To see a Mike Mills film — Thumbsucker, Beginners, 20th Century Women — is to be steeped in a deep pool of empathy.

Mike Mills: I think Joaquin is just super available for Woody and just in it and that’s the form of the advice. But I think Joaquin never presumed that he could school Woody.

Joaquin Phoenix doesn't like to take a compliment. On a recent phone call, filmmaker Mike Mills started to explain why he wanted to work with Phoenix on his new family drama "C'mon C'mon" when the ...

Writer-director Mike Mills saw his “C’mon C’mon” leads — Joaquin Phoenix and youngster Woody Norman — slip into their roles as uncle and nephew. “Woody and Joaquin’s relationship ...

Director Mike Mills discusses “C’mon, C’mon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffman and Woody Norman. But first, our Awards Circuit Roundtable helps kick off Oscar voting by making one ...

Mike Mills, Michael Stipe and Peter Buck of the American band R.E.M. pose for a group portrait at the launch of their album “Accelerate” on March 18, 2008, in Milan, Italy.

Mills can’t remember when he, Buck and Stipe began seriously talking about the end of the band. “But it was discussed on the 2008 tour,” he says, and during the sessions for Collapse Into Now.

But Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry never did make it back to Dingwalls.

MILLS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's interview with Mike Mills, who wrote and directed the film "20th Century Women." It's up for a best original screenplay Oscar.

Mike D, of Beastie Boys, for whom Mills designed two album covers, told me, “Kids like Mike who get bitten by the skate bug have a deep-down rage that they channel by saying, ‘I’m going to ...