To 60. And you are going from the youngest mayor in america at the time of a big city to almost political pariah in his own town. And that to me is the lone liness that i felt watching you do those scenes. Lesley odom, jr. , david sigh son sigh upon and oscar isaac when we continue. Funding for charlyear rose is provided by americ rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. We going to rise up we going to rise up rise up time to take a shot rise up rise up take to tame a shot rise up take a shot take a shot take a shot not throwing away my stuff not throwing away my stuff. Rose less yee odom, jr. Is lessie odom, jr. Is here, an actor, a singer, currently part of the most popular talked about show on broadway hamilton. He stars as aaron burr, hamiltons friend and nemesis who famously kills him in a dual. The show premiered on broadway last week after a critically acclaimed run at the public theater. Ben brantly writes in the New York Times that the broadway production makes us feel the un unstoppable urgeant rhythm of a facial being born. I am pleased to have lessie odom, jr. At this table for the leslie odom, jr. At the table for the first time. So happy to be at this table. Thank you. Thank you very much. What brought you to hamilton . I was invited into hamilton. Sometimes you find that the best jobs you get in this career, in this business, you didnt audition for, you have in idea how you got there. So i just asked tomie last week, because i have this superstition, sometimes if i get a straight offer, i dont want to kind of ask how it came about. Rose tmyear, the director. Yeah. I dont want to ask how it came about because im afraid that they might realize, you know, why did we ask this guy in the room. So i got invited about two years ago to do a reading of the show. And i had seen if at vasser. I had seen them do about a half an hour of the show at music stands, maybe 45 minutes. And was blown away. So when i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like ive never prepared before. I mean i came in, i knew all my music. You know, because i knew what they were working on. Rose you know it had powerful potential. I mean yeah, i knew how it affected me. You know, and you know, lyn is only ayearolder than i am, so this is our music. I recognized the rhythms and the sin could passion and the the syncopation and the pulse of the piece, i recognized that. Its been in my ear since i was born. Rose people wondered when hiphop would come to broadway because rock had right, yeah. Way. And lyn was so influential with that too, in the heights, you know, happening and being such a watershed moment for hiphop musk and for also for latin american actors. I remember listening to in the heights, i listened to it before i saw it. And there was something about, i have chills thinking about it i told him and lak as one of my first rehearsals, there was something about, from the first moment of that album, i mean the need to communicate is something that has always moved me greatly. I remember i saw a joe when i was a teenager called def poetry jam. The way those people came out and just, they needed you to get it. You know, they put something, theres blood in blood in the pen. They put something down on paper. There is an urgency and a fire in their belly for you to get it. It came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal of us and hamilton, listening back, just learning my part. I said we sound like that. We shall did i can hear that need in what were doing. Rose i read someone said this about you or you said this. That almost everything you had done had prepared you to play aaron burr. Yeah. Rose rent yeah. Rose all the movie roles. Yeah. I think about rent a lot on stage. I think about, you know, because if you live long enough youre lucky, sometimes your heroes can become your friends too, Daphne Ruben Vega was at opening night. She had become a dear friend, texting with her. I think about them a lot because they were at the centre of a tornado that is similar to ours. And they still managed to stay present, seemingly present, and vulnerable and available. You know, what i meant by everything has prepared me, its not just the work. Its also life, right. Its also the disappointments that ive had. Its also the fighting through depression, you know, the points when youre not working in the business and you cant figure out why. And all the things that you go through that fashion you into the person you need to be to stand in the center of a tornado like this and still do your job and still stay sane. And still, you know, stay available to your friends and your family. So it feels like the moment couldnt have happened at another moment. You know, this moment. Rose this was the right moment. This was supposed to happen for me. For you. Rose and when you sing in a room where it happened, it is a magical moment. And its been enlarged. Yeah. Because its so powerful. Rose because you want to be in a room where it happens. I mean, you know, ive done enough shows now to realize that at that point in the show, the way that number happens for me, it has the performance is only a part of that audience response. What i mean by that is how el binkley had to like that within a inch of his life, the sets, had to work with it, tomie and andy had to direct the people around me, that is really their love for you. That is really i can feel howells affection for me when a light comes on at a certain moment so that the audience can see whatever im feeling, right. You know, lyn, trusting me with his lifes work. Lyn trusting me with some of the greatest music that may have ever been written for the theater, you know, i can feel all of the love and support surrounding me to give me a moment like that i want to be in the room where it happened snot the room where it happens i want to be in the room where it happens the room where it happens i want to be in the room where it happens i i want to be in the room oh i want to be in the room where it happens the room where it happens i want to be in i have got to be, ive got to be in the room, that big old room close your nose and close your eyes. Rose i hear all that you, all of the need, all the desire, all the energy, all the preparation, to do justice to the text that you were given. How much of it was important to know aaron burr . Very. Rose because you not only play a character, you play the narrator. Yeah. Rose you are