♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> in 1994, a young rolling stone reporter got the chance of a lifetime, appear interview with rock and roll legend keith richards. now more than 20 years after that fateful day, cohen has written a book cataloging his years with the band and never before read interviews with rock and roll legends.

it is called "the sun and the moon and the rolling stones." the "chicago tribune" calls the book masterful and goes on to say hundreds of books have been written about this particular band and cohen will rank among the very best of the bunch. i am so pleased to have my friend rich cohen back at this table. rich: thanks for having me. >> first time for us at this table, but not the first time for us talking. we just noted here, one of the great things about a book like this is that so much has been written about the stones, but you bring this perspective to it that is unique. that goes back to not just when you met them in 1994, but your childhood. rich: when i was a little kid, i was the youngest brother and my favorite song for a long time was rhinestone cowboy by glen campbell. when i felt sorry for myself, i would go into my bedroom and listen to it. my brother had moved up to the attic and locked the door to all comers.

i heard the cow bell that was honky tonk woman. it picked me up and levitated me up into his room where i heard just enough it before he beat me back down the stairs, it ruined me for life and made me a lifelong rolling stones fan. i got the experience to travel around the country with the stones. host: you called the attic heaven at the time? rich: he ascended to heaven. just because my parents are too lazy to walk up the extra flight of stairs. host: let's take it back to beyond where it began with you, where it began for the stones because this takes up so much of this book, it all comes back to the blues.

rich: well, i'm from chicago. i got really interested in the blues going to the checker board lounge which was buddy guy's club. basically they would serve you red wine when you were 14 years old. so we started going down there when i was a kid. the rolling stones showed up there and played there. muddy waters would play there. this music, when i heard, i just remembered, i wrote about it in the book, this club in amsterdam, milky way, famous club sitting there at a table and hearing muddy waters sing i'm a man and it was like you can almost hear the music turning from the delta blues into rock and roll picking up all of the steel of all of the trains at the illinois central railroad went through. muddy waters had to plug in their acoustic instruments to be heard over the crowds. the music being heard over the railroad that gets picked up by music and mick jagger in england, they try to copy it and copying it, they change it and they bring it back to chicago and record their second record at 2120 south michigan avenue, chess records, sort of bringing the music back to the city. host: and some were more comfortable with the way that got copied and changed and evolved than others. rich: well, it's the whole idea. is it appropriation, there was a

great line by some jazz musician, i forgot, you can't steal a gift in a way. the guys like muddy waters really liked the rolling stones, they recognized what the rolling stones were doing was not what pat boone were doing. they weren't making the covers of tootsie fruity like pat boone did. they were doing something interesting and new. so i think when howling wolf went to england for the first time and needed a backup band, they got the yard birds. if you listen to the rolling stones sing their version of "little red rooster," it's up there with the original versions of it. coast: for so many, it's beatles and stones. for you it was beatles and stones as well, always that competition, always that comparison? rich: early on the stones manager realized the beatles had filled the niche. they were sort of the good guys.

they were wearing the white hats as keith richards said, who is wearing the black hats. the stones could fill that niche. the beatles became love. the rolling stones were sex. i heard the rolling stones, it was everything dirty and nasty that i wanted to try out when i was older. so to me, that was the rolling stones. the rolling stones were like a gang, the outsiders or west side story. the head of the gang was mick and keith. it wasn't just the music, it was the band and the dirtiness and in-fightings, the was the music. jesus had paul. elvis had the colonel, and the stones had andrew. before they met him, their name was the rollin' stones, it was from a muddy waters song. listen, nobody is buying a record from a band that can't spell their name properly. they had six members, made them lose one of their numbers. when i was a kid, i heard somebody describe that they're so ugly, they're attractive. that was going to be the stones and they were kind of the opposite of the beatles. host: i asked andrew this years ago, i said what was the key to the success of the rolling

stones and he said they showed up. rich: yeah, actually, they literally showed up which there was a concert early on there was a concert that the band that became the kinks had, they couldn't show up because there was a snowstorm. the stones filled that gig. that became the regular gig which became the crawdaddy club which made them a bar room sensation. what is interesting to me, they didn't know if they should play the first night, there was three people. there is think thing you can take away for a performance for life. what do you do, you play. you don't punish the people who did come for the sins of the people who did not come. host: one of the people unfortunately had a problem showing up sometimes was brian jones. another bandmember who was lost for various reasons, andrew was involved in those machinations as well. that was -- for you, that must have been difficult to revisit some of that or talk to keith and mick about that. rich: you write. well, it's interesting. to me, the title of the book is

