Lawrence Bender is a film producer well-known for his long collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, dating back to “Reservoir Dogs” and continuing to “Inglorious Basterds”. But Bender’s work on “An Inconvenient Truth” brought him offers to make more documentaries on a similar theme—“The Inconvenient Truth of Blank,” he joked. His latest effort, “Countdown to Zero”, which Zócalo and KCRW screened at the Arclight Hollywood, takes a look at the history and present-day danger of nuclear weapons. Below, Bender answers our In the Green Room Q&A.

Q. What is the last habit you tried to kick?

A. Sugar.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. Food.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. With my son, at gymnastics.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Skydive.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Yes.

Q. What surprises you most about your life today?

A. The joy that I get out of spending time with my son, and the extraordinary people that I get to spend time with through my work.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A garbage man.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?

A. Into outer space.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. President of the United States.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. My house.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Gandhi.

Duke Helfand has worked as a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times for 17 years. He currently covers the financial side of health care, including the effect of the nation’s new health care law on insurers, hospitals, doctors and consumers. Before moderating a panel on health reform’s implications for California, he took our Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. With my kids at home, every Saturday, without a doubt.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Speak my mind at any moment and not hold back.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. Just the radio on the way over here.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. After I’ve done some good reporting and I’m free to write and I can feel it coming out of my fingertips.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Verb.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. George Jetson.

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. The ocean breeze.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A baseball player.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. Reporters don’t have extravagances. We can’t afford them.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. History professor.

Q. Whose talent would you like to have?

A. Bruce Springsteen’s.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Moshe Dayan, a general from the Six Day War.

To read more about Helfand’s panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Marian Mulkey is director of the California HealthCare Foundation’s Health Reform and Public Programs Initiative, which is working to support the implementation of national health reform in California and advance the effectiveness of public coverage programs. Before chatting about health reform’s implications for California, she took our Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. At the grocery store, stocking up for the week.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Travel extensively and leave work behind a little more often.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. Some hip hop in the cab on the way over.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. Early in the morning.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Depends on the occasion.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. I just reread To Kill a Mockingbird because my son’s reading it, and I have to say, Scout is a winner.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. I was never clear. I wanted to be lots of different things.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. I’m enjoying this life pretty well.

Q. What is the best advice you have ever received?

A. Find something you really like to do and do it as well as you can.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?

A. The South Pacific.

To read more about Mulkey’s panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Lucien Wulsin is the project director of Insure the Uninsured Project and is working on approaches to expand coverage for uninsured working Californians. He is the author of “California at the Crossroads: Choices for Health Care Reform,” a study on California’s options to redesign its health care system. Before chatting about health reform’s implications for California, he took our Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. Hiking up in the Santa Monica Mountains with my dogs.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Jump out of an airplane with a parachute.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. Not a note.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. First thing in the morning until roughly 11 or 11:30, or when I’m in the mountains or on a boat.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Uh.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. The Brothers Karamazov — all of them.

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. My house.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A baseball player, and then a singer. Eventually I realized I can’t sing and my baseball skills are not that great.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. When we go out to eat.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. Supreme Court Justice.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. I don’t know that they’re material possessions, but, my dogs.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, together. I’d just listen to them talk.

To read more about Wulsin’s panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

John Arensmeyer is the founder and CEO of Small Business Majority, a California-based, national, nonpartisan organization. Prior to starting Small Business Majority, Arensmeyer was the founder and CEO of ACI Interactive, an award-winning international e-commerce company. Before chatting about health reform’s implications for Californians, he took our Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. Unfortunately, since health care reform passed, in the office.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Not go into the office at 10 a.m. on a Saturday.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. Nothing that stands out.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. When things are extremely intense.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Empowerment.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. Huck Finn.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. Some kind of a political leader.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. Architect.

Q. What is the best advice you have ever received?

A. To look at everything pragmatically, and to not have any fixed ideological frame.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. An original Mickey Mantle signature I got when I was seven years old, when I met him on a train.

Q. What comforts you?

A. An interesting evening with good food and good friends.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Franklin Roosevelt.

To read more about Arensmeyer’s panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Jan Spencley is the Executive Director of San Diegans for Healthcare Coverage. Jan is also a health care consultant with over 35 years in the industry, including 25 years at UCSD Healthcare.  Before chatting about health reform’s implications for California, she sat down for our Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. In metalsmithing class, or working.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. A mélange of music in a restaurant, old and new. I loved it.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Parasail. I want to fly.

