Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170315

Welcome to the program. Im jeff glor of cbs news filling in for charlie. We begin the program with the g. O. P. Proposed Health Care Act with Max Ehrenfreund and Jim Tankersley. Republicans have had several strategies for how theyre going to counterthis. The white house has tried to undermine the credibility of c. B. O. Paul ryan talked about how this is not as bad a score as expected. There are a bunch of different reactions. Theyre reckoning with not just a particularly analysis of c. B. O. But a reality of lost coverage. Glor we continue with greg jaffe and greg jaffe and a look at the Trump Administrations drone policy. We see plump wanting to ac sole rate this fight and thinking this is an easy and good way to do it. Why not bring the c. I. A. Back into it so you have both agencies working more closely on this fight . Glor we conclude with danny boyle, director of the the film, t2 trainspotting. Movies are about time. When we got in the editing, you realize what movies are. Its the ultimate art form is for the study of time. All you do in editing, you know this, you compress it, extend it, make it vanish, you stop it or start it again, and its this control of time all the time, over the audiences two hours of time that they give you, that its the perfect art form for it. Glor healthcare, drones and the trainspotting sequel when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose good evening. Im. Jeff glor filling in for charlie rose. We look at the g. O. P. Health care bill. The Congressional Budget Office released its assessment of the republican proposal known as the american Health Care Act, said to reduce the federal budget by 3 billion but leave 24 million americans uncovered in the same period and said to replace the Affordable Care act. Joining me is Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post and Jim Tankersley of vox. Welcome to both of you and max, let me start with you. The c. B. O. Report here has now had more than 24 hours to marinate in washington. Hows it sitting . Well, its not sitting especially well, to be quite honest. There are a number of moderate republican lawmakers whose votes will be very important for getting this bill passed who are worried about the fact that c. B. O. Projects, as you said, some 24 million more americans could be uninsured at the end of the decade if its enacted as planned. And thats definitely a concern for the republican leadership. On the other side, there are hard line republicans who are really concerned about the fact that, although the bill does decrease the deficit by about 337 billion over ten years, that thats probably not enough for them, and they would like to see greater reduction in government borrowing. Glor but, max, the white house knew the uninsured number would be a big number which is why they started pushing back over the weekend. Yeah, i think thats right. It wasnt necessarily a surprise some people will become uninsured if this bill is enacted. Republicans said for a look time they want to reduce spending on federal healthcare, and health care isnt free so implies more persons will have to pay for themselves or go without. That was ant surprise. I think the c. B. O. Setting it in black and white made the issue real for republicans. Theyre having to confront it publicly, theyre being asked about it by reporters and constituents as well so theyre investigate think about it in having to think about it in a way they didnt before. This is a challenge taking on the nonpartisan c. B. O. , headed by a conservative economist, handpicked by republicans. This would seem to be a tough row to hoe. Its a little bit like arguing with the refs in a basketball game. You can make cases in the margins at the theyre doing things you would not have done, you would not have called the fouls in that way but at the end of the day they are the arbiters of washington and have been for a long time. So republicans have had several strategies, it appears, for how to counter this. The white house has tried to undermine the cent of c. B. O. Paul ryan talked about how this is not as bad of a score as he was expecting. There are a bunch of different reactions, but they all boil down to the fact is they are reckoning not so much with a particularly analysis from c. B. O. But with a reality of lost coverage. Whether you think its going to be 24 million or 20 million or however you want to slice it, whether other analyses the white house might produce. The white house might produce its own, for example. They have to reckon with the role possibility, the very likelihood donald trump will not make good on his promise to insure more people not fur and thats the central problem theyll run into. Glor we should point out the c. B. O. Has always had a tough time predicting the future. Sure,ways all do. But health care is actually, to get a little bit nerdy about this, health care is particularly tricky to model and the c. B. O. Was wrong about certain ways that individuals, companies and marketplaces would react to the Affordable Care act after it was passed. That said, c. B. O. Did a better job than pretty much anybody in getting in the ballpark on that. So, again, i dont think we should treat 24 million as a hard, fast, the this is absolutely whats going to happen number, but we should consider that to be, you know, part of a range, a point in a range of possibilities, all of which look very bad for republicans as they try to