>> from our studios in new york, this is "charlie rose." charlie: in a highly anticipated decision the federal reserve kept interest rates unchanged at record low levels. the committee cited global economic uncertainty and recent fragility in financial markets. the fed chair janet yellen addressed the decision at a news conference today. chair yellen: inflation has continued to stay below are 10% objective. partly reflecting declines in energy and import prices. my colleagues and i continue to expect the effects of these

factors on inflation will be transitory. however, the recent additional decline in oil prices and further appreciation of the dollar mean that it will take a bit more time for these effects fully dissipate. charlie: joining me now is glenn hubbard, the dean at columbia business school, a top republican economic advisor. gillian tett is u.s. managing editor at "the financial times." alan blinder is a professor at princeton university and a former fed vice chairman. david leonhardt of the new york times will be joining us. he has joined us now. i am pleased to have him as well. alan, give me a sense of what happened today. and what might these deliberations have been like? alan: i think they were contentious and a polite sort of way. everything is polite. the committee is divided.

from the statement, you can tell clearly that janet yellen was on the dovish side and was in her own polite way not getting resistance. there was no little bone thrown to the hawks in this statement. i was surprised the emphasis given to events outside of the country, to wit, in china. the fed doesn't usually pen any decision on anything other than things in the united states. charlie: give us the arguments being made inside, the basic arguments as to whether you raise interest rates or not. glenn: the argument for naught -- for not is the economy is still fragile in some ways. we don't have full employment yet. we could be doing better. the argument for raising rates, why are we putting the economy

on life support when we are growing it in the unemployment rate is what the fed said its target is? i see no argument for not having raised rates. charlie: they would do what? glenn: it would signal we have begun the process of adjustment. part of what the fed did was inject volatility. by referring to overseas events, and not talking about domestic developments the fed is confusing markets. gillian: it is extraordinary the fed has come out clearly and not come out and said, we did this because of china, but they indicated international events have forced their hand. the fed mandate is to protect employment and keep inflation low. this was a contentious decision because now there is a lot of confusion about what the fed is

trying to do. is it data dependent or is it time-dependent because it wants to do something before the end of the year? is it responding to international pressures or looking at consumer prices? above all else, how are they going to frame the reference points going forward if that is not clear? right now there is no clear reason to keep rates at the current level. we have an emergency system introduced to be the crisis that is no longer happening inside america. there is no obvious immediate incentive to cause them to raise rates. alan: there is a fundamental important reason that is being ignored. inflation is too low. the fed has been saying for years that once a particular measure of inflation to be 2%.

lately that number has been running closer to half that with no sign of going up. if you are the central bank trying to achieve a 2% inflation rate, there is a reason to keep stoking the engine. gillian: one of the questions is the fed targeting consumer prices or asset price inflation? guest: consumer price inflation. gillian: one of the consequences, they were trying to boost asset prices in the hope that it would boost the economy. glenn: china is the straw that broke the camels back. i think it is worth thinking about the other straws. the american economy is still extremely weak. we just got a report this week showing median incomes fell last year which is remarkable. we have low inflation.

we have an officially low unemployment rate, but we have a pretty weak economy. the idea economic policy but not just be having the fed do this, it would be a more active fiscal policy. it is hard to ask the fed to raise rates when the economy is as weak as it is, particularly because it has made one mistake over the last five years, it has been too passive and too willing to think the economy is about to get strong and has come to regret that. what you see from janet yellen is to avoid that mistake that ben bernanke made to avoid 2008 and 2012. guest: i have a different view. the problem is we have dollar influences. other influences. labor costs are getting into this. i don't think the fed can fix any problems david is talking about. the federal reserve is not there to ask structural problems, stagnant incomes.

they are fiscal policy problems. to say we don't have fiscal policy, let the fed do it, means that the fed is inflaming risks. charles: even though employment is not what it was two years ago? glen: it is into the zone the fed is arguing for. there is no argument to keep rates at zero. raising the rate is only going to have a material effect. it is more a matter of putting the economy on a normal course. gillian: you are creating a system that is getting hooked on the idea that money does not have a price. i lived in japan in the late 1990's and it is an insidious, subtle thing, this zero rate policy.

