>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> lorraine hansberry's "a raisin in the sun" made history, the first play by an african-american woman to be produced on broadway. the story followed the hopes and

dreams of the younger family on the south side of chicago. it anticipated the changes of the civil rights struggle, and offered a depiction of the lives of black americans that was more complex than anything else on stage. the play returns to its original theater in a new production nominated for five tony awards. denzel washington stars as walter lee younger. sophie okonedo plays his wife. and latanya richardson jackson plays lena younger, the family matriarch. i am very pleased to have them at this table, to talk about a remarkable play and what it means then, when she wrote it, and today. welcome. tell me what brought you back to this play at this time. >> kenny leon, the director, and i had great success with "fences" four years ago. the day the play closed, what are we doing next? i am going on vacation.

a man gets the award. i do not know. two years later or something, we started talking. we talked about other plays, not this play at all. i figured he did not want to do it, because he had just done it. he said, it has been 10 years. we had talked about "iceman cometh." then, he brought it up. i am like, really? and here we are. >> because he had done it. >> i did not realize it was 10 years already. >> he asked you to do it at that time. >> my daughter, it was her senior year at vassar, and there was a lot going on. i felt as though i had given up a lot to get her to this point

so i was not going to drop the ball now. whether she needed me or not, i was going to be available. the timeslot was right during all the senior activities, leading into graduation. and my husband was doing the commencement speech. there was just a lot going on. i said, i got to be there and not be worried about, does she need me. am i thinking the right part in the play? it was going to be too much to handle, so i said no. >> when diahann carroll said, i cannot do it, as much as i like the role, i cannot do it -- >> is that what she said? >> that is what i read. it did not take kenny long to call you. >> because of him -- they both decided to call. i am here because of both of them, especially him. >> you accepted it because of him? >> i accepted it because the time was right. it was like the greatest gift i

could be given right now in my life, and i still feel that way. when an actor starts to perform, to really perform, to not to not just say you are an actor -- there are certain parts you know you feel you might want to do one day. even though i did not have it on my plate, it was on my plate. emmanuel told me, i need to write this on the resume of my soul. i think everything was aligned right. god was putting me in position with such favor that i had to accept it. i mean, i was shopping. what else was i doing? [laughter] >> when you got the call. right. >> it was the greatest gift i could have possibly given, especially given this cast. >> is this mama's play or walter's play? >> as he liked to say, it is lorraine hansberry's play.

>> i have been asked that a lot. for me, i guess i could've it something where everybody else was smaller roles. who cares? it is lorraine hansberry's play. how many of us are there, eight, seven? they are all good parts. there is not -- when i watch everybody, especially latanya -- when i watch everybody bow, i am like, these are all wonderful roles. the movie man -- the movie man. >> not this time around. >> i did not choose it because of the movie man. >> where were you when you got the call, in london? >> yes. i was coming to new york for a weekend for something else, about a year ago now.

my agent had read -- had read that you were doing the play. he said, what about you in that play? i had not read the play, and i said no. it was on my radar, but it is not part of our upbringing in britain. i would say "look back in anger" is probably the equivalent. we do that in schools. that i could not buy it on kindle in england. i could get it in hardback in the shops, but i could not get the kindle version in the british. it is fantastic. at the same time, i had seen something in london. >> what did you like about it? >> just the humanness of it all.

the fact that each person, every character in it, is multifaceted. you do not lead with one person. you do not go, this is the moral center. you go, this person, and then another character takes over. i like the ensemble quality. i have said this before. i see it as a masterpiece. that really has come from working. i felt strongly this is the next extraordinary piece of work. but the masterpiece part of it has come through doing the play, eight shows a week. there is no bottom to it. i keep finding and discovering more things, because it is so well written. the human qualities -- i felt like it could really speak today. i felt it was really relevant not just for african-americans, but for the whole underclass

