The Martian, Man Down, Morgan, Megan Leavey, My Days of Mercy (on which she served as executive producer), and Chappaquiddick.
On the small screen, Mara received an Emmy Award nomination for her role in David Fincher’s critically acclaimed television series House of Cards. Mara was recently seen starring in the FX limited series A Teacher, for which she was also an executive producer. Upcoming, Mara will be seen in Class of ’09, a limited series for FX on Hulu.

About the Performer

Award-winning actress Ana de la Reguera most recently starred opposite Dave Bautista in Zack Snyder’s blockbuster and 2022 Oscar fan-favorite film Army of the Dead for Netflix and led the cast of the final installment of the Purge franchise, The Forever Purge, for Universal, among many other projects. She currently creates, writes, and stars in the GLAAD and Imagen Award-nominated series Ana, a half-hour series based on her life which currently airs in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide including Mexico and all of Latin America, and can be seen on Pantaya in the U.S.
Reguera’s other credits include roles in Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens, Kevin Smith’s Cop Out, Jared Hess’ Nacho Libre with Jack Black, the Golden Globe-nominated series Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton, Narcos, Power, Jane the Virgin, The Blacklist, and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, as well as HBO’s Eastbound and Down and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn.
Her upcoming credits include seasons 2 and 3 of Ana, Audible’s The Big Lie with Jon Hamm, Sebastian Gutierrez’s limited series Leopard Skin for Peacock with Carla Gugino, and ¡Que viva México!, the last film of acclaimed director Luis Estrada, which will be released later this year on Netflix.

About the Performer

Bradley Whitford is a three-time Emmy Award winner for his work on The Handmaid’s Tale, Transparent, and The West Wing. Whitford is also known for his performance in Blumhouse’s Oscar-nominated 2018 horror mega-hit Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele. Whitford was also in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick… Boom!, Steven Spielberg’s The Post, Warner Brothers’ summer blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and will next be seen in the Fox/Hulu Romeo and Juliet re-telling, Rosaline, opposite Kaitlyn Dever. Whitford is the producer of the documentary Not Going Quietly about the life of activist Ady Barkan, who suffers from ALS.

About the Performer

John Slattery received four Emmy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Roger Sterling on the critically acclaimed cable series Mad Men. He also directed several episodes of Mad Men as well as Judd Apatow’s Love, and the feature God's Pocket, which premiered at Sundance in 2014.
Slattery starred in Tom McCarthy's feature film Spotlight, which received the Academy Award for Best Picture, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, and the Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award. His previous feature film credits include Ant-Man, The Adjustment Bureau, Iron Man 2, Bluebird, Flags of Our Fathers, Charlie Wilson's War, Mona Lisa Smile, The Station Agent, and Traffic.
He is instantly recognizable from numerous roles on TV series such as Documentary Now!, Arrested Development, Sex and the City, Veep, and K Street. He also earned a Critics Choice Award Best Guest Actor nomination for his role in the streaming series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.
On Broadway, Slattery appeared in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole, earning him a Drama League Award; the revival of Betrayal; Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor; and most recently, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's The Front Page opposite Nathan Lane.
Slattery was also seen as Paul Leblanc in the new Fox miniseries Next and opposite the FX miniseries Mrs. America opposite Cate Blanchett.

About the Performer

Giancarlo Esposito is well known for his iconic portrayal of Gustavo "Gus" Fring in AMC’s Breaking Bad, for which he won the 2012 Critics Choice Award and earned a 2012 Emmy nomination.
Esposito can be seen reprising his role of Gus Fring on AMC’s Better Call Saul, which earned him 2019 and 2020 Emmy Award nominations. The sixth and final season includes Esposito’s television directorial debut.
Giancarlo will return as Gideon to the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, for which he was nominated for 2020 and 2021 Emmy Awards.
He will also begin production on the third season of the EPIX series Godfather of Harlem. He stars as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and was nominated for a 2020 and 2022 NAACP Image Awards.
He also stars in Amazon’s critically acclaimed series The Boys and had a recurring role as the Narrator in Netflix’s Dear White People. Additional TV credits include Westworld, Once Upon a Time, The Get Down, Drunk History, and Community.
He can also be seen in films such as Stargirl, Okja, Coda, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Maze Runner: The Scorch Tales, Rabbit Hole, The Usual Suspects, Smoke, Last Holiday, and Spike Lee’s films Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, School Daze, and Malcolm X.