it begins to breed bubbles. we are already seeing that. the longer it continues the more difficult the process of normalization will be and the more the markets go through this waiting game, the more complacent it will be. charlie: what has been the reaction of central bankers around the world? guest: i don't know but i can't imagine there was a lot of surprise. the reason there should not have been surprise about this is the fed wants to give for warnings of its actions, hence about whether it is going to move or not going to move to not catch the markets by surprise. we heard nothing, not a whimper out of janet yellen for two months about this. if she raised interest rates today, there would have been a big shock wave going through the markets in the united states around the world. most people understand the fed,

were not expecting a movie today even if they wanted the fed to move today. guest: we did hear from stan fisher. there were hawkish statements. charlie: in the interim, before the decision was made? guest: the fed is confusing the markets and injecting volatility that need not be there. charlie: when you look at the productivity paradox, -- gillian: the reality is, right now the fed is like the pilot of the plane where the controls on the dashboard are going haywire and they are not behaving as you would expect in the fed is saying to us we can steer the plane very slowly and gently, and no one will notice. and the reality is not only do they have these currents with the dials are not behaving normally. productivity is extraordinary. why is there such a low level of productivity given that we are living through a tech boom?

maybe professor hubbard or professor blunder has the answer, but from what i can see the fed doesn't. guest: part of it is measurement. i'm not sure we're accurately measuring productivity. we are living. productivity boom. charlie: you can't measure productivity? guest: you will get some of that from this measuring productivity and missing output from new stuff but that has always been true. imagine what it would have been like when electrification was coming to the country. it has always been true there is new technology and the data system lags behind it. i'm not convinced that is worse now than it has been in the past. charlie: this is part of the fed decision, talking about china, what is your assessment of how china is handling its crisis? david: not that well.

it is worth acknowledging the chinese communist party has had a phenomenal 25 year run. imagine tianemin 1989, forecasting what china has done since then. i'm not excusing the human rights abuses but economic performance and political stability it is remarkable. this is the most serious challenges they have dealt with. there are big excesses there. they are trying to cap them rather than deal with them. they have competing interests. we're at a pivot point. we have had a series of presidents who have had to deal with a strong china. it is within the run the possibility the next president will have to grapple with chinese weakness in a way that

no american president has since george h.w. bush. charlie: i would love to see the conversation between the president of china and the president of the united states. gillian: i think they will be nervous. charlie: in terms of cyber. gillian: the chinese government is not simply trying to deal with economic transition from an economy where the money was directed towards investing heavily at the expense of consumers through banks, and trying to open it up, make a consumer driven to create capital markets, they are trying to do that the same time that they are trying to deal with internal political tension. and the most dangerous of all is people are losing faith in the ability of the bureaucrats to control things. they don't have faith market forces are free enough to allocate money. guest: the chinese financial system is not a modern financial system. state directed credit will get you so far, but we are now hitting the wall.

you can say open up a political power at the local level in china comes from control of credit. political figures don't give up the source of their hour. i'm skeptical that china can modernize its system very fast. charlie: what other things might defect consider? what is the analysis of our economy? alan: it is not far from where glenn started. we are getting close to the full employment zone, though janet yellen and others would say we are not quite there yet. there is further distance to go. try as we may we have not been able to lift the inflation rate. for one thing, nobody should be worried about an acceleration of inflation. the fed is worried about inflation running too low. another thought, let me mention it, somebody there, jenna will

-- janet yellen will be one but not alone, has got to be remembering the year 1996 when professional opinion was strongly congealed on the notion we were at full employment and could not move the rate even a notch lower and alan greenspan was totally unconvinced by this, believing we could, and we did. the fed did not raise interest rates and the economy grew strongly for another 3-4 years and the unemployment rate went down to 3.9. ryan do we know that we are on e verge of something like that, no, certainly not. suppose you put probability, that is a 20% chance. do you want to squelch that? some people are thinking about that. all that said, interest rates can't stay near zero forever. they have got to come up. you are talking about arguments over months, not years.

