Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20170302

[applause] another republican president , dwight d eisenhower, a listen it initiated the last great infrastructure program, the interstate highway system. The time has come for a new program of national rebuilding. Content and tone marked a reversal from the dire landscape that the president articulated during his and i color address and not jural address in january. A new chapter of american rightness is now beginning. A new National Pride is sweeping across our nation. A new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams only within our grasp. What we are witnessing today is the renewal of the american spirit. The question for many is which President Trump should we expect moving forward . Joining me is the Washington Bureau chief. And the editor and chief of bloomberg businessweek. The latest issue of the magazine profiles top trump advisor stephen miller. Welcome to all of you. We have had 24 hours to digest this speech. David, i want to throw to you first. The president was spiritually and psychologically reaching out to his base. What did he say that made him happy . That is the right question to ask. I found myself watching the speech and waiting to hear details building on how he is going to fund the infrastructure that he talks about. What will be his tax plan . When those details did not, i realized that People Like Us were trying to work out what his agenda is. We are still disappointed. We do not know. How come his supporters who i meet when i go to rallies are so absolutely certain that he is keeping his promises. There are so happy that he is doing what he said he would do. It occurs to me that what is really going on is that we in washington or you in new york are focused on what politicians do. Donald trumps genius is to be the guy who will tell you who he is doing it for. He is standing for his people. Last night he brought in the vision as the guy who represents the champion to all american citizens. Corners, illegal immigrants, global rivals. ,e will tell you who he is for we are still wanting to know what he is for. That explains the gap. What wasntk about covered in a speech last night. We do not hear about Climate Change or economic inequality. What was a glaring omission for you and why . Have a quick shout out to clean air and clean water. You have to be honest in that this is a good moment for him. He had two objectives last night, to reset his image with the American People and reset his image with his own party. He has incredibly difficult battles to fight ahead in terms of getting the legislative agenda ahead. While we do not know details, we know comprehensive tax reform a replacement of the Affordable Care act is going to be difficult. In terms of the omission in where he could happen should was number one on fleshing out the details on things that couldve been a very easy win for him in a bipartisan way. One of those is infrastructure. It showed a little bit of a clip there, but when you look at this administration you look at the missteps and the mistakes they have had. One of them with the immigration order rolled out in the refugees from seven predominantly muslim countries. When you look back at the early days of the trump residents need a feature is that to be in a successful president and his agenda, one will be he missed the opportunity to put the screws on the wheels. Everybody is calling for infrastructure reform. He would have put his own Party Forward and put them in a difficult place to reject it. He could have started on something that couldve been a bipartisan move forward for him. That was a bit of an own goal. Two weeks ago, you and i were sitting here discussing that 77 minute rollicking press conference. The speech we saw last night, it a trump speechs put through on autotune. That is the program that record reducers used to smooth out edges and get people back on page. Did you hear anything new and different . His general approach and the fact that he was able to come deliver aroom and state of the union like address proves this is somebody who is capable of at least appearing president ial and delivering and laying out an agenda. Thispecifics be dammed at point. I did hear a little more specificity about where they want to go on obamacare. Where they want to go on tax reform. He did not get into discussion of Immigration Reform in ways that he has privately now twice in the last two with senators and with news anchors talking about the idea of a broader immigration bill. Part of the reason we did not hear about Infrastructure Spending is because the biggest, most important audience he had to address their last night and to impress i dont think with the american public, it was the hundreds of republicans in the room over the last several weeks with little guidance from the white house have been squabbling amongst themselves about how do a new Health Care System in this country. I to reform the tax system. How to pay for a border wall. And also a host of other issues. The fact that he did not get into the issues where he would be able to find more bipartisan accord was not because democrats are not in the mood to work with him and did not feel like he has done anything to win them over, but also because the next few months for him and for republicans are probably going to be the most critical of the last four years because this is their one and only opportunity to prove that they can actually govern and make changes after years of threatening to do so if they ever have power. We do not hear about aleppo. We do not hear about moscow. David Foreign Policy was amazingly absent. We had some words about nato. Hint of the nationalist suspicion of International Organizations because about sovereign state and free