going around the whole world. there are some people who cannot even begin to dream. >> something that keeps coming up about this play is dreams. where were you when kenny said -- >> i was in l.a., and i got the call. i was like, they just did that! i did not realize how long it had been. alternately, i said ok because kenny asked me to do it. we had just worked together on a tv movie, and i was ready to get back on stage. i missed being onstage. and i looked at the ensemble. i said, this is going to be a group of people who are really going to be on stage, bringing something specific and strong and professional, and years of experience. we are either going to have a good time or kill each other. jump on in. we were having a fabulous time,

and every now and then -- >> theater -- >> that is what i did. i did not even dream about it. i just started doing it. i never thought about being an actor. i did a little skit in the summer and somebody said, you are very good at this. i transferred within the university, and the first roll i got was a leading role. >> but there is a story that you slipped into the theater, slipped into the room, and james earl jones -- >> i was already acting. he was doing "oedipus the king" at saint john the divine. i wondered in to the dressing room, and i do not know why he let me hang around. he was talking to people and i started picking up his rings, thinking, he has big rings. i was playing with the props and he let me hang around. he did not know who i was. i probably told him i was a young actor. >> tell me about walter's story and the transformation he goes through.

>> before the play starts, there is an interview with lorraine. it is a great thing. it is interesting how, i guess with my routine, almost every night, i hear her say, "walter lee -- he never gives up." and i am like, i am ready! what sophie was saying -- the thing about a great play -- latanya gets on me sometimes, because i say, we only have 48 left, which is where we are at tonight. but it is also, we only have 48 opportunities. the thing about a great play is, you keep finding it. the other day or week or so ago, i said, i have got to find the love again. everything has to do with how much i love each person. not, i am supposed to be angry here. i love my mother.

certain things happened that night and other shows since out of love for her. how can you do this to me, since you love me so much and i love you so much? do you know what this money means to me? do you know what this money can do for us? i do not know if that answers your question. >> > you have not. >> i will repeat it. who is walter younger? >> he does not give up. he is a little lost. one of the things he says is, i see these white boys sitting in there, turning deals worth millions. what he sees is them in the restaurant, not in the office, doing the grunt work. he thinks they just sit around and talk and turn deals. he is sitting with his boys and talking, and he is going to turn a deal. that he is dealing with a snake. he got outside of his own. because he works on this rich man, he sees part of the world

that probably nobody else in his family -- the mother and the wife, they may see it cleaning their houses. go ahead. >> i get to hang out with george. >> but on another level. >> george is forward movement. >> right. >> he is somebody whose father is a success in the town. like lorraine said, except they are also -- lorraine's father was grounded. but george's family is above the fray. extraordinarily bougie. they assimilated. >> why did she hate that so much? >> she is revolutionary. >> she does not want to give up. she wants to go further, grabbed that dream, and own all she is while doing it. that is a big deal, even today, to validate who you are -- >> without having to be part of

someone else's culture. >> what does ruth want? >> she wants love. [laughter] >> she wants the american dream. >> that is what she wants? >> she wants to have -- she loves walter. she loves the family. she wants them to get out of this hellhole. the idea that they can move to a house of their own is her greatest wish, to have a bit of space, a bit of a garden. a man that loves her. >> the american dream. >> she wants it. >> and obviously, it means something different to everybody. >> mama is just happy to survive, and survive sufficiently. he has never been to jail.

there always was food on the table. i think in that regard, lena feels successful. i kept my family intact. i had a husband. they had a father. we went to church. we did everything right. this is the most i dared to hope for. how far am i from slavery? it is enough to keep you alive and functioning. i am not dreaming with her. i would love to have a garden, because we had one down home. there were certain things you could do in the south that did not translate into the north as well, and that was one. you lived with the land. there was a certain freedom. i am from atlanta, so i know what that freedom is to be able to run in a field and to have the land anchor you, instead of concrete buildings. you know, which sort of define you. >> i think about the older people that came up in the great migration.

