♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with the presidential election. republican nominee donald trump continues to attempt to stabilize his campaign, this time with a change in leadership. on wednesday, he named poster kellyanne conway assess new campaign manager. he also named stephen bannon as the campaign's chief executive. bannon took a leave of absence from his role as the executive chair of the conservative website brietbart news. joining us now is my go bar borrow -- bob costas and

michael barbarrow. he covers the election for the new york times and he hosted the paper's new podcast "the runoff". bob costa, tell me about this change. why did it come about, how did it come about, and what difference will it make? bob: a couple months ago, corey lewandowski, donald trump's former campaign manager, was fired and trump began to move in a more disciplined direction under the guidance of paul manafort, who came onto the campaign earlier in the spring. mannafort had tried to keep trump more disciplined. to give more scripted remarks. but trump has grown agitated in recent weeks, and eventually, it came to a head in recent weeks. he decided to move in a different direction. he decided to follow stephen bannon's advice. he had been giving informal advice. to let donald trump be donald trump. he made the shift, keeping manafort on with his title and his role but having kellyanne conway the poster, his friend, on, and steve bannon, who had been running the hard right

website breitbart news to be the chief executive. charlie: how will trump be different? bob: what we are seeing from trump is someone who, in one way, is trying to appeal more to women, have a presentation as a president. he had a meeting earlier this in the week in new york. it looked like a cabinet meeting. trump at trump tower. looking at different national security things. what we are going to see from trump is more rallies, according to people who spoke with bannon . much more of trump being aggressive and going after the clintons. bannon is behind the clinton cash project that went after the clinton foundation. it is a pugilistic trump. it's a trump who is of the republican base more than of the republican establishment. listening to party leaders. charlie: does it sound like a winning formula to you, michael? michael: there is only one thing get out of to do to this democratic death spiral he he is in, and that is to broaden his appeal beyond the one area of the country he has found his message is resonating in. that is generally in white high school graduates. that is the trump base.

if you just sticks to that, he is going to lose. every poll shows it. it does not seem possible to ride that to the white house. charlie: what do we know about paul manafort? and what he was trying to get trump to do. he wanted the message to get out. he saw that these off-the-cuff remarks would get in the way of the message, and trump was talking about that. poll after poll has shown that the message of change is a winning message. in american politics this year, correct? michael: absolutely. and hillary clinton is, by no means, a credible candidate for change. not having been in government as long as she has. so one way to think about how they might pull this off is for these two new advisors to present donald trump in the more classic light as a guy who represents the change against the status quo, hillary clinton. but if he insists on the kind of often very careless rhetoric that is so provocative and problematic, it is hard for people to focus on the change. they focus on the gap.

that has been the problem. so paul manafort was brought in try to polish these rough edges, to sand them down and make him more predictable. capable, as newt gingrich says, of delivering a teleprompter speech. if paul manafort's idea is to let trump be the old trump, if that is what bannon wants to do, i don't see how that is consistent with this idea of turning into a classic change candidate. charlie: how do they see that, and how do you see that? bob: democrats have really seized on bannon's hire in particular. they are starting to think "landslide." that is what michael said in one of his podcast. because they see bannon and the idea that the republicans are veering toward the base. but when i talked to the trump campaign, they have an unconventional view. it is not a view that may pan out. but the way they see this working at the next few days, is trump has to arouse

working-class voters belong -- along nonpartisan lines. in bannon, you have someone not from the mainstream gop. you have someone who doesn't have party relationships, not even of the gop base. he is someone who is ideological in the anti-corporatist sense. the anti-globalist sense. and he is someone who has this line, wher whether you read his articles or listen to his radio shows -- and i have spoken to him many times in the past eight and nine years -- where he thinks this populist movement goes beyond the gop. he connects it with bernie sanders, he connected with trump, he talks about brexit. he thinks that is what trump has to really capture. charlie: redefine himself as a true populist? bob: as an outsider from the corporate establishment and a -- and from the political establishment and a populist who , is going to meet people and have these rockets rallies that are symbolic. michael: that concept is that the aggrieved in this country are not just working-class whites. that there is a much broader

unrest and disaffection and disillusionment, and that donald trump could turn that into a n electoral victory. one of the things bannon did when many conservative publication was he championed a gay conservative, who has become a sensation in the conservative world, who argues you can be gay and be a conservative and you can hate all the liberal institutions that seem to champion gays and have for decades. that is one example of the way of thinking, a different version of an angry person. charlie: that is what trump tried to do in talking about urban blacks. isn't it? basically saying, you have lived in cities that have been run by traditional democratic administrations, and it has not done for you, in terms of the policies that were part of those governments, what you might have achieved. is that correct? you know the trump thinking. bob: that is correct. and the trump campaign have tried, labored even, like with