nations being able to decide own fate. When i checked the European Press today for their reactions, one of the big french papers picked up on that bit and said that that sounds like an attack on the european union. It is those kind of things that make people very jumpy among americas allies. In terms of russia, it is one of the many areas where it is not that donald trump has controversies he wants to wish away, was the fascinating thing about this 40 days of rollout is that the open question, does donald trump enjoy the hard grind of government and detail . Or is that not his comfort zone . That is one of the unanswered questions. I think it is clear that the hard ground of governing is not something that he considers his strong suit. Last nights address was pretty much a, here is what i want in terms of overarching promises and lets get the details worked out. Please come together insensitive magical way. I think david is right. What he has shown over the first few weeks is that is always going to be a mountain with this administration in general. They do not have the faration and so for the internal discipline to push these challenges through in the end. Like getting anything done needing votes from the democratic side. One of the things i heard was donald trump is an interesting entity unto himself. He is not a traditional republican. You heard the cap it applies about tepid applause infrastructure and paid family leave. If his uniqueness at issue for him . Or is it an issue for the Congress Going forward in terms of getting anything done . Ed i dont think we know that yet. In this day and age we want answers to this stock. We want to see results quickly. Foreally need to strap in at least nine months of intense activity on the hill trying to sort this stuff about kerry is going to take a little while. We are not going to see a lot of movement on this very quickly. These things take time. As the president learned last week, health care is a complicated thing. It took more than a year for democrats and the obama in his version to put this thing together. To put it together in a new way is going to take just as long most likely. Have do you do that when you also want to tackle tax reform, immigration, and all this other stuff . We just do not know yet. We have not seen much yet from trump on whether he is into the art of governing and whether his administration is capable of it. Now that you have cabinet secretaries in place across the different agencies who would be affected by these changes, the question is how do they build up their teens and policies and work with these committees in the next few months. This is going to take a little time. Were now going to be able to measure the success of him and where he fits in to the twoparty dynamic for a little bit longer. We have to put aside talk of lofty immigration and infrastructure work. Paid leave for taking care of children or sick parents. They have to get the other stuff done first and is going to take a while. Whether they can hold together really does remain a big unknown. There was a meeting today at the white house with Top Republican leaders to talk about how they put together the health care plan. How they fell into the country and also themselves. And how they work on tricky things like paying for the border wall and where the border wall would go. Much of the opposition to that on capitol hill is not from democrats, it is from border state republicans and border district republican. Congressional republicans who represent 2000 miles of border. They are concerned about this. There is going to have to be modification. Is going to be difficult for the president to sort it out. Heid i want to jump in when stands a bit with the democrats on paid family leave. One of the things that a striking covering american , he doesfor five years not sound that unusual or that unfamiliar in the european frame. That makes a lot of friend online order, the military, the border, preserving pensions, preserving welfare for old white voters, that makes is the far right nationalist french makes. That is what we are going to see in the french elections. His agenda, the whole spectrum of antiimmigrants, willing to spend lots of money on old people, and also lots of money online order, that is the format now in france and the netherlands. Soil an economic blood and nationalist in europeanstyle. Is also the one thing that will talk about will be something that was a bit of an own goal last night. David is right in saying his agenda is straight out of marion le pen. When you talk about inheriting a mess of an economy and 94 Million People out of work. That number is just not true. Setting alks about standard of boosting growth from 2 under the obama , evenstration up to 3 4 5 summer publicans are talking about, that is also something that people are going to look back over time at this administration and safety to actually keep the promises to voters . So much of his agenda is built on the nationalist economic agenda of returning manufacturing, creating more jobs, bringing back the traditional American Economic base. Issues we haver economically are due to structural displacement, automation, an aging workforce, a workforce that works in different ways and has different ship shift jobs. The robey a view that he was much too blase and taking us from 2 to 4 jobs. Walls no question that street and the titans of industry viewed as favorably. The irony is, the people who are most likely to back him, white workingclass voters from the rust belt, those are people who have yet to benefit from that huge increase in the market from these kind of policies. If he does not make good on that, it will be a big problem for him in the republican party. President talked about civilians and had guests in