Fresh Air Weekend: Tom Waits, Bill Nighy

James Michin III/courtesy of the artist

Tom Waits

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Tom Waits: The Fresh Air Interview: The darkness of Tom Waits' lyrics is accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, which sounded old even when he was young. On Bad Like Me, Waits reflects on loneliness, life, death and heartbreak. Here, he talks to Terry Gross about performing, being a father and writing his haunting melodies.

Bill Nighy: From 'Love Actually' To 'Page Eight' The British character actor shot to international stardom after playing an aging rocker in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. In his latest project, the BBC drama Page Eight, Nighy plays a British intelligence officer who discovers a state secret.

The SMiLE Sessions: A Window Into The Beach Boys: SMiLE may be the most famous unreleased album of all time, but it's not really unreleased: Bits and pieces of it wound up on other Beach Boys albums. Now that EMI has assembled a definitive collection of the session tracks, Ed Ward has listened to them — and wonders what the shouting was about.

You can listen to the original broadcasts here:

• Tom Waits: The Fresh Air Interview
• Bill Nighy: From 'Love Actually' To 'Page Eight'
• The SMiLE Sessions: A Window Into The Beach Boys