tavis: good evening from new york, i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with one of the most influnerble names in the movie wiz, harvey wine steen, he has produced -- wine tine, he has -- weinstein. he took the top prize for "the king's speech," he's here to talk about his new movie "hoodwinked too." >> all i know is his name is gene and he -- james and hi needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance

supports tavis smiley. we are 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] tavis: i'm pleased to welcome harvey weinstein to this program. in 1979 along with his brother bob, he funned miramax films, which became a vehicle of

critical and commercial success. here now, a small sampling of his iconic filmography. ♪ >> there's something wrong. >> are yo having an affair? >> i never thought about having -- have you ever thought about having sex with someone other than your husband? >> i've thought about it. >> the waves are crashing over your little boat, you're about to snap.

you do what you've got to do to get out. maybe you become a psychologist. >> bin go, that's it. >> hello. >> hello, sydney. remember me? >> there's no one there. >> we're in the killing business and cousin, business is up. boom. >> listen to me. i have a right -- >> i have a voice. >> yes, you do. tavis: starting this weekend you can catch the latest project from the weinstein company, "hoodwinked too," and they just purchased the rights to "the bully project." harvey, you are the man. >> you say that to everybody.

tavis: i watched you watching the monitor. when you see -- and that's just a small sampling of your work, but when you see that what do you think? >> what's next? i guess you don't get tired of it until you're sitting in the old film person's home. >> how do you know, how do you figure out what's next? >> to me, it's all about reading and it's all about, you know, understanding literature. you know, i often tell the story when i was 10 years old, i played cowboys and indians, i got my right eye poked out. i had a neighbor, 72 years old, francis goldstein, every day, came and saw me because i couldn't go to school, i looked like quasimodo from the hunchback of notre dame and i just finished my homework fast, i was bored to death, there

wasn't 500 channels, there was a thing for librarian to coach a kid like me about reading. so i learned to read early and i love to read. when people ask, what makes movies great, it's the material. tavis: is there a lack of an appreciation for literature in our country today? and how does that affect the movies? >> i speak to kids 15, 16 years old, they haven't read a newspaper, they don't even look at the headlines, they are on the internet and the level of news they're getting is not the call of "the new york times" or "the wall street journal." it's way deficient and they don't care. so for me, you know, i bemoan the fact that i don't think our kids are as literate as they should be. tavis: what does that say about the future of our country and the future of the business? >> i think the future of the business i'm less worried about. i'm more worried about the future of our country. it's up to us to educate people and show the joy and wonder of

reading. i can say there was a moment of feeling great, it was on the king's speech when kids who couldn't speak, had impediments, stuttered, told me, wrote to me and said, hey, we love this movie because if the king could overcome his impediment, we can overcome ours. so many stories of kids practicing in the mirror and overcoming this. that was one of my proudest miamis to make a movie like that that inspired kids that way. >> if president obama called tomorrow and made you the czar -- because he loves czar -- made you the czar of the read ing -- of the i love reading department, what would you co-? >> change libraries and make it more exciting. i think there's a way to use technology to captivate children's imagination early and it becomes adibtive after a

while. i don't think there's a week that goes by where i don't read a couple of weeks -- a couple of books a week and sometimes more. it all started when i was young. if the president is watching, i accept. i always wanted to be a czar. i'm part russian, too. tavis: you are the czar of the independent film these days. you guys have a fief dom you control. >> i got spare time. they can use you. >> how does the guy who makes films spend his day? how do you spend your time? sit around reading scripts all the time? >> i know it looks glamorous because i work with glamorous people but most of the time i'm in an editing room, just me and another guy and i miss cigarettes for especially those occasions. i haven't smoked in five years, i used to love smoke-filled

editing rooms. it's a lot of lonely time watching celluloid go round and round and trying to figure out how to make the movies better than you shot it. or watching old movies. i love turner classic movies because it's an education to watch and film and say, that's how he did it, that's how he lit that scene. things i'm always cans tonightly learning all the time. tavis: the next question that i have to ask, you must know. do you want to answer it? >> no, i don't know. tavis: why stop smoking? how did you kick it? >> i read a book by dr. allen karr, it was about how he quit smoking. it was unlike anything i had ever read. his premise was you're a jerk for smoking, and you have no control whatsoever and anybody who smoked was not cool, they

were weak, because they were giving in to cigarette companies that were putting one over on us. i rang him on the phone, he told me he would be dead in six months, but he set me up with damien o'hara, and his way is to sit with you for five hours while you smoke while he talks about smoking. we were in a hotel room, by the time we were done i was so sick of cigarettes and realized the tobacco companies put one over on me, i was angry and as a result i never picked up cigarette again. i realized it's like selling crack to kids. damien o'hara convinced me it was crack and allen karr died