the audience. One thing that struck me, is that two were africanamericans. The young woman who got School Choice and the gentlemans whose son was killed by an undocumented persons country. Donald trump only got 8 of the africanamerican vote. What was that spacecraft about . Ed it was about improving those numbers. Republicans have worked in disbelieving that it was jeb bush that said and quoted Ronald Reagan that said most americans are conservatives they just do not realize it yet. This is a Reince Priebus and sean spicer of session. Trump himself is interested in doing it. He believes if given a chance he would win them over. We will see. He had done nothing to help himself among hispanics and latinos in this country given what he is talked about and what is done regarding immigration in recent weeks. You notice it is not invite any latinos to sit in the balcony. There as the was emblem of cool choice. Another person that jeb bush traveled with during his campaign. She is a symbol for many republicans of the benefits and the success potential of School Choice. It is a big concern of the president. It is something he will be talking about on friday at a Catholic School in orlando. They are definitely trying to broaden the appeal to do what he can to win over africanamericans and latinos voters and Union Households and to find ways to continue to cut into the democratic diaspora. Out in thehas borne early days of his presidency, he is not making much of a dent despite his attacks. That was a spending speech as they say my house. How is all is going to get paid for . That is the big question. One thing that has been talked about is the border tax adjustment tax which is projected to raise 1 trillion. There seeing huge mobilization against it. The Corporate Tax rate would jump down. You would also put a bigger levy on imports. You would encourage american manufacturers to keep job and reduction at home. You would discords them from importing discourage them from importing goods from abroad. Theres a big section of the American Economy that imports materials. That would be in the retail section. They are already running ads against it. This is a cornerstone of the paul ryan tax lien to get this 1 trillion through. It is already looking dead on arrival. The ministration cannot agree stevehe van and and bannon and a member of goldman sachs. It is very difficult to come up with the money. You look at his military spending and taking that up. His budget looks dead on arrival. It was a good night for him. It was a good speech given the low expectations that were out there. He jumped over the bar and he jumped over the bar quite cleanly. The task of getting the agenda through, welcome to washington. Game on. Lets see if you can forge any type of agreement within his own party, let alone get support he needs across the isle to get this stuff through. Be allthe point, it will about how to pay for these things. That is why the next few months will be tricky for republicans. It will be a real test of his patients. In a further expose whether he is embracing conservative orthodoxy, especially on fiscal issues, or whether he is screwing, spend the money. Happens, there are at least three dozen House Republicans or said they are willing to stand up and start blocking things that they need to. David i think another interesting thing about donald trump which we learned during the campaign and i interviewed him a couple of times, it is not like to admit that there might be a painful tradeoff. I asked him about things like what happens if prices go up at walmart . Onwas about slapping tariffs chinese imports. I said a lot of your voters go to walmart, what will they do when the prices go up . He did not what to admit there would be a tradeoff. He said maybe they go in and buy three balls for the daughter three goals for their daughter three do forl their daughter, and now they will only buy one. Washington is a town where tradeoffs are the air that we breathe. To be continued is what you are all saying. Thanks everybody. The township year in the great theres a new hit Broadway Musical playing. It is inspired from a passage from a leo tolstoy masterpiece. The New York Times called it the most innovative and best new musical to open on broadway since hamilton. Here is a look. [applause] joining me is the writer and composer and two of the stars of the show. I guys, thanks for being on the show. You wrote this based on the 70 page sliver of war and peace. What in your mind went from the story to the musical theater . How did you make that bridge . I havent a opinion as i was reading this section. I got to the end of this section where there is an incredible moment in tears were dripping down my face. I thought it was a perfect musical. I thought it was a Perfect Piece of musical theater. At the time i googled it to make sure nobody else had done it because i do not believe that nobody else had done it. It was such a perfect story. I love the way that the story in particular parallel these two very different stories. Theres a young romantic story. Then there is a middleaged philosophical story. The two that those two parallel and collided the very end. It felt like such a musical to me. Tell me about the story purple two of not seen it. Young. Sha is andre newly engaged to who is fighting in the war. She is visiting her godmother in moscow and being introduced to Moscow Society while she is waiting for her beyond say. While she is waiting she meets a notorious young rope. Rogue. Then hijinks in sues. Pierre tell me about here . There is war outside the gates. Everybody is concerned that high society. He is searching for meaning in his life. He is a little bit of a depressive. He is searching for some kind of meaning after having been thrust into