tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with the claim hollywood filmmaker lawrence kasdan, a man who has written or written in iconic movies, like "raiders of the lost ark" and "the bodyguard." the new film is called "darling companion" which has a terrific cast, including with actor kevin kline. this is coming up, right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to pbs stations like viewers like you.

tavis: please welcome lawrence kasdan to this program. during his stellar career, he has written or directed iconic programs, like "the big chill," "raiders of the lost ark," and "the bodyguard," and he was hired by steven spielberg and george lucas. let's take a small sampling look at his memorable work. ♪

♪ ♪ if i have to cry ♪ darlin'et baby, baby, ♪ease don't leave me, girl captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> is real all right. itif you're not careful, will be the last real thing that we do. >> snakes. why did it have to be snakes?

>> the dark side. he told you what happened to your father. i am your father. >> frank farmer is here. frank farmer, the bodyguard. come and meet this man. >> all right. i am off. >> frank farmer, rachel. >> hello. >> hi. >> you do not look like a bodyguard. >> what did you suspect? >> i know, maybe a tough guy.

>> this is my disguise. tavis: he once again teamed up with one of his favorite actors, kevin kline, on "darling companion," with diane keaton, and it opens april 20. here is a scene. >> mom. >> he is not mine. i am just going to find him a home. >> why is he here? >> i could not let them take him to the pound. i will call the rescue tomorrow. >> we are not getting a dog, right? you are at school. she is not gonna come home and what a dog, and neither am i.. >> i told you, i'm going to find him a home. >> i know you. >> that was the doctor, the veterinarian. >> he is coming here now? >> yes. >> a veterinarian makes house calls?

did you see that? tavis: i will come to that in a moment, but when you watch that, do you feel will -- old or lucky or what? >> i feel lucky first. it is a good job. i like doing it. some to be able to do it for years is really lucky, as you know. when you like your work, that is a blessing. >> -- tavis: yes. obviously, there are different themes and different genres, but is there a threat to your writing or to your work that you hope runs through? >> i think that kind of thing happens unconsciously, maybe not purposely, but i think your feelings about the world come on through. if you write and direct your own

movies, and most of these i wrote and directed, then i think there are some themes that come through that are true in your life, and i think that is kind of humanism, and i guess i believe in the possibility of good, even though i think the world is full of all kinds of things. tavis: why should i believe today in the evidence of good when the evidence points to the contrary? >> there are a lot of people doing amazing things out there quietly, and they do not get in the headlines, and they do not get the attention, but there are really good people doing unselfish, generous things, sometimes in complete anonymity, so i think there is hope for that. tavis: i want to go back to europe beginning and the fact that this is all you wanted to do. i will get to that in the second, but one reason you are on the program is that i was literally in new york if you

weeks ago for an event, and afterwards, with some friends of mine, we went to dinner, and there was a guy's head near me, and i recognized the back of his head. i could not recognize it, but i recognized it, and he turns to the side, and i get a side profile, and i think i know who he is, and he turns around, and he says, "hi, tavis." by have never met him. it turns out, we are both graduates from indiana university. i am a big fan of his work, so for the first time, kevin kline and i me down in the village in new york, and he was telling me all about this film he was doing with diane keaton and the cast, but what is it about this collaboration with kevin kline that you keep coming back to? >> you know, he can do anything, and he is a great theater actor. he is probably our greatest

shakespearean actor, which is not the most popular thing in america right now these days, but he is an astounding actor. he has played regular people. he played a cowboy in "silver ado." he is hilarious. we did a movie called "i love you to death, " very funny, and then he played a french by in "french kiss." he is a master of accents, and he is funny. he is serious. he is a great pleasure to work with. i met him 30 years ago when i was casting "body heat," and he did not get that one, but he got the next. tavis: what is it like when a writer or director makes contact with someone on one project. they establish a relationship. it does not work out for that project, but there is something that leads you back to them.

collaborating for 30 years as opposed to him hating you for not casting him in what he thinks he should have been cast in. >> i think you know when you have met a kindred spirit, and you put that in the filing cabinet, and you think, "i hope i get to work with him." there are so many good actors, and when you meet someone who does not fit in the project, you think, what can i do with them? what can i write for them? that happens to me repeatedly. i was trying to work with diane for years. i idolized her, and now, she is in "darling companion." tavis: tell me about "darling companion." >> my wife and i rescued a dog from a shelter in l.a., and we had taken him up to the rockies

in colorado, and we had to go to a wedding, and a friend was watching him, and a mountain bike came by and scared him. the dog was 7 years old when we rescued him, and he had a lot of neuroses, and he ran off when he was scared, and he decided to show up, but he just did not come down to the little town. we searched through the mountains. we got on the radio, and the dog was out there in rough weather for three weeks, and luckily, we were able to get him back, and that was sort of the inspiration for this movie, not so much about the search for the dog but what you go through as you did it and relationships in the movie and had you can come to care for an animal or a person in such an intense way. tavis: why do you think and film these animal stories, these narratives, seem to work? not always, but often times.