Q. What do you do to clear your mind?

A. Meditate.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Empowered.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. Bilbo Baggins.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A princess.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. Travel.

Q. What is the best advice you have ever received?

A. Slow down, be patient.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. A locket from my mother.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Mother Teresa.

To read more about Spencley’s panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Salomón Huerta started painting for a practical reason. “There were three sisters born before me, and I was the first boy. But once my brother and my little sister came along, I realized I needed to do something to get attention,” Huerta said. Below, Huerta, whose work has appeared at the Whitney Biennial, the Gagosian Gallery, and LACMA, answers our In The Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. I used to go to yoga but I hurt my wrist, so, probably in front of my computer.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. I wish that I had gone to New York after graduating from art school.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. On Pandora, I typed in Massive Attack, then I get all the other songs that go along with it.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. When I’m in a relationship.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. Neo from “The Matrix.”

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. Everything is nearby — the mountains, the beach, the desert — and you can drive there.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A policeman.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. I want to come back as a painting.

Q. Whose talent would you like to have?

A. The mixed martial arts fighters.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. My juicer.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most want to meet for dinner?

A. Francis Bacon.

To read about Huerta’s talk, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

David Pagel, an art critic and associate professor of art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University, grew up in Wisconsin before heading to California for college, and to the East Coast for graduate school. “But I beat a hasty retreat right back to California, because it’s such a fantastic place to be,” he said. Below, Pagel takes our In The Green Room Q&A.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. At home playing with my kids.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Nothing, actually. I’ll try anything once.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. Absolutely nothing. I’m a silence person. I like to listen to the wind blowing into the car or, when I’m riding my bike, the sounds of the street.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. In the early morning. I love to get up early and write, before I’ve talked to anyone, before anyone else’s words are in my head, and have that emptiness, that silence. The mornings are great for producing things and afternoons are great for editing things.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Purple.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. Slothrop from Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Is that sufficiently nerdy?

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. I love how you can feel like you’re discovering things. There are so many different micro-communities and micro-places. There’s so much private public space.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. A race car driver, then a doctor, then a psychiatrist, and then an art critic, believe it or not.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. I have really fine bicycles. I have a Pinarello Dogma made of magnesium, a Dario Pegoretti made of scandium, and a bike I had as a graduate student 26 years ago that I just got restored.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. A philanthropist.

Q. Whose talent would you like to have?

A. Da Vinci’s would satisfy me.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. It would be a fight between two of my bicycles. I think the magnesium one would win.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. John F. Kennedy. I think he’d be fun.

To read about Pagel’s interview with Salomon Huerta, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Logan Kock is the vice president of Strategic Purchasing and Responsible Sourcing for Santa Monica Seafood. He started his seafood career nearly 40 years ago as a waiter in Maine while working on his Masters in Biology. Kock spent eight years working on fishing boats before he began doing quality control for Red Lobster Restaurants. Below, he sits down for our In The Green Room Q&A.

Q. What is the last habit you tried to kick?

A. I don’t have one that I’ve been trying to quit.

Q. Who was your childhood hero?

A. Jacques Cousteau.

Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?

A. Eating food that you grew or captured yourself and made yourself.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. In the garden.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. To sail around the world again.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. Cerulean.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. Documentary filmmaking.

Q. Whose talent would you like to have?

A. My boss.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. My skull collection.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?

A. The Louisiade Archipelago.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. My mom.

To read more about Kock’s panel on whether we’re running out of seafood, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Mark Gold is President of the environmental group Heal the Bay, and was Executive Director from 1994 to 2006. Gold created Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card, and has authored or co-authored numerous California coastal protection, water quality and environmental education bills. Below, Gold takes our In The Green Room Q&A.

Q. What’s the last habit you tried to kick?

A. Eating hamburgers. Aren’t you going to ask how it went? I did it.

Q. Who was your childhood hero?

A. Jacques Cousteau.

Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?

A. Going to a Dodger game.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. Running on the beach.

Q. What is the last book you read?

A. Dorothy Green’s Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Move somewhere else.

Q. What is your favorite word?

A. My least favorite’s pollution, I can tell you that.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. This is the one I’ve got and I make the most of it.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?

A. Photos of my family.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?

A. Kenya.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. Obama.

To read about Gold’s panel on whether we’re running out of seafood, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.