they were land people and suddenly became city people. i was thinking about that in the play a lot, the difference between your generation and our generation, and travis's generation. >> i have this great map i found online of the migration. most of the african-americans from chicago, in chicago, came up the mississippi river. they stop in st. louis. the louisiana, texas people went to california. louisiana went to oklahoma. that is the first time i had real gumbo, was in st. louis. >> people in chicago came primarily from -- >> the line was up the mississippi river. >> what about washington and new york? >> all of my folks are from georgia. my father is from virginia. my wife's folks are from north carolina. we went to new york, to buffalo, to d.c., to detroit.

all of my family are detroit and east. i have a couple in chicago. >> they found jobs at the auto companies. >> somebody went up there and came back home in the summer and said, they hiring up there. >> you can build a middle-class existence. >> exactly. >> bill wilkerson wrote a great book about migration. it really is wonderful. is this a happy ending? he makes a heroic decision. everybody feels like -- they say, even, so walter has recaptured his manhood by making this decision. do you see it that way? >> i think, going back to what he says, what this can do for us -- he captures it in that way. there is a reality, when they walked out that door. i am not sure about that. i do not know if he is going back to work. but he has to go back to work.

and i do not know if he is going back to work for mr. arnold, but maybe he might, in order to keep the family together. i do not think he necessarily wants to. >> take a look at this. >> we are happy at the end. >> it really is. >> they step into hope. it was a hard learned lesson, but they have learned the lesson. he learned the lesson. and we are now able to step into a hope that we were not allowing ourselves, many of us, to acknowledge, or to hold in the hand. ♪

>> this is the first clip we are going to show you. this is when walter lee reacts -- >> is this us? i hate to watch. >> i do not want to see. >> i do not want to hear it. >> me either. >> roll tape. here it is. >> leave me alone. eat your eggs.

they are going to get cold. >> man say, i got me a dream. woman say, eat your eggs. man say, i got to take over this world. woman say, eat your eggs, go to work. man say, i am choking to death. woman say, your eggs are getting cold. this morning, i look in the mirror, i am thinking, i am 40 years old. i have been married 11 years. i have a boy who sleeps on the living room couch. all i got to give them is nothing but stories about how rich white people live. >> eat your eggs. >> the great thing about doing the play -- it is so completely different now than that. he starts in this scene so optimistic and so happy, that by the time he gets there, he is much angrier than that and much more specific than that. he starts off -- did the check

come? it is not even the right day. she has the problem, not me. i am fine. the check is coming. i have to work her a little bit, to get mom going. here comes the sister. you look terrible today. the end of that and the end of the other scenes are not the same, but they are the arc for me. he comes out hopeful, and ends up "damn the eggs." i found, in playing it, to be hopeful. like lorraine said, he never gives up. that did not work so good. how are you doing? five minutes later, he is like, why don't you just get married like other women and shut up? and then she says, it took you

three years. that means he did not say it for three years. >> he finally got it said. >> were you glad you saw it done? >> i watch it all the time. i hear them all the time, because i am offstage then. >> you guys got tony nominations. >> i am smiling. i am happy. a piece of me is not. >> about this guy not getting a tony nomination. he has won a tony. >> that is what i keep telling myself. it sways my feelings. he has won everything. >> you know that is true. there is to african-americans in the history of the academy awards that have two academy awards for acting. i am one of them. >> and sidney? >> there are two african-americans in the history of the tony awards that won two,

james earl jones and myself. there is only one african american who has both, and that is me. that is not to toot my own horn, but is more better necessarily? i could have chose, if that is where my head was at -- >> a play that would have been more likely to deliver a tony. >> i am not thinking that. i am amazed by this opportunity and what i see. i only got 48 more chances. and i am happy for them. and i am really happy -- i know latanya longer. that is why i said -- there is no question. me and scott and kenny sat down and said, end of conversation. call latanya. we work together when i was the filling. she was starring in the play, 1979.

i filled in for skeeter. i came in as a replacement. i was like, who is this chick? because she was rumbling, and i never forgot it. >> were you romancing him a little bit? >> never. >> i have seen it with her. i have seen it with my own wife. i know what it is for her to have to take the second seat behind her husband for all these years. and do what she did, and raise her child. so successfully. >> deeply, profoundly. >> this ain't charity. i am not saying you did. i knew she could deliver, and i knew people did not know it. people are surprised. i am not surprised. i did not know anika and sophie from the theater. i knew their work. >> samuel jackson, you had a career, and you had a beautiful life.

