Charlie leslie odom junior is here. What brought you to hamilton . Leslie sometimes you find the best jobs in this business, you did not audition for, you have no idea how you got there. Week, if imy last get a straight offer, i do not want to ask how it came about. Realize,id they might why did we asked this guy . Years ago to two do a reading of the show. I had seen them do it at vassar. I had seen maybe 45 minutes and was blown away. When i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like id never had before. I came in and all of my music. I knew what they were working on. It had powerful potential. I knew how it affected me. Lyn is only one year older than i am, this is our music. I recognize the rhythms and the syncopation, and the pulse of the peace p iece. Charlie people wondered when hiphop would come to broadway, because rock had come to broadway. Leslie the height happening, and being a watershed moment for hiphop music and latin american actors. , iistened to the heights them andls i told one of my first rehearsals, from the first moments of that album. [singing] the need to communicate is something that has always moved me greatly. I saw a show when i was a teenager called, death poetry jam. They put something on the paper and there is an urgency and a fire in their belly to get it. It came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal, listening back and learning my part. I said, i can hear that need and what we are doing. I hear all of the preparation, to do justice to the text that you are given. How much of it was important to know aaron burr . You play a character, and the narrator. You were there at every moment. Burr is also the continuity. Gifts one of my favorite that people give, fans give us books of articles they find on ebay. Steve and Rhonda Hawthorne have given me more than anyone. They come by with these books that they order. Those have helped me a lot because i would not call myself a historian by any means. Is,lynn has read enough about all of the events that he has been able to come up with his own opinion on the events. That is what makes a historian. You read one book and you have one opinion. Nowve read enough on burr to come up with my own theories. Othere there are opinions, some good, some bad. Day, i at the end of the have to play with when road lynn wrote. Charlie you have to play into what you have experienced. Aslie and what i believe far as what my job is as a performer, that is another one of those things that this has intersected. There is a some certain amount of vulnerability that the show requires that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. There is a certain amount of honesty that if i am doing my job right, i bring to the stage every night. That comes up time. Charlie earlier we talked to the composer,lynn and the director, thomas cale. Here is a look. You sit in a room for six years making something, and you have the dream version of how the show will be received. We are experiencing that. 2008rted writing this in while i was still in my show, the heights. I was on my vacation when i borders, at charlie i will take this one. Lin i knew he died in a dual, so i knew it would be a good ending. Nature of hamiltons life charlie explained that. Explain that. Born out ofn was wedlock. His father split by the time he was 10 years old. His mother died in bed with him a few short years later. His brother was an apprentice to a blacksmith, he was by himself. He was sent to live with a cousin after his mothers death, and then the cousin killed himself. He was a clerk for a trading rumany that traded from and slaves. His way off of the island. He wrote a column describing the carnage saying he saw fights that would strike astonishment into angels. People took up a fund to get him in education. Charlie weis here we have a character, a great american. We know there is drama. He may have not fired his gun in the dual. Here we have that story. You have translated it into so much more. Tell me about the ideas you want to pour into this to make it a new look at the founding fathers, the American Experience , and a different way of presenting that would appeal to young people, because you have young actors. Lin you speak to what we were conscious of. How do we eliminate distance between our story and now. That this is a country that was founded and created by immigrants. Somebody in all of our lines stepped off of a boat. They put their foot down on this soil and went to work. As we started thinking about taking the inspiration from rons book, we thought, here are in, but we have to tell a story. We had all of the events laid out, we made a book and compared timelines. You have those things to plant build around. It came apparent so early on as we were designing how the show could function, that this idea of doubling characters for instance, took off. One of the characters plays jefferson. They have this relationship to france. How can we make the audience feel like who they are and what they understand is actually not so different from what the people struggled with. Charlie hiphop seems like a genius stroke. But you knew that. Checked a versions of the book and i felt like someone had done a hiphop version. Lin this was someone who wrote his way out of circumstances. Is the hiphop narrative from the south bronx in the 70s until today. Hiphopd hamilton musical, it was not there. That was the first thing that jumped out, this is a fundamental hiphop story. Go, i amthe lyrics just like my country, young, scrappy, and hungry, i am not throwing out my shot. You performed that at the white house. Lim i performed the opening number. , islie before we see that that what the president responded to when he said geithner should see this . The audience this was the first time performing this in public. They asked me to perform something from in the heights. They allowed me to close out the show with that. His response is, we have to get geithner. Charlie did he think of him as hamilton . Lin he had a quote at that time because the economic crisis had just blown up. He said geithner had the hardest job since Alexander Hamilton. I think that was his quote on the record. This was early in obamas administration. How were just figuring out to do this. How to get us out of the whole. How to get us out of the hole. He also