About the Performer

David Strathairn won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival and earned Best Actor nominations from the Academy, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and the Independent Spirit Awards for Good Night, and Good Luck. He won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in the HBO project Temple Grandin in 2011 and was nominated in 2012 for his portrayal of John Dos Passos in HBO's Hemingway & Gellhorn.
Strathairn has continued a busy screen career with co-starring roles in several critically acclaimed films, including Tim Robbins’ directorial debut Bob Roberts, Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own, Stephen Gyllenhaal’s Losing Isaiah, Sydney Pollack’s The Firm, Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers, Taylor Hackford’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel Dolores Claiborne; and Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays, as well as two projects with Curtis Hansen: The River Wild and the Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential.
His additional movie credits include Memphis Belle, A Map of the World, Simon Birch, Lost in Yonkers, Missing in America, Michael Hoffman’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Philip Kaufman’s Twisted, The Bourne Ultimatum directed by Paul Greengrass, The Tempest (starring opposite Helen Mirren), Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, directed by John Madden.

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What listeners say about The Big Lie

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Profile Image for Cottage Dweller

FBI Involvement in the movie industry in the 50’s.

I guess I forgot all about the scandal in the 50’s in the movie industry. But this brought up some of the interesting things pertaining to the Communist Party. Our country has been faced with obstacles back then and still continues to be faced with obstacles. FBI agents were certainly expected to give up a good portion of their life and Jack was personally effected. He did his job although he didn’t really believe in what he was doing and the outcome proved it in the end.

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Profile Image for Michael Fowler

Bit left leaning for my tastes, but performed well

im a big fan of Jon Hamm, and immediately thought of Madmen when I began the series.
it starts off great, but as the last few episodes closes in, I noticed the bias towards good communists being a bit off putting to me. the main character seemed a bit... artificial in his actions at the last episode. didn't seem realistic.

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Profile Image for gladys kravitz

For ppl who understand concept of radio shows

And for people capable of thought. It's interesting how vehemently right wingnuts protest against this series.
It's perplexing how people can be so sheltered in their world as to clutch pearls at hearing swearing. in 2022.

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Profile Image for Lera

Awesome Podcast!!!

This is such a great story with great performances by some of my favorite actors such as Jon Hamm! Highly recommend❤️❤️

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Profile Image for Tanya Kamka

wow! loved it!

incredible cast. love John Hamm. incredible story and story tellers. I hope you guys make more.

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Profile Image for I'm all ears

Excellent

This is very well done. It tells a gripping story and tells it very well. It is a disturbing story, but also an extremely compelling one. It had me right from the start. It was like watching a movie, a thriller where you can’t take your eyes from the screen. It was that vivid. Good job, Audible! I hope there will be more of these.

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Profile Image for E. Bucher

Real history is always a good story

A story based on real events, this was engaging, informative, and well performed. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Profile Image for John A

Not a bad story, good voices

Story wasn't overly detailed, a bit like light television fare rather than a good book. The most riveting piece was listening to Jon Hamm, made me want to rewatch Mad Men.

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Profile Image for Mt. Mama

Phenomenal

This was a phenomenal listen! I loved the entire series and the 1950s radio style completely enhanced the production. (When was the last time YOU heard a dial telephone? Never?) It is an important story about a very dark time in American history - one that needed to be told and needs to be heard. The actors were EXCELLENT. Bravo!

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Profile Image for Sara

Excellent

excellent, we'll told story of a.part of ourl history that little is known about - thanks

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