the sun and the moon and the rolling stones." when i first interviewed keith and told them what year i was born, 1968. he started to laugh. you should be answering my questions. it's always been the sun and the moon and the rolling stones. brian jones died in 1969. i come back from this different perspective which is a kid who grew up with the band in the post-brian jones era. this was brian jones' band, he was the great musician. it was his slide guitar around were the rolling stones formed. what happened was, the stones became successful, he lost control of the band. one of the things i loved so much about the rolling stones is all the things you have with your own friends, all of the problems and feuds they had. they're completely human in that way. they would have a tendency to single a guy out and pick on him until he went insane. for a while, that became brian jones. it's agonizing to read about him. because he was such a great musician and his sound is so important in that music. was that hethat it

was being driven slowly insane by the fact that he had lost control of the band and became a drug casualty and the rolling stones that i grew up is built on the remains of this brian jones rolling stones. some girls. to me, it's like going back and discovering the antique age. >> so you were already so red in and listened in to the legend that is this band. you start working for rolling stone magazine, into obviously did some reporting beforehand, but you get the assignment. rich: right. when i first interviewed at rolling stones, they said, listen, he is going to ask you if you can interview anyone in the world, who would it be? do not tell him the truth. because whoever you say you want to interview, you will never interview that person. so about 20 minutes in, you could interview anybody who would it be, i wanted to interview the rolling stones, i said bruce springsteen. so sure enough he called me up , and said how would you like to go on the road with the rolling stones. all of a sudden i'm on a plane. i fly to toronto in the middle of the night. i show up where keith had been busted not that long as well.

jan came later. i went by myself. i got met by keith richards' sort of personal assistant, let's go. it's midnight. you're on rock and roll time. they work from 12:00 until 9:00 a.m. they took me to a great school in the suburbs. if you ever wonder what is going on at your grade school in the middle of the night in summer, the stones are rehearsing there. you could hear the "brown sugar" rift going through the school. in the grade school gym, a place of torture for many of us, the rolling stones had taken it over. in they just, for about two weeks played through their entire catalog putting together their show. that was probably the decision to be a reporter and not to go to law school like my parents wanted was sort of justified by those two weeks of me basically being the only you audience for the rolling stones. host: you say that was the best performance or concert experience you ever had?

rich: the best is before they went on that tour, the voodoo lounge tour, they did a pop-up show in toronto to play before a live audience. keith said the reason we keep playing, it doesn't exist until we have it in front of a live audience. people say to me, well, you know, i saw the rolling stones at the meadowlands and they were pretty good, but they were not so great. i say, listen, you have not seen the rolling stones. the rolling stones exist at a bar at 3:00 in the morning where everyone is drunk and keith richards has found the groove. i got to see them in that environment in toronto and to me, you realize what they are which is the greatest bar band in the history of the world. host: you became closer or talked much more with keith than you did with mick. you write and sparingly i think, about mick, and you are candid in your estimation of what his successes and fractures are. what was it about keith richards that sort of turned on that light for you? rich: the thing that is great

about the stones. it's the ying and the yang of keith and mick. disco versus blues. mick is kind of cold and distant. i worked with him later. he was one of the creators of vinyl. he doesn't want to let you know who he is. he sort of remains mysterious and removed like prince or bob dylan. he has that incredible ability. keith puts you at ease. he is a guy who seems to have found out how to live in the world and how to be comfortable in the world and comfortable about his own skin. i always say, listen, there is a keith richards like how-to book guide to life like for frank sinatra. there is not one for mick jagger, he is a mystery. host: you say you have these interviews with mick in particular and you think you got gold and you go back and listen to it or look at the transcript and you realize he didn't say very much about anything and keith was the exact opposite? rich: when i first went up there to interview mick, i'm getting scoops left and right, he is saying stuff he never said

before. when you get tapes back, like interviewing a pro athlete after the game, there is nothing here. you think you have a huge fish, you got a tire. this is a disaster, he mumbles, you can't understand him. sometimes he would start laughing for no reason as he suddenly starts realizing how ridiculous his life is. you get those transcripts back, and it's absolutely brilliant. and so to me, those two guys together are the rolling stones. and mick's folks ripped you after the first article. rich: i got a funny phone call with a guy i became friends with, he had gone through and counted. you mentioned keith richards 78 times but mick jagger 32 times. this story is called on the road with the rolling stones. that's not correct. i loveuld be called, " keith richards and want to have his baby."

