tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation about the film with the most oscar nominations this year, "the king's speech." tom cooper directs it on the true life -- tom hooper direct the film. it earned 11 other oscar nominations, including one for best picture. it is. these projects include an award winning -- his other projects include an award winning series on john adams and elizabeth 5. director tom hooper, coming up now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is happy to help tavis improve financial

literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: tom hooper is a talented filmmakers previous projects include two mini series for hbo, which combined to win 22 emmys. his latest project is "the king's speech," which received 12 oscar nominations, the most of any this year. >> my husband is --

>> perhaps he should change jobs. >> my husband -- >> he needs to enunciate. >> i can help your husband, but i need total trust. what is your earliest memory? >> i am not here to discuss personal matters. >> do you know any jokes? >> timing is not my strong suit. >> actually -- >> yes. >> your particular -- you are

peculiar. am i take that as a complement. >> we'll need a king that we can stand behind. >> i am afraid he is only a shadow. >> you can do it. you cannot sit back. get up! listen to me a mr.. e! >> why should i waste my time listening to you? >> because i have a voice! >> yes, you do. >> he seems to be saying it rather well. >> your first speech. >> however this turns out, i don't know how to thank you. >> i intend to be a very good

queen to a very great king. tavis: we were just talking, and whispered to me that he thought it was a great trailer. i was about to ask you how much will the rector has, what you have done the hard stuff, getting the trailer just right. if it stands, nobody wants to see it. why was that such a good trailer? >> it builds to the importance about the one defining mom that, the one the fighting speech. with the state of the union this week, we still live in a culture where there are these incredibly import speeches that become the focus of inspection -- of expression of political leadership. tavis: what role do you play once you turn the project in with what makes the trailer? >> this was a joyous example of

a time when that was pretty much the cut that was shown. the answer is if you don't like the trailer, you get very involved. if the trailer is great, it is very liberating to know that he could trust the team. tavis: for those who have not seen the movie, they will see between now and oscars, but i am curious, from your perspective, what do you essentially think this movie is about? >> i think it is about the biggest team of all, which is finding your voice. i think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it is shyness, insecurity, a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that blocke is truly inspiring because i think all of us are engaged in that every day. as i sit here, i want to give the best of myself to you, and

that is always a fight to achieve that. i think we're all involved in those negotiations. if you think about the way we dream and what our fears are, one of the most recurrent nightmares we all have is dreams of paralysis, either physical paralysis or paralysis of the voice. we all have those dreams were we tried to cry out but are voice does not come, so it taps into that tremendous anxiety and our ability to communicate. without our ability to communicate, our humanity is compromised. tavis: i had a friend a couple years ago who said something which resonates, each of us, as surely as we have a thumbprint on our hand at excess uniquely different and the world, each of us has a thumbprint on our throats, and light is about try

to find your own voice. -- and life is about trying to find your own voice. >> i think the thumbprint on people's voice is childhood trauma that goes on processed and on recognized, and the message of this film which i would like any teenager to think about it is a few feel that your teenagers have been defined by some kind of traumatic episode or chromatic face, try not that -- try not to let that overshadow your entire life. in this film, he finally addresses the effects of his childhood, but it is that incredibly important thing of processing your childhood so it does not define you. actually, one of the most important lines in the film was actually given to me by my father. my father lost his father in the war at the age of 2 and was

packed off to full-time boarding school at the age of five, and it was the middle of winter. corporal punishment, and it later life he was told, don't be afraid of the things that you were afraid of when you were five years old. it was a revelation. he was still living in a siege mentality against that early banishment to boarding school when he was 5 years old. when he told me this story, i said, thanks, dad, i will put that in a film. tavis: you raised your father, but me raise your mother. you mentioned your father, and i want to bring your mother it into this because i think the best part of this film is how you got turned on to the material. i will let you do the honors. >> i am half australian, half english. the only reason i came upon this

story is michael scalea mother, late 2007, had some -- my australian mother, late 2007, had some australian friends go to an unrehearsed play called "the king's speech." my mother has never been invited to a plea reading in her life. thank god, she did, because she called me up and said, you are not going to believe this, tom, because i think i found your next film. the moral of your story is -- the moral of the story is, listen to your mother. tavis: what do you make of the fact that your mother goes to an unrehearsed play, she is so moved that she calls you? and then you look up and you have 12 oscar nominations. what do you make of that? >> i feel that my film in many ways is about the dysfunctional