the speech in wisconsin talking , about law and order and crime and trying to reach out to urban communities that may feel disaffected by democratic policies in their cities and states. bannon's view is, as much as the manafort model of having prepared remarks and speeches -- trump has limited in doing that. what he needs a bare knuckles message that is pure change, pure outsider. charlie: is that what he is? pure change? pure outsider? bob: he has projected himself to be that. but he is someone who has been involved in the democratic party, the republican party for decades. he has been a mega-donor. he has been a participant. he thought about running for the reform nomination in i think he 1999. has assumed the mantle of a movement that has been simmering out there. he has taken hold of it, but is he that? i think he's more of a political figure immersed in that movement. michael: the question about

donald trump and the question about this gentleman i profiled this morning, steve bannon, is are they fraudulent populists? bannon is a goldman sachs, harvard-educated guy who woke up one morning after the financial crisis and thought he wanted to champion the most thrilling and provocative kind of conservatism, and donald trump -- a member of the democratic party, lives in manhattan, is a wealthy realtor who woke up one morning. he decides he's going to champion white working-class voters. so, together they make for an unusual team, and i think you have to ask the question of how credible are they in the eyes of most people around the country as real messengers for their anger? bob: we have seen this before, though. you think about franklin delano roosevelt, a traitor to his class and all this kind of messaging.

and romney was portrayed by -- and is trump is different in the way romney was portrayed by democrats in 2012 as this corporate businessman? he is an isolated figure, doesn't have many friends on wall street. his friends are people like tom barrick. it is the real estate elite world that he is part of. and it is really his own company and family. charlie: who in the world first introduced him to the idea of populist as a winning political message? bob: i know exactly who did. i have spoken to trump about this. his father. one thing i always take away from my interviews with donald all thesee has picture frames in his office. hundreds of them of him on magazine covers. but the biggest picture frame in the room in trump tower is an old frame, a thick frame of his father and his parents. he always thinks about his father, the way his father talked to him about trade and the economy in the late 1970's. when people say trump has been saying this for years, it is true.

but it is really heavily influenced by the way his father thought of the country as a businessman navigating the upper realm of real estate in new york in the late 1960's and early 1970's. charlie: tell me what you found about bannon in writing this piece. a goldman sachs guy. a tenor of the campaign comes from the brexit. is the new word anti-globalist? goldman sachs is very globalist. michael: i think it is more anti-elite. charlie: but they introduced this idea. didn't they, bob? that we are getting some currency in these circles. michael: and david brooks to up on this in an interview with you. what we are seeing is this blurring of political, partisan lines as people become more frustrated with the economy. their target is not so much the elites, even in the united states. it is the idea of global elites and institutions that are not

working for them, that are distant. that is where you see much of this fury directed. towards the elite, but it is beyond the global america sphere of media outlets, companies, trade organizations that are aligned, in their view, against working americans. michael: and that segues beautifully into the bannon story, because he describes a story to friends of being in shanghai when the financial crisis started in 2008 and being so upset about the fellow bankers and financial elite and political elite who had allowed the system to become so overburdened with debt. so corrupt. and he tells the story of his father, who was a telephone line worker for one of the small bell companies in virginia, who spent his whole life working there and amassing at&t stock. it was going to be his retirement. and it was losing money, and he had to sell it, and it was a crisis in the family. infelt it was so emblematic a world where elites, around each other and make decisions

that destroy the value of the regular american, the industrial jobs they had. and he viewed that as a turning point in his life. and he, of course, had made lots of money from the companies that helped trigger the financial crisis, but it was a kind of never looking back moment for steve bannon. in which he then committed himself very powerfully and very compellingly to a vision of conservatism that was very populist and was appealing to the version of his dad throughout the world, who felt global leaders had taken them for granted. that is the message he has brought to breitbart to all of , his documentaries, and now to the trump campaign. charlie: and the idea of anti-villa berg, that there are men and women meeting around the world to control the world. michael: there are a very few number of people in the world, you can see in the statistics where wealth is amassed. charlie: exactly. look how much of the world is -- how much wealth in the world