host: you acknowledge that later. rich: do i want to have his baby? host so keith did say something : to you that i think that stuck with you and really resonated. that is with respect to charlie watts. charlie seemed to like you. what was it about that that made charlie, because i don't think he necessarily liked or let a lot people in like mick did. what was it about the interaction with charlie watts? rich: i did get this crazy access you don't get anymore to them in those years. i used to drive back to the holt with charlie watts. he was really into chicago and jazz, stuff i'm interested in. we would have these conversations. about the civil war and american history and when i interviewed keith, he said on tape, because i saved the tape, that and my tape of marlon brando calling at 3:00 in the morning, my two prized possessions. i'm not going to do the accent, but it's the whole thing, charlie really likes you. you get the gold medal for that. charlie doesn't like many people. after that, it was like, "i'm

in." as the little brother always in bed listening to the party down stairs but not being able to leave early, you hang out with people older and cooler than you and get a sense you belong, all of those skills came into play when i was hanging out with the stones. host: when you experience something like that, is there a moment when you come down and sort of appreciate everything that has happened and say, my gosh -- rich: two years later i was walking through new york city i thought what the hell, i can't believe that. at the time i was so focused on, i was young. it was a cover story for "rolling stone." i also really idolized a lot of the "rolling stone" writers and i knew that the history of the magazine, i wanted to do a good job. i was trying to act not like a fan, but a professional. i didn't let myself reflect on the amazing experience i was having until much later. that's what this book is to some extent. host: through your lens.

rich: the idea that i had this experience, i have a 12-year-old son. i was driving with him listening to his music. it suddenly occurred to me, this music sucks. that's honestly what i thought. i thought wait a second. this is probably because i'm old. i'm an old guy. let me do some research and see if i'm right. i realized it does kind of suck. that's how i felt about it. the way we felt about rock and roll when i was a kid, the idea was you would wait for the next record the way people wait for the new iphone. you think if it was the right record with the right collection of songs, you had a chance to have a pretty good summer. the right record could change your life. at some point, the right energy, a great band or song, but a movement that was heading somewhere ended and it died. to me personally, i felt like it died when kurt cobain died. i was working at "rolling stone." i felt like the air was coming out of a balloon. i felt like this thing that was so important, like a religion, rock and roll, it kind of died and nobody has stepped back and told the whole story. i'm not old enough to have been with them in 1963 or 1966, but my age is kind of advantage to step back and see the whole big

picture. it's like there is a famous quote, you have to wait until evening to see how glorious the day has been. i felt like that was my perspective and that was my goal with the book was to tell the story of rock and roll through the rolling stones. >> what is next for the stones? >> people ask me how long will the stones keep playing? i say, well, what will happen, they'll be on stage somewhere and somebody will say, hey, guys, you died three years ago. i think they're just going to keep going and going and going. because that's what they do and john lennon famously said, they got to the end of the road on the road and that was like in the late 1960's and keith richards kind of sagged, well, they are is no end to the road. " the sun and is the moon and the rolling stones. " rich cohen, so good to see you

again. thank you a lot. really fun. think you.

♪ charlie: president obama held a town hall meeting in washington this evening on race relations and policing. he fielded questions from law enforcement and community leaders to promote greater understanding. this evening, we look back at parts of a conversation i had with brian stevenson about race and justice in august of last year. brian stevenson is the founding executive director of the equal justice initiative.

charlie: tell me what it is that you think is the most important question for this country as it considers race and justice? brian: race and justice, how are we going to recover from our legacy of racial inequality, this history of racial injustice that has infected all of us, that has compromised all of our abilities to see one another fairly. i think that's really the question that we have never taken on. we have never really tried to confront the legacy of slavery. i actually think we need to talk about slavery. people kind of look at me hard when i say that. i don't think we have ever dealt with that legacy. slavery was something that was really horrific in this country because it wasn't -- the great evil of slavery wasn't servitude or forced labor, it was the narrative of racial difference we created, the ideology of white supremacy. charley: in fear your versus superior. >> exactly. that consciousness, that

narrative was never addressed by the 13th amendment. that's why i argue that slavery didn't end, it evolved. charlie: and it exists in our minds because of what we think about questions of race and color? bryan: yes, i think there is a presumption of dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to black and brown people, particularly black and brown boys that we have never freed ourselves from. because it has been sustained in reinforced. we lynched people in the first half of the 20th century because of the presumption of dangerousness and guilt. we segregated people and ourselves and we still do. now on the streets when people see young men of color, there is this presumption that they are dangerous or guilty. in the criminal courtroom, you see this all the time. we're not going to make progress until we free ourselves. i think we need truth and reconciliation in america. we haven't had that. talkie: why should we about it?