push a bill that they say is going to improve access not restrict it. Glor max, as the push continues, paul ryan wants to do it quickly, the president wanted to do it quickly. Right now it doesnt seem like its going to happen quickly. No, i dont think so. There have also been requests from some in the senate, especially senator tom cotton, a republican, who asked the leadership in the house to slow things down and try to take another crack at the baseball here to address some of the concerns that c. B. O. Has raised. But i think jims point is a good one. Its very difficult to see how republicans will be able to revise this bill to avoid the fact that, you know, millions of americans would become uninsured under the republican plan. Its part of what republicans are trying to do which is reduce the role of government in the healthcare sector, one of the most important sectors of the economy. When that happens, seems very likely that, you know, more people will be uninsured. Glor jim, who wins if a bill like this moves forward . There are a few big winners. Obviously the wealthy are the biggest winner because there are a lot of tax cuts for them in this bill. One way you can look at it is this is a bill that reduces taxes mostly on the rich about 600 billion over a decade and more than th funds that by redug spending on the poor. So if youre rich, youre going to pay lower taxes and you really didnt need government help buying healthcare anyway. The sneaky other winner in this, though, are upper middle class americans, people who made too much money if youre an individual from 50,000 to 75,000 a year, you werent getting help from obamacare to buy health insurance. You actually will get help from this bill, c. B. O. Pointed out in the score. So while that help will decline over time in terms of how far it goes to help you buy healthcare, it still is something in there for a group we didnt think would be a big winner in this plan. Glor max, sean spicer talked today about this being one of three prongs when it comes to getting the Health Care Legislation through or repealed and replaced. What are the other prongs were talking about . The two other prongs sean spicer are referring to is first the possibility for regulatory action by the Trump Administration. Not to change the law but to change the way at the the current law is implemented and try to move the Health Care System in a more marketoriented direction, thats what they are planning to do. The third prong is republicans are saying somehow they are going to come up with 60 votes in the senate and move a bipartisan bill that will address some of the more technical questions in health care relation that do not relate to the budget or deficit and are subject to a democratic filibuster. Senator cotton pointed out it seems like republicans will not be able to get the 60 votes in the senate to pursue the third prong without a filibuster. On the second prong, well have to wait to see what the courts say because democras will seek to move back whatever trump is doing through the judiciary. Glor and whether tom cotton on rand paul, was the white house expecting the Senate Resistance . Thats a good question. I think they certainly should have been expecting it. Certainly the intent of republicans in repealing the Affordable Care act, the kind of system that they wanted has been clear for a long time. Rooms describe their plans in a white paper over the summer that speaker ryan and some of the colleagues in the house put together. So its always been clear what republicans hope to do, and its always been clear some republicans would not like that plan, this is not necessarily a plan that would easily unite the party. Perhaps republicans spent a lot of time, especially President Trump and his allies, saying this process of repeal will be easy and perhaps, to some derricks they started to believe their own rhetoric on that point, but its justne been true. Glor jim, can you talk about the dynamic right now between paul ryan whos trying to lead this and trying to convince folks in the senate to go along . Both that relationship and the continuing and long and interesting relationship between the speaker and the president. The speaker of the house has not been a particularly attractive job in washington for quite a while now. Were seeing why at the moment. Paul ryan is caught between several different political forces. On one hand you have the tom cottons and ted cruzs of the world who are very concerned this bill is not conservative enough, not doing enough to enact marketbased solutions conservatives believe will help americans buy health care for themselves. On the other hand, you have senators and some moderate republicans who are worried about big coverage losses highlighted by c. B. O. And who will probably push for more ways to guard against that sort of coverage loss, which then makes the conservatives the more conservative members even more upset. Then you have the president who has promised a bunch of things that are frankly not possible to deliver all at once given the bill that he is starting with. So you have Donald Trumps big plans that everyones going to pay less for health care and everyones going to be covered, and you have two different ways of looking at that in the house and senate, and paul ryan is stuck trying to make all of that into a bill that can pass and not just pass but be something republicans can defend and be proud of going into future elections. Do we have a sense now jim