is controlled by a few people. bob: there is an element of that that has really agitated republicans on capitol hill and people in the conservative movement. the bill buckley wing of the conservative right, they try to wash out the john birch element, back in the 1950's. it seems to have reared its head again. not necessarily directly because of trump, but it is part of this trump insurgence in american conservatism. if you look at all the outlets that have been around for a long time, they are uncomfortable with what is happening with bright part, -- breitbart, with different other publications on the far side of the gop. they say this is not what bill buckley and reagan represented. michael: that is what is remarkable about banning and -- bannon and his ilk. they never stop criticizing the elite and the powerful just because they are republican. they identify with the republican party they are , conservatives, but they look

at the eric cantor's, at the paul ryan's and said you are actually part of the problem. no one is sacred, no one is going to be protected. that is what made breitbart a hero in the conservative world. he didn't care if you happen to be a member of his etiology or party. if you sell somebody out then you are a target. that is why you saw steve bannon go after eric cantor, who was very close to wall street, when he went up for reelection to -- and nobody thought he could lose his reelection in a local district. charlie: he lost his election in a primary to hillary clinton. what is the calm from the e-mails? what do we know, what have we learned about the fbi notes? what is the next turn that will provide fodder for the campaign of donald trump? the absolute nightmare talked about on the hillary clinton side is not within the fbi report. it is from julian assange. it is within these leaks that we

believe that began abroad might have held back. it is what julian assange may or may not have. charlie: is there some connection with the clinton foundation or more than that? michael: there are some familiar lines of thinking about where the next scandal could be. was there a pay-to-play that led -- bled over into the clinton foundation in the state department. which would be an extraordinary breach. and how we think about government. that would be super problematic. an e-mail in which she contradicted something very important that she had said publicly about diplomacy or benghazi. we are speculating now. charlie: are any of those in line? michael: it may not exist. that has become the last hope of some in the republican party and may ultimately be a fantasy. charlie: is that an operative thesis, that, in fact, the reason they were so quick to delete all of those e-mails is a fear that, or they knew something like that was in there? michael: i don't know why you delete an e-mail or why i delete

an e-mail, but i usually delete an e-mail because i don't want it around. otherwise, gmail has plenty of space for us to keep it. you are correct in assuming they deleted these for a reason. they did not want them around. they thought they were either too personal or somehow potentially in conflict with running for the white house. charlie: michael, great to have you. michael: thank you charlie: bob, great to see you as always. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

♪ charlie: "don't think twice" is the new film of writer-director michael babligia. it tells the story of an improv group that struggles with the success of one of its members. david edelstein says it is funny reviewer and inspiring and harsh and depressing. all of that. here is a trailer for the film. [video clip] >> five minutes. >> why am i japanese? >> remember when you said please tell me when i am racist? >> yes. >> welcome to the commune. >> improv is an art form unto itself. the important thing is, don't think. you do not think, you drought recognize. >> you don't get paid. >> it is true, but isn't it kind of fun? >> are you working right now? are you applying for anything? >> no. unemployment? >> hummus and chips? hummus and chips? >> take one person and say the first thing that comes to mind. connor. >> your fat.

>> your slow. >> this game hurts my feelings. >> you should not said that in your audition. [laughter] >> hey jack -- >> you always do that. >> the new program we are working on right now is called "cabs for dads." but my critics like to call it obamacare. >> ok, we will be there. >> hey, we are auditioning on thursday for "weekend live." >> congrats, man. >> thanks, man. >> i auditioned for the show in 2003. >> i cannot take it anymore. i have to focus on me. i am going to get the job on "weekend live." >> i got the job as an umpire. is a money you're looking for? >> i've got none.

♪ >> i like my life how it is right now. >> it can't be like that forever, ok? it just ends. >> your 20's are all about hope, and your 30's are all about realizing how dumb it was to hope. >> where you going? >> i'm 40. >> i just turned 36. ♪ >> we all said we would wear the same outfit. everybody agreed. >> being a professional. >> got a go. [end video clip] charlie: i'm pleased to have the writer and producer and director and star michael birbligia, producer ira glass, and keenen

michael-key. how did you get involved? >> we have worked on stories for "this american life." he was writing scripts and showing them to me and i kind of got dragged in. charlie: dragged into making a movie? reluctant or not reluctant? >> i was very reluctant. charlie: but you signed on because you thought it was that good. or could be that good. guest: there are a lot of movies about i'm going to be a star and i'm going to make it, but there are things that are uncommon -- are more common, like "i don't know if i have enough talent," and it is a bunch of people when one rises, the rest have to decide, should i give up on my dream? it is a movie about, should i give up on my dream? which i think is something that a lot of us went through, a lot of us in our 20's and 30's went through. charlie: that is really what happens, in a sense. and then they go get a "regular" job. >> and some of these deadlines are based on factors out of our control. i was just thinking of this the other day. i have been doing these q&a's all over the country with the film. someone said when did you know the script was finished? and i said, well, when my