bryan: we should reflect on the damage that was done. i hear people talk about the movement, it sounds like a three-day carnival. on day one, rosa parks didn't give up her seat on the bus. dr. king marched on washington and day three we changed the laws and everyone gets to celebrate. ♪ charlie: one year has passed since six world pours reaches a deal with iran. secretary of state john kerry said iran had lived up to its expectations while acknowledging that challenges remain. tehran has launched a series of missile tests in recent months and supporting president asaad in syria. for its part, iran has complained it has yet to see economic relief that was offered as part of the accord. joining me is david sanger from the "new york times," and ray tacky of the council on foreign relations, i am pleased to have them here on this program. we begin with david who had a front page story on the "new york times" today about a year later, a mixed record for the iran accord, solid progress on core nuclear pro villages but

-- nuclear provisions, but little more. let's begin to talk about the nuclear provisions. david: within the four corners of the agreement in which iran agreed to dismantle a number of its centrifuges and keep some running, agreeing to ship out 98% of its fuel, in which it agreed to neutralize the big plutonium reactor, they have done everything that they said they would do. and if you think back a year ago, you had members of congress, particularly opponents of the deal and prime minister benjamin netanyahu of israel saying they wouldn't comply with them, but they have complied with all of them. is outsideblem now that range of the deal, they took advantage of some wording they got negotiated in to change you and resolutions so that they

are now conducting these missile tests and nobody believes the u.n. is going to go in and step in their way because the u.n. resolution only calls upon them to show restraint. it doesn't prohibit them. they are continuing support of hezbollah and of course of the syrian president, they were doing that before and doing that more intensely now. charlie: somehow there was the belief, not expressed, but the belief that somehow there may be some moderation. is the united states doing anything to moderate their behavior? >> charlie, i think about the nuclear deal in three different boxes, the nonproliferation box, the regional box and the iran domestic box. and i think as david alluded to earlier, it's been a success in the nonproliferation box. but in both the geopolitical box and the iran domestic box, it's been more of a disappointment. many of iran's neighbors in the region, particularly saudi arabia, israel, the smaller gulf countries say the behavior

hasn't changed at all and they have more resources to double down on groups like hezbollah and shiite militias in iraq and yemen. we saw elections last february in iran which very slightly changed the composition of the iranian parliament to slightly more moderate actors. on, the president really is his heels, the hard line forces in iran are still very much entrenched. and so i think that hope that the obama administration had that this nuclear deal could moderate iran's regional practices or domestic practices hasn't been borne out yet. charlie: david, was the deal worth it? david: charlie, within the confines of what they were trying to attempt, i think it was worth it because it has put off what i think was a fairly imminent confrontation. i don't think that the israelis were bluffing when they said at some moment they would probably have to go off and take military action. they came up to the edge of it,

we now know, two or three times during the obama administration. the fact that no one is out there right now talking about an imminent conflict is good. on the other hand, as ray points out, this deal has got time limits in it and those time limits are shorter than what the administration wanted. charlie: ray, in terms of the missile development that is taking place and changing the language at the united nations, what are they developing and how dangerous is it? ray: iran is developing long range missiles, the purpose of those missiles is to carry unconventional payload which is nuclear arms in some respects. this has always been an aspect of this deal that is curious. because a nuclear program produces weapons, but also produces a means of delivering those weapons. this agreement essentially excluded means of delivery from its consideration, which was always very unusual. and iran also relies on missile for defensive purposes as well