>> it was a question of traveling. i am still used to the theater, where you go where the job is. do we stay at home? who keeps zoe? do you go to your job, i go to mine, and a nanny gets her? we tried it out, being great revolutionaries in college. he said, the most revolutionary thing black people could do is to keep the family intact. that is what we set out to do, and we did. of course, i cried. i am not saying i gave it up easily, because i did not. i kept my foot in it. i did not go all the way with the body. i got to shoot "u.s. marshals" and "losing isaiah" when she was a baby and things.

as she got older, it really was not easy to not have someone there with her. that is what i did. it was really like making a journey with her. now, she is still -- >> you are back and nominated for a tony. you did not lose your talent, did you, all those years? >> i do not think you do. i guess you can. >> it was -- creeping back in on something this hard. >> as a woman, there is a job of watching latanya be latanya, and having people know her as latanya richardson, for what she is bringing, not the person on her arm. there is the joy of a woman to see a mature woman stand on that stage, blow it away. it is undeniable. she does not have to look 10 years old. she does not have to be nipped and tucked and pulled and twisted. she is on the stage, fully

embodying who she is, and going further. latanya is beautiful and takes mama to a place that is unrecognizable. it is fulfilling as a woman to see somebody at this place in her life and body that, low it out, and how people screamed her name. it is important. it is something hollywood often denies us and pretends does not exist. >> these are my children. >> i want you to watch this. >> am i in it? >> no. >> i want him to be the first one here. come in, travis. [laughter] travis, you know that money we got in the mail this morning? >> yes. >> you know what your grandma done with that money? >> i do not know, mama.

>> she went and she bought you a house. you glad about the house? it's going to be yours when you get to be a man. >> i always wanted to live in a house. >> give me some sugar, then. and when you say your prayers tonight, you thank god and your grandfather, because he the one who give it to you in this way. [laughter] >> it is nice to be back. >> it is so wonderful. i cannot tell you. there is hope at the end, a place for me. there is a line, i hope you people understand what you are getting yourself into. that is not lost on me. >> it is interesting, being 2014. i almost got to be the dumb guy

in that scene. as soon as he says "you people," you are like -- and i am shushing you and doing all that, and the audience is ahead of it. somewhere, i say something like, just write the check. you are like, take the money. >> i thought about that. in this world, the relevance of now -- he is not wrong. you are talking about leveraging a deal that will not only get the money back that you lost, but would also garner us more funds on top of it. but it is at what cost question today, it would not matter, because that is what corporations do all the time. that is good. morals be dammed. this is about finance. >> when i am in the room, with beneatha out there, i am acting for $20,000.

it has changed. i come out with the attitude that we are going to make this deal. mama says, make it in front of your boy. it is not like i am afraid to make this deal in front of -- but mom says, make it in front of him. you want to sammy? sammy in front of him. go ahead, son. >> show him what right and wrong is. where is the line? >> show him how five generations have come to. >> have come to. >> have come to. >> is american theater different than british theater? >> yes. >> american audiences are different. >> i have a little fun here. it is much quieter.

they are british. and so you do not really get the same reaction. you do in some theaters. it depends what the hitter you are playing at. but most of the time, the audience are very quiet. here, it is much more lively. you really feel what the audience is feeling at any given time. and i love it. i am having the best time. i feel it is electric. i do not know if that is every show, but this is the only show i have experienced on broadway. every single show is electric. also, you get the luxury of a lot of reviews. i am used to about four previews, and then you are on. >> because of kenny? >> you just do more. old days, you would hit the road. >> by the time you come to open, you are really ready to open. i think the west end, in london, they get longer previews, but i mostly work in the national theater, rsc.