wealth. He has an unexpected money. He is married somebody who he is attracted to but knows he does not love them very much. While everybody is at war with napoleon or society, he is at war with himself. There is a wonderful art and songs that are so gratifying to saying. We all see little bit of ourselves in these characters. Guessing that you have been offered broadway roles before. Given your success in a singer. I have been. We saw this in a smaller incarnation. What makes you realize this is the one that im going to make the leap . I was a fan of the show offbroadway. I came to see it downtown in the meatpacking district. I walked out of there totally transfixed. I thought it was a genre bending complicated by beautiful score then hit all of my buttons as a musician. Then the story felt so relevant to me. It felt relevant to me then, but even more relevant now as we look at things that are going on in the world and the way we all are trapped in our own little screens searching for meaning in our own lives. I have been offered things in the past. This to me sounds like something unique. Something broadway had not seen before. I knew it would be a challenge for me. It is a role that is very different from the person i generally am in my life. I thought to myself, this was worth the wait. I did read somewhere that there were thinking of bringing it. I thought i will reach out and see if it feels right. I went out for one or five drinks and we talked it over. It was a natural fit. Three years ago youre getting ready to graduate from carnegie mellon. Think about where you are now. Anything about a moment or decision you made that really scared you toward this time in your life . Good question. Not quite to the extreme, but i had an opportunity to leave school early for a different job. But i would not have been able to graduate. Ive always been a very ambitious person. Opportunities like this over my dreams were set. I waited and the right opportunity came along. Being able to graduate and my college introduced me to representation agents and managers that help me step into the industry. Those decisions help me get into the right drones. As an actor, getting seen as the trick. Getting the audition. Fortunate with the people i got connected with in the industry. You just wait for the right opportunity. Youre are putting yourself out there and doing your best. Then a role like natasha comes along. Mih would kill to play a role like this. It is so complex and rich. He is the architect she is dealing with coming of age as a woman for the first time in her life. I feel very connected with her there. I feel we are dealing with similar issues of what it means to be a woman in our current societys and all those things. I feel very fortunate to get to connect with the character so deeply. And also for the and for the merely to be so perfect. I think that answers your question. Lide love for people to be able to hear your beautiful voice. Ts take a look at a clip of natasha when shes overcome by love, laced with lust. First time i heard your voice light burst into the room and i saw your eyes saw your smile and the world opened wide nd the world was inside of me my breath and i laugh and laugh and hear guitars i love you i love you i love you i love you im curious about your decision about [laughter] you look good in blue. Your decision about what this would sound like. Because there are so many different kinds of sounds. Theres sort of the steam punk, craziness, rock and roll. At one point i was like, i went to that club. I remember that club in the 1990s. And these balanced as as well. How did you decide how to balance it and what would go where . I think thats one of the things about tolstoy, war and peace is such an all encompassing novel. He has these different characters. My approach to music is the same. I grew up on 1960s and 1970s rock n roll. Then i became a jazz snob and classical snob. Then i found out about other music. I included all of that in my musical pal at. Pallet. In looking at war and peace, this was perfect because i get to flex all of these muscles. When shes singing a love song, wants to feel like a Real Old School broadway love song. But then when they go to the club, and theyre all drinking vodka, then it can be house music. So i think thats what i love about the book so much. It gave me the opportunity to do all these different things. And to not put myself into a certain box and say, this has to be all russian music or folk music or whatever it is. I feel like so many of the characters have their own genre attached to them. I feel like youve also written so much of the electronic is for anatol. You hear the subwhoofers going when hes out there. And ease the heart throb. Yeah ease the heart throb. He literal hes the heart throb. He literally electrifies the room. Originally some of the earlier stuff had electronic music in it as well. But then as i wrote more and more of it, i started to realize, oh, all of anatols songs are electronic. That could be a thing. He brings it into the room. With you and rachel, you worked together. One of the things about the show that has sent critics running for the they sawyer us to describe it is because it is nusual and unique and vibrant. Was there any creative decision you wanted to make and people said, you cant do that . But youre like, were going to do that . Weve been blessed with incredible producers all along the way. This show started at a very small theater. 