of how similar this bill is to what paul ryan was dreaming of years ago . I think there is big differences. I think the real reasons for that is because this is going through that reconciliation process to try to avoid a filibuster. Look, what republicans really would like, in particular what the party base and what paul ryan as inherent of free market philosophy really believes in is the idea of really getting government out of ct, creating competition, allowing insurers to sell new and different proctors so every american can afford health care to some degree. The market will solve the problem. This bill doesnt do tat to the extent paul ryan or other conservatives would like if they didnt have to run through that hoop to avoid the filibuster. Glor jim talks about reconciliation and you wrote about the challenges republicans have with reconciliation right now. Thats right. In that respect, the c. B. O. Score published monday did give republicans an important reason to breathe a sigh of relief. If the c. B. O. Had said, this bill is going to increase the deficit, if this bill is going to force the government to borrow more money, seems the bill would have been subject to a democratic phil buster in the senate and basically the whole project would have been ended at that point. Instead the c. B. O. Said this bill is likely to save the government 30 billion a year or so and, as a result of that, republicans can move ahead with a plan to avoid a filibuster. But as we have been discussing, there are serious challenges. Glor what happens next . A budget markup, a big hearing in the House Wednesday where theyre going to keep moving this thing forward in the house. Lets stop and appreciate just how fast this bill is moving for something that doesnt appear to have, from the outside, a ton of grassroots support and does not have a lot of Interest Groups or big players in washington behind it, but what it does have is the leadership in congress and, it appears, the force, to some degree, of the presidency. So its going to keep moving through congress. Eventually, it will come to a floor vote and then i think well see the really big challenges. Can they keep enough to have the freesm caucus, the most conservative members to get it through there . If they kick it through the senate, it will have to change dramatically to get through the senate. These are high hurdles, but they keep it moving as quickly as republicans can toward some sort of outcome. Glor one of the selling points was the dealmaking. How much of this what is his role right now . Is it a light or heavy touch behind the scenes . From what we understand its a light touch and very much behind the scenes. I note when Speaker Paul Ryan went to his home state of wisconsin to announce the bill last week, President Trump did not go with him and it was Vice President pence. Some people in the white house, im not sure, but seems as though perhaps some people in the white house are wary of associating trump too closely with a bill that could very well fail ultimately. So we heard that trump is meeting with conservative lawmakers, he is trying to get them on board with this project, and, so far, at least, were not sure if that effort will be successful on trumps part, were not sure if hell be able to deliver on being the dealmaker that he said he was during the campaign. Glor because it was tagged obamacare and president obama came to embrace that term eventually, but now he said its trumpcare. Thats right and today sean spicer the press secretary said trump did not want this bill to be called trumpcare which raises the question of how seriously trump is supporting it publicly or behind the scenes. Glor Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post and Jim Tankersley of vox. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Glor we continue this evening with a look at the new policy on drone strikes. President trump has reportedly loosened obama era restrictions applicable to targeted killings outside active war zones. The changes give greater autonomy to the c. I. A. And the pentagon to conduct Counterterrorism Operations. Joining me is greg jaffe of the Washington Post and Gordon Lubold of the wall street journal. Gordon, what is new about this and why is the white house doing this . Mr. Trump visited the c. I. A. The first day after being inaugurated and got briefed and then thing soon thereabouts provided essentially an informal authority to the c. I. A. To return to these to continue to conduct drone strikes, which they had heretofore not been doing under the Obama Administration in its later years. So what the authority is was to give the c. I. A. Permission to conduct strikes, in particular in syria. We have some evidence that suggests theyve also done one in pakistan as well. Then we saw in syria about four or five, three weeks ago, they targeted al quaida leader in northern syria. So that was kind of the first known example of the c. I. A. s taking the authority since they got it from mr. Trump. Glor but there has long been a feisty turf war between the c. I. A. And the pentagon over drone strikes. Right. Theres always been this bureaucratic squabbling over thissish uh shoe. Under pressure from human Rights Groups and others, mr. Obama settled on getting the hybrid solution where the c. I. A. And the dod Work Together to mount a strike. So it was basically the c. I. A. Working, providing the intelligence, the analysis and then, at the last minute, allowing the dod to essentially