The question a stranger asks you on the street is rarely the one you expected to answer that morning.

Hunter Prosper, who built a digital following by doing exactly that — stopping people and asking them to share defining moments from their lives — is now getting the backing of Higher Ground, the media company founded by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, to extend his format into a weekly podcast.

The podcast, also called "Stories from a Stranger," will debut on Monday and will be available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, the companies announced. Higher Ground is producing the show in collaboration with Another Normal Day Media and Rabbit Grin Productions.

Mr. Prosper, who graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2019 and worked as an ICU nurse during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, began filming conversations with colleagues and strangers during that period. The resulting digital series has since accumulated hundreds of millions of views and roughly 10 million followers across platforms — numbers that tend to attract the attention of former presidents and their production companies.

"Hunter has a remarkable gift for creating space where people feel safe enough to share the moments that shaped them," said Dan Fierman of Higher Ground, using the word "space" in a way that has become unavoidable in such announcements.

The podcast will feature "direct perspectives, exposure of underreported challenges, and key context on government policies," according to the companies involved. (One imagines the Obamas could offer some perspective on that last category, should they choose to call in.)

Higher Ground, which had been in an exclusive arrangement with Netflix since 2018, recently announced it would operate as an independent banner — a transition that appears to be proceeding with projects like this one.

Mr. Prosper is represented by Arjun Das at Odd Projects. The podcast will release new episodes weekly, on Mondays, which is when most people could use a stranger asking them something real.

Original story published in The Hollywood Reporter: "Obamas' Higher Ground Sets 'Stories of a Stranger' Companion Podcast (Exclusive)"