, it ships some off to hezbollah -- and the concern is that the ballistic missiles that they're developing, the intercontinental missiles for which there is no legitimate defense purpose other than carrying an unconventional payload. charlie: 10 years from now when this has a sunset clause, what will be the test? in other words, i'm asking, you can't really say this deal has worked or not worked until 10 years out. david: that's right, charlie. but there are some early interesting markers. so, this is the one-year anniversary, we are doing a first assessment and we've discussed that first pass working within the nuclear side but not in many of the other areas. i think the next test is going to be what happens within iran if they don't see more of the economic benefits that they expected. now, i think they overexpected the economic benefits. you know you hear a lot of , people say that there would be $150 billion of their assets

unfrozen. the treasury department believes it's about $50 billion. but when you ask the question of u.s. officials, how much of those funds have actually been transferred back to iran or made use by iran outside of the country, they won't answer and they won't answer, charlie, because the number is so low that they're afraid that it's going to worsen the politics of this for their president and for the foreign minister who negotiated the deal. so you have seen the secretary of state john kerry in the odd position of going out urging european bankers to do more to open up their relationships with iran because he knows that if the basis of support for this deal erodes in the next year or two in iran, then the whole thing could fall apart much more quickly than the schedule that we have discussed. that will be the next marker and then the third marker is what do you do if the irgc and the next

supreme leaders say at year eight and 15, it's full speed ahead. we're just going by the letter of the law here and build a full nuclear program. at that point you could be back where we were last year, that's a ways away. charlie: i assume they said that the president has often said, reinstitute sanctions, which is much harder to do the second time around. david: and the rest of the world has moved away from the sanctionses very quickly. the only impediment to investment in iran right now has been fear of u.s. continued sanctionses against a company or bank that broke the rules and the iranians own antiquated banking system and antiquated economy that has made many companies fear the risk of going into iran now even after a deal. charlie: what would have to happen to change iranian behavior? >> i'm skeptical that iran's

fundamental behavior will really change until there is a different supreme leader. the current supreme leader is 77 years old. and i would argue he really fears rapprochement with the united states more than he fears continued contained confrontation and i have to say i'm not as perhaps optimistic as david and ray, that the nuclear deal will reach its 10th year, because i think one of the fundamental sources of contention about the deal is whether additional sanctions from the united states would constitute a violation of the deal. and the obama administration has been reluctant to react against iran's missile tests, regional provocations, because they don't want to jeopardize their main foreign policy legacy but i could easily see a scenario whereby a year from now, two years from now, iran does something provocative in the

region -- whether that's go after u.s. forces, whether it's human rights abuses at home, more missile testing, acts against israel, and the next u.s. congress reacts by passing new sanctions against iran and iran's supreme leader reacts by saying you just violated your end of the deal because we said any additional sanctions are an abrogation of the deal and he statesat if the united violates its end of the deal, iran will reconstitute nuclear activity so i could easily see a scenario whereby two years from now the deal starts to unravel and we get into an escalatory situation and i would argue that iran's hard liners since the hostage crisis of 1979 have constantly tried to prolong these external crises for internal political expediency. >> could i make the point on the important point kenny made.

during last year when secretary kerry was discussing and selling this agreement to the hill and the public at large, he promised, as the administration did, that united states would remain vigilant on issues of terrorism, human rights and even introduce sanctions against iran if it violated its obligations in terms of terrorism, in terms of human rights and other international conventions. so, the idea of sanctioning iran for its behavior, malign behavior, has been something that the administration conceded to. as we speak, there are 35 pieces of legislation on the hill that are designed to sanction iran. most importantly, one of them was introduced today by senator corker and bipartisan bill in the senate that essentially sanctions iran's revolutionary guards for their terrorism and regional aggression. so this idea of introducing sanctions to deal with other aspects of iran's behavior is something the administration itself has pledged. i agree, they haven't followed

through, but i can see other congresses, other administrations, other presidents actually following through and trying to impose some coercive pressure against iran as it becomes much more aggressive in the region and as mentioned, abuse of its own citizens at home. charlie: thank you. we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪

♪ charlie: in 1984, dade county, florida, was the murder capital of the united states. a large part of the violence was directly related to the escalating drug war and pablo escobar's medellin cartel. tasked with bringing down the corruption was federal agent robert mazur. his five years spent undercover is the subject of a new film cranston.ryan is called "the infiltrator." here's the trailer. >> this is what i do, i'm an undercover narcotics agent. i sit with murderers and bait men and i lie, i lie my ass off. >> washington wants the biggest bust in history, pablo escobar, and his main distributor, roberto elcano. >> i think we have been doing this backwards.

we have been following the drugs to get to the bad guy. what if we chase the money? >> we need to find undercover identities. >> do the math, i'd be 77 years old. >> that's about right. >> bob musella, welcome to a life of crime. >> let's do this. >> welcome to the united states. >> i need a face-to-face with your boss. >> it was an audition. you've got the part. >> so, what can you do for me? >> she's my present for you tonight. >> i'm engaged. >> so what? >> are you kidding me?