charlie: at what condition will cause janet yellen to recommend interest rates rise? alan: the most important thing she is looking for is tightening in the labor markets. people are coming back in. labor force participation. the so-called u6, the partially employed at people who want to work longer hours, and things like that. i want to emphasize the inflation rate. if the inflation rate starts moving up, she will take that as a big signal. guest: what are we going to learn? we are not going to see much movement in participation rates. we will see unemployment decline a bit. what exactly is the fed waiting to learn to normalize? david: we have been to worried about inflation.

the real problem has been employment. no inflation. inflation is near zero. charlie: to the surprise of most economists? gillian: and astonishment. david: and the surprise of the hawks. all the people who say they should be raising, are the people who said they should be raised before. i think it is less they are looking for new evidence and more you are seeing if we are going to air on the side, let's err on the side of not squelching what might be in an economic recovery that could bring more benefit to people. alan: i think some people in the that are thinking about they will never speak about, the united states congress, the house of representatives may be on the verge of taking the economy in the teeth again over the budget and national debt ceiling. they will know more about that in the middle of december and than they know in the middle of

september. they will never talk about that. that thrusts the fed into something very political. but they watch to see what the politicians do. gillian: they are held hostage unfathomable vagaries of the chinese economy, and the u.s. congress. it is a very odd vision. this is supposed to be a that a fed that is independent. what data are you going to use? >> but that is data. gillian: no one i know has created an out rhythm for that yet. charlie: janet yellen. what is your assessment? guest: she is an excellent fed chairman. charlie: even though she didn't do what you want to. guest: she is an excellent economist and she has done well at managing consensus in the

fed. david: i appreciate having her brooklyn accent in the national dialogue. we have all four of them. we have four of the five borroughs in this report. she is at a good start. charlie: when will we see 4% american growth rate? alan: it will be an aspiration. it would require an enormous activity growth. i don't think it is impossible. alan: the answer is what glenn said. unless we get productivity rising at 2% plus, which is the historic norm over a long period, 4% is way out of reach. charlie: you agree? gillian: sadly. charlie: jeb bush is promising 4%. guest: what bush is saying is, we need to have a conversation

about growth. we should have been growing at 4%. if we had better tax and regulatory policy, faster growth is possible. charlie: thank you. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: we begin with analysis of last night's second gop presidential primary debate. for three hours 11 candidates sparred on a wide range of issues at the ronald reagan

presidential library. the topics included immigration, iran nuclear deal, and appointments to the supreme court. former hp ceo carly fiorina and senator marco rubio earned praise for their performance. all the contenders took jabs at donald trump for training him as a qualified for the job. -- took jabs at donald trump portraying him as unqualified for the job. here is a look at the most memorable moments from the cnn debate. rand paul: his visceral response to attack people on their appearance, short, tall, fat, ugly. that happened in junior high. are we not above that? would we not be worried to have someone like that in charge of the nuclear arsenal? donald trump: i never attacked him on his look, and believe me there is plenty of subject matter. marco rubio: the united states military was not built to conduct pinprick attacks. if united states military is going to be engaged by a commander-in-chief it should only be engaged in an endeavor to win.

we are not going to authorize use of force if you're are not putting men and women in a position where they can win. quite frankly people don't trust this president because of that. carly fiorina: i think women all over this country heard very clearly what mr. trump said. [applause] donald trump: i think she has a beautiful face and i think she is a beautiful woman. and your brother administration gave us barack obama because it was such a disaster that abraham lincoln could not have been elected. jeb bush: as one thing relates to my brother, he kept us safe. ted cruz: george w. bush appointed john robertson. the consequences of that, if instead the president bush is -- president bushes had