performed it from burrs point of you. They got a laugh. Charlie where was that idea from . Thomas i look at musical history, we have a great tradition of Andrew Lloyd Webber of the antagonist in the story. That was immediately where i went. Lin that set up the difficult task of figuring out who it aaron burr is. He is known as the villain. Him using more of but you think more of him. Lin i do. Gore wrote a historical fiction novel. One of the things i learned about burr is he is an early minister. His daughter received an education better than any man. He was close with his wife and daughter. He was on the society with Alexander Hamilton for the evolution abolition of slaves. There are redeeming characteristics to this guy. Myto find my we and way in because every biography is defensive or vilifies him. Burrie on one hand aaron was cautious, careful, laidback. Alexander hamilton wanted to charge forward. Lin hamilton left behind 21 volumes of written work. Left two. Burr the tragedy of the show is, at the moment when burr is reckless and lets go, and hamilton is cautious and throws away his shot, one kills the other. That is how they are remembered. Thomas lets make a story about two people who were very dear and complex friends. They were soldiers, lawyers, statesmen together. Charlie went you thought about playing burr charlie you thought about playing burr . Lin because he gets all of the best songs. Now you watch the show and cannot imagine me playing him. He gets these wonderful moments, one of my favorite seeing where he talks about being where he talks about not being in power. He says how am i not in this room . Charlie take a look at this, this is you in the white house in 2009. How does a vaster son, grow up to be a hero and a scholar. The 10 founding father without a father got a lot farther by working harder. By being a selfstarter by 14 they placed him in charge of the trading charter aways carter carted he is expected to be a part of the brother a hurricane came devastation reigned the future dripped down the rent drain he wrote this for free word got around and they said this kid is insane lets send him to the mainland, get your education the world will know your name what is your name . Alexander hamilton his name is Alexander Hamilton there are a million things he has not done, just you wait when he was 10, his father split alex and his mother were bedridden alex got better but his mother went quite his cousin committed suicide alex started reading and retreating what is there left to do . , clerking forking his late mothers landlord he got his hands on every book he could the bow of the ship headed for a new land in new york you can be a new man the ship is in the harbor, can you spot him . Another immigrant coming up the bottom him the fool that shot charlie unbelievable. It isost unlocked almost like if they did not have hiphop that had to be created for this. Lin thank you. That means a lot. It is a love letter to hiphop and musical theater. You are right, it is this heightened language. We are learned learned early on, energy went out. We had this ball that we throw in the air so high at the top we have to keep it at that level. There are times when we take these are the slow it down, and speed it up again, this is heightened this language seem to be the only way to convey the worldview. Charlie did you once say that hamilton reminded you of tupac . Lin yes, he embodies contradictions. He is both thoughtful and boisterous, brilliant and selfdestructive. He would get into fights that in retrospect, why are you fighting with anger with that guy . That is what is so brilliant. Hamilton carried those contradictions. England, evern in since her arrival, she has been wowing the art world with her somewhat skewed perspective of life in india, her paintings photographed photographs, caused social taboos. The way i approach my work i start projects because i want to play with material. Life mye time my ideas generate the next ideas. Is a lot of experience asian experimentation. What is your work about . Is one Eugene Oneill of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. He is the only american founder to have won the nobel prize for literature. He has been called the father of american theater, paving the way for arthur miller. The iceman cometh is one of his most powerful place. Pl ays. Joining me now, two tony winning actors, nathan lanes and brian dennehy, i am pleased to have them at the table. Welcome. Nathan thank you. Charlie there is a story i read, you saw this production was take place, and you said this is right for me. You notify the director . You notified the director . Withn yes, it started Kenneth Branagh and a bar. He said you have to do these great parts. Charlie ive never thought of that. You do, youaid if will learn a great deal and it will be lifechanging, it does not matter what anyone says. I read an interview 10 years falls,ith brian and bob and they were discussing potentially revisiting the iceman,. Did oneill play that . Nathan i think he did. When i heard them discussing brian taking on the role of larry, i wrote an email to bob falls, even though i did not know him that well, saying i would love to play hickey. Fortunately he responded positively. We got together and discussed how we could do it. Charlie how do you see him . Nathan when i read the play as a kid, i got a collection of Eugene Oneill plays, i read cometh, i was drawn to the character of hickey. He describes them as short and rolypoly with a button nose and a twinkle in his eye he always writes these long descriptions of characters, rather too specific for everyone to live up to. When he created i thought, and what i was bringing up to bob in it is defined by Jason Robards. He is the gold standard. He defined who that character is. It was a much darker then say the original in 1946. Jason brought this mischievous. 