daughter was born. and i said i guess i'm done. [laughter] then we shot the film that summer. charlie: so that is what is about. ira said it is about. >> it is about looking at your life and saying what is important? what am i doing and why my doing this? and sometimes saying, maybe i should quit. that is what is exciting about making the movie. this idea -- i feel like the american dream is based on this idea that successes is one thing. it is on the spectrum. areme, the joke is you realizing how dumb it was to hope. for me, my 20's were all about me and my friends thinking we are going to get the same dream. we are all going to write for conan or the daily show or

and -- for letterman. and then in your 30's, you realize, we cannot all have the same dream. then you start to realize how your dream relates to who you are specifically. i think that is an important discovery to have. ira: i remember one of the things for you was you were interested in this old-fashioned kind of movie where you would have six characters and play. that was another thing for you when you were writing it. you would have the six characters who were all equal in there mixing it up. advice a lot of ira's was you almost have to hang it on an event. so that there is these crazy seismic repercussions for the other five characters. something you said that i have not heard you characterize in this way before, but you have that sense of what those dreams are in your 30's, you realize what kind of person you are, having these dreams. charlie: you live with this idea that "never say never," "never no," "don't let anybody change

you from the pursuit of your goal." then on the other hand you have these people who say you have to really be real about this. you really do. you will ruin your life if you are in pursuit of something that will never happen. you have to somehow find your way between those two things. i had this in common. i do not know if you have this in common with us, but both of us have parents who are like, what are you doing when we started. i tried to be a standup comedian in my 20's and 30's, and my parents were like, don't do that. [laughter] i mean, it was horrible. ira: did your family support you? michael: they did support me, but remember my parents were therapists. so everything they learned about how to support you. trying to discover what it is you enjoy. but they did not hide their feelings. they were like, "i'm sorry, what was the minor? psychology? by all means. please minor in psychology."

ira: my mom was a therapist, too. that is the way of being a modern parent. is to like, to let your kid -- you try to support your kid in what they do, but you have a voice that says "i don't agree with what they are doing." i was 41 before my mom stopped saying "go to medical school." charlie: and for parents there , has to always be something else. a fallback position. get that college degree and see -- in case it doesn't work. keegan-michael: you have to dive in. and even if you are in a different level about show business. maybe 41 is the cut off. maybe your parents go your child is penniless. but i am not penniless. i am fulfilled. and we have characters in the film, there is a hopeful aspect of the film people do not talk about. charlie: the dynamic of what you can risk. keegan-michael: correct. ira: and we have been traveling around the country with this woman, liz allen, who coached

our improv team. she is wonderful. and one of the things we talk about with these improv groups around the country is that in phoenix or dallas or san francisco or chicago or anywhere, as an improviser, you can create the best, most provocative, timely, best-performed theater in the world on any given night. it does not have to happen in new york or los angeles. i think that is very important. charlie: the other interesting thing for me about this, is this the age of improv? >> i think so. keegan-michael: i think -- i know that all three of us all very much agree with that assertion, because you are seeing it reap dividends in cinema. where person -- and it is not that judd started it. but when you see a filmmaker like judd apatow give so much credence to improvisation, and

definitely adam -- when you see that, it has permeated the cinema in a way it hasn't in the past. it has always been there. even fellini did that. a lot of altman. i think it is here to stay. >> and not just in movies. there is a huge boom in improv all over the country. when you went out to promote the film, we didn't know there were improv theaters in so many cities. >> on facebook, there was like hey, does anyone want a free improv workshop, and they were 120 theaters. when i got out of college in 2000, there were like 20. it is that much bigger. ira: here in new york, there are several theaters and they have schools. they have schools and many people think it is there to get into show business. you can take the class of the magnet -- charlie: or you can go to north carolina and find improv. >> absolutely.

