this is bbc news. the headlines — republican leaders in congress have said there will be an orderly transfer of power should president trump lose november's election. he appeared to cast doubt on the transition on wednesday, again raising questions about the probity of the vote with so many ballots likely to be cast by mail. the french prime minister's warned it is a race against time to avoid a second coronavirus wave as bad as the first. it comes as the country records a record number of new cases sinse mass testing began, with more than 16,000 people testing positive in 2a hours. the british chancellor of the exchequer‘s announced plans to replace the current furlough job support scheme for workers as the country tries to contain coronavirus infections. rishi sunak said his primary goal remained to support the labour market, but he warned he wouldn't be able to save everyjob.

lewis will be here in half an hour. that's all from me. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. racial discrimination is america's wound that will not heal. and in this presidential election year, with donald trump in the white house and black lives matter‘s campaigners on the streets, well, race could be politically decisive. my guest today is the award—winning black actor and activist alfre woodard. in her latest movie, she plays the role of a warden responsible for executing prisoners on death row. so, for her, which comes first, her art or her activism?

alfre woodard in california, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, i'm happy to be with you. right now, in terms of your own professional career and in terms of the politics of the united states, which matters more to you — your acting or your activism? well, i can't separate them. i am a storyteller. and storytellers have been telling the tales of the tribe since we first stood up on two legs around a fire. and the mission, the call that is given us is to keep the lore of the tribe, or the community... now we know we're one worldwide tribe. and to lift that mirror up to the community so that they can see themselves, hopefully understand themselves and move forward. so, the charge is still for

the health of the community. so, that's why i act. that's why i tell stories. but do you never feel like you have to make choices — one or the other, because you are a very busy woman and there is a finite amount of time. do you ever feel that you actually confront choices about how to use that time, whether it be political and activism—based or whether it be to pursue, i don't know, the next big film project? well, for a woman, we can do a lot of things at the same time. i even raised my children being an activist and an in—demand working actor. as my sister told me, she was a school principal at the time, that i rang her weepy one night, i had the big scene the next day, and mavis, my baby, was very young and she was crying in the middle of the night. not the next day, the next four hours. and i said, "i don't know what to do."

she said, "well, you have got a healthy baby, you have got a job, and sounds like you got it all. you just have to stay awake for it all." your latest movie, at least latest in the sense that it's in the uk right now and obviously was made in 2019 but an awful lot has happened since 2019 to make the movie industry sort of suspend operations for a while, but the movie i'm talking about is clemency. and in clemency, you play the lead role of bernadine williams, who is the warden in a prison. she is the woman responsible for efficiently executing prisoners on death row. that is herjob. i am just wondering how much of a challenge it was for you to get inside a job which i'm guessing would run contrary to every single fibre of your being. well, you always ask yourself

why the story is being told. and you trust... that's why you should only really say yes to really good scripts. and you trust that the film—maker will take all the different performances, all the different parts of the story and you're part of a whole. myjob is to find that prison warden‘s reality. everybody wakes up in the morning thinking how can i accomplish it? how can i order things? how can i make things better? especially at this point in my sixth decade, i like to have my prejudices overturned, and i remember when our producer and chinonye was our brilliant film maker. and she took me on a prison tour in ohio. we went to about four prisons, women's medium and men's maximum and medium prisons.

and the women that i met there completely overturned my idea of what a prison warden was. first of all, the only thing i had in my head was those sort of sadistic people that we see in movies, but i hope everybody knows that a lot of the people that they have seen traditionally in movies, the characters brought to life, are not real or realistically rendered. taking on the project, did you need the movie to feel like it was in the end a sort of campaigning movie against the death penalty? if you hadn't believed that, would you have not taken on the project? any film that campaigns in any way or prescribes how they want an audience to feel is not a picture that i'm interested in. i think that if you're telling a story well, you're leaving it up to the intelligence of your audience. you trust that they will make

the right decision, so that's what i'm saying. i bring a character to the life, no matter how i feel about that person or that person's point of view. i have to bring that point of view fully to my film—maker to let them shape the story. you know, there's nothing worse than an actor having one foot on the dock and one on the boat, sort of winking at us that i know better, isn't this person not awful? again, you are not doing your job if you've done that. so, those people watching and listening around the world who have not seen the movie, i think it would be terrificjust to play a little clip where you, as bernadine williams, are clearly facing the reality of putting another man to death. let's just have a look at one short clip from the movie. you can be with the chaplain the entire day. all the way through the procedure. you will have to take your clothes off, wear the shirt, the pants, the shoes issued to you. when it's time for the procedure, you will be walked to the chamber.