affect of parenting on a child. it led to a lot of his trauma, and i am one of the lucky ones. i am the son of highly functioning parents who i am incredibly lucky and have. when i look at this journey, i had to have a good influence on my life. i think the reason that connect it to my mother and a recent connected to me is it is one of the stories of my childhood growing up, one of the narrative is was my australian mother and packing the effects of my father's upbringing. my mother was present at saying, this affected your dad, and it is up to us to unpack it. my father went from being amazingly and engaged to be very

involved. that is thanks to my mother. it was about talking about this very particular and low australian relationship i had experience growing up with my parents and exploring it through the characters of the king. the australians have this quality that they are impervious to majesty, they are not in awe of it, and that quality of being relentlessly democratic and challenging the english when it was very important -- challenging the english way was very important. tavis: what is fascinating to me, there are a number of folks around the world who are not necessarily turned on by markey, and yet what you had to do as a filmmaker was to take a story that is clearly connected to,

revolves around monarchy, and tap into something that would allow each of us to wrestle with the humanity and our own lives. how do you get us to wrestle with that when meineke is the vehicle and a lot of us are not turned on by that? monarchy is the vehicle? >> the united states of america wrote a letter that said we have had enough of your arrogance. that is the declaration of independence, which i looked at when i made at john adams. deep in the dna of america is this challenging rejection of vote the english monarchy. he could have answered the challenge in a different way and defused the situation, but he did not. he went to war against america. because of that, i think there is a deep connection and america, this idea of this austrian character challenging

the english, i will not do it your way, i will take on your upbringing, and the only way i could help you do that. i think the reason that has resonated with the american audience, we can all see ourselves in that. america is that wonderful spirit, intrigued by majesty, but not overruled by it. you are touching on something that is very resident to the creation of this country. tavis: let me go into the picture, tell me about this stuttering problem. >> it was very severe. it started at about the age of 4, 5, and it was connected to aspects of his upbringing. he was left-handed, retrained as a right-hander, he had to wear leg braces, he had a nanny who neglect it him and was

slightly -- who neglected him and listened politely abusive to them. i am sure this kid felt like nobody wanted to hear him. connected to stammering is this sense that you lose the confidence that you have the right to be heard, and there are still a huge debates raging about how neurological, or how much it is to do with murder, stammering. all i can say is that the speech therapist in the store, where did he learn about speech problems? the first world war, young australian man coming back from a front, mute, stammering. an insight that it was possible to acquire a stammer. tavis: how did they get connected? >> there are a couple of

competing stories about the details, but elisabeth, the queen mother, was very driven to help him, and had gone through the speech doctors to no avail, and that lionell was the last person in the back of the box, the maverick that you would not go to first. from what i understand, it list curse them and not in trying to help them that led them -- it was her stamina and try to help him that led them to him. tavis: the story is that this project was in development for some time, but she did not want to see this project come to life in her lifetime because the pain was too great for her. tell me more. >> it is an extraordinary story. this film goes right back to the second world war, with a young boy who has a severe stammer,

and he used to listen to keene george vi on the radio -- king george vi on the radio. that was his boyhood hero. he grew up wanting to write about this guy. he thought he could write his passion project, and he attracted the middle son and got the papers of his father but needed permission from the palace. he wrote to the palace and the queen mother broke back, please, not in my lifetime, the memories of these are too painful. he waited, not realizing the queen mother would live till 102. it was almost 30 years later that he was able to sit down and write it. what a sweet about the story, there is this great act of

respect from david towards the queen mother's wishes. was it his grandson who exposed to? >> when david wrote the script, he was living in california. these papers went undiscovered. nine weeks before our shoot, we tracked down the grandson of lionell, living in london 10 minutes from where i lived. he had the papers and a filing cabinet, which turned out to be a hand written diary account of the relationship between lionell and the king of england, which nobody knew existed, know this story and had seen, the royal family never looked at, and i had them in my hands -- no historian had seen them, the royal family never looked at them, and i had them in my hands. there are a few lines of dialogue written by king george