appointed edith jones and michael ludic, obamacare would have been struck down three years ago and the marriage laws of all 50 states would be on the books. charlie: joining me from los angeles, bob costa of "the washington post." john heilemann of bloomberg politics. from washington, d.c., rebecca sinderbrand of "the washington post." and glenn thrush of politico. here in new york, jim rutenberg of "the new york times." i am pleased to have each and every one of them to talk about this debate for three hours. everyone seems to agree carly fiorina did a good job. let's get each person's response to the debate and talk about individual aspects of it and the nature of the debate, in which candidates are attacking each other. john heilemann, give me the bottom line. john: the theme, if there was one, the establishment strikes back. cnn orchestrated a debate. they wanted conflict, they got conflict. it was an epic film.

donald trump pointed out "gone with the wind" only ran three hours 26 minutes. there were some candidates hardly heard from. trump was at the center of most conflicts. there is no doubt that carly fiorina was the one candidate who broke through. she had the highest expectations and she performed. the question is how much she is going to rise in the polls is she proved she has a place on the main stage. for the rest of these candidates the ones who did well, how much will that register in terms of moving votes and moving opinions. for donald trump and ben carson, neither who had strong performances, whether that will matter to the people who support them. jim: i agree with that but what i found most striking, what this did was set the stage for a gigantic debate. we talk about it in terms of establishment versus insurgent.

outsider vs insider. i have not seen the republican party have debates over national security this way, over social issues. what i found striking, giant internal struggle within the party with the two front runners accounting for 50% of the polls high-fiving over the opposition to the iraq war. rebecca: it was fascinating to watch on the stage for the first time. candidates seem to figure out how to take on donald trump, how to handle him. cnn wanted to spark the debate, the conflict. some of the candidates had to deal with donald trump last time around and didn't know how to handle it. as the debate moved into policy areas, away from the personality, they seem adrift at

times. he found his footing, he didn't lose himself but the other candidates need to find their place. charlie: including ben carson? rebecca: ben carson was interesting. the last debate, you look at the social steps that the post and were astonished by what they saw. ben carson attracting attention on social media as donald trump. we thought we were watching a different debate than everyone else. he seemed quiet and overshadowed. same thing after this debate. we can have our assessment of how we think ben carson did but clearly something he is saying and doing is resonating with voters beyond the cosmetic and optics. charlie: is it simply part of the outsider status, the anti-politician mood? rebecca: absolutely. no doubt about that. the other thing, you have these

fresh faces within the republican party, you see the divide in the polls when you asked democrats how important is it to have someone who doesn't have government experience, how much do you want a fresh face, democrats thought it was a good thing but the majority said it would have someone like government experience. republicans rejected that. they wanted to see someone new, someone who had no ties to washington. they have plenty of options right now. charlie: what is donald trump's reaction to this other than telling cnn, in a tweet, he said just announced last night's debate was the highest rated ever, will they send me a thank you note?

guest: he has not been too terribly contrite. one of the interesting dynamics was the side-by-side comparison with jeb bush and donald trump. i can watch that for four hours. the teacher's pet taking on the captain of the football team who has been torturing him. for the first two hours, jeb really tried to attack trump. to very little effect, then there was this weird moment where trump extends his hand. instead of giving a handshake, it looks like bush took a whack at him. charlie: go to the central question, does this in a sense mean the beginning of a different place for donald trump? glenn: we have to wait for the polling on this. the only certainty is fiorina

will spike. it will be interesting if the people who support donald trump view this as the establishment taking a whack at him. the question here is how much of the support for donald trump is for donald trump as opposed to none of the above? the polling is going to be fascinating. charlie: talk to me about jeb bush. john: jeb bush gave a better performance than he did in cleveland. a big part of the bush campaign is an attempt to keep its donors, keep its supporters in a place where they do not panic. we are seeing by contrast in scott walker's world mass defections, mass panic. people who believe walker is in an unfixable tailspin. bush wants to avoid that. he has more money in the bank. he can afford more fragility. this performance was designed to say jeb bush is ready to fight and not going to go mildly.