you get a few days, and then you are on. >> how did you get a chicago, south chicago accent? >> i worked with a dialect coach. >> is that hard for an actor? >> i find it really hard. i have to work really, really hard. it is no magic bullet. i work really hard, and then it comes. i have some year, but i am not a mimic. i have to get right inside the character. i am not a comedian mimic person. >> what was the conversation with sidney? >> i have him on film. i taped him. he is a gentle man. so giving. first thing out of his mouth is support. he says, i could never be as good as you, denzel. get out of here. he met my son first thing. he started lifting him up right away.

he is just the best. he is just the best. i did not go over there necessarily to get -- because i did not -- to be honest with you, i have never seen the movie from start to finish. >> you did not want to? >> i did not want to now, but i never had, no. i just wanted to go hang out and talk. i met him when i was young. he gave me some good advice early in my career. he said, the first movie i was going to do -- i was not going to do it. i hated it and they would not give me a lot of money. he did not tell me what to do, but he said, the first three or four films you do will determine how you are perceived in this business. i turned it down. the next three movies were with sidney lumet and richard attenborough. i turned down a lot of money, but it was making me sick to do it.

i like that story because he did not tell me what to do. he said, i can tell you that what you choose to do or choose not to do will determine how you are perceived. >> and when you look back, that is right. >> it changed everything. >> he worked with good directors. >> i turned it down, and four months later, i got "cry freedom," the first time i was nominated for an oscar. if i had done that, i would not have done "cry freedom," and who knows what would have happened. >> how do you like this ensemble? >> i love it. >> are you intimidated? >> i have my own little statue. >> she is the funniest. >> i do have my statue. but i do not function from intimidation.

i do not think it is healthy. sometimes, you cannot help it if somebody blows you away. was not the case. sometimes, something really moves you. we are all here with whatever our experiences and training is. we are all here to be on the same playing field and play our part in what this game is. and i love these players. i'd love to come to work and mess with them and have a good time, then to know that when i am on that stage, if it ever feels a little wonky, i have 8, 10 pairs of eyes i can look to, to ground and keep that story going. that is the most important thing, i think, about what we do. you know that you have a safety net on that stage. i think we are very, very lucky.

>> we are a group of working actors and there is no egos. everybody is just -- we are a family. we are a family. i do not feel any outsiders in this group. >> when the medical school money is gone, you say, they took my future. will you recapture your future? >> she has the same kind of passion you just expressed here. >> she has what my grandfather used to call gumption. >> there is a play, you need some gumption. >> that is my grandfather. she was going to school whether that money came through or not. >> even though they took her future for the time being. >> she is heartbroken in that moment. she is actually broken for a minute in that moment. but her fire and her spirit is so strong -- look what she came from. this woman came up from the

south and made a life with her husband, nowhere, knowing no one. she cannot help but be that person. we talk about the play of lorraine hansberry, who wrote a play at 28 years old that we are still -- [laughter] >> she is smart. >> she has the inside dope. go ahead. you tell her. >> we were talking about it earlier. denzel was like, how old was she? >> i asked about lorraine, and he did not know. he said, how old was she? >> i was going to take credit when the cameras were rolling, but not today. [laughter] >> that is funny. >> it is lorraine.

it is lorraine, this woman, this young woman, who somehow, out of chicago, knew the world. this is who beneatha represents. >> but some have said beneatha is only one side of her and you see two sides. >> i think she is in many people. >> how can someone so young be so profoundly understanding about life and about the african-american experience? but the larger experience. it was true of italian and irish and other immigrants that came here. >> lorraine says, i am going to be a doctor and everybody better get used to it. she also says, i will put the baby on my back and clean floors if i have to. >> writers are writing all parts of themselves. >> all the characters come out of their mind. they draw on parts of himself to create each of the characters. >> i feel like her voice is in all of us. >> let us talk about this idea

we also talked about. is this uniquely about the african-american family in cell chicago, or throughout this country? and with all the heritage of racism and slavery and all of that. or is it simply, with a much broader sense -- someone said at the deepest level it is not a simple situation for the human condition. the persistence of dreams and bonds between men and women. it is a deeper level. it is much more than the african-american experience. it is about every human experience where you feel that dreams have been taken from you. you feel like there are impediments. you feel like the things you based your life on may be part myth. >> it is part of her genius that created something that is specifically african-american, and yet at the same time completely universal. when the lights come up at the end, i am shocked sometimes by