pull the trigger, but thus allowing that mission to be largely publicly accountable and transparent, and that was a place where mr. Obama had pushed to have that happen. So now this is the beginning of what could be a reversal of that policy under mr. Trump, who has clearly signaled he wants to accelerate the fight against Islamic State and other groups. Glor and, greg, how easy or complicated is it going to be to change the drone rules . You know, i think its relatively easy. There were president ial policy guidance, so guidance president obama set down that he was hoping to set a standard that would tie the hands of his successor a little bit, but there is no legal mandate that President Trump has to follow those rules. Glor greg, so what was the Obama Administration worried about that the Trump Administration may not be worried about . I think the big thing president obama was worried about is you have this incredibly powerful tool that allows you to launch strikes anywhere in the world at very low cost to u. S. Personnel and very low cost to taxpayer dollars, so he wanted some set of rules that, particularly outside of active combat areas, that would set a threshhold for these strikes. You know, if youre going to use American Power to kill somebody, wanted to make sure it was absolutely necessary. Glor president obama was not shy about using that power. No, he wasnt. In fact, he used it very heavily early in his administration. So it was around 2013 where he looks at it and thinks, gosh, the technology really has accelerated, his administration was using it quite heavily and felt like, hey, we need to put rules of the road in place to govern this. Glor can you talk about the Technology Acceleration and how much better the Drone Technology has become and how quickly it advances and how easy it can be for military to rely on this . Right, i mean, gregs right, it became almost an addictive tool for the Obama Administration which is to send troops into harms way but you can do it antiseptically. The technology has gotten better. The number of drones, though under high demand by the military, are more plentiful and, you know, u. S. Government has eyes in the sky in all these military commanders say they never have quite enough, but it is an effective way to conduct Counterterrorism Operations from the sky and without getting, you know, u. S. Troops feet wet in that sense. I think, you know, we see mr. Trump wanting to accelerate this fight and thinking this is an easy and good way to do it. But why not bring the c. I. A. Back into it so you have essentially both agencies kind of working more closely on this fight. Glor gordon, can you talk more about how these decisions are made . Well, you know, under the Obama Administration, the decisions were kept at a very high level. If you talk to military folks, sometimes they express frustration at what theyd perceive in some cases as micromanagement by the Obama White House in terms of deciding whether a target shuld be vetted or, you know, to what degree a target should be vetted. In some cases, in the case of one target they had in libya, i think in 2015, it took, like, eight months to get the decision to green light that particular operation. So were seeing, on the military side, mr. Trumps interest in delegating a lot of the authority down anyway, and now were seeing potentially the camels nose in the tent with the c. I. A. The two agencies do have different vetting threshholds, and the c. I. A. s is higher, and this is not in terms of civilian casualties but just in term of deciding a certain target is the actual target theyre after. The c. I. A. s is higher than the militarys for different reasons, but its also kind of driven by the culture of both places being significantly different when it comes to doing this. So with the military what the military would tell you is using their drones, by the way, the c. I. A. s use you know, these are military drones theyre using, they can take sometimes months to decide and conclude on a target and execute that target, whereas the defense department, where the design is going to be more resultsoriented, could maybe execute that target a lot sooner. So there is a disparity in the thresholds thats going to come into play as they decide how this new authority expands or not. Glor so, greg, the c. I. A. Would argue they are more effective at these strikes . Yeah, that certainly was the argument that they made, particularly in pakistan, where they had been operating for a period of time. You know, you get to know the area and the terrain and the people. In yemen, for a while, both the c. I. A. And the military, i think, were taking drone strikes, and there was a per seemings, i think in the a perception, i think in the white house and elsewhere that the c. I. A. Had become better at it because they had been doing it for longer. I think the military in some cases would push back on that notion. Glor greg, on the broader point here, sean spicer addressed i. S. I. S. In the briefing, at least yesterday, and a lot of this information is under wraps or hasnt been released because they say they dont want those those the administration is fighting to figure out whats going on exactly. But beyond drone strikes, the overall strategy, what more do we know or have we learned from the first monthplus if office for the new administration . You know, i think, so far, we havent seen page changes. You know, its still very much what they called in the Obama Administration