at 73 years old. >> how hard was it to kick it? >> i kicked it that day. i just said, i'm stupid, really stupid, this is cracking and i'm not going to do that to myself. it's complete b.s. tavis: that, i suspect sounds foreign to some people. if you are to believe the latter part of your formulation, that you've been had, hoodwinked, led astray, sorry spike, by the tobacco industry, the argument is that it's an addiction. if you're addicted, how do you kick it cold turkey? >> you're so upset, pissed off, how upset i was at myself overcame my addiction. whatever rem innocent of pride i found in mist, i said good-bye, this is not going to beat me. not going to control me. >> was there a sense looking badge on it, over the time you were smoking, when you came to that realization, was there a sense of weakness, just you'd

been played but you'd been weak -- >> 100%. that was the genes you -- genius of allen karr and he felt he'd been duped. that was 100% right. this is a unique way to break cigarettes, came out of literature. tavis: the first sign of weakness is strength. let me set this up, i want your take on this. a guy on this program said to me, a couple of years ago in a conversation, he said to me, in this business, hollywood, it helps if you have f-u money or an f-u attitude, both doesn't hurt. i was reading an article yesterday, chris dodd, the new head of the motion picture association, was making a reference to you about how tough you can be when you want the rating for your friend. you seem like such a nice, warm

friendly guy, but i know you don't get where you are, so tell me how tough you have to be. >> you have to be smart, you have to be principled, you have to be smart enough to enact your principles. it's like the false accusation about women, women are demanding people call them -- women who are demanding, you call them bitches, but that's not it. they're just demanding. what am i aggressive about, there were 11 f-u's in the movie. in england they understood that the content of those f-words, they didn't want that to pribt the kids from seeing it, so families could go. i went and overturned that rating.

does that make me a bad person so that kids could go and see the movie? that was something i was aggressive about. same thing about blue valentine, there was nothing adult about that movie, it was different than any other movie, didn't show that much, showed less than others, so there was discrimination and we enacted it. it's image. i go home, i have four dollars, they kick my butt every day, i'm glad when they think i have a image, it's very helpful. tavis: that's why i love you. to the point of this conversation now, do the fights change for you with each film to get it made or is there a perennial fight that you find yourself fighting? >> the kind of material i choose is obviously not marvel comic books so i try to go

against the grain, i try to say what do i want to do, what's my art. so what can i do for me and for people upstairs. i make movies about guys -- kings who stutter and guys with a left foot that paint with their toes. probably a lot of people say that about the bully movie too. tavis: the project you just bought. >> there was an old motto at miramax that said good can triumph over evil if the angels were as organized as the mafia. when i saw this mue see, i was like, my old motto is going to come to be. we're given in a strange way, beat the bullies at their own game. we're going to end it. we're the right company to take

take this movie on. there are too many good kids dying. too many being pranked, being bullied. any father who see this is, any mom who sees this, you want to get on the bus with your kids and go to school, trust me. you see the level of what has escalated so heavy in this country and around the world that we can shame these kids so they throw themselves off a bridge or hang themselves in a room because they think they're worthless. my staff said, there'll only be one bully left, you, harvey. such a dream. tavis: let me ask where you get chutzpah to have these fights. we had someone on the program, i'm going to go see his art

collection while he's in town. i can be the afford anything but i want to go look at it. but that obviously was a very controversial film. many people in your own commun, the jewish community, didn't like that film. how do you choose, how do you fight those kinds of fights even when sometimes they're in your own community. >> my mom is 85 years old, he's the marie in miramax. she saw the movie, she said, did your brother see this movie? did he have anybody to do with it? i said, he loved it too. so there's my strong 85-year-old mother, jewish mom, i love her dearly but obviously she doesn't want to see the

palestinians have a point of view and it's a point of view that we have to understand if there's going to be peace. she's half kidding but also not half kidding. so that was the fivers thing to overcome is mom. but over the years, mom's rolled with the punches. we did the movie "priest," which was all those years ago, we made a movie about a priest molesting young boys and the cardinal called us on the carpet in new york, my mom wouldn't even talk to us, that we made a movie like that. she said they used to show the miramax logo and people would boo in the theater because we were involved with "priest." we have heard all these stories. we have historically verified these stories. we weren't scared to take the cardinal on and look what happened all those years later. look at the stories of those boys and what happened to those boys. now you look at what we did with "priest" an people want to give us a medal for it.