how few black people are in the audience. >> because it sounds like the reactions make you think it is. >> the way they are responding. >> it is the amen corner. we are not there, sometimes. and people are on their feet and feeling things. not because it was their experience as brown skinned people in america, or black people in america, because it touched their hearts and the humanity of whatever their situation was. i think that is the genius of who she is. she wrote something that is distinctly ours, but -- >> it is based on the langston hughes poem about dreams. what changed walter in this play? >> the desire to do good for his family, to go further than his

father. he turns the corner when he is talking to his son, his love for his son. he goes from, i want to talk to you tonight, to -- he talks about everything. i do not know if he mentions beneatha. he talks about getting the house, the boy going to college. he wants to do this for his family. he says later on, hell yes, i would like me some yacht someday, but he turns around and says, i want pearls for my wife. he wanted to be the man of the family. he wanted to pick up the mantle where his father left. he wanted to take it to the next level. every day, he sees these other families doing it. he sees the arnold family. he sees it every day, and he wants that. but he wants it for them. he says to his mother -- when he

says, do you know what this money means to me, i do not think he means what i can buy. the next line is, do you know what this money can do for us? i think that is what it is for him. that is the mantra i got in my head, when i am in the bed when the play starts. i am going to get my sister this. i want to pay for my sister's school. i want to pay for everything. i want to get the wife the pearls. i want to get the house. i want to do all of that. to me, the line that hurts my heart the most -- i will not say it. >> why not? >> because i would not want to hear it. mom says, it makes a difference to a man -- >> he need to walk on floors that belong to him. >> and it crushes me, because they do not belong to me. they belong to her. i am a man, and it does make a difference when he can walk on

floors that belong to him. the floors belonged to her. and to my father. you do not belong to him. when i bought my first house, and i would come home from making a movie, i would walk around the yard for half an hour, and i would look around and that no i was home. a man's home is his castle. i was like him and this is what i am busting my behind four. i would look in the pool. i would go in the garage and look at the cars. it is important to a man. it does make a difference to a man when he can work on floors that belong to him. but the floors she is talking about do not belong to him. he wants to be that guy. if he has an ego, it is about wanting to do everything. you know, like she says, beating man like your father. i am trying.

give me this money, and i will do it. >> he said about your husband, a fine husband. a fine man. could never catch up with his dreams. >> he could not. he had dreams for them, you know? that was his dream. how can i make my children successful? i always want them to have something, that he could give them so they could be something. it is that part of it that obviously was our conversation, that we were not necessarily privy to all the time. i think in other cultures, especially in the dominant cultures, they probably do sit down. it is obvious to me that that is why everybody feel so privileged, is because they are told that at an early age. we get to tell our children that can be anything they want to be, and i do not know if we necessarily believe that. we just have to give them some kind of hope that they can be something. you know what i mean?

and i mean in the african-american experience. especially during the 50's. remember, this is 1959. this is a time fraught with riots and fear. a lot of it was, for me, for lena -- i am just happy they are alive and healthy and in school, that he has not been to jail, that he is drinking, and that is bothering me a lot, but i get it. i do not have a conversation, and intellectual dialogue to give him to make it at her. we do not have that conversation. >> you wanted to make sure your daughter had all she could achieve. >> i tell people, she was our experiment. i told her, let me explain something to you. your dad and i decided what happens. how are we sure that, in addition to the environment, that the internal environment of

a family is the nucleus of what makes a good person, and propels them into the world, to really be something. we see people who came from great families, know what i mean? what is it that we can do? we always try in our family to be truthful and honest, and try to say education is the way you are going to get ahead. no worries. you are not going to have to worry. from the time she started school, we did that. whatever job i had, whatever money i had, it was always important to me that she was learning something. more challenges as well. but to this day, i have to say, you lose a little sometimes in your culture when you do that. because you tend to see the institutions and what they are, and who is around them, and who

is in them. which leaves her bereft of her own kind a lot. >> what is very interesting to me -- we were talking about this the other day -- is there is a lot more tenderness mama has for walter and for travis than she does for beneatha. beneatha gets tough love. >> because she is going to be in charge. >> it is that interesting thing, where people think beneatha is spoiled. materially, yes. she has fabulous clothes. i think they make those clothes. she is going to school. the money is put aside. >> they are going to the cleaners. >> but the tenderness goes to the boy, and to travis. and we watch that cycle start to begin. and we hope that travis can break out of that. he is not a boy.