and what the military calls a by, with and through strategy. Nerd were not going to commit large numbers of u. S. Troops, were going to work through indigenous allies on the ground. Thats been done in iraq and syria. I think you see a small change in that commanders are being allowed to take more risk in terms of pushing u. S. Advisors further forward on the battle field, a little bit more artillery support from the ground, but just not major shifts. Gordon, if we see more troops on the ground, where would it be . I think largely what a lot of the commanders are going to say that they need more advisors. We know in afghanistan that they would like more advisors, and that that is probably going to be likely true in iraq and syria. Potentially more combat forces. Gregs right theres more openness to exposing the military who are deployed at these places more risk. So you may have a higher number of special forces, say, go into syria. Were already eeseeing other numbers of conventional forces going in there because i think that you cant overhaul this whole strategy, its going to stay the way it really was under obama, but you can tweak it by adding more troops here and there and just kind of turning it up a little bit. But i think mr. Trumps probably learning that, you know, there is not a magic bullet to kind of make this thing happen a lot quicker than it was already. Glor the notion of advisors, its always been an interesting term, right . Well right, because you could drive a truck through the definition of what an advisor does and you can also, you know, advisors up to now were supposed to stay far away from actual combat and they had this kind of weird term of art of, you know, one terrain feature behind the front line. This has been blurred anyway even under mr. Obama, and its hard because a lot of journalists like us cant get in and in bed with these guys to see what theyre actually doing. It was already blurry. I think its going to become blurrier. The question will be whether the Trump Administration wants to be more open about what it is the troops are doing. I think he understands i think mr. Trump would like to keep most of what the military does under wraps. I dont think were going to have an embedded Media Program or whatever. Its going to be hard to assess what theyre doing, but definitely the advising can be a euphemism for almost actual combat for the u. S. Troops. Glor already making it harder to assess what the state department is doing and indications that is happening on the military side as well. Greg jaffe and Gordon Lubold, thank you both very much. Thank you. S. Glor danny boyle is here. Hes directed such acclaimed films as 28 days later, 127 hours, and steve jobs. He won the Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009. Boyle first made a name for himself as film maker request trainspotting, following a group of heroin addicts living in squall lore in scotland. After 20 years, boyle and cast reunited for the sequel. Heres the trailer for t2 trainspotting. door clicks shut loud drumming music missed you, man. I missed you, too. Choose your future. Choose wishing youd done it differently. Choose life. 20 years just flown by, eh . singing the very first hit. Do you still take heroin . No, not for 20 years. Youre an addict. So be addicted. Just be addicted to something else. Take a deep breath and choose life. screeching tires shouting glor im so happy to have danny boyle at this table. Welcome. Thanks, jeff. Glor so a lot of time there is a pressure after such big hits like trainspotting to do the sequel right away. I dont have any memory of it. Glor of them wanting you do. Of anybody expressing an interest in it. You would expect commerce to step in. Pay the actors a little bit more and everybody would be happy to. I dont remember the pressure at that time. I think there was so much astonishment that it worked not just in britain but also globally as well that it transferred because it was so specific. I think people were frozen, tear minds frozen in stoppishment. It was only he published the sequel seven years later, that took the characters ten years on, and we tried. We were adapting that to try to see if that could be the sequel. Glor tough subject matter. Yeah, and the books not a great book like the original book in my mind and we didnt do a very good job adapting it and i knew people would be disappointed if we put that out. It would have felt like a cheap rehash of what we had done originally. And the original ace was being very, very original and it would be to besmirch it to follow it with something highly repetitive. So we left it. When the 20year anniversary loomed on the horizon, we sat down at a table like this, the two writers myself and the producers, and we talked about it and something a bit more personal and a bit more painful, really, about men aging over time, really. And they indulge themselves as much as was ever possible to imagine someone indulging themselves on the edges of society, and then to be caught in what it means to move from that boy hood to manhood, really, and the film is a study of masculinity over that time period. Glor its reflective and its sad because whats happened to them over these 20 years has not necessarily been wild success. No, it isnt. They feel like they have been treading water at best. And spud, for instance, has remained the addict, on and off in rehab, back on, back addicted. And sick boy is in an ever decreasing circle of scams, really. And