i feel the same way, there won't be peace in the middle east until we as the jewish community and the american community takes a better look at the plight, what's going on in palestine. tavis: how much did it really hurt, when you couldn't get it back? >> i wasn't happy but the people who are doing it -- who have it now, they're doing a good job. they're treating us well, we're treating themming well, it's working better than it was working with disney. >> what's the value in this business or any other of being self-made? >> i think the idea is that you done get it hanned to you and you appreciate it a lot more an every day you know, i might say i'm on to the next but trust me, i appreciate itism pinch myself a lot and say how lucky as a kid born in brooklyn and grew up in queens in a rent-controlled apartment sitting on the balcony of some

hotel at the cannes film festival with 25 million people, pretty cool. >> how do you get this kind of success in hollywood, no less -- tavis: how do you get this kind of success in hollywood, no less, and not let it go toe your head? >> when you live in new york city -- in hollywood you go to the grocer and they probably go hi, mr. weinstein, here's a script i'd love you to read it. in new york it's like wait in line. shut up, you're nobody. i love new york. it's the greatest equalizer in the world. you're nobody in new york and you're everybody in new york. so it's the greatest city on earth as far as i'm concerned. i don't live there, i don't want, i don't experience that smoke up my butt. tavis: i live there, it doesn't happen to me. you make a joke about it, but

do people walk up to you and talk to you? >> people say, do you remember me? we melt in the elevator? i say, when was that? they say, 10 years ago. absolutely, i remember you. tavis: just between the two of us -- >> what, you have a script? tavis: that was good, i like that. no i don't. two-part question here. just between the two of us, the one thing that you did in fact make that you have since had reservations about, if there is one, and something you didn't

make that you say now, maybe i should have. >> i think that, you know, didn't make was just on short commercial, "the dragon tattoo," i read about it in "newsweek," i had an opportunity, and i walked into the staff, it was one of those days when i wasn't being alpha male and walked in and said what do you think we should do? and they said, it's swedish, forget it. i said they're probably right. in my -- everything about it said i want to buy the rights to this and make these movies and i didn't do it and i regret it. for that reason. i had another one "the da vin three code" i like this one and i wanted to do it, dan brown wanted to sell it to us, but he wanted anthony involved, anthony as great a writer as he was, he couldn't crack it for

the screen. as he said it, it was like one of those scenes out of the movie, you see the fortune moving away from you, how many millions of copies we would have done in that movie, could have made art movies for the rest of our lives and still never run out of money. so those were two that got away. tavis: is there something you have made that in any way you had thoughts, second thought rerks visited? are you happy with the complete filmography? >> i probably blocked it out but there's got to be a whole bunch of movies that i wish i had a second chance or i wish never came to light of tai. i'm just mentally blocked i think. tavis: we're meeting for the first time but the thing that's always turned me on about you is i love people who are counted out and come back. i don't know how many times you've been counted out. a few years ago, reading a major article in a major new

york publication, that you guys were done. and here you are on stage with "the king's speech" again for the fourth time. how do you navigate forward when people count you out? >> they counted us out from the beginning. if you look at it, odds were stacked against us. i'm used to that. but my favorite was, i kno you're talking about a "new york times" story. i always laugh when they get it wrong. a friend of mine owns the newspaper and they can't wait for it to be proven true. but they'll all be gone by the time that happens. tavis: he would love that. >> a wonderful writer, he wrote a 20-page profile of us, pretty much saying we were gone, this was in the year 2000, he said this company was king of the 1990's, harvey has the sensibilities of the 1990's,

but the new millennium isn't for him. they had all these guys off the record, and i could tell who they were, three weeks later, not three weeks later, we got nominated for 40 academy awards. nobody has ever even come near that, including three movies, "chicago," "the hours," "and gangs of new york," all nominated for the best film. it was like throwing a no-hitter. tavis: finally this weekend, "hoodwinked too." >> i have four daughters from eight months to 16 years old. one thing we do is go to the movies. the pixar and dreamworks movies are the golden standard but there are a lot of others. as a dad you have to sit there and go, i can't take this.

but your kids are watching it so it's good enough. we try to imbue a sense of humor in the movies so mom and dad can have a good time and get extra special jokes. i'm proud of it, it's good, i hope people see it. tavis: i'm sure they will. that's our show for tonight. until next time, good night from new york and as always, keep the faith. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley is the pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley, join me next time with the head of new york's famed dance theater, robert battle. that's next time, i'll see you then. >> 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 an every answer nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one at a time. >> and by conversations with your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.