>> there is a lot of people that relate. having an animal is such an intense immediate experience. an animal is only in the movement -- moment. they do not worry about tomorrow or yesterday. there are no grudges. all of the things that we are prone to do as human beings, animals just want to know what is going on right now. are we going to take a walk? are we going to eat? is it time to sleep? and it is an awfully assuring reminder of what life is about, i think, so you find incredible amount of people relating, whether they have family, no family. the pet is a part of the family. i think maybe a lot of people relate to that. tavis: you worked with steven spielberg. i had someone on this program before he said to me that when they were directing their first project, they asked him for

advice, and he told them three things not to do on their first bill. the first two was to do nothing with water, and the second was not to do anything with animals. this is not your first time out, but what are your challenges for filming with animals? we know the fate of luck on hbo. we know what happened there with these horses, so, obviously, working with animals is not easy, and the challenge -- >> i have done two westerns and worked with hundreds of horses, and i did another movie with a dog in it, and the key is your trainers. it is an atmosphere on the set where that is the most important thing, the welfare of those animals. and it is for real. and if you get a great trainer, then the animal is responsive when you needed to be responsive. if not, you are losing hours and hours, and on a little movie

like this, you do not have the time to give up, so we had great trainers and a great dog, and that is really the key. it is just like having a tough start, you know? if your dog is not going to be cooperative. tavis: what is easier, a dog or a big star prove >a dog is easier, but i have been very lucky with my actors. i consider myself fortunate. tavis: when he was telling me about this at the restaurant, i have great respect for kevin kline and diane keaton as actors, and yet, i think you know where i am going with this, this is not the blueprint for box office success these days. you know this already, so why roll the dice?

we saw the clips, ago. >> i think you have to write the stories that present themselves to you. it is hard to write the scripts, and to get them done well and then raise the money to do it. it gets harder and harder. >> 19-year-old kids are not going to see this three or four times. >> i do not know is going to see it. kevin and diane are in their 60's, and the focus of these movies is to be someone their age, my age, and you just do not see it, and yet, the audience is very much that age, and every friday night, they are looking in the paper for something to see, and they are desperately disappointed, i think, friday after friday because they are not being served. tavis: why did you think that is the case? i agree. i was not asking this question

of kevin. again, they are fine thespians, but hollywood does set a script, pardon the pun, that they prefer filmmakers to follow. you have gone outside of that, but there is an audience that is desperate every week to find something that they want to see, that mirrors their lives for their experience, something that is smart, and if that audience is there, why does hollywood not give them what they want? >> the big home runs, the gigantic movies that are going to make $1 billion are not going to be found in that area. hollywood used to make a very nice living making medium-sized movies. and i was very lucky. i was writing and directing them for a long time, and they were about people. you can still make a nice profit doing that if you are lucky and what you do connects with people, but if you are going for 60 merchandising tie-ins. if you want to be in a drive-in restaurant and a toy and a computer, you are going to go

for these very is why it kind of franchises. we have seen a lot of comic books and remakes and sequels, and that tends to take some of the fear out of this very expensive enterprise. tavis: you said something just now that hit me because i suspect that you are probably right. in fact, i suspect you are right, but i have never processed in this way, and that is this notion that hollywood used to make movies about people. it seems a strange thing to say, because you would think that ostensibly they are about people, and they are not always about people. how did that should happen, and what is the price that we pay long-term for an industry that is no longer making movies about people? >> i think the whole culture misses it. without question. movies are such a powerful form, and for them to have given up on

that particular thing, which they did for 80 years, they told stories about people, and they have not given up. there is an independent films same where it is possible to make movies about people, but hollywood has abdicated that a little bit, and i think it is because they are run by multinational corporations. they are looking at how we can have a gigantic franchise that can be repeatable, where we can make three or four and that does not come from dramas about people, comedies about people. it comes from the repeatable franchises that can emerge. tavis: i went to press again. what do you think the price is we pay? i was just asked the other day by the academy here in town to come and give the opening remarks and to be the lead in for the anniversary of "to kill a mockingbird." i was honored and delighted to go do it next week or so.