there at every moment hamilton has larger roles but burr is also the continuity. Yeah. One of my favorite gifts that people, that people give sometimes, fans will bring us books that theyll find on articles, theyll find on ebay. I will say their name steve and ronda hawthorne have given me more than anybody. They come by with these articles that they order and these books that they order. And those have helped me a lot because i would not call myself a historian by any means. Lyn at this point is. Lyn has read enough about all of the different people and the events surrounding it that he has been able to come up with his own opinion on the events, right. Because i think thats what makes it historian. You read ron chernows book and that is the only opinion you have, if you havent read anything else. I have read enough on burr now to come up with my own theories. Rose because there are different opinions of aaron burr. Yeah. Rose some good, some bad. And then i also, at the end of the day, the text and the show is my bible, right. I you have to play what lyn wrote and lyn has but you have to pour into what he has written what you know and what you have experienced and what you feel. And what i believe, you know, as far as what my job is as a performer, you know, thats another one of those things that this has intersected. Its come at the right point, that imed where to there is a certain amount of vulnerability that this show requires of me that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. Theres a certain amount of honesty that if im doing my job right, i bring to the stage every night. And that is, you know, that comes with time. Rose tell me who aaron burr was. I think quite simply, aaron burr was a soldier. He was a father, a husband, a lover, a friend, a murderer. A politician. You know, i think he was all of those things. I think like, like all of us, you know, i mean when people say, you know, whos the person you want to have dinner with, living or daed, besides charlie rose, i would say, you know, aaron burr, i want to ask i would like to be there. The room where it happens. You have him at the table just to ask, especially our show with him looking back. So our show is after all of that stuff has happened. What do you what have you learned. Rose because he had an interesting life after killing hamilton. It ruined his life. Rose i know t ruined his life, first of all, it ruined his political life. Yes. Rose but he had been vice president. Yup. And then he fled the east coast. Yup. He lost, was indicted for treason. Yup. His daughter, he only had one child, thodosia who he loved very much. She died, after the death of his only grand child. His grandson died. And he invited theodosia to come with him. She was in mourning. She invited her, get on a ship, come stay with me for a while and she died on the ship. So he died completely alone, you know. He did have friends, though. You know, cuz he didnt have much money. There were people that supported him because of what he had shown of himself, the man he had shown himself to be throughout his life to his friends. You know, he had friends in the war, you know, people saw acts of, you know, heroics that, you know, endeared them to him all the days of his life. Rose moments of herorism. Yeah, yeah. Rose hes intertwined with hamilton. We see that in the play, theyre connected. Yeah. Rose what was the relationship . They came up together. And they ran in the same circles together. They tried cases as lawyers together. They fought in the war together. And so i think of them as friends. I think of them as if you would have told them when they were 19 years old, if you would have shown them a picture, this is going to be you in your early 40s. You are going to do this to this guy, they never would have believed it. Rose well, how does that happen. How did it come to be that a friend killed a friend. It was after. Rose ambition . I think burr had lost his wife, you know, that was a great center piece in his life that was mooring in his life. Burr, i think his great downfall in politics was that all he kind of really cared about at the end of the day was his family. He didnt really care some of about the greater good the way hamilton did. It was a personal loyalty that he had to the people that he cared about. And hamilton thought bigger. Hamilton was thinking about other people at the sacrifice. Rose and thinking about the country in a big way. As a sacrifice of his family and personal life. Burr would never do that. Never going to sacrifice his family like that. So i think burr lost the thing that was most that centered him, which was his family. And hamilton lost the thing that centered him which was his political life. George was no longer in office. And hamilton. Rose george washington. Yeah. An hamilton had been made a fool of by the scandal. Rose of which he admitted to in a stunning moment. Yeah. Rose he writes about his own scandal. Yeah. He thought, i will he thought you know, he had this sex scandal. And he thought theyre going to talk about it. I am going to get there first. And so he blows up his life. He blows up his personal life and his political life. It didnt work out the way he thought it was going to work out. Rose did you know lyn before . I did casually. You know people in this business, through parties and stuff like that. It took me about, i will say, the public was reallyroom good. Rose when are you the blic, the two of you had you didnt get to know him every night. Hamilton and burr shared a dressing room. But it was really good because it took me awhile to even talk to the guy, you know, that intellect is so intimidating you know, and its nothing that he does. Hes the nicest guy you will ever meet. Rose a powerful. Yeah, coy barely, you know, hes in the show, starring opposite me and he wrote the show. And so it was a lot. Rose he wrote the book. Oh pie god. Rose he wrote the lyrics. How do you form words, you know, how do you form a sentence with that guy. But we got past it. Rose what we have here, this play hamilton this musical, people are talking about it as changing the american musical theater, as a a significant evolution in the american musical theater. I mean this is seen more than simply a successful musical. Its being given the heavyweight of cultural moment. You know thats true. All you have to do is read the reviews. And they talk about it. I think that its you know, im a