1 at malevolence i was saying to bob, wouldnt it be interesting, taking what oneill has said about him, the notion is he loves these guys. Het as he ultimately says killed his wife and said it was n act of mercy, he came to help them. Unfortunately he feels the only way to do that is for them to kill their pipedreams. Thought, it has to come out of that. It has to come out of love. Not that he is trying to destroy them, but he is trying to help them. In a way that is more disturbing. And the fact that it is a joyous thing when he arrives. Offputting that this person they love is driving them to do this thing. In a kind of semidelusional state. He feels this is his lack last act that could bring not absolution, but it is a way to prove what he did was right. Ultimately his pipe dream is that he did this out of love. Charlie he is doing it for them. Ais an different different hickey . Brian oh yeah. Itseat role interesting, when i started working all i knew was Jason Robards along with everyone else. When we started rehearsal along time ago, almost 30 years ago, i said i will just steal jason character. Finally i realized after a few weeks of coming up with bad Jason Robardss interpretations, i said i cannot do this. I came up with the happiest guy in the world. Death. Nny salesman of big smiles all of the time, big hearty laugh, slowly it becomes obvious that this guy is selling something that is not quite as advertised. Charlie is he selling it out of love . Brian sure. There is an interesting discussion constantly with likee i care cells ourselves, just how crazy is he . Is he crazy enough to know exactly what he is doing, in terms of embracing his craziness . Or is he not crazy. Charlie he sort of compartmentalize his compartmentalize his everything. He knows that what he did was wrong, technically. Nathan shooting your wife in the back of the head, that is technically wrong. He knows he must be punished, ultimately that is what he really wants. He wants to be punished. That is what he always wanted from his wife, she would not. She kept for giving him. Forgiving him. This is an unhealthy codependent relationship, he does love her. That is one theme, a man cannot live with his allusions, another theme, how does love and hate coexist . Way he can stop her from forgiving him is to make sure she is dead. Otherwise she would forgive him. Pull the trigger, i forgive you. Nathan it is an unraveling. In the fourth act when he famously recounts in order to prove to the group he was right, he recounts his life story. Leading up to the night of the murder, as he is going along, he was not planning on telling the story, but then he has to. He is driven to do it. To prove to them. These revelations start happening. Is like therapy, someone says, tell me your life story. You start to talk about things you did not expect to talk about. It takes you someplace else. It takes years and you think, maybe i was wrong about this or that. As he slowly starts to unravel as he is revealing more and more about his own self loathing and shame, about what he did to her. In a way, he finally convinced himself that was the answer. That is a story you would read in the new york post, and you would say, you believe this happened . And yet it did. We are human. Done allhas doing this of the things can of branagh said it would do . Nathan without a doubt. It was prophetic. Charlie that was 10 years ago. Nathan yes, it took a while to get me to chicago. I instigated the whole thing. Fortunately, it was a huge success in chicago, which led to venueng it at the perfect , the beautiful harvey theater. This Extraordinary Company of actors that charles discussed. It is a Remarkable Group of people. I think that is what is also making it so special. It has lived up to those expectations, and more. It has changed me as an actor. Certain e are look, anyone in show business, there are certain conceptions about them. We think we know them because of two or three things they did that were successful. Needed i age, i had more to offer, and wanted to challenge myself. I certainly wanted to do it with bob and brian. I knew that was the way to do it. Charlie here is what bob says about you. Brian goeskable that through these roles, he knew he was the right age for slade. Brian he is referring to the british system. Turn start out you playing a young man. I guess that is true. I feel comfortable with larry. Especially since he sits on his the whole play. It is an interesting, complicated part. In many ways it is as complicated, if not more so then than ticky. Out, has stuff to work especially with the kid. It is a similar situation, parallel, except in larrys case he finds out that the real generous thing to do is to make sure of that he killed himself. Were talking about oneill here. What was interesting about the darkness, it was written about the same time as he was writing the family play. Ordeal, hairy difficult in very difficult in california. He wrote a friend in new york saying he had to stop working on the family play. Do somethingd to different, i am writing something now that makes me laugh every day. Nathan i think he did love these guys. This was when he was in early 20s and he attempted suicide. These claims, that and the golden swan which had a back room call the hellhole. These guys saved his life. Tomorrow wasjimmy a scottish reporter who saved his life, any attempted suicide in the assented suicide. Most of the characters in the play are based on real people he knew and live with. Lived with, except for hickey. Did you know he was reading nietzsche . He was carrying around the birth of tragedy. It is obviously influenced by other players plays, but nietzsche was a huge influence. Did you have this insight after that you got the part after you got the part . When i knew i was going to do it, i started doing research about the play. Charlie they say that to do oneill is tough, like climbing mount everest. Do you think that is true . Nathan a course industry. Charlie do you know why you get into the zone . Sometimes you see where the zone is and you get there more technically. That i do not know. It is not science. It is human chemicals that are pouring in. As much as you prepare, veryimes you are in a specific moment, a quiet moment, and someone in the audience goes [cough] and that can throw you. But thats what live theater is about. It is about keeping a large group of people from coughing. As someone said famously. It is about concentration and focus. Charlie did you prepare more for this than anything . Nathan without question. Huge leap. This is a degree of difficulty that is up there with brian the other thing along those lines, he is not the most adept writer of phrases. He will back up on himself that does not necessarily come out as easily as