one of the great films ever made, a movie about people, gregory peck -- >> whatever generation, for me, for you i am sure, you walked of there, and you had an idea about what american justice was supposed to be against all odds, when it was not easy, and those were the kinds of stories that were the central support of hollywood for years, and when you lose that, when you lose those kinds of stories, and the culture suffers terribly, because our best writers, are best dramatists, dramatizing the principles that we hold dear, and those things are lost. it does not become the subject matter of films, so when you say what is lost, it is everything. it is our best people, our best actors, with those core principles that we hope for in our lives, in our country, and

to have it taken out, becoming a mechanized kind of merchandising machine. it is a terrible, terrible loss. >> does any of this conversation have anything to do about these films being independently produced? >> absolutely. we did not even present this film to the studios because we did not think there was a chance that they would make it. even some of the comedies they are making, and they are very funny some, they are extreme, and the humor swings rather wildly, and if you go through that system, if you go through the studio system, and you have all of those notes that the studio gives you, you are going to make a very different kind of film. it certainly would not be like this movie, which is really about the kinds of companionship that people can have over a long marriage, over a brand new romance midlife, and a kind of relationship a cross species,

that a dog can actually mean it so much, the pack, that you would really go out of your way to see if you could say that pat. tavis: you were struggling. i promised i would get to this. you're struggling for a while, as most folks in this business too. steven spielberg and george lucas show up. you go on to have some big success with "the big chill," and no pun intended, you disappeared thereafter, you took a chill. the idea of an flow in this business, to be hot and not. and again, your experience is quite unique. what do you learn in the not times that you do not learn in the hot times? >> in the hot times, you are caught up in it. there was never a moment, i have got to tell you, not one day where i took it for granted. i was so thrilled that i had been able to do this thing that i wanted to do since i was 14

years old, and i have been able to do it for years and years, and when you cannot make a film for a long time, it is horribly frustrated, but everybody has got frustrations in their life, and most a lot more than i have had. i have been very lucky. it has been awhile since i made a movie. i have been making a living. my family, able to support them. i cannot complain about anything. the fact that i have directed 11 movies, no one can complain about that, and i hope to make another and another until i run out of gas. tavis: when it is this difficult to get high-quality stories made, why keep fighting so hard? i mean, you are not getting any younger. you are still doing good work, but why even be your head against the wall? >> because it is the most satisfying work for me. it is what i thought it would

be. when you go on the set, you are surrounded, and this is a real thing. this is the bottom line. the crew, the cast, these are people who have spent their entire life getting to be good at that one particular thing they are doing, whether it is acting or make up for the camera, and it is like playing on an all-star team. there are trucks there, people who got up at 5:00 in the morning, and they are going to race all day long to get their work done, and they are going to do it as a team, and there is nothing more invigorating or thrilling than that, and that is what i always wanted. when you are making "darling companion" on a small budget or making a very big picture, no difference whatsoever. tavis could you have said this four times by your own account that this is all you want to do. how did you know at 14 that this is all you ever wanted to do? >> it must have been the

combination of things that had happened in my childhood and being struck by stories, and then seeing certain movies. seeing "the great escape," seeing "lawrence of arabia," and it overwhelmed me. i was astounded that a human being had been able to marshal all of those forces to tell a story that touched me, a kid from west virginia, and i understood this very exotic setting. i understood what was at stake for him. i understood that he was compromised, that he was not simple in any way. he was not a hollywood hero, and the majesty of its lifted me out of the seat, and yet the details of what his life was like, i thought, oh, my god, movies can do everything. and i thought that is what i wanted to do, try to make those movies. tavis: do you think movies can

still do anything? >> oh, yes. a great movie could have started today or just wrapped yesterday. we do not know what is coming down the line. the system has gotten different, but nobody said it would be easy. nothing good is easy. but yet, greg feliz will be made this year and next year and hopefully forever. tavis: and you are not going to stop anytime soon, i take it. >> no, not if i can help it. tavis: the new film is called ""darling companion," starring kevin kline and diane keaton. glad to have you here. that is our show for tonight. i will see you back here next time on pbs. until next time, as always, keep the faith. >> what are you doing? >> i am looking for those night- vision glasses you got for christmas. they are probably still in the same box. >> you need some rest.

let me give you a xanax -- unless she kidnapped him. >> she is giving hope. thinking that i know everything about everything. >> why are you turning on me? i did not commit a crime? >> there are a few moments when someone asks -- backs completely right and completely wrong. >> i forgot the whistle. >> this is what i am talking about. >> this is a difficult time for us, for both of us, and especially for a woman, there are physical changes that affect things. >> tell me about being a woman. >> i feel the anger you are feeling is not about me. it is a hormonal. >> no, it is actually about you. at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a four-

time olympic medalist at attempt to make the team at age 40. that is next time. we will see you then. conversation with -- >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. thank you.