>> meet soon-to-be wife, cathy ertz, bob mazur, i wish you many happy years. >> have you ever had your palm read? destiny has marked you. >> you know who's the biggest money launderer in the u.s.? >> i thought it was me. >> i will kill you and i will make you die for days. >> i do not do business under threat. >> unfortunately, you are not in a position to dictate to pablo. >> one wrong move and we're dead. >> my business there is no loyalty. it never ends well. >> are you in danger from pablo escobar? you have a chance to take them all down. charlie: joining me is the star of the film, bryan cranston and the director and the man

himself, robert mazur. i am pleased to have them all at the table. a note to our viewers, mr. mazur's identity is hidden. what is it, sir, about you and drug businesses? bryan: i just want to follow the well written word and when i received this script written by brad furhman's mother, ellen furhman, it was so compelling. not just this fantastic plot which is true and brought down the seventh largest bank in the world at the time, but also how this man reconciles living that dirty life during the day and then going home and being the husband and the father, helping his kids with homework and taking out the trash and doing fatherly, mundane chores. how does he deal with that? that is what really drew me to the show. >> i was lucky. i was very fortunate.

i was trained to do this type of work. i was trained through an undercover school with former undercover agents who shared their experience with me, psychologists were involved. and i had leadership in the agency putting together a front, my shield. that gave me a lot of confidence to be able to deal with that role. so, the team really pulled together. charlie: what's the cardinal rule for an undercover agent? >> the psychologists tell me, they're looking for people who have a black-and-white, not a big gray area for interpretation. an on switch and off switch. because if you rationalize right from wrong, this long journey of years of a double life can go down a slippery slope. and so i think that is one of the things they look for. charlie: a sense of right and wrong? >> not have a rationalization area where you can cause yourself to slip and become a victim of stockholm syndrome and begin to find yourself gravitating toward the bad guys.

charlie: did you find people within the story that you had some admiration for? >> i wouldn't say admiration but being, wheny human you deal with someone on multiple levels, because i got to see them not just as a bad guy, but also as a father, as a husband, as a businessman. not everyone is bad to the core. and so when you know all those multiple levels and ultimately come to the the conclusion of this where people get arrested, i think you tend to recognize that there are innocent people within their family who will suffer, as well. so in that regard, i had sympathy for them. charlie: how do you find the property? i mean, was it just out there in the public space? >> it's a property that was, i think, debated over and people were fighting for it for a long time. tom cruise, brad pitt. all these different people. and then, mark cuban optioned it and they developed it unsuccessfully and bob wasn't happy with what occurred. charlie: did you have a veto

over the project? >> the rights came back to me for a very short period of time. >> my dear friend from n.y.u., don stakhovsky, found the book on a shelf and said this is a movie we have to make and i've had a fascination and love for the space and upon reading it, i agreed. bob represented the true american hero and i felt it was a story that needed to be told. charlie: this guy was in your film, "lincoln lawyer." >> he was. bryan: and you still hired me for this film. charlie: bryan was your first and only choice. >> yeah, we talked about it. i like being frank in my interviews.

international is driving how we finance movies today and bryan in "breaking bad" didn't have enough international value. we sat down and i went to him and i remember sitting with him off of times square after a business meeting we had and i said, you know, hell or high water, i want to make this work and in that two-year span, the wildfire it caught on of "breaking bad." it really picked up internationally. charlie: you thought he was the right man, because? >> what i've learned about the cornerstone of acting i think is the cornerstone of trust between the director and the actor and what i saw with bryan, the work he did -- the gravitas in "lincoln lawyer," he's a tremendous leader. his moral and ethical compass as an individual is so rare, especially in hollywood. he's such a special human being and when you have all of those qualities as a person and we had this bond of trust and friendship and he's a producer, he's a filmmaker, he's an