charlie: you know the republican party. what do you think? guest: my senses we are watching -- we are watching and evolution of trump as a candidate. he has settling into the front runner row. he said he came to this debate prepared. he was preparing on carly fiorina. you see him sensing the nomination is within sight. he is more subdued with his tone, has the swagger, a different kind of candidate than in july. charlie: what kind of position do you assume he will take? bob: trump and his campaign manager says the next up is releasing his tax plan in the next few weeks ahead of the next debate hosted by cnbc.

donald trump is going to attack capital gains, continue the populist message on economics. charlie: is that a perceptive message? receptive message? bob: it is changing the party. look at governor bush, he is taking a populist mood. bush like most republican wants to lower corporate tax rates and trump would like to do the same , but the trump effect is trickling down to the policy plans of candidates and you see bush adjusting and many others. charlie: chris christie. gillian: chris christie. coming into last night there were people saying they had written him off. he did not disappear on stage. there were plenty of candidates

that did. it felt as though scott walker and chris christie in similar positions in terms of the polls and momentum, coming out of the debate a huge difference. people are talking about chris christie's performance, scott walker's less. charlie: was this a good debate to have where the intent is to get the candidates talking to each other and fighting to each other? gillian: you struggle to think how you could handle 11 candidates at once. three hours, i have to say, as someone who has worked on these debates, i used to work for cnn on debate coverage, it is a slaughter. you try to get in as many questions as you can. by the end jeb bush may have been the only who found his stride in the third hour. everyone on stage to the viewers and reporters were feeling the time by the time it came. charlie: what are the democrats

going to debate? guest: they start to debate next month. charlie: october 13. guest: another cnn debate moderated by anderson cooper. the big question that is looming over the thing is whether that debate will be the current field, hillary clinton, bernie sanders, lincoln chafee, or whether joe biden will have decided to get into the race by then. the debate will look different if joe biden is in it. that is an element of suspense we have. it is going to be a huge moment for the party. it will be the first in the debate.ratic bernie sanders is on the cover of time magazine. hillary clinton has been

flipping in a steady downward way for the past several months. it is a big moment for hillary clinton and bernie sanders. charlie: anybody else have an idea on biding that may reflect biden, that may reflect on how he is going about making this decision? is it within his own head and heart. guest: i have spoken to some democrats as i have been reporting. they believe the vice president can wait. they would like to see him but they know he is watching secretary clinton, seeing how her campaign unfolds. he would rather play the role of savior than someone who rushes in. charlie: that is an interesting idea -- when you talk about these debates, what issues are emerging? as i was watching and doing multitasking, i don't see great differences.

they are all against the nuclear deal. they are all unanimous in their criticism of the president. they have some differences in immigration. planned parenthood for the most part they have the same point of view. correct? guest: i saw a couple of places where it was interesting on national security, on the iraq war, on interventionist positions. i thought that was interesting. there was some difference on whether county clerk can say no to a marriage license. there was -- charlie: bush versus trump? guest: and walker was in that. when i grew up as reporter the republican party was in lockstep. i saw a difference on that stage than i am used to seeing. guest: one of the interesting differences was in the undercard debate. bobby jindal, who is seizing the tea party banner and calling for a government shutdown, versus

lindsey graham who says you will lose an election, it is political suicide to do that, that was one of the interesting exchanges. that shows the schism between the party and the approaches to governing. charlie: the emerging division or the division that has always been there but is more glaring because of donald trump and carson, between establishment and insurgent. that seems to be the distinction within the party. glenn: the emergence of that blurs that. he is in a no man's land in between those lanes. he is not standing on the top of the hill saying shut down the government. it will be interesting to know when and the government shutdown takes place what position that puts donald trump in.

guest: is the issue about what donald trump did about gambling in florida one that is likely to hurt one or the other? guest: it shows jeb bush has $100 million and there is research out there on donald trump. we saw a rapid stories about that. trump denied it. the fact checking class had sided on jeb bush on that. that was a shot across the bow and we will see more of that. it may be something deeper with the bush and trump rivalry. >> i asked about this. is it perhaps about class, old money versus new money? trump said he never thought about that but he said maybe there is something there. trump is this rash personality, there is a tension that has lingered throughout the campaign.