>> and we are like -- >> you know what is interesting? august wilson handled these decades. but in one play, she has covered almost from slavery to a woman becoming a doctor, in one play. almost in one scene. you know? that is how -- >> did you relate to this the same way they related to it, because of your own different experience? >> i relate to everything in the play. all the hopes and fears of ruth younger -- i knew i could play the part as soon as i read it. that is within me. >> as an actor, within your body of experience? >> perhaps they both crossover. they kind of mix and match. i had to do some work around the

great migration. over the years, i have amassed some information. some of the historical stuff, you grew up with, you got given, and i had to research that. >> there is also this. i am looking at the four of you. this is a play. it ought to be said, and you can never say it enough. it ranks of the great american players. you are talking about "death of a salesman." >> it is. >> there is august wilson. you talk about tennessee williams. you talk about miller. this is a play that ranks with the finest plays that the american theater has produced.

all the references to dreams. i have got to imagine their dreams continued, but have been fulfilled to a large degree. i am looking at dreams not deferred, but discovered and engaged. >> i won. we won. we won. i totally have fulfilled mine. totally. >> have you? >> no. because i have had so much success, one could argue that i could fool everybody, not the guy in the mirror. i am at a point in life where i am more goal oriented than ever. it does not have anything to do with my profession. it has to do with me, being the best me, bringing 100% of myself to what i do. who did i lift up today?

i spoke to some kids last night at the august wilson thing. sharing those things, sharing what i know, and lifting others up -- i love that. that is what i am working on. as it relates to your profession, i am only interested in doing exactly what i want to do now. >> you take pride in terms of where you, for lack of a better word, where you are. when we talked about who had how many tonys and oscars -- >> that is because you asked me a question. >> there was pride in the answer. >> there is truth. that is a fact. like lorraine hansberry, everybody has their dose of gifts they are given. this is what it is for me. these are facts. it does not make me -- what i am learning and know, it will not keep me on this earth one day

longer. you will never see a u-haul behind the hearse, you know? you cannot take it with you. the egyptians tried it. it does not matter from the successes you have. on your last day, you cannot trade that in for another day. i am saying it to say, it is what you do with what you have. not how much you have. >> he has done a lot. not only professionally. >> course i do not discount it personally. >> but that is what it is about for you at this stage of your life. [laughter] dave roth writes a lot about values in "the new york times." he said, people have to forget at some point about the resume and think about eulogy. what is it that you have contributed, made a difference in, in terms of what we all do? in terms of those human values.

>> my late friend, butch lewis, always talked about the dash. the dash between your birthdate and death date. he said, i am working on the dash. i am not working on winning awards. who did i help lift up? those are the things that are as important. our children -- somebody said it the other day. your children are gentle people. that is success. that is the reward. >> how many performances you have been through? playing at the barrymore theatre, the same place it opened. >> who had which dressing room? >> sidney had mine.

>> i met his first wife, and she did not seem to remember. >> i am honored to be among you. thank you for coming. >> thank you for having us. >> "raisin in the sun" at the barrymore theatre through june 15. after this conversation, there is no way we could keep you from the theater. thank you for joining us. good night. ♪

>> live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west," where we cover the global technology and media companies that are reshaping our world. i am emily chang. before the airlines and the private space race richard , branson made his initial fortune in music muslim dimwitted things about apple hill to buy beats, and when virgin galactic will be ready for space travel. fcc chairman is revising his plan to offer paid internet fast lanes after backlash.