0r five officers will restrain you to the gurney. a medical professional will prepare you for your injection. officer will insert the metazoline. that will render you ui'icoi'iscious. the second drug is bromide, which causes paralysation. the last drug is potassium chloride, which will cease heart function. at that point, medical personnel will confirm the execution complete. now, if you want to talk to the chaplain about this, later you can, but do you have any questions? do you have any family that would like to claim your body? if there are no family members that wish to claim your body, your remains will be laid

to rest in a plot here on our property owned by the state. i think i'm right in saying that you shot the entire movie in under three weeks, and i think you said that there was no way you could've gone on for very much longer in terms of the shoot because it was so intense. was it a very difficult film to make? we shot in 18 days. and sometimes we had to replace people, especially in the death chamber scenes. we had a couple of guys that were triggered and they couldn't carry out the task. everything was done to detail, so we recreated those death chambers, the executions. and we had our consultant who choreographed it all for us has put more people through the process than anybody in the world, because he had worked in four prisons that were the most active in the states,

death rows. so, for me, the filming of it was focused. it was intense, but it was focused. we had... they did bring a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a mental health person, i don't know what their degrees were, to the set to make sure people constantly had somebody to go to. and i had the privilege of meeting with some condemned men. and once that happens, you walk away from that, you have a... lives are in the balance. so, it's very — you just bring your skills to it. you know the notes to play the music. you show up, you stay focused and you know what matters. you do that anyway in any role you're playing. but, uh, some... when you know people's

lives depend upon it, it gives you a focus that you don't even have to manufacture. this movie, without giving too much away, most definitely does not have an upbeat ending. it is a very real, a very intense and a very bleak ending to the movie. and it's an extraordinary scene for you to play through at the very end. you've called the death penalty, this is a quote i've taken from something else you said, "the scar on the soul of our nation". i am just wondering whether you think clemency the movie, for those people who see it, will actually change any minds or do you think it will simply entrench americans who clearly have very different views about the death penalty in their divided, different positions on it. you know, right now, the majority of americans when they're polled, are against the death penalty. and they are understanding that state—sponsored murder

is paid for by their taxes. and so, when people think i have nothing to do with it, you have everything to do with anything that happens in your society when it's taxpayers' money. and so you have to do with it. every time someone is put to death ritualistically, then it diminishes us individually to know that that has happened in our name. i'm going to stop you, and that is an interesting idea that you can make a movie that is unrelenting and uncompromising in its portrayal of a reality, and frankly you work in the entertainment business, but one couldn't really describe that movie as entertaining. it's intense, it's gripping, in some ways it's horrifying and depressing, but it's not entertaining. do you think... well, you know what, i don't feel like i work in entertainment. if i could sing or dance or do something else, it might tend that way. i'm in the moving image

business, and the moving image is the most powerful tool, i think, in the history of man. one of the most powerful right after the wheel. whoever controls that moving image has an effect on the collective society as a whole and a very visceral effect on an individual. because when we sit and watch, we watch alone. people think, oh, there's 5 million people watching. they don't know each other, they're not watching together and not an entity. you receive things on your own. so, that's a powerful thing for people to reach another person to just get them to reflect. you made the film in 2019 before the killing of george floyd in minnesota and the phenomenal sort of rise of the black lives matter movement. not just a national campaign, but it has become a truly international movement and campaign as well. race is not really highlighted

in the movie clemency, but it is there as a reality. the reality being that disproportionate numbers of black men are on death row and right the way through the system, disproportionate numbers of black men are incarcerated, are involved in violent interactions with the police, etc. black lives matter, how do you feel about weaving that into your artistic life right now? and let me just speak the name of breonna taylor as well. we don't speak our sisters' names at all, and we are still waiting for justice, for the uniformed men who put her to death to be held accountable. right now, i don't know anybody... it's one of those moments where...