charlie: john kasich. he probably helped himself a little if anything? glenn: i don't think he had the same night that he had in the first debate. some people in the political class say maybe he will not wear it out well. i don't think he hurt himself. he had a standout night but he did not last night. charlie: rand paul? guest: boy. i would put him in the sinking dinghy next to scott walker. glenn: someone who bet on attacking trump to propel his campaign that has been derailed by the force of donald trump. gillian: the rick perry memorial strategy. [laughter] charlie: in memory of the late. thank you all. what a great session. thank you very much. we'll be right back.

stay with us. ♪

charlie: david oyelowo is here. he received great praise for history trail of dr. martin luther king jr. in "selma." his new film is "captive" -- alongside kate mara. he plays an escaped convict who will in 2005 murdered a judge on in 2005 murdered a judge and

three civilians. he held a woman hostage and her apartment for seven hours. here is the trailer. >> mommy. >> hey baby girl. >> i love you. >> i love you too. >> i hate this car. i lost everything. they said i was an unfit mother. >> have you heard of this book? it helps me. >> you are late, ashley. ♪ >> when i heard i had a son, i had to break out. >> breaking story. police are looking for this man. >> brian nichols. >> i want all eyes in the sky. let's flush nichols out.

>> my name is ashley smith. i am a mother. >> i don't trust you. you do that again and i will have to kill you. >> i need to see my daughter. >> you are not going anywhere. >> god help me. >> what is that? >> it is a book. >> read it to me. >> you want to know why you were placed on this planet, begin with god. he expects you to make the most of what you have been given. >> i haven't been given anything. >> you have a son. >> you are going to hear some bad things about me. whatever happens, i love you.

>> the greatest tragedy is not death, that life without purpose. >> could you forgive me? >> i don't know. maybe god can. charlie: oyelowo is also nominated for an emmy in his work in the hbo film nightingale. i am pleased to have him back. welcome. david: thank you. charlie: you have heard this a thousand times. it is quite a move from dr. martin luther king jr. to brian nichols. was this a conscious choice so that you wanted to do something different to show the wide range of your appetite and skills? david: playing different kinds of roles for me is always conscious. especially having played a role like dr. king, i have the best -- had are the best time playing him. it was an honor and it is something i am glad to be associated with the rest of my life.

are what you don't want is to be associated purely with one character for the rest of your career. the way to do that is to ring changes so the audience is left guessing. charlie: this is a cold killer. what do you want to make sure you've got about brian nichols? david: it was a fine line. you want both things, the cold killer and the human being. no one of us is just the one thing. when you look at the headlines, when you look at that day on march 11, 2005 and watch the footage of him on the news, he is a monster. he is a man on a tear, killing people. charlie: for no apparent reason. i have not read the book.

the woman who kate marrow plays mara plays has been on talk and plays has been on talk shows. david: when you investigate it was a combination of things. he claimed to have not done the rape he was on trial for. charlie: does he have reason to claim that? david: i don't think -- it was his girlfriend who he raped. it was his word against hers. he truly believed he had not done it and was looking down the barrel of a 25 years in prison. he had a new son and that was something that played on his mind. i met his mother and she asked him why he did what he did. he said he had had an incident in jail where he was in a cell along with other black prisoners and they were shackled, and an incident broke out and they were pepper sprayed and he said in

that moment he felt what it must have felt like to be on a slave ship. she thinks that is the moment when something snapped. he remains i think in this fugue state until encountering ashley smith who somehow, her plea not to be killed, reawakened the humanity and him. charlie: you begin to see it in small acts. here is a scene. she convinces him to let her use the bathroom alone. >> i have to use the bathroom. >> go for it. hey! >> i can't go with the door open. >> i will turn around.