87 seats i think it was. I immediately thought that they would shoot down the entire idea. This is my first piece with them. Lets do something a little more small and reasonable. I said war and peace and they said, yeah, lets do it. Our producers, howard and janet and paul and many others who brought us first to the tent, they insisted that we not just transfer to a house, that we keep the small intimacy that we had. And then we went to a. R. T. In boston and that was another step along the way. And we had to figure out how it would work but we didnt want to concede and go, ok, well just do that production. It was essential to us that we keep the heart of the show in tact so we have this intimacy and this 360degree surround. So then a. R. T. Was a huge step in that in terms of they helped us figure out how to put this show into a house. The like people wanted to help you be as creative as possible. Yeah. Which was wonderful. Lets talk about that 360. For people who are watching this at home. I suggest go look at clips online. As being in the audience, you can be sitting on the stage, youre part of the show. The cast is everywhere. Theyre in the aisles. Im wondering for you, your character is singing through such an emotional thing. And youre singing these songs and people are right here. What is it like for you . To have to do that right in the middle of the audience . It made an already vulnerable new adventure for me even more naked. Coming back into the acting world after leaving it kind of essentially for many years, i was at a fork in the road. I did take the job during my freshman year. But flexing the acting muscle again was something that was, i knew, going to be like getting back on a bike. I was grateful for rachels unbelievable guidance and direction. But one of the things she really made sure i did during rehearsals was be as uncomfortable as possible as much as possible. She placed people in the rehearsals for me to make eye contact with during the songs. Just to get us used to the idea that eyes were going to be on us at all times. Even when there are those moments where you feel like youre throwing your heart and soul out onto the stage, youre doing it while being face to face with people. Your performance changes sometimes night by night based on the looks you get. The responses you get. Because youre basically telling your story both to people out in the house, you have to project, but at the same time youre telling it very sin matically to people right in front of you. It was a terrifying endesker to kind of get used to that. But now i think we look forward to it. I think now that weve done 150 or so, we cant wait to see who is coming in from where. We cant wait to present that to them each night. Whats that experience been like for you . To be so close . I use them as an acting tool. Sort of treat them, because natasha is going through such an arc. I kind of use them as my diary. The funny. There are people, like when anatol comes in and theyre trying to send me messaging not to choose him. Some women are like, yeah. Its interesting. At the last scene i do, its like, youre weeping. It almost helps to have people still with you in that moment. For me it helps with the vulnerability. You feel so exposed. Those emotions you need to come up to tell the story. I find it actually helpful. I cant imagine doing it now with just us on stage and them out there. I feel like i wouldnt understand how to tell the story. Because theyre so a part of it. It keeps me active. Their energy. I was going to say, one of the our most clever thinks i think weve done is we have managed to have a cast of 1,200 people on our show. We have a cast as big as the book. You see the audience reacting. One of my favorite moments in the show is watching that song we just saw, no one else and watching a 14yearold girl watch you see sing that song and watch a 70yearold woman watch you sing that song. They have such different life experiences. You really take from. That i desperately use that from that. I desperately use that. Especially in a theet aer, weve been given the gift of freshness. You have to stay on it. Its the x factor. For pierre who sits in his study and gets to watch stimings, its so great for my prep going into more scenes to be able to watch that interaction. Feel out what the energy of the room is each night. It is different every night. So it definitely keeps you on your feet. I want to let the audience take a look and listen to you in the role as pierre. Lets take a look. Angels weep f i die here tonight die in my sleep we are asleep until we fall in ve and im so ready to wake up now i want to wake up dont let me die while im like this i want to wake up d dont let me die like this please let me wake up now god dont let me die while im like this one things that interesting about this play, one of the many things interesting about this musical, i should say, is it has a multiracial cast. Denee, youve been very i think mature about this. Because i think youve gotten a lot of theres been a lot of discussion about the fact that youre a block woman playing a russian black woman playing a russian princess. I follow you on instagram. I know you embrace this discussion of inclusion and diversity in the theater. Could you have just said, im an a actress. Im playing a part. Why did you decide to really sort of decide to take part in this discussion . Its interesting. It doesnt really seem like theres another option for me. I think ive just naturally really interested in those topics. Besides that, the not a trendy topic for me. Its a livelihood. Having the opportunity to be a working actor and successful shows is a right i think anyone should have if youve worked hard enough for it. So for me, i think understanding what it was like to be a 12yearold and 11yearold girl desperately wanting to be a part of these stories and not seeing myself and the toll that that took on my selfesteem and my confidence, i think having the opportunity to be in the position where i know little girls might be watching and kind of wanting to save them some of that