artist, he's an actor. when you have someone with all those qualities and the acting, i knew you had to invest in the moral compass of bob and bryan would evoke that for the audience. charlie: beyond the drugs and following the money, you say it's a film about friendship and betrayal. >> it is. to an extent. if bob mazur is doing his job well, it means he is garnering the trust from the cartel or whomever he's infiltrating. getting them to trust him implicitly and in that, there's a lot of social interaction. he has to dine with them and socialize with them and drink with them and party with them and get to know their wives and their families. and intellectually, i think you can justify what you're doing. it's his job. this is what i'm sworn to do. it's the right thing to do for

society, to take down a known criminal. i wonder, though, emotionally, do we -- are we always connected to our bodies? are our bodies, our hearts, in other words, saying, i like this man, i really like his wife, his kids are nice -- and how do you reconcile those two? so if bob is doing his job right, at the end of the 2 1/2 year operation, he has to, then, reveal himself, to be not who he says he is. he then has to have his friend, his acquaintance, arrested and then do the best he can to send that person to prison. what other job requires you to do such a thing? so i think it's -- i think it's fascinating on that element, and on the element of the duality that he had to live being the family man and being this crooked money launderer. charlie: your partner is played by john leguizamo. >> my partner is probably the

most talented undercover agent that walked the earth. >> you're undercover. you should have -- that stripper. you got to do a line of coke, to talkbelieve i have you into this. anything to stay alive, man. bob, i know these people, man. you got to play with them. you got to drink with them, you got to -- with them. that's the way you get their trust. >> hey, i'm alive, aren't i? >> oh, my god, you're a piece of work, bob. you're a -- piece of work. why are you doing this, bob? why are you bothering? i heard about the retirement they offered you. you and the wife and the kid, you guys could be playing cricket on a yacht. eating earlybird -- whatever white people do when they retire. >> why are you doing it? >> because i love it. that's why, baby. it's my -- drug of choice. and let me tell you something, nobody does it better than me.

>> he can walk in a room. i need a lot of preparation. as bryan says, i'm o.c.d. but he can walk in the room and take it over with his aura. he doesn't need a bunch of documentation. he's just a believable guy. >> props to john leguizamo. he's that guy, too. he has such a quick wit and is so charming and can win over people with his spontaneity and his brevity, it's wonderful. amazing. >> your mother wrote this? [laughter] >> it garners a laugh. no question about it. charlie: tell me about your mother? >> she always dreamed of being a writer but that's not always something that's realistic for people. in choice of career. when she left law behind, she screenwriting,e she won a ton of international literary awards and when we were

interviewing people for the job, we couldn't find anyone with all of the qualities we needed to evoke this screenplay and in the space of donnie brasco and joe piskone, we knew we were treading on familiar territory. and did not want to be there. so i think with my mom, i think the female perspective, the education, the law experience, being a mother and family person, all of those elements i think brought a unique perspective to the material so when we wanted to hire her, politically, i said we're never going to get her approved. it is never going to happen. fortunately, our producer was amazing in recognizing my mom was the best writer for the job and we got her hired. it was a blessing. charlie: a clip with you and your partner. here it is. >> disrespectful. hey, hey, look at this, falconi, italianest sounding name ever. come on. >> look at the dates.

do the math. i'd be 77-years-old. >> that's about right. >> come on. are you even looking? >> yeah, yeah, i'm looking. >> here we go. bob musella, dates are perfect. >> what about this one? dominguez. >> emilio dominguez. close enough. >> that's sexy. >> who cares if it's sexy? >> i care. it's my name. i wanted to have a sexy name. >> we stole that scene. charlie: from? >> it was in the script but it was a very difficult shoot and it was on the chopping block and it was like we were not going to be able to get to it and brad and i looked at each other and said we have to get this scene -- so on a weekend when we weren't working, we said let's get the cameras, get a van. you know we had cooperation with , some -- we did our own hair and we just went out, no permits, and found this cemetery

and we just said, unload quietly, pretending we're visiting a gravesite and we just -- come on, come on, come on! set up the camera. and there was a maintenance worker coming in and we were this close to being booted out and we were like, come on! charlie: anything they didn't get that you wanted them to capture because it's your life? >> well, it's such a challenge for them to be able to put 384 pages in. but the bank aspect of it has always intrigued me and the international banking communities involved and i think brad captured that, in its shell, the essence of it. >> i tried. >> it was the quid pro quo of more deposits and i'll scratch your back and i'll do what it is that you want to do which is unfortunately something that -- is attractive. care of you.e >> yeah. >> what did you learn about the

war on drugs? it sounds good. but it's incredible. it's like saying we're going to stop prostitution, we're going to stop it altogether. i don't think it's ever able to be stopped, but you can't let that enormity stop you from performing your duty as a law enforcement officer or as a citizen and the nobility bob showed was to do just that and despite personal threats and danger, he persevered and became the most effective operation of its day. two this is dave. i think it was like 85 arrests made on that day. and -- charlie: is there a live contract on your life? >> i wish i knew there was a place to check that list. but i don't think that there is. [laughter] >> make some erasures. >> it's a totally different experience for me. i know these people and i lived with these things so i have a different perspective of it than someone who gets the opportunity

to play it for a while. and then move on to something else. greg's miss the life? >> no, you know what i miss -- i've told this to a bunch of people -- my heroin in this was getting information nobody else could get. to have four or five conversations that led to the seizure of more than a ton of cocaine in downtown manhattan in a warehouse to a person who's part of the public service that wants to be part of making a difference, to me, the energy from that, the high i would get from that, was really mesmerizing and i now recognize that i -- i came to this conclusion, i'm not saying it's a good one. that i had climbed through this portal of the real world into the underworld at a level that i thought no other undercover agent would ever get. so i wanted to use 24/7, every second i could, to get as much information i could because i knew the portal was closing.

i knew it was closing at a particular time. so, in hindsight i probably took a few more risks in the last couple of months that maybe earlier on i may not have because i was chasing that high. charlie: how far up in the banks' executives did the criminality go? >> to the board. >> i dealt with board members we have on tape that admitted to the fact that they knew it was drug money and they had a plan to be able to handle it. i think they were interested in handling money, seeking secrecy from governments so it didn't matter if it came from terrorists or people pilfering treasuries or drug trafficking or -- any of those things. they had a plan to handle it. i wish i could say they're the only bank that's done that but i can't. charlie: has it changed? >> there's $400 billion a year according to the united nations on drugs and crime generated from the illegal sale of drugs. charlie: $400 billion. >> and just under two trillion from various types of illegality so that money seeking secrecy and money laundering services

every year and gets a lot of good people to do bad things. charlie: that kind of money will always do that, won't it? >> i think so. yeah. charlie: what's next for you, sir? >> i was just thinking of the enormity of it all. two trillion? i can see why we wanted to make the movie. we thought bob's story was like a small dent in a big picture nobody really knew of so the awareness of telling the story, if you're left with something, you'll do your due diligence and creating awareness hopefully can create some change. charlie: at the end, pablo -- at the got his, end, pablo escobar got his but how good was he? what was his reputation within the cartels? >> he got his four or five years later so -- and i was dealing with people who reported to him. obviously, the cartel's violence during this time frame was extreme. >> has not changed.

>> yeah and the mexican cartels , have certainly shown that they're quite capable of doing -- charlie: did that happen because the cartels in colombia were taken down in part? >> there was actually, at least my understanding was there was an actual business plan change by the cartel in colombia and that came about because of the re-enactment of the extradition capabilities by the u.s. they decided sell wholesale to the mexican cartels and let them do the dirty work of bringing it into north america so it was really more of a business plan than blocking them from anything else. >> pretty smart. >> i think what's most fascinating about all of this is the fact that our government shut bob down. because as he dug deeper into peeling back the layers of the onion, he realized how rotten things were within our own government and the corruption. and that always really fascinated me. charlie: this is a character you like to play, a complex character, a character on the edge, a character who makes his own sense of danger.

bryan: or finds himself in the middle of danger. but duty-bound, a cause to fight for. charlie: conflicted. bryan: conflicted. i think it's a more honest amalgam of personalities that a more sophisticated audience expects and demands to see and it's certainly what moves me when i read a novel or read a story about someone who's not just all good but fighting, struggling to keep the goodness in him and whether that's president johnson or dalton trumbo or whomever, or bob mazur. charlie: thank you for coming. >> thank you for having us, charlie. >> thank you. charlie: "the infiltrator" opens july 13. ♪

carol: welcome to bloomberg businessweek. i'm carol massar. >> and i'm david jura. >> the power of facebook live. the realignment of the american political parties. david: all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ carol: we are here with the editor of "bloomberg businessweek," ellen pollack. and in the opening remarks section, the reporter argues that brexit will not stop globalization. we are seeing is trade ties deepening. and we are seeing more of it.