black lives matter goes back seven, eight years. it's in the consciousness of mainstream now. and you'd still be surprised how many people can't say black lives matter. those are the same people, i guess, that would say that the sun does not come up in the east wherever you are on the planet. and the reason we have to say it, and then everybody can fill in whatever belief, you know, the subcategories about it, about black lives matter, is because since... ..since the african first set foot on this continent, on this stolen land in 1619, it has been a slow... right now, we were all shaken by the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of the public execution

of george floyd. and it shook people who had never... ..who had their ears closed or their focus in a different direction. i am very interested in your own background because you were born and raised in tulsa, oklahoma. you, as a girl, lived through the civil rights campaign of the 1960s, which of course deeply divided cities like tulsa and saw some violence on the streets, which i'm sure you witnessed as a girl. is it your contention that actually not very much has really changed for african americans from your girlhood in the 1960s to the reality of young black lives in the united states today — is that what you feel? no, that isn't what i feel. there has been change. the important thing is that we are part of a continuum. as an african american, you know that your life is to keep the struggle going,

is to wage the struggle. we never work, we don't have a history of working to see necessarily all the things we're fighting for at the end of a day. you fight that struggle, you wage it because you are in your position because somebody waged that struggle a generation, two generations before you. so, you join that. and right now, wejust said goodbye tojohn lewis for now, the most — one of the most remarkable human beings of putting the mirror up to america and charging it to either stand up or move out of the way when we talk about the values that we say we believe in as americans. so, right now, black lives matter, that generation that has — that spans generations has stepped into the moment of continuing to move

that struggle forward. let me quote you some words from the director spike lee, who said this recently — he said, "it's not like you're just born angry. black people in the united states are angry because they live every day in this world where the system is not set up for you, as a black person, to win." i'm just interested in this idea of anger. do you carry real anger in you? is that your reality? i don't carry anger because that means that someone has defeated me. one of the things... i get pissed off sometimes. but as soon as i do, i get strategic. there's nothing that assuages helplessness, anger, fear, any of those things better than getting active because that's where your power is. that's our only power is collective activity. alfre, you don't come across as angry. and you're certainly not

looking angry, but i'm looking at a quote of yours where you said, "hollywood is one of the last strongholds of segregation in america." you were very much involved in the oscars so white campaign, and you've made it very plain that you think there are still real issues with race in hollywood. if that doesn't make you angry, i'm struggling to think what would. wait, first of all, i was not so involved with the oscars so white campaign. it's not that i... we're just not talking about that because that's not me. i can't get lumped into that. the truth is the truth! i don't have to be angry about the truth. the truth should make the people who are perpetuating it, it should make them feel something and their friends should feel angry that their friends perpetuate these kind of things. no! you don't... you know that thing where you will say, "we have a black problem." they say it all over the world, you know you do it in the uk. "you have a black and brown problem." no, the problem is with white people.

any time there's sort of a crackdown on black life, the taking away of civil rights, human rights, access, it is because we are strivers. and it is a response to... why do you think we have that guy that's in the white house now? it was a response to having an african—american president who actually was taking us forward. i want to end by talking about what you just said, described as "that guy currently occupying the white house". you've made your political loyalties very plain for a long time. you advised and worked on sort of culture issues with the 0bama campaign, and i know you are now doing a similar thing with the biden campaign. you are clearly politically very committed. i even worked for mike dukakis! you go back a long way. but here's my question to you. given that you are from

the state of oklahoma, where i dare say probably the state is going to vote for donald trump in 2020 come what may, do you see it as your role to try to speak to the people who vote for donald trump, as well as those who are adamant that the guy needs to be removed from the white house, or is your role reallyjust to maximise the efficiency of the vote from your community and other communities forjoe biden? is bridge—building any part of your vision for america? well, you know, honestly, i am a strategic campaigner. again, you tell the truth. you talk about what will move the lives of americans forward. the majority of americans. anybody. so, if people can't understand when somebody states a policy,

that how it affects them, health care... how can health be politicised? well, you friggin‘ well see how it's politicised with covid here in america. so, again, i'm not... myjob is not to convince people who don't believe the sun comes up in the east. i'm not going to waste my time, you know, arguing with that or trying to influence that. what i am going to do is keep telling the truth with an open heart and keep making sense. but you strategise. you find out where your voters are. you go and talk to them. you don't lie. that was one thing that i felt that barack 0bama did very well, and i campaigned for him from day one was when he would change sides of towns or change states, the message never changed. will we have to stay on point, will we have to fight? will there be tears shed and probably blood ?