rinsen had a crisis in amsterdam with money and hes forced back with this medical crisis. And took off with all the money at the end of the movie and everyones upset with him still over this. You and ewan macgregor. Yes, hes still running on a treadmill after 20 years. Theres a wall hes hit very hard and hes forced to return where he comes from, and to friends who appear to have just been in status until he gets back, and the ferocious bagby has been understandably in jail for 20 years given how violent he is. But he comes out of jail, of course, and they all eventually meet to relive the past in one sense, or to take revenge on it, really, by is bagbys preoccupation. Glor they werent role 340dles back then. Do you want them to be now . No, i wouldnt apply that phrase to them. I think we look to them for an almost alternative view and i think that was the success of the first film is these were voices from the margins that had such a distinctive point of view and sense of humor that they were attractive despite their circumstances and some of the things they were going through which none of us would wish upon our enemies, really. Today, they feel theyre washed up more really because, although they try to, its no longer possible for them to end leslie try and repeat the glorious of the past as they see them. I dont think you could see them as role models now, but they certainly look like what we recognize, probably the extreme side, but you recognize them as your friends, the violent one, the chaotic one, the clown spud. Im sure thats one of the reasons it appealed to people so much and it didnt make any apology for what it was doing, saying and looking at. It didnt condone it nor did it apologize for it. Glor the more things change, the more things stay the same for these guys. Old cliches. Cliches are cliches because theyre often true. Glor the name t2, thats gotten attention. People think terminator two, right . Indeed. Glor James Cameron and all that. You didnt just want to call it trainspotting. This went through all numbers of development in term of the title. We wouldnt call it trainspotting at all originally. It seems perverse, but it was important to nourishing the film on its own so it didnt feel like it was going to be a sequel. Of course it is. Youre bringing back the same four actors to play the same four characters, so its necessarily so. N identity and to cherish andits nourish that before getting into the inevitable. When it did get on its own feet and worked out its relationship with the original film in more detail, we admitted to the studio, okay, we will call it, but we want to call it not quite trainspotting, we want to call it t2. Why . Everyone is going to go on the James Cameron film. We said, no, its because if we ask the characters what would you call the sequel if you were going to be in it, they would say you should became it after the great sequel terminator two. So we called it t2 trainspotting. It is a tribute to James Cameron. That is one of the greatest sequel of all the time. Weve never bettered the liquid robots, so hats off to James Cameron, but its also to slightly annoy him, because the characters are perverse and all that. Glor youre trolling him a bit. In the nice possible way. Glor did you talk to James Cameron about it . No, its not a really declared name for a film. Everybody says t2 for it, so we thought we would have a joke. Both films are full of that irre rains. Its part of their dna to behave in a disrespectful way to those who have gone before them, really. Glor so all come back, or some never left, but they all come back to edenburgho and they are trying to figure out how to make money and havent been successful for two dekids. Their nature is to scam if they can, which is to kind of con people out of money, steal money, either from individuals wallets and you see them stealing credit cards and pin numbers from people, or from the european union. So they applied for funding for one of their projects to theine uniotheeuropean union and they. Glor you mentioned the european union, and the film was being shot as brexit was playing out, and now there is talk of another scottish referendum. This takes place in scotland. There are some themes of nationalism here. Im just wondering how topically you wanted to try to be and how much you were thinking about that as you were making it. Obviously, some people do choose to make films that they wish to be topical. I find that very difficult because they take so long to make movies that if you want to be its a serious risk if you want to be topical if thats the reason for your film. I mean, people do read things into them. Ours is based more on how the characters behave rather than kind of a world view about how we might have about politics, particularly. It would be impossible. We shot while the brexit vote was happening. We all voted on the one of the days we filmed. And even more complicatedly, scotland, unlike the United Kingdom, voted to leave europe, scotland, contrarily, voted 62 to stay in europe. I think it led to just yesterday the first minister of scotland, she triggered the next referendum, the Legal Process by which there will be a second referendum about whether scotland remains in the United Kingdom, which it was asked previously a couple of years ago and it just decided to stay in the United Kingdom. Now the question will be, whether its on the ballot paper, on the referendum paper or not, is do you wish to be part of europe still, because