the skill set you are learning can simultaneously make you a performer and writer. that is part of the attraction. you can be both of those things simultaneously. if you felt so inclined. >> i think the key thing about the movie, and sometimes the movie gets pigeonholed into a performance. but i think it really is a movie about life. because the rules of improv say yes and it is all about the group and don't think. are really good life principles, which is why all this training, in improv, it is not bad. if i am a standup, i would say don't go to a standup class, go to an improv class. like, it is good regardless or not if you pursue it. charlie: let me make sure i understand it. don't go to standup class, but go to improv class because> -- because? >> because the principles of it apply to everything. charlie: so you said that art is socialism, but life it is capitalism. [laughter] >> that was a thing ira on the wall when i was

charlie: why wouldn't you put that in as a line for someone to say? >> we talked about it. >> it felt like it was to exactly on the nose. the improv group is called the commune, however. [laughter] >> wonderful. >> it was based on observation that my wife had one night, who makes a lot of great observations, we were doing a show. i improvise there sometimes. it was chris and tammy who are in the movie then elie kemper , and a bunch of people. and my wife goes, everyone is equally talented and funny, but this person is on this person is saturday night live, a tv star, this person is sleeping on an air mattress in queens. and it is so unfair, and i thought that is like a whole movie. charlie: it used to be a game for me and i'd go to comedians and say who do you know who is way funnier than you are who we don't know? we've never heard of? >> wow.

>> in standup, he's become -- he has a really big following but doug stanhope is phenomenal. >> terrific. >> i think there is no one better. >> there is no one better you said. >> i think there is no one better than doug stanhope and maria banford who has recently become massive because of her series on netflix and doug has a huge following. i don't think there is anyone better than those two. >> in our world what is interesting is in our film is tammy sager and every skill one could have as an improviser she possesses to the nines. also i'd say in detroit, second city chicago, wrote for mad tv, wrote for girls, wrote for 30 rock. wrote for broad city. then also back home, t.j., i'm saying these names that come to my mind. these people are transcendent. charlie: did people assemble for comedy central and assemble for the daily show come mostly

from improv? >> well, there is steve carell and colbert. second city. riggle. >> oh, yeah. there were a ton. rob corddry. yeah, yeah. a ton of them. >> improv and sketch. >> at helms. -- ed helms. charlie: what is the difference in sketch and improv? >> the thing with sketch is one could use improve sation as a -- improvisation as a tool to develop and generate ideas and then you polish those ideas and it's written. so when you see a show like second city that is a sketch show everything has been prepared as , if you're watching a play or a review, whereas improvisation, you are doing instant playwriting. it is happening only in the moment, it is very ethereal and temporary. it is happening only in the moment. the show will be done after that day. everything is made up as you watch improvisation. >> in second city, the sketches all started as improvs. >> the process was always we

used improvisation as a tool to write the sketches. then when you watch the review >> -- together in the and came 90's back and worked in this realm in this round about way. when we talk about the film , it's semi-biographical inadvertently to yours and tammy's friendship. >> it is. tammy and i, the movie is very special in that way to us because watching our careers they're both going on a trajectory. but the passion and the love and i don't even know how to explain it. i can't have a word for it. there is a feeling of camaraderie that doesn't go away. it is like being in the comedic marine corps. it is. i say marine corps in particular because the moniker it motto, semper fidelis,

applies to improvisers. because we are always faithful to the tenet. charlie: do you think of yourself as an actor? >> yes. i am a trained actor. it is like i got two masters degrees. i got a masters degree in performance and classical theater and then another masters in comedy from second city. i think of myself as an actor but i have this amazing arrow in my quiver which is this skill set called improvisation. charlie: who is your character in the film? >> jack mercer. the best thing about him is i described him in every interview, there is a great stage direction mike wrote that says, jack mercer, parentheses, stealthily ambitious. charlie: he hides his ambition. >> when he is tweeting, always tweeting like come see the show tonight jack mercy and when he is given the opportunity to audition for weekend live this "saturday night live" type of show, pure coincidence, he is

not -- he more than anyone sees the brass ring and how it gleems. he will not let a person get in his way from reaching the brass ring. no matter what it costs him in the court of public opinion he is not going to stop. he's not going to stop. to him, his dream is this thing that they're trying to achieve. i don't think that dream is ever altered. he's probably had that dream since he was eight years old, and so there is a sense of him -- >> a nice guy. trying to do right by his teammates. charlie: where does being a nice guy end though? >> well, yeah. exactly. [laughter] >> because he still looks out for number one. but it does end. >> capitalism comes in. come on, you guys. the premise. [laughter] >> life is capitalism although the bernie supporters will disagree.

charlie: democratic socialism. >> some people, like capitalism, people go no. it doesn't have to be. >> you have characters in the film who say i'd rather stay poor. >> that was my plan. >> but capitalism is cruel. because i don't want to be cruel? >> because they just want to do what they want. >> you have more power than anybody. >> a bit like it. it used to be somebody could write this. somebody would hang out at the beach and earn a little money here and there but mainly want to hang out on the beach and surf versus the person who did all this stuff so he can make a lot of money so that he could buy a beach house on some beach so he could surf. >> right. >> there are people especially in our industry who i know who will just, and i believe mike is one of them, one of these people like it just has to be this way.

>> don't finish her sentence like that. i will not allow this to happen on public television. [laughter] >> walk across the street to cbs. [laughter] charlie: or comedy central. >> it is that i think you could live a wonderful, fulfilled life always pursuing this middle ground. >> i'm completely comfortable with that. people always ask me aren't you afraid of -- or did you ever audition for "saturday night live" because that's whats do -- what the characters do in this film. i've been operating on such a low level of show business for so long i was never considered to be considered. they never thought maybe i'd want to a dutch -- one to audition -- want to audition. charlie: this is about you.

you told a hollywood reporter i think you have to have a difficult past to have the will to entertain especially to make people laugh. at this point i've listened to so many mark marin podcasts who has been on the show several times to just take it for granted that people who are super funny have to be at some point in their life a little screwed up. you believe that. >> i don't. charlie: you don't believe that? >> exactly right. i don't think so. >> i mean, yeah. charlie: you could say, to run for president you have to be a little screwed up. >> i agree with that. >> i think you can be happy and funny. >> true. we know each other well. i -- you don't seem that screwed up. >> you seem like a normal amount of neurotic. charlie: you were not beaten by your parents when you are four-years-old. >> well, not --. >> bring it out right now.

>> this will be a new show for saturday night. laughter -- [laughter] >> i think there is a degree to which if you are an artist of any kind you're able to see world in this very open ended way to make observations. and you see extreme darkness and lightness and once you see it you can't unsee it. >> you're awake to your feelings. >> yeah. >> you are awake to your feelings. >> that may be more to the point is that you can be happy and also be the type of a person who is awake to your feelings. charlie: the question is are you awake to your feelings? >> as opposed to are you screwed up enough to do this work? yes because some people are , awake to duty and those are the people that become soldiers and firefighters and policemen. and some people are awake to their feelings and become artists and poets. i think it might be a personality type. >> yeah. >> i think you're right about

this and i'm wrong. i think actually. i renounce my previous case. >> wow. charlie: what role did he play as producer? that's what i want to know. >> ira is the smartest person i know. not the smartest person on earth. smartest person i know. charlie: he is one of the smartest people on earth. >> smartest person i know. charlie: so why is he doing a radio show? why isn't he running the country? >> i don't know. >> i can answer that. i don't have a talent for running the country. i have a talent for making radio shows. i ran at the thing i was good at. charlie: isn't that the greatest thing in the world is to find out what you ought to be doing? >> that is the greatest thing you can do. that to me in a manner of speaking is better than falling in love. to have a sense of why you're here. there is a very large clock called earth and you are this cog and you realize, i am this cog. i got to where i ought to be. >> there is a great line in the angela duckworth column in the

times recently where she said college graduates shouldn't ask what do i want to be when i grow up. it's what world do i want to live in and how can i contribute to making that happen? charlie: what is her book called? she has this book. basically argues -- it's "grit." >> duckworth, yeah, yeah. but ira, in terms of -- he is my editor. we have this relationship started eight years ago which is, ira edits stories and i'm a comedian and i have a fascination with comedy. and he is a fascination with stories. so when we work on stuff i defer to him in issues of story and he defers to me in issues of comedy. >> yeah. a lot of what working together is michael will have an idea for a story and i'll be like these are the beats and he'll go out and perform it. what about this? maybe move a little quicker through here? making the film was just an extension of that. that was my role.

charlie: was there anything that both of you didn't want the film to be? >> so many things. >> not a studio film. i mean, to be honest with you, i think that if this is a studio film i don't want to spoil anything. the couple ends up together and everybody is happy and successful in the exact same way. i don't know. it is like -- it's not these guys. it's john crier and clair danes. these aren't the actors. it's not chris and tammy sather. it's bigger stars. >> super rio. that was in the script and then the cutting it got more real. we had sort of like more hollywoodish turns. when we shot, there is a whole plot line. they're trying to get a new theater for themselves and keep the group going. all the test audiences which showed the film twice a week when we were cutting it to public radio would actually have them come out and watch and people wanted to see about the characters and just got

invested and wanted to see what happened. >> we wanted to make it less hollywood. >> we wanted to make the film feel more like life than a movie. which i think is something that is a little bit lost in cinema right now which is to say the films i love are films like "the big chill" and "hannah and her sisters" and "broadcast news" and "bob and carol and ted and alice" and these films that just feel like life. and they don't make those movies as much in the studios system because they don't make 10 times the money. charlie: bob altman. >> absolutely. and also the sense that it looks -- looking very lot of persona to -- first limited -- about the busker who meets the irish girl. and you have this sense of, is this a documentary or is this real?