probably so. but we're still going to fight. we are going to move forward with joy, because you know what? when we move forward, and especially women, when women move forward, they bring everybody with them. they bring the whole family, the whole community, the whole nation. and look at us — american women are the brassiest, loudest, determined and most opinionated women in the world. and we have not had a woman in that seat of power. that tells you something about us. and so...whereas there's women leaders all over the world. and there's young leaders all over the world. so, we are kind of in our teenage years as a nation. and you know how you were as a teen. parts of your brain shut down so other parts can grow. y'all been at it for centuries. and you're sitting back looking at us, but we ran away from y'all to seek individual

freedom. so, that's why you can't get a son of a gun to put on a mask! like, it's my right, it's my right to have this gun, my right to not wear that mask. so...but the thing we do have is we have the streets and we have our voices and we have laws. so, i'm just grateful to see americans being truly american, but what it means is you have to affect the minds, change the minds of your neighbours. you can't kick them out, so you've got to live with them. they're like family. all right, alfre woodard, it has been a pleasure having you on hardtalk. thank you very, very much indeed. thank you, man. i appreciate it. thank you so much.

hello again. if you went outside on thursday, i'm sure you noticed a certain autumnal chill in the air. but was it really cold enough for snow? well, actually, this wasn't snow, it was a massive hail storm that went through the bradford area and the 0tley area, quite close to leeds in west yorkshire. and you can see the roads and the pavements turned white as those accumulations of hail built up. it must‘ve been quite some storm. now, the satellite picture shows low pressure over the uk with storm clouds rotating around it, and over the next few hours, we are going to see plenty more of those big showers. areas to watch out for, well, west wales in pembrokeshire and also into cornwall, could see some particularly heavy showers here. we're also going to see a band of persistent rain affecting

parts of east anglia. now, as we go on through friday, pressure builds actually in the west, and this area of low pressure‘s slow—moving. so, the isobars are going to pinch together. the winds are going to blow even more strongly. it will feel even colder. yes, a day of sunshine and showers, but prolonged outbreaks of rain across parts of eastern england. and there's going to be some very strong winds in east anglia. gusts could reach in excess of 60 mph, strong enough potentially to bring down a tree or two, so there could be some transport disruption. and there's heavy rain in the forecast, too, particularly lincolnshire into parts of east anglia with around 20—a0 millimetres orso, perhaps a bit more in places. we could also see some localised flooding, but away from the east, some sunshine, feeling really cold, though, given the strength of those northerly winds. and those northerly winds continue to blow into saturday, albeit slightly less strongly. it's going to be another cold start to the day, and there's the threat again of a bit more rain running down into parts of east anglia in particular. futher west, actually, pressure‘s building a bit, so it should be a drier kind of day, showers fewer

and farther between. temperatures, though, still struggling and still feeling cold in the wind, and we're going to have cold nights around as well. as we head through saturday night, it'll be cold enough for some frost patches in the countryside in scotland. we've still got those northerly winds with us as well across eastern parts of england. still potentially a few showers or spots of rain. further west, it's brighter with some sunshine. the winds turning a little bit lighter here, so perhaps not feeling quite as chilly. now, looking into the forecast into next week, it stays unsettled with low pressure with us. those temperatures coming up, though, a few degrees. that's your weather.

this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: donald trump is not backing down. he questions if the presidential election can be honest, despite senior republicans distancing themselves from his comments. we wa nt we want to make sure the election is honest and i'm not sure it can be. i don't know that it can be. a race against time in france to avoid another deadly coronavirus wave as the country reports a record number of new cases. the uk government unveils a plan to top up workers' wages, as covid cases rise and fears of mass unemployment grow. constantly accused of kidnap because her child's a different race — how one mother's trying

to change public prejudices.