the rest of the United Kingdom is withdrawing from it, and i think scotland will choose to stay in europe rather the u. K. Im english, and i know the scottish never had any great fondness for the english. Theyve always been at war with them. They have an affinity with the french, rather than english. Mary queen of scott used to keep her army in scotland to attack the english so there is history there. Glor you are dealing with guys 20 and 22 years ago who were up and coming actors. A number have become directors themselves. Yeah. Glor so theyre wise about the game. Thats true. Glor they might have their own opinions on things. Yeah. Glor does that make things easier or more complicated for you . Its pay be a lot easier. Its not so much their directing experience, because you and mcgregor and Bobbie Carlisle made directing movies. Where you benefit from is their storytellers. Directors have one or two films in years, actors can tell four or five stories in a calendar year. You realize they have short cuts and know how to help you. Its unspoken, automatic sometimes. I did notice it in comparison to when we made the first one when we were stumbling around not knowing what we were doing and we kind of got away with it. If youre lucky you get away with it in the early days, we all know that experience, seat of your pants, but now theyre much more skilled. But theyre impatient because they have the performance ready and they want to give it and they dont want to be delayed by crews and delayed lighting and things like that. Me and the crew had to be on top marks really in order to capture the performer because theyre itching to give them, you know. Glor im curious about how you push these guys since they are comfortable in these proles. Are you still trying to put them in places where theyre not comfortable . A little bit sometimes. Theyre very brave actors and certainly the first film and this film, theyre not like small performances. Theyre quite big and declared performances. Theyre always happy to have a look at the extremes of the way to perform the character. So you can make suggestions like that. All a actors, when they think theyre overdoing it, they will pull back. Glor but it could be too easy for them with these roles, right, because these characters just existed now for 20 years, right . Although they were nervous i think about going back to them. Glor they were . Yeah. Officially. Would they be able to be rinsen and bagby again . You dont know until they do it, of course. But the script was excellent and that gave a lot of confidence. You feel an obligation youre not going to dishonor the past both in terms of the original film but also in the town edinboro because it played such a huge part in all our careers. So the obligation is not an ongoing nervousness about can i do it, its will we all do it well enough to make sure that we make something thats worthy to stand beside the original, you know . Glor welsh, you mentioned he wrote the sequel that came out a little less than ten years after his original book. He also wrote a prequel to trainspotting. Yes. Glor has there been any talk of doing that in any way . Hes very interesting. He visits these characters and other characters associated with them multiple times in multiple ukesbooks and hes done a book scagboys about their younger lives. There is been talk about television series. Hes also written an extraordinary book about just bagby called the blade artist which is the most recent work hes published. A wonderful book. Very interesting. Very compact and thrillerlike. And i know Bobby Carlisle would love to do that, but that might i merge out of. This its not really a character spinoff like in the marvel universe butteth the trainspotting version of that. Glor bagby is still the toughest . Yeah, but dont people like him as well . Glor you think . Not like him like him, but hes funny. You laugh. You have a good laugh and glor funny, but you never want to be caught alone with him in a bar. Glor yeah. But hes very tender in the end. Did you find that . Glor he was, after being untender for a long time. I think it can be difficult to watch him because i mean theyre all selfdestructive in a way. But he can be selfdestructive and violent hes actually the most destructive of all of them, yes. Glor yes. Hes a very interesting actor, bobby. He can access that in a terrifying why, and yet hes a sweetheart. Interestingly, he doesnt go home to his family when hes performing bagby because he thinks its still in his clothes this is how he expresses it that there might be elements of it still around him that hes not aware of and that hell brush against his children in some way. So he always stays in a hotel when hes doing bagby, which is not so good if youre staying in a hotel with him, perhaps. Glor i dont blame him. For the sake of his family, i think we have a bagby clip. knocking aaahhh go another example of bagby willing to put himself in danger to hurt others. You it did surprise me that you did this a little bit. Did it . Glor only because you jumped around so successfully into different genres and never sort of really been pegged into one movie or one film, right . And, so, you are the same characters. I dont know. Seems like almost like your wander rust would want to carry you somewhere else and you wouldnt want to go back necessarily. It became the biggest challenge of all, could you return to it and make something does dont stand beside it . So its not like you were going to repeat something you knew you could do or were familiar with. Studios want to hire you because they think you can do a certain genre. So it wasnt really that fitting. It was could we move beyond. 