drama. Be a part of what its like to really articulate and use the vocabulary of your beauty standards and understanding why you might feel left out of the narrative. And i think its special because outside of the fact that natasha is russian, shes an archetype of beauty and light. And love. And everything that a girl goes through. I think its important to have archetypes actually look like the every woman. And you dont have to look like tom hanks to be the every man. The every man looks like dave. He looks like the asian man down the street. And so i think that was important to me. Because i think we have a power to really normalize people and kind of heal a lot of the divisions that exist in our nation. By telling the truth and representing a truthful world. And when you have tolstoy, i heard actually dave had a reason for. It every time of type of person is represent for it. Every type of person is represented. Every type of russian person is represented in war and peace. What does that look like in an american landscape . To have every type of person represented. So i thought that was a really cool explanation. Outside of my own personal reasons of wanting representation for women of color. There was a different reason for it as well. One of the things also thats interesting to me, and im curious if its had an impact on the show, is theres a great number of people in your cast for whom this is their broadway debut. You two. Your two leads. Has that had an impact on the show, ots inenergy . I think so. I feel like the Energy Everyone is so happy to be there. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. [laughter] a few of the people who have been with the show for the longest time are just old, old friends of mine who i tricked into doing a show in this little theater. They were not really actors at all. I asked them to do the show and now four or five years later they find themselves on a broadway stage. Theyre like, what, i didnt even audition for this. It would be easy to just talk about the fantastic sets and the big sounds and the amazing costumes. But my last questioner to you is, what question for you is what the small thing thats moving to you about this story . Because you could get lost in the spectacle of it. Theres something very emotional about this. What moves but this story . About this story . I mean, its interesting. As the show has gotten bigger and bigger throughout the years, we all kind of looked at what it is now and we thought, this is very tolstoy. We are very lucky that, especially in the realm of musical theater, we get to have that spectacle and give people that. But i think the core, the thing that brings tears to all of our eyes every night, and hopefully audience members as well, is i think the essence of what makes people happy and satisfied in their life. Is told through these characters. In very, very different ways. They ultimately, i think, by the end of it come to the same conclusion about what it is that gives people vitality. And happiness in their life. And for me, the thing that is the most powerful is for pierre and natashas end something that theyre both at their absolute lowest when they finally connect after all these scenes of friveolt. Thats something that i think in my own life, as the circus swirls around you, and you search for those meanings, we all know what that feels like to have those dark moments and search for those meanings. To notice that that vulnerability is sometimes when you find the real path. Thats the main story i take away from pierre with this show thats meant the most to me about this show. What moves you about the show . I think for me its the grace trat that the characters offer each other at the end. They make terrible decisions and they break peoples hearts and they break their own hearts. Sort of at a place where forgiveness might not come easily. And even in the entirety of the book of the characters that do these terrible things and you end up seeing their humanity. There was a talkback with kids yesterday and they were like, the hard because i like natasha but she makes these bad decisions and i dont know how to feel about her. Thats kind of like life. Its kind of like life and the people that you love. The grace that they offer each other. At the end. And they see the humanity in each other and he reminds her that shes still worth something. That gets me every time. You make those decisions that you think youve ruined your life and someone tells youre still worth it, youre worth another chance. I think thats just magnificent. One of the arcs of the show is that we do try to kind of trick our audience, i think. So theres this big spectacle and bomb basket and this Amazing Museum and all these things happening. Its a spoken exchange between two human beingsest. Just said something to natasha and she hears it and that is the moment that transforms both of their lives. Its not all the other things. That has always felt so essential to me. In tolstoy and in our show. The show is natasha and pierre and the great comet of 1812. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. The film moonlight is an intimate portrait of three distinct moments ins life of a young black man as he comes to terms with his Sexual Assault and struggles to find sexuality and struggles to find his identity. Its from play in moonlight black boys look blue. It was nominated for eight academy awards. In a dramatic turn of events at last sundays ceremony, presenters announced la la land as best picture when it was moonlight that had won the vote. Moonlights director was unable to deliver the speech he had prepared but released it today in the hollywood reporter. It reads we are that boy. When you watch moonlight, you dont say assume a boy who grew p how and where we did would grow up and i what you looking at me like that for . A what, man, come on, you just drove down here . Yeah. Im trying not to remember. At some point you have to decide for yourself who youre going to be. Cant let nobody make that ecision for you. You want to tell him why the other boys kick his ass all the time . Whats wrong . Nothing. You aint it. Remember last time i saw you. Youre my only, i mean only no, to who . O you . I aint seen you in like a ecade. Respect. Moonlight will be rereleased in theaters this weekend for its widest release point to date. On more than 1,500 screens. Charlie talked to Barry Jenkins along with three of the films stars back in october. Heres a piece of that conversation. Whoip what is it that you hope to accomplish with this film . You know, people have said that its a story that doesnt get told often. Characters that we dont see often. Voiceless. My greatest hope for the film, and its what ive experienced, places far removed from the setting of the film. Charlie which is miami. Exactly. Inner city miami. Just these four square blocks. That people can see themselves in these characters who they assume are nothing like them. Its been my experience that people are finding a way to genuinely empathize with the story were telling. And the characters that were showing in this film. Charlie you know miami. Yeah, born and raised. Yeah, yeah. Charlie how did that shape this story . Hugely. Theres this almost anesthesia that happens when youre working in a place you know. Theres a scene in the film where the character says, you know, sometimes that breeze comes through the hood. The liberty city, where i grew up, is three miles from the ocean. Sometimes you can smell it. I think knowing those kinds of things, you go into a location with more confidence that its going to have the same emotional currency as you felt growing up there. Charlie tell us who shyrone is. Hes a beautifully flawed individual who is coming to terms with finding out who he is. Finding what love is. Finding that relationship with his mother, just trying to understand life really in general. Charlie tell me about his mother. His mother is paula, who is a struggling single parent. Who is also dealing with quite a severe crack cocaine addiction as well. Charlie whats interesting about this is you see him at different parts in his life. How hard is that to pull off . I thought it would be impossible. But with the way we charlie the mother stays the same. Exactly. I wanted to have some kind of foundation or bedrock. Naomi at paula was a bedrock. I wanted i think the time between the chapters is changing the character, as these young men are shaped by their environment. I wanted him to be a different person. The same character but a different person in each chapter. My hope was, if we found actors who had the same feeling in their eyes, you could see the soul of the character across all three parts. So far i think thats what people are experiencing. Charlie what was the challenge for you . One of the big challenges for me, i played kevin, who is a sort of childhood friend of shyrones and goes on to become the object of his affection. The big challengesy came in at the end of the film. Seemingly out of nowhere. We dont really understand why hes come back. Theyre on screen together for a very long time. Working through a problem. We dont quite know what the motivation of the character is. So that was a big challenge. Identifying what that was. Once we found it, i think we charlie we talk about masculinity and identity. Are they one and the same . I think for this character they are one and the same. I think what happens is theres this performance of masculinity that the world is projecting at you always. This is how a man walks and talks and speaks to another man. This is how he speaks to a woman. And i think when youre getting that sort of stimulus so much from the outside world, you start to lose your grip on what your idea of masculinity is. Which i think if youre a man growing up in the way we grew up in, its very key to your identity. It becomes harder to selfidentify. The more you receive this sort of both positive and negative reinforcement of what masculinity should look like. Charlie when you were thinking about playing him at the age you play him, and the connection to andre, did you look at the earlier performances . No. [laughter] actually, barry didnt allow it at all. We were both trying to find some semblance of something. But barry forebode. It he was really adamant about it as well. That was to depict how we changed so drastically through our lives at certain points. It was an ingenius thing to do, mr. Barry. [laughter] i think like the world is sthaping the character so much. When you meet him in each chapter, he becomes a different person. I wanted to keep the soul of the character, but hes a different person. Its great. Because they worked to this point where that old person slowly comes back to the surface. Charlie you come to the realization that shyrone is gay. How does that affect the relationship that paula has with him . I think she really cant accept it at all. She finds it disgusting, unpalletable. Its part of her further rejection of her son as well. And also i think she genuinely fears for his safety and what that means growing up in the kind of community that theyre growing up in. Its not something thats going to be easily accepted by anyone in that community. At a crossroads. Inflation flatlining in japan. Will Household Spending continue to fall . Great expectations. The fed is running out of reasons to delay as more officials flag and imminent hike. Snapchats parents send a positive message on their debut. Snap. Billion attorney general Jeff Sessions removes himself from all russian inquiries. He d