>> i can't go with you standing there. >> i don't trust you ashley. what are we going to do? you're going to talk. want to shut the door and you are going to talk. i'm going to go to mexico and get the truck. where we going? >> mexico. [crying] charlie: he is high on methamphetamine at that time. david: he is. a drug he has never taken before. ashley smith cannot quantify why she gave him the drug. she gave him methamphetamine which she had in the house, you give a guy methamphetamine that is not going to go well.

charlie: you have no insight into that. david: she is vulnerable but also they are a mirror for each other. she is a meth addict. she has made choices to ostracize herself from her child. they are broken people and they saw something in each other that gave them all to allow them to have a conversation in which she could read the purpose driven life to him and make pancakes for him. they had this exchange. she had also been relegated to the scrap heap. she said when brian nichols broke into her apartment, she had watched the news and scene -- seen there was this killer on the loose, she thought it was god's way of saying you have messed up so much you deserve death. that is the place she has gone to. brian nichols, as his humanity is awakened, he comes to terms with the fact that four people are dead because of what he has done.

the trickiest thing for me was to in no way try to excuse brian for what he did but for him to be someone who let her go and gave himself up, there is some humanity left in him. charlie: was this an easy choice? david: no. i know what it costs me to play a role. like daniel day-lewis, i aspire to immerse. you have to give yourself over to the character and not judge the character. you have to place yourself in their mindset and understand what they do what they do. as a person i find what he did reprehensible. it is going to cost you to be in the headspace. i was inspired with ashley smith, that is what made me feel

like i wanted to lend myself to it. charlie: what happened to her? david: she never touched the drug again. charlie: he begs her and threatens her, if you don't take this after i've taken it, so i will know there was nothing bad. she says no because she realizes she has gone back to the worst place she has been. david: she said if i'm going to die, i don't want to meet my maker with methamphetamine in my system. she said got took over her body and was given a choice, life or death. that is an incredible question to ask yourself. charlie: the book, "the purpose driven life." some have called this a christian movie. does that mean anything to you? david: i understand it because we are always looking for ways to categorize things to understand them.

that is not what drew me to it and that is not i hope ultimately it is going to be purely understood to be. faith-based movies largely seem to be made for a niche audience, for christians, and they can be heavy-handed in terms of profit with tory nature of them. charlie: and they make a lot of money. david: they make a lot of money with a niche audience. for me as a person i want to reach as broad an audience as i can with anything i do, especially with this. it is not about one person having it all together leading another person to salvation, it is to broken people. that is a major difference.

charlie: then there is "nightingale." how did that happen? david: the script came along and i didn't understand what i was reading. one guy in a house on his own for the whole movie. it starts with him having killed his mom. who is going to stick around with this guy? i found the writing so audacious, he suffers from disassociative identity disorder. charlie: this came before king. who is peter? david: peter snowden is a recluse, he used to be in the military suffering from ptsd, weighed down by unrequited love with an army buddy who he has convinced himself he is purely friends with. he still lives with his mom. he has had a very heavy-handed upbringing. there is so much about him that is closeted and claustrophobic, and here he is in one house

dealing with this terrible thing he has done. charlie: you thought idris would be a great james bond. david: what's so funny in the soundbite age, i thought idris would be great in a row like james bond. all the noise around him -- a leading man, jason bourne or bond, or mission impossible, the audience is telling our industry what it wants to see. our industry is saying it has to be a white, good looking guy time and again. television is showing us it doesn't have to be.

the audience will stop watching if you don't give them what they want. it is a different perspective. i have a very real agenda of people of color being at the center of their own stories. so often we are on the periphery of stories. images are political. you have to be part of the solution otherwise you are part of the problem. charlie: it is a pleasure to have you here. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

announcer: "brilliant ideas," powered by hyundai motors. narrator: the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. it's a 21st century phenomenon, a global industry in its own right. "brilliant ideas" looks at the artists at the heart of this, artists with a unique power to astonish, challenge, and surprise. in this program, american painter and filmmaker ellen gallagher. ♪