spiritual guy too. You know, this work is, you know, its emotional, its physical, there is a spirit all component. And i just, cuz ive seen it from the inside, carlie, and i tell you, there is a great deal of it that those guys andy, lak, tomorrowie, lyn have tomie, lyn, have planned within an inch of its life. I mean those guys are meticulous and, you know, were so happy we opened because it forced them to put their pencils down. I mean they will keep perfecting it until somebody forces them. But theres also there is the part that they had nothing to do with. There is something else. Rose what is that . Its what its whatever happens, its the space in between you and i. Its whatever happens between me saying it on stage and how it affects you, and what it does to you. Thats the part that none of us have any control over. None. You couldnt pay jimmy fallon to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. You cant pay for that. That is something that we have no control of. Rose but everybody, almost i know does that. I have not everybody that i know who has seen it that ive taujed to after theyve seen it, struggles to find words to give expression to how they felt about it the presence in this play, this musical, this event. Yeah. All of that. Rose and its pride, you know, there is a bit of it, also, i think its pride that the actors assembled and their own diverse backgrounds, and men and women of color. Yeah. Rose and young. It gives some sense of what many people hope america will always be. I mean i think its some of the same aspiration people had in 2008 about the candidacy of barack obama. It said something good about the country, about a young black man with great intellect. Could be elected president. It made people feel good about the country, this country, it made them feel good with respect to their friends all around the world. Thats why i think the election in 2008 was so so moving for so many people. And it is also the also the way this play makes people feel about the country again. And it comes out of the words of alex ander hamilton. They were hung and hungry and scrappy like this nation we want to shape, right . Yeah. I think a lot of it, yeah, number one, i will say to your point about 2008, you know, that was really the first time that politics seemed to take an interest and really engaging my generation. I mean they really got us involved. We felt like we were necessary and we were vital to help make that change happen. And i think if we have anything in common with that, i hope its that. I hope that the audience comes and feels like their presence is vital and that we certainly feel that on stage. We certainly feel like every single one of us is there for a reason, for a unique special purpose. We all come from such diverse. I mean you cant forget slavery and all kinds of and we see them still happening, you know, powerful acts of conflict. We still see it. But at the same time there is about this play, and references, and references. But there are two things for me. One t is hiphop, too. It is that on stage there, you know, and all of a sudden, even though hiphop had arrived and arrived and arrived, but it was your music. And you feel that too. And you feel like hiphop adds to the expression of this play. Oh yeah. As do the youth and the color and the diversity of the actors who bring a unique kind of passion to a great historical event. Yeah. And i mean, you know, i kind of think of my major as empathy, you know, empathy is, that is what i majored in at carnegie melon. So this is the this is in its purest form, thats what we are doing. We are stepping inside these peoples shoes. And were learning about ourselves by talking about them. Right. And so that is, i think, one of the most powerful elixirs for healing in the land. I honestly think that. I think if we could find a way in ferguson, i think if we could find a way in these places to cuz the pain is real. It is deep, and it is historic. I mean this pain goes back, on both sides. But i think that in addition to in addition to policy, in addition to community watch, in addition to cell phones, right, cuz we have to be able to see the truth of whats happening, but what is going to really bring healing is empathy, i think. We have to be able to sit down and talk to each other and find out where you are coming from and find out where i am coming from. Thats what lyn has done with aaron burr. Lyn got inside this mans head and his heart and he found out what made him tick. What made him tick is a love for his wife and his baby girl. A love for theodosia. If you cant understand that, that is the simplist thing in the world. In that case, you can take a villain and turn him into a human beings which is what he was, right. Rose also in the same way that Brian Cranston on broadway with lyndon johnson, another time, passing its Voting Rights bill at that time. Yeah. Rose i mean here were seeing, and its all about the hardness and giveandtake of transactional politics. We see the same thing with the founding fathers. It is transactional politics. Yeah. Rose who voted in some ways to a greater good, as the Voting Rights bill was for the greater good. Its kind of the only way to get things done. I mean you know, if you are sitting down at a table and you are not thinking about the needs of this machine across from you, if you are sitting down at the table and only thinking about yourself, i dont know how successful you are going to be. Rose what was it that intrigued you about, beyond the tax, about aaron burr. Was it the love of family . I mean did, did lyn give you that . I mean was that sort of so there in the text and so there in conversation that you might have had with him about the burr that he wrote that you hung your part of your performance on that . That was my way . And i think a lot of that did come from our text. You know,me, my view on aaron burr was a lot like other people, you know, i just knew that he killed Alexander Hamilton and he was the vice president. Nobody teaches about his daughters or wife. Rose what happened to him after that. Nobody teaches that, really. So so yes, my way in initially was through the music. Through, you know, song like wait for t song like dear theodois arcment when i got in rumor has it was not written yet,. Rose was it fun to wrap your voice around that. Oh my god, yes, it is every night. And its so dense, the stuff is so dense that it will im contra