-- it has that real sense about it. my direction almost always was just imagine this is being watched in 10 years from now in france with subtitles and we want people to go, we should go see the improv show. >> how are you promoting this? >> right here. >> thank god you asked. >> i'm refusing all other interviews. >> this is a weird business problem. to be in any movie you don't have that much money for advertising and you've been trucking this thing around the country. >> we were talking about suicide squad. i have two beefs with suicide squad. i haven't seen the movie but the rating on it was pg-13. ours is r. in "suicide squad" they spray people with machine guns. like hundreds of people are killed. >> every character has a bat with a nail in it. >> in our film no one is killed. we curse a handful of times.

the adults smoke pot. that's what it is. the adults smoke pot. >> that's against the law in many states. >> in suicide squad they have like a $90 million ad budget and so, we do not have that. so it is just me traveling around the country and saying if you like movies like this go see it. charlie: "don't think twice" is the movie. it's opening in hundreds of theaters the next few weeks. go find this movie. don't think twice. >> don'tthinktwice.com. charlie: don't think twice.com. that will help you find this movie. thank you, guys. it was a pleasure. >> it is actually don'tthinktwicemovie.com. charlie: don'tthinktwicemovie.com. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

♪ >> this is the season of the boys of summer, baseball. there are 30 major league teams half of which have a shot at the world series. but also in thousands of smaller cities, towns and hamlets, thousands of boys and girls are playing america's favorite past time. one of the most special is corinda, iowa, where young aspiring ball players have gone to pursue their dreams over the summer. among them the great ,hall of famer ozzie smith. , a "new york times" washington editor has written a marvelous

book "the baseball whisperer" , about a legendary coach and the values and virtues of a small midwestern community. michael, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> what is unique about this town, about the team, population 5,000. >> corinda is a place where they want to provide opportunity. where they open their arms. they extend their families. they give opportunity to players. it is a place in the southwest corner of iowa two hours from anywhere. two hours from omaha, kansas city, des moines. you've never been there and it would be hard to find it yet it has attracted thousands of young men coming to pursue their dreams to play baseball. >> most from college. >> most from college. while the story is rooted in baseball, it's about more than baseball it's about this place. , this place where there's this sense of community and openness where they give of themselves. they give of their time. they give of their families and they don't expect anything in return. >> the coach who launched this was a legend and passed away

while you were writing this book. tell us about him. >> fascinating character. he grew up in rural iowa during the depression. his parents got divorced which was unusual. he had a very tough youth. he dropped out of school. he started drinking. he had all sorts of problems and was living in omaha with his mother and she said you need to go back to clarinda to straighten yourself up. he did and the community opened up and took him in. he eventually met a coach who sort of redeemed him by challenging him. because merrell wanted to be challenged. he wanted somebody to see in him the potential he knew he had. he finally found that in the coach and became a stand out athlete and he realized that coach had done something special for him so he dedicated his life to doing that. >> he wanted to give back. >> yes. >> the town, 5,000, small. they took in these players. i am a little envious of you. i am not from the midwest.

but there is something special about little midwestern towns. isn't there? >> i would like to think so. part of it is there is a calm. people have a slower pace. that is not a cliche'. in this particular case it is the kind of place you think lives in myth. the town square has all local businesses. the county courthouse has been restored beautifully. everybody knows everybody. and almost everybody is a participant in the clarinda a's baseball. >> it is a book about that town and about that man but when we talk about the thousands of players who played there, we have to start with the greatest of all, hall of famer ozzie smith. what was it like when ozzie smith got to clarinda? he was coming from l.a.? >> he grows up in south central l.a. and goes to the corn fields of iowa. his coach puts him on the plane. he has never been to the midwest. the only word he can summon is corn.