20 years is such an extraordinary time span because its the perfect time span for that telescope of time when depending on which way you look down the telescope, its almost either out of reach or on top of you still, and in movies, this is one of the things that i learned doing it, and i was so it was so wonderful to do it, was move wher movies aret time. When we get into the editing, you realize what movies is. Its the ultimate art form of the study of time. You know this in editing, you compress time or you extend it or you make it vanish or you stop it or you start it again, and its this control of time over time, over the audiences two hours of time that they give you, that its the perfect art form for, and you can literally an audience, if they have an image of a favorite film and trainspotting, they have a very affectionate image of it, they have locked those actors in time. Ive done this with films. And i know actors have made other films and theyre aging here, but i have that image of them there, and you can go back to that image and say, no, theyre not mythologized. Its time, its for all of us. The men deny it for so long and so often and so vigorously, we try to keep our backs turned to it, but you realize ultimately, time doesnt care about you and you have to make your peace with it somehow. So i couldnt think of it. There was nothing more than i wanted to do more than it once we began working on it in that way, yeah. Glor you mention the studios opened how they want to push you and youve always resisted that because i think you dont want the stories to go a certain way or you want them to go the way you think you can tell that story the best way. And youre a hollywood guy. You made a couple of hollywood movies, a couple of american films. Yeah. Glor but you would rather keep the budget a little lower and keep the independence than take the bigger money and get told what the do. Yeah, i mean, we make the films for a limited budget. Its still a lot of money because its usually somewhere south of 20 million. It is a huge amount of money in anybodys life. Glor but compared to the other t2 but hes a genius at handling bigger budgets as well. Just a personal preference, and i love watching the bigger budget movies, especially James Cameron ones, but its obvious, if a studio gives you 15 million, theyre going to be worried, but not as worried as a guy theyre giving 200 million to. So you think theres a bit coming there, well keep them off our back as much as possible. Theyre not the great evil ones. You want to work with them and you work with really great people in the studios as well. But, obviously, the financial concerns, if you ease them as long as possible, it gives you freedom to express yourself in the way you want to. And its provocations like the first trainspotting film, and there is elements in this which are really tough choices you make which in a mainstream film that cost 100 million you probablyouldnt be wise to include. Probably not, once you see t2. The music, as was the case in the first one, is thundering and prominent, and this is just a move ie, its a sound track. Yeah. Glor what kind of care in this election goes into figuring out what makes it in . Oh, everything. Im a product of music. So many of us are. The postwar music. By that i mean pop music, really. Its kind of a liquid architecture that runs through our lives backward and forward and defined us and is sneered at often by high culture as low culture, but actually for me its all culture. These characters in the first movie and this movie, the music is as important to them as their dialogue, as the scenarios in the scenes. It stands beside them as an equal character in the film really and it sets off different emotions in people which is the most extraordinary things about it, especially with this, because we try to trigger it a number of times. The muscle memory you have to have the first mov movie, you hr chords you recognize from the first movie. We didnt want to repeat the music, so they have been reemerging or remixed, but they do trigger emotions in you, which in movie terms its wonderful to do that because its not a conscious thing youre in control of with music. It affects you in different ways to do with your own memories, often to do with those tracks or you complement or contradict a scene youre watching. So that one, you had frankie goes to hollywood, which is a great gay anthem, really. And there is a character in it, bagby, who hes taking a considerable amount of viagra before that scene happens and youre not able to show it on television you have to go to the movie. Hes excited by fighting rather than the way he would conventionally challenge it. So you can have tremendous fun with the choice of music as well and trigger lovely connections with people for who pop culture is our culture. For us all. We live through music. And the younger generation, you look for i mean, you look for beyonce. You look for how important it is in their lives. You look at my girls, the importance of that music in their lives, its huge, really. It deserves to be cherished as true culture, even if its only three minutes long. A pleasure to see on screen. Lovely to have you here. Danny boyle. Cheers, man. Rose fo for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide