♪ announcer: from our studios in york city, this is "charlie rose." >> good evening, i'm alison stewart, filling in for charlie rose. we begin this evening with politics. president trump delivered an address to the joint session of congress last night. he defended his administration's first five weeks in office and vowed to reach across party lines to achieve legislative goals. including building the highways and roads. pres. trump: if we are guided to the well-being of american citizens, i believe republicans and democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has

eluded our country for decades. [applause] president trump: another republican president, dwight d. eisenhower, initiated the last great infrastructure program, the interstate highway system. the time has come for a new program of national rebuilding. >> the content and tone marked a reversal from the dire landscape that the president articulated during his inaugural address in january. a new chapterp: of american greatness is now beginning.

i knew national pride is now sweeping across our nation. a new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams only -- firmly within our grasp. what we are witnessing today is the renewal of the american spirit. >> the question for many is which president trump should we expect moving forward? joining me now is david rennie, but columnist for the economist. and a congressional reporter from the washington post. and megan murphy, editor in chief of bloomberg businessweek. the latest issue of the magazine profiles top trump advisor stephen miller. welcome to all of you. we have had 24 hours to digest this speech. david, i want to throw to you first. obviously the president was physically speaking in front of congress but spiritually and psychologically reaching out to his base. what did he say that made them happy? made them know they supported

the right candidate? david: that is the right question to ask. i found myself watching the speech and waiting to hear details on how he is going to fund the infrastructure that he talks about. what will be his tax plan? when those the details did not come i realized that people like , us were trying to work out what his agenda is. we are still disappointed. we do not know. how come his supporters who i meet when i go to rallies are so absolutely certain that he is keeping his promises? they are so happy that he is doing what he said he would do. it occurs to me that what is really going on is that we in washington or you in new york are focused on what politicians do. donald trump's genius is to be the guy who will tell you who he is doing it for. he is standing for his people. last night he brought in the vision as the guy who represents the champion to all american citizens.

citizens ahead of foreigners, illegal immigrants, global rivals who try to take america down. he will tell you who he is for, we are still wanting to know what he is for. that explains the gap. >> let's talk about what wasn't covered in the speech last night. we did not hear about climate change or economic inequality. what was a glaring omission for you and why? guest: he did have a quick shout out to clean air and clean water. i think we have to be honest in that it was a good moment for him. he had two objectives last night, to reset his image with the american people and reset his image with his own party. he has incredibly difficult battles to fight ahead in terms of getting the legislative agenda ahead. while we do not know details, we know comprehensive tax reform and a replacement of the affordable care act is going to be difficult.

in terms of the omission in where he could have and should have done more was number one on fleshing out the details on things that could've been a very easy win for him in a bipartisan way. one of those is infrastructure. it showed a little bit of a clip there, but when you look at this administration you look at the missteps and the mistakes they have had. which have been immense. one of them with the immigration order rolled out in the refugees from seven predominantly muslim countries. when you look back at the early days of the trump presidency and if he ends up being an unsuccessful president and his agenda, one will be he missed the opportunity to put the screws on the wheels. everybody is calling for infrastructure reform. he would have put his own party forward and put them in a difficult place to reject it. he could have started on something that could've been a bipartisan move forward for him. >> two weeks ago, you and i were sitting here discussing that 77

minute rollicking press conference. the speech we saw last night, it felt like it was candidate trumps stump speech put through on autotune. that is what record producers use to smooth out edges and get people back on pitch. did you hear anything new and different? ed: his general approach and the fact that he was able to come into that room, command it, and deliver a state of the union like address proves this is somebody who is capable of at least appearing presidential and delivering and laying out an agenda. the specifics be dammed at this point. i did hear a little more specificity about where they want to go on obamacare. where they want to go on tax reform. he did not get into discussion of immigration reform in ways that he has privately now twice

in the last two weeks with senators and with news anchors talking about the idea of a broader immigration bill. part of the reason we did not hear more about infrastructure spending is because the biggest, most important audience he had night iss there last don't think with the american public, it was the hundreds of republicans in the room over the last several weeks with little guidance from the white house have been squabbling amongst themselves about how exactly to do a new health care system in this country. about how to reform the tax system. how to pay for a border wall. and a host of other issues. the fact that he did not get into the issues where he would be able to find more bipartisan accord was not because democrats are not in the mood to work with him and did not feel like he has done anything to win them over, but also because the next few months for him and for republicans are probably going to be the most critical of the last four years because this is their one and only opportunity to prove that they can actually govern and make changes after years of threatening to do so if they ever have power.

alison: david, we did not hear about aleppo we do not hear , about moscow. why not? david: foreign policy was amazingly absent. we had some words about nato. we had a hint of the nationalist suspicion of international organizations where he talked about sovereign states and free nations being able to decide own fate. when i checked the european press today for their reactions, one of the big french papers picked up on that bit and said that that sounds like an attack on the european union. it is those kind of things that make people very jumpy among america's allies. in terms of russia, it is one of the many areas where it is not that donald trump has controversies he wants to wish away. one of the fascinating things about this 40 days of rollout is that the open question, does

donald trump enjoy the hard grind of governing and detail? or is that not his comfort zone? that is one of the unanswered questions. alison: i think it is clear that the hard ground of governing is not something that he considers his strong suit. last night's address was pretty much a, here is what i want in terms of overarching promises and let's let the details worked out. please come together insensitive magical way. i think david is right. what he has shown over the first few weeks is that is always going to be a mountain with this administration in general. they do not have the organization and so far the internal discipline to push these challenges through in the end. like obamacare, tax reform like , getting anything done needing votes from the democratic side. >> one of the things i heard was donald trump is an interesting entity unto himself. he is not a traditional

republican. you heard the tepid applause about infrastructure and paid family leave. he is not a favorite of the democrats. at this point, is his uniqueness at issue for him? or is it an issue for the congress going forward in terms of getting anything done? ed: i don't think we know that yet. in this day and age we want answers to this stuff and we want to see results quickly. we really need to strap in for at least nine months of intense activity on the hill trying to sort this stuff out. if it is going to take a little while. we are not going to see a lot of movement on this very quickly. simply because these things take time. as the president learned last week, health care is a complicated thing. it took more than a year for democrats and the obama administration to put this thing together. to put it together in a new way

is going to take just as long most likely. you also want to tackle tax reform, immigration, and all this other stuff? we just do not know yet. we have not seen much yet from trump on whether he is into the art of governing and whether his administration is capable of it. now that you have cabinet secretaries in place across the different agencies who would be affected by these changes, the question is how do they build up their teams and policies and work with these committees in the next few months. this is going to take a little time. we are not going to be able to measure the success of him and where he fits in to the two-party dynamic for a little bit longer. we have to put aside talk of lofty immigration and infrastructure work. and paid leave for taking care of children or sick parents. they have to get the other stuff because done first and it is going to take a while. whether they can hold together really does remain a big

unknown. there was a meeting today at the white house with top republican leaders in the president to talk about how they put together the health care plan. how they sell it to the country and also themselves. and how they work on tricky things like paying for the border wall and where the border wall would go. much of the opposition to that on capitol hill is not from democrats, it is from border state republicans and border district republicans. congressional republicans who represent 2000 miles of border. they are concerned about this. there is going to have to be modifications. it is going to be difficult for the president to sort it out. david: i want to jump in when he stands a bit like a democrat on things like paid family leave. one of the things that is striking, i've been covering american politics for five years, and before that, european politics -- he does not sound that unusual or that unfamiliar in the european frame.

that makes a lot of spending on law and order the military, the , border, preserving pensions, preserving welfare for old white voters, that makes is the far right nationalist french makes. that is what we are going to see in the french elections. -- his agenda, the whole spectrum of anti-immigrants, willing to spend lots of money on old people, and also lots of money online order, that is the format now in france and the netherlands. he is an economic blood and soil nationalist in european-style. >> that is also the one thing that when we talk about it was in owned goal last night. david is right in saying his agenda is straight out of marion -- marine le pen. when you talk about inheriting a mess of an economy and 94

million people out of work. that number is just not true. when he talks about setting a standard of boosting growth from 2% under the obama administration up to 3%-4%, even 5%. that is also something that people are going to look back over time at this administration say, did you keep those promises to voters? so much of his agenda is built on the nationalist economic agenda of returning manufacturing, creating more jobs, bringing back the traditional american economic base. so many of the issues we have economically are due to structural displacement, automation, an aging workforce, a workforce that works in different ways and has different shift jobs. where women's labor force per to a huge challenge for us. there will be a view that he was too blase about the challenges of taking us from 2% to 4% growth.

his economic agenda is focused on top down. we saw the dow at 21,000 today. there's no question that wall street and the titans of industry viewed the speech favorably. the irony is, the people who are most likely to back him, white working-class voters from the rust belt, from michigan, ohio, wisconsin those are people who , have yet to benefit from that huge increase in the market from these kind of policies. if he does not make good on that, it will be a big problem for him in the republican party. alison: the president talked about civilians and had guests in the audience. one thing that struck me, out of the four people he talked about two were african-americans. , the young woman who got school choice and the gentleman's whose son was killed by an undocumented person in this country. donald trump only got 8% of the african-american vote. what was that stagecraft about? ed: it was about improving those numbers. republicans for years have worked at this. it was jeb bush that said and quoted ronald reagan that most

americans are conservatives, they just do not realize it yet. this is a reince priebus and sean spicer obsession from when they ran the republican national committee. trump himself is interested in doing it. he believes if given a chance he would win them over. we will see. he has done nothing to help himself among hispanics and latinos in this country given how he has talked and what he has done regarding immigration in recent weeks. you notice he did not invite any latinos to sit in the balcony. the woman who was there as the emblem of school choice. another person that jeb bush traveled with during his campaign. she is a symbol for many republicans of the benefits and the success potential of school choice. it is a big concern of the president. it is something he will be talking about on friday at a catholic school in orlando. they are definitely trying to broaden the appeal to do what he can to win over

african-americans and latinos voters and union households and to find ways to continue to cut into the democratic diaspora. as polling has borne out in the early days of his presidency, he is not making much of a dent despite his attacks. -- attempts. >> that was a spending speech as they say my house. how is all is going to get paid for? >> that is the big question. with little flesh on the bones to get this detail. one thing that has been talked about is the border tax adjustment tax which is projected to raise $1 trillion. we are already seeing huge mobilization against it. the corporate tax rate would drop down to 20%, something they have been trying to do for years. you would also put a bigger levy on imports. you would encourage american manufacturers to keep jobs and reduction at home. you would discourage them from importing goods from abroad. the problem is there's a big , section of the american

economy, whether that is retailers or oil that imports , materials. that would be in the retail sector really deadly. they have already mobilized against it and they are already running ads against it. this is a cornerstone of the paul ryan tax lien to get this $1 trillion through. it is already looking dead on arrival. donald trump's own administration cannot agree between steve bannon and a -- and gary cohn of goldman sachs and steve mnuchin. it is very difficult to come up with the money. you look at his military spending and taking that up. that is divisive within his own party, let alone the democratic party. his budget looks dead on arrival. it was a good night for him. it was a good speech given the low expectations that were out there. he jumped over the bar and he jumped over the bar quite cleanly. the task of getting the agenda through, welcome to washington. game on. let's see if he can forge any type of agreement within his own party, let alone get support he

needs across the isle to get -- aisle to get this stuff through. ed: to the point, it will be all about how to pay for these things. that is why the next few months will be tricky for republicans. it will be a real test of his patience. it may further expose whether he is embracing conservative orthodoxy, especially on fiscal issues, or whether he is it, spend the money. if that happens, there are at least three dozen house republicans or said they are willing to stand up and start blocking things that they need to. david: i think another interesting thing about donald trump which we learned during the campaign and i interviewed him a couple of times, it is not -- he is a guy that does not like to admit that there might be a painful trade-off. i asked him about things like what happens if prices go up at walmart? it was about slapping tariffs on chinese imports. i said a lot of your voters go

to walmart, what will they do when the prices go up? he did not what to admit there would be a trade-off. what he said to me at the time was, maybe they go and buy three dolls for their daughter, and now they will only buy one. they will have a great job so everyone will be happy. as a campaigner, he likes to think everything can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction and that he would be able to avoid painful trade-offs. washington is a town where trade-offs are the air that we breathe. >> to be continued is what you are all saying. david rennie, ed o'keefe, thanks everybody. ♪

"natasha, pierre and the great comet of 1812," is a new hit broadway musical playing. it is inspired from a passage from the leo tolstoy masterpiece "war and peace." the new york times called it the most innovative and best new musical to open on broadway since "hamilton." here is a look. ♪

[applause] alison: joining me is the writer and composer dave malloy, and the two stars, josh groban and denee benton. hi guys. thanks for being on the show. you wrote this based on the 70 page sliver of "war and peace." what in your mind went from the story to the musical theater? how did you make that bridge? >> i had an epiphany as i was reading the section. it did not come to me years later, it was as i was reading it. i got to the end of this section where there is an incredible

moment with a comment and there were tears dripping down my face. i thought it was a perfect musical. a perfect piece of musical theater. at the time i googled it to make sure nobody else had done it because i do not believe that nobody else had done it. it was such a perfect story. i love the way that the story in particular paralleled these two very different stories. there's a young romantic story. then there is a middle-aged philosophical story. the way that those two ran in parallel and collided the very end. it felt like such a musical to me. alison: tell me about the story for those who have not seen it. >> natasha is young. she is newly engaged to andre who is fighting in the war. she is visiting her godmother in moscow and being introduced to moscow society while she is waiting for her fiancee. while she is waiting she meets a notorious young rogue named anat

ole. then hijinks ensue. >> tell me about pierre? what is going on with pierre? >> there is vanity and narcissism in moscow society where there is war outside the gates. everybody is concerned about high society, the balls and the operas. pierre is searching for meaning in his life. he is an alcoholic, a little bit of a depressive. he is searching for some kind of meaning after having been thrust into wealth. he has this unexpected money, he is married somebody who he is attracted to but knows he does not love them very much. while everybody is at war with napoleon or society, he is at war with himself. there is a wonderful arc and song that is so gratifying. we all see little bit of ourselves in these characters.

>> i'm guessing that you have been offered broadway roles before. given your success in a singer. >> i have been. >> we saw this in a smaller incarnation. in the west village, the meatpacking district. what made you realize this is the one that i'm going to make the leap? >> i was a fan of the show off-broadway. i came to see it downtown in the meatpacking district. i walked out of there totally transfixed by the score. i thought it was a genre bending complicated but beautiful score that hit all of my buttons as a musician. the story felt so relevant to me. it felt relevant to me then, but even more relevant now as we look at things that are going on in the world and the way we all are trapped in our own little screens searching for meaning in our own lives.

i have been offered things in the past. this to me seemed like something unique. it seemed like something broadway had not seen before. i knew it would be a challenge for me. it is a role that is very different than the kind of person i generally am in my life. pierre and i have differences. i thought to myself, this was worth the wait. i read somewhere they were bringing it to a proscenium. i thought, what the heck. i would reach out and see if it was right. we went out for one or five drinks and we talked it over. it was a natural fit. glad i waited. >> about three years ago you were getting ready to graduate from carnegie mellon. think about where you are now. can you think about a moment or decision you made there really steered you toward this time in your life? >> good question.

not quite to the extreme, but i had an opportunity to leave school early for a different job. but i would not have been able to graduate. i've always been a very ambitious person. opportunities like this were where my dreams were set. i waited and the right opportunity came along. where i would be able to graduate and my college introduced me to representation agents and managers that help me step into the industry. those decisions helped me get into the right doors. as an actor, getting seen is the trick. getting the audition. i got very fortunate with the people i got connected with in the industry. from there you just wait for the right opportunity. you're are putting yourself out there and doing your best. then a role like natasha comes along. every female at my age would kill to play a role like this. it is so complex and rich. she is the archetype, the ingenue.

she is dealing with coming of age as a woman for the first time in her life. i feel very connected with her there. i feel we are dealing with similar issues of what it means to be a woman in our current eties and allsoci of those things. i feel very fortunate to get to connect with the character so deeply. and also for the material to be perfect. i think that answers your question. >> let's take a listen to the clip of natasha. one of those times in her life when she is overcome by love interlaced with lust. >> ♪ the first time i heard your voice when i first entered the room [indiscernible] widehe world opened and the world was inside of me

and i caught my breath and i laughed and blushed [indiscernible] you, i lovei love you, i love you, i love you ♪ alison: i am curious about your decision. would sound like. as there are so many different kinds of sound. there is steam punk craziness. rock 'n roll. at one point i was like, i went to that club. i remember that club in the 1990's. and these ballads as well. how did you decide how to balance it and what would go where? >> i think that's one of the things about tolstoy, "war and peace" is such an all encompassing novel. and napoleon are these

characters read he has these different characters. my approach to music is the same. i grew up on 1960's and 1970's rock 'n roll. then i became a jazz snob and classical snob. then i found out about electronic music and bjork and radiohead. i have included that in all of my musical palette. in looking at "war and peace," this was perfect because i get to flex all of these muscles. when she's singing a love song, wants to feel like a real old school broadway love song. but then when they go to the club, and they're all drinking vodka, then it can be house music. so i think that's what i love about the book so much. it gave me the opportunity to do all these different things. and to not put myself into a certain box and say, this has to be all russian music or folk music or whatever it is. >> i feel like so many of the characters have their own genre attached to them. i feel like you've also written so much of the electronic is for anatole.

you hear the subwoofers going when he's out there. >> and he's the heart throb. >> he literally electrifies the room. >> that was a dramaturgical discovery when writing the show. as i wrote more and more of it i started to realize, oh, all of anatole's songs are electronic. that could be a thing. his entrance, he brings electronica into the room. >> with you and rachel, you worked together. one of the things about the show that has sent critics running aurus to describe it because it is unusual and unique and vibrant. was there any creative decision you wanted to make and people said, you can't do that? but you're like, we're going to do that? >> we've been blessed with incredible producers all along the way. this show started at a very small theater. 87 seats i think it was. i immediately thought they would

shoot down the entire idea. it is my first piece, let's think more small and reasonable. i said "war and peace" and they said, yeah, let's do it. our producers, howard and janet and paul and many others who brought us first to the tent, they insisted that we not just transferred to a proscenium house that we keep the small , intimacy that we had. and then we went to a.r.t. in boston and that was another step along the way. and we had to figure out how it would work in a perceived him house. but we didn't want to concede and go, ok, we'll just do that production. it was essential to us that we keep the heart of the show in -- intact so we have this intimacy and this 360-degree surround. so then a.r.t. was a huge step in that in terms of they helped us figure out how to put this immersive show into a proscenium house. >> they wanted to help you be as creative as possible. >> yeah. which was wonderful. >> let's talk about that 360. for people who are watching this at home. i suggest go look at clips online. as being in the audience, you can be sitting on the stage, you're part of the show. the cast is everywhere. they're in the aisles. i'm wondering for you, your

character is singing through -- suicidal, singing through such an emotional thing. and you're singing these songs and people are right here. what is it like for you? to have to do that right in the middle of the audience? >> it made an already vulnerable new adventure for me even more naked. coming back into the acting world after leaving it kind of essentially for many years, i was at a fork in the road. we've both went to carnegie mellon university. i did take the job during my freshman year. but flexing the acting muscle again was something that was, i knew, going to be like getting back on a bike. i was grateful for rachel's unbelievable guidance and direction. but one of the things she really made sure i did during rehearsals was be as uncomfortable as possible as much as possible.

she placed people in the rehearsals for me to make eye contact with during the songs. just to get us used to the idea that eyes were going to be on us at all times. even when there are those moments where you feel like you're throwing your heart and soul out onto the stage, you're doing it while being face to face with people. your performance changes sometimes night by night based on the looks you get. the responses you get. because you're basically telling your story both to people out in the house, you have to project, but at the same time you're telling it very cinematically to people right in front of you. it was a terrifying endeavor to kind of get used to that. but now i think we look forward to it. i think now that we've done 150 or so, we can't wait to see who is coming in from where. we can't wait to present that to them each night. >> what's that experience been like for you? to be so close? >> i use them as an acting tool. i sort of treat them, because natasha is going through such an arc. an archetypal arc. i kind of use them as my diary.

there are people, like when anatole comes in and they're trying to send me messaging not to choose him. some women are like, yeah. it's interesting. at the last scene i do, it's like, you're weeping. it almost helps to have people still with you in that moment. for me it helps with the vulnerability. you feel so exposed. those emotions you need to come up to tell the story. i find it actually helpful. i can't imagine doing it now with just us on stage and them out there. i feel like i wouldn't understand how to tell the story. because they're so a part of it. it keeps me active. >> their energy. >> i was going to say, one of our most clever things i think we've done is we have managed to have a cast of 1,200 people on our show. we have a cast as big as the book. you see the audience reacting. one of my favorite moments in the show is watching that song we just saw, "no one else" and watching a 14-year-old girl watch you see sing that song and watch a 70-year-old woman watch you sing that song.

they have such different life experiences. it is so beautiful. >> you really take from that. i desperately use that. especially in a theater, we've been given the gift of freshness. you have to stay on it. >> it's the x factor. for pierre who sits in his study and gets to watch sometimes, it's so great for my prep going into more scenes to be able to watch that interaction. feel out what the energy of the room is each night. it is different every night. so it definitely keeps you on your feet. >> i want to let the audience take a look and listen to you in the role as pierre. let's take a look. angels weep if i die here

tonight i die in my sleep we are asleep until we fall in love and i'm so ready to wake up now i want to wake up don't let me die while i'm like this i want to wake up god don't let me die like this please let me wake up now god don't let me die while i am like this ♪ thing interesting about this play, one of the many things interesting about this musical, i should say, is it has a multiracial cast. denee, you've been very i think mature about this. because i think you've gotten a lot of -- there's been a lot of

discussion about the fact that you're a block woman playing a -- you are a black woman playing a russian princess. i follow you on instagram. i know you embrace this discussion of inclusion and diversity in the theater. you could have just said i'm an , actress. i'm playing a part. why did you decide to really sort of decide to take part in this discussion? >> it's interesting. it doesn't really seem like there's another option for me. i think i've just naturally really interested in those topics. besides that, the not a trendy topic for me. it is my livelihood. having the opportunity to be a working actor in successful shows is a right i think anyone should have if you've worked hard enough for it. so for me, i think understanding what it was like to be a 12-year-old and 11-year-old girl desperately wanting to be a part of these stories and not seeing myself and the toll that that took on my self-esteem and my confidence, i think having the opportunity to be in the position where i know little girls might be watching and kind of wanting to save them some of that drama.

be a part of what it's like to really articulate and use the vocabulary of your beauty standards and understanding why you might feel left out of the narrative. and i think it's special because outside of the fact that natasha is russian, she's an archetype of beauty and light. and love. and everything that a girl goes through. i think it's important to have archetypes actually look like the every woman. and you don't have to look like tom hanks to be the every man. the every man looks like dave. he looks like the asian man down the street. and so i think that was important to me. because i think we have a power to really normalize people and kind of heal a lot of the divisions that exist in our nation by telling the truth and representing a truthful world. and when you have tolstoy, i heard actually dave had a dramaturgical reason for it. every type of person is represented. every type of russian person is represented in "war and peace." what does that look like in an american landscape? to have every type of person

represented on american stage for our audiences. so i thought that was a really cool explanation. outside of my own personal reasons of wanting representation for women of color. there was a dramaturgical reason for it, as well. >> one of the things also that's interesting to me, and i'm curious if it's had an impact on the show, is there's a great number of people in your cast for whom this is their broadway debut. you two. your two leads. has that had an impact on the show, on its energy? >> i think so. i feel like the energy -- everyone is so happy to be there. bright eyed and bushy tailed. [laughter] a few of the people who have been with the show for the longest time are just old, old friends of mine who i tricked into doing a show in this little theater. they were not really actors at all. i asked them to do the show and now four or five years later they find themselves on a

broadway stage. they're like, what, i didn't even audition for this. >> it would be easy to just talk about the fantastic sets and the big sounds and the amazing costumes. but my last question for you is what is the small thing that's moving to you about this story? because you could get lost in the spectacle of it. there's something very emotional about this. what moves you about this story? >> i mean, it's interesting. as the show has gotten bigger and bigger throughout the years, we all kind of looked at what it is now and we thought, this is very tolstoy. we are very lucky that, especially in the realm of musical theater, we get to have that spectacle and give people that. but i think the core, the thing that brings tears to all of our eyes every night, and hopefully audience members as well, is i think the essence of what makes people happy and satisfied in their life. it is told through these characters in very, very different ways. they ultimately, i think, by the end of it come to the same conclusion about what it is that

gives people vitality and happiness in their life. and for me, the thing that is the most powerful is for pierre and natasha's ending is that they're both at their absolute lowest when they finally connect after all these scenes of frivolity. that's something that i think in my own life, as the circus swirls around you, and you search for those meanings, we all know what that feels like to have those dark moments and search for those meanings. to notice that that vulnerability is sometimes when you find the real path. that's the main story i take away from pierre with this show that has always meant the most to me about the show. >> what moves you about the show? >> i think for me it's the grace that the characters offer each other at the end. they make terrible decisions and they break people's hearts and they break their own hearts. sort of at a place where forgiveness might not come easily. and even in the entirety of the book of the characters that do these terrible things and you end up seeing their humanity. there was a talkback with kids

yesterday and they were like, it is hard because i like natasha but she makes these bad decisions and i don't know how to feel about her. that's kind of like life. it's kind of like life and the people that you love. the grace that they offer each other. at the end. and they see the humanity in each other and he reminds her that she's still worth something. that gets me every time. you make those decisions that you think you've ruined your life and someone tells you're still worth it, you're worth another chance. i think that's just magnificent. >> one of the arcs of the show is that we do try to kind of trick our audience, i think. so there's this big spectacle and bombast and this amazing music and choreography and all these things happening. is ahe heart of the show spoken exchange between two human beings. he just says something to natasha and she hears it and that is the moment that transforms both of their lives. it's not all the other things. that has always felt so essential to me. in tolstoy and in our show. >> the show is "natasha and

pierre and the great comet of 1812." thank you so much for being here. congratulations. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. ♪

>> the film "moonlight" is an intimate portrait of three distinct moments in the life of a young black man as he comes to terms with his sexuality and

struggle to find his identity while growing up in a miami housing project. it's from play "in moonlight black boys look blue." it was nominated for eight academy awards. second only to "la la land." the dramatic turn of events at last sunday's ceremony, presenters warren beatty and faye dunaway announced "la la land" as best picture when it was "moonlight" that had won the vote. as a result of the mistake "moonlight's" director was , unable to deliver the speech he had prepared but released it today in the "hollywood reporter." it reads --

>> what you looking at me like that for? >> what, man, come on, you just drove down here? >> yeah. >> i'm trying not to remember. >> at some point you have to decide for yourself who you're

going to be. can't let nobody make that decision for you. >> you want to tell him why the other boys kick his ass all the time? >> what's wrong? >> nothing. >> you ain't it. >> remember last time i saw you. >> you're my only, i mean only. >> no, -- >> to who? to you? >> i ain't seen you in like a decade. >> not what i expect. >> "moonlight" will be rereleased in theaters this weekend for its widest release

point to date. on more than 1,500 screens. charlie talked to barry jenkins along with three of the film's stars back in october. here's a piece of that conversation. charlie: what is it that you hope to accomplish with this film? >> you know, people have said that it's a story that doesn't get told often. characters that we don't see often. voiceless. my greatest hope for the film, and it's what i've experienced, in toronto and london places far , removed from the setting of the film. charlie: which is miami. >> exactly. inner city miami. just these four square blocks. that people can see themselves in these characters who they assume are nothing like them. it's been my experience that people are finding a way to genuinely empathize with the story we're telling. and the characters that we're showing in this film. charlie: you know miami. >> yeah, born and raised. yeah, yeah. charlie: how did that shape this story? >> hugely.

there's this almost anesthesia nesthesia that happens when you're working in a place you know. there's a scene in the film where the character says, you know, sometimes that breeze comes through the hood. the liberty city, where i grew up, is three miles from the ocean. sometimes you can smell it. i think knowing those kinds of things, you go into a location with more confidence that it's going to have the same emotional currency as you felt growing up there. charlie: tell us who chiron is. >> he's a beautifully flawed individual who is coming to terms with finding out who he is. finding what love is. finding that relationship with his mother, just trying to understand life really in general. charlie: tell me about his mother. >> his mother is paula, who is a struggling single parent. who is also dealing with quite a severe crack cocaine addiction as well. charlie: what's interesting about this is you see him at different parts in his life. how hard is that to pull off? >> i thought it would be

impossible. but with the way we -- charlie: the mother stays the same. >> exactly. i wanted to have some kind of foundation or bedrock. naomi as paula was a bedrock. i wanted -- i think the time between the chapters is changing the character, as these young men are shaped by their environment. i wanted him to be a different person. the same character but a different person in each chapter. my hope was, if we found actors who had the same feeling in their eyes, you could see the soul of the character across all three parts. so far i think that's what people are experiencing. charlie: what was the challenge for you? >> one of the big challenges for me, i played kevin, who is a sort of childhood friend of chiron's and goes on to become the object of his affection. the big challenges came in at the end of the film. seemingly out of nowhere. we don't really understand why he's come back. they're on screen together for a very long time. working through a problem. we don't quite know what the motivation of the character is. so that was a big challenge. identifying what that was. once we found it, i think we --

charlie: we talk about masculinity and identity. are they one and the same? >> i think for this character they are one and the same. i think what happens is there's this performance of masculinity that the world is projecting at you always. this is how a man walks and talks and speaks to another man. this is how he speaks to a woman. and i think when you're getting that sort of stimulus so much from the outside world, you start to lose your grip on what your idea of masculinity is. which i think if you're a man growing up in the world we grew up in it's very key to your , identity. it becomes harder to self-identify. the more you receive this sort of both positive and negative reinforcement of what masculinity should look like. charlie: when you were thinking about playing him at the age you play him, and the connection to andre, did you look at the earlier performances? >> no. [laughter] actually, barry didn't allow it at all. we were both trying to find some semblance of something. but barry forebode it. he was really adamant about it

as well. that was to depict how we changed so drastically through our lives at certain points. it was an ingenious thing to do, mr. barry. [laughter] >> i feel like the world is shaping the character so much. when you meet him in each chapter, he becomes a different person. i wanted to keep the soul of the character, so when you look in his eyes, he is still a little boy. but he's a different person. it's great. because they worked to this point where that old person slowly comes back to the surface. charlie: you come to the realization that chiron is gay. how does that affect the relationship that paula has with him? >> i think she really can't accept it at all. she finds it disgusting, unpalatable. it's part of her further rejection of her son as well. and also i think she genuinely fears for his safety and what that means growing up in the kind of community that they're growing up in. it's not something that's going to be easily accepted by anyone in that community. ♪ >> it is noon here in hong

kong. i am ramy inocencio, i have an update of the top stories. jeff sessions is stepping down from an inquiry about influence from russian politics. democrats want him to design. -- resign. president trump says he has total confidence in the attorney general. for theinflation rose first time in 14 months. household spending fell 1.2% from one year earlier. higher inflation is at the heart of japan's economic revival effort with hopes pinned on higher oil prices and a