that is the only image he has of coming to the midwest. he lands there. he goes down to the practice field and merle thinks here this skinny, 140 pound kid. he's never going to make it. so, he grabs a a bucket of balls. he hits them to ozzy. hits them harder and harder one after another. left to right. ozzie doesn't miss a single one. he finally looks up and says coach don't you realize you can't get one past me? that's when merle knew he had somebody really special. >> he really helped develop ozzie smith. did ozzie do his flip when he was in clarinda? >> he actually did it. it became a signature move. one other thing about that about how he ingratiated himself in the community. all the players had to have jobs. so ozzie worked on a construction crew and his job was to run a jack hammer. this is a small man at that point. 140 pounds. and he said he used to go to the games and his arms were still shaking from running that jack hammer. >> in 1982 after ozzie was in the major leagues, hall of fame short stop, st. louis cardinals

were in the world series, and he invited the everlees from clarinda to be at his house as his guests. what happened before the game? >> he bought a card table and was trying to take it out of the box and one of the staples went right into his thumb. this is the world series. this is the short stop star. -- this is the shortstop, and they really need this player. he is thinking oh, my gosh what am i going to do? merle said ozzie do you have a lemon? he said, well yes i do. he goes well go get it. he cut the lemon in half. he said stick your thumb in there. it is going to sting. he did. it stung and all of a sudden his thumb was healed. >> and ozzie smith was ozzie smith the next day. has he stayed in touch with the community? >> he has. i think that is a important part of this story because it shows what the program is all about. the everlees got to go to all the playoff games with him in st. louis. when ozzie was inducted into the hall of fame he had two , seats reserved for merle and pat everlee reserved in cooperstown and he goes back every winter to help raise

money at their fundraising banquet. he stays in their home and is like a surrogate son. >> that's great. another ball player went to the majors and didn't quite have ozzie's career. he came from a fabled family a man named darryl miller whose brother was reggie. sister was sheryl. when he arrived in iowa he was a pretty fair player but things didn't start off so well for him did they? >> they really didn't. merle was really hard on him and he wondered why is he so mean to me. he was tougher on catchers. >> he thought there might be a racial component to it. >> he thought at first wow is this guy a racist and then he realized he is not at all and ends up loving merle. one thing merle would do is have the catchers learn the position and would take a catchers mitt and put a piece of plywood on top of it said the catcher would not catch the ball, but had to learn to block the ball. these guys liked to brag about what great basketball players they were and darryl looked down and said

my little brother could school you and he said in fact my little sister could school you and i think he was probably right. >> no question about that. you got a number of really good reviews. st. louis and des moines and mlb.com. there was one exception, the wall street journal, which said this book was nice, sweet, but a naive trip down memory lane with the old saw that it was better in the old days. >> well, i think what i got from reading that was the reviewer had a point that he wanted to make. his point was going to be, all these people who talk about nostalgia, that's wrong. in doing that in my own view i think he missed the point of the book which was to go way beyond baseball, way beyond any notion of nostalgia and rather to tell the story about a place. on the other hand you take , the good with the bad and you try to accept it. >> that's for sure. he also said that you -- the book suffered under the illusion that baseball is supposed to be more about george patton and john wayne

who were two of merle's idols, than about bryce harper and mike trout. baseball today. more about john wayne and george patton or more about bryce harper and mike trout? >> bryce harper and mike trout no doubt about it. one of the reasons? ask bryce harper about the history of the game and he can tell you a lot of things. he is very fluent. >> he studied ted williams' batting habits even. those guys, the trouts and the harpers we may not read about them as much and the trey ,turner's our new phenom i have , to say in washington but they engage in that kind of discipline and hard work and that old fashioned working, taking 500 swings and everything didn't they? , i mean, that's not naive and old fashioned. that's still current. >> that's still hard work. you can argue they work out even harder than some of the other players because they know that is the way you separate yourself. >> how do you think the game has changed? how is it different from even when ozzie smith came up? >> in some ways it's more about power now.

the players are just physically bigger. you can see that. it is more about speed and pitching. there were pitchers like sandy koufax who could have pitched in any generation but now more guys throw 95 miles an hour and above and more people can hit the ball further than before. in a way it is more of a power game but power that can be neutralized because a power pitcher can sometimes neutralize a power hitter. ♪

[wind whistling] ashlee: the year was 2047, and this is all that was left. ♪ ashlee: the great space wars between the musca varians and the besozites had depleted the earth of all its natural resources. the bitcoin virus and uber's robot chauffeurs had finished the job. the only sign that humans had ever been here were the ramshackled buildings and the