vi and lionell. at the end he says he still stammered on the "w." it was a direct quote. it tells us that the king is sharp, witty, and it inspires us to find more moments where we could bring that out. tavis: going back to the beginning of the conversation, president obama, the state of the union speech, all the hype and expectation, people suggesting he had to kill this if he had any chance of being reelected or getting right on the right path. there are moments in public life where there is a lot riding on a particular speech. tell me how much was riding on the speech the king had to give? >> this film is really about

this extraordinary revolution. before this time, a generation before, the king was a visual icon. he looked good on a course, if he looked good in the carriage, he could fulfill the duty. but the coming of radio, suddenly the world changed. it became, can this leader project emotion on the radio? and the eggs idea of whether he could do that, we have inherited that -- the anxiety of whether he could do that, we have inherited that. it the state of the union, is not just content, it is, can we perform it and a way that he feels " we know? there critiquing performance. nobody doubts that he cares. it is about whether he projects the connection, and that isn't

acting question, which goes right back to the story. and our story, he had a stammer, the most profound at corbeil that anybody could have -- the most profound hurdle that anybody could have any speech. it turned out the stammer heat suffered from was his greatest asset. as people sat around the empire to listen to the king spake, he reached out to you and your suffering, saying i understand what you are going through, it has tremendous authority if he is suffering to even talk to you. he is not some guy in an ivory tower, he is all too human, fold, and it made people connect in a way that has never happened. tavis: we were talking before we start the program, bill withers, great american artist still has a stuttering problem. i grew up with eight stammering

problem, had to go to a therapist to get past it, but i knew what it meant to. i raise that because there is a certain insecurity that comes along with that, and it is hard to navigate toward everyday person like myself, but i am not the team. how does the kaine deal with a stutter, stammer, and feelings of insecurity -- how does the king deal with that? >> that is the thing that makes this story exceptional, the fact it becomes an extraordinary intensifying mechanism. i am sure the reason your occupied by kings, you take a private issue and make him king, it is a constitutional crisis, it massively intensifies the stakes. that is the reason it comes back to the story of the monarchy,

but in the case of him, what made it interesting is you have a guy standing up to nazism, who is criticizing hitler for this doctrine of "might is right," overreaching pursuit of power, and is coming from a guy who did everything he could to avoid that. he did not want to be kidding. it was a nightmare -- he did not want to be king, did not want power, going up against a guy who is the most power-hungry in the history of the last century. tavis: let me ask if your history buff, if you just love period pieces. how does this keep happening to you? >> embarrassingly, i give up history when i was in school. i am not a history buff. when i was a teenager, fictional

films, those were in my 20's. i think i have been brought to it through a desire to conduct to issues of national identity. i want to make work that connects with the big issues of our time, and i cannot tell you what a privilege it was to make "john adams" and know what was going out during the time of the u.s. primaries and give us the opportunity to say, is it possible to trace back to the origins? there is this schism that runs through this country, back to the personalities of the founding fathers, and it was extraordinarily interesting to see what can the creation story of america teach us about the politics now? tavis: is it possible to still do that? >> i think we have a better understanding of the present by looking at the past. one of the most vitriolic and backbiting companies in history,

there was no golden age, there was no moment in politics where it was not divisive, people stabbing each other in the back that is never going away, you have to work with it. this dream that we are all going to hold hands, that is not going to happen. tavis: it will not go away, and 2012 will challenge would never john adams went through. the movie is called "the king's speech," receiving the most nominations of any film this year. tom hooper, nominated for best director, best picture, wonderful to have you on the program. we will watch what oscar night to see how well you do. that is our show for tonight. until then, good night from l.a., thank you for watching, and as always, keep the faith. >> all for the sake of ensnaring a star patient that you cannot

hope simply hope to resist. it will be george, the stammer er, who that people know -- what are you doing? that is not a chair! that is st. edward's chair! listen to me! >> will give you the right? >> i have a voice! >> yes, you do. today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for our conversation with actor ed o'neill, plus steel magnolia. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live

better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television]