>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening beginning about writing speeches with the president we speak ton favreau, jon lovett and david litt. >> i made sure if they wrote for the president they spend time with them because when speech writing fails is because have you a lot of people between the person reading and doing the writing. >> rose: and michelle williams and jeff daniels. >> all these things are to trigger these early experiences that she had with him of being abandoned and being in love so that i think what happened on her conscious motivation for

coming is making him pay. her unconscious motivation is having her 12-year-old need met. >> rose: writing speeches for the president and starring on broadway. funding is provided by the following: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: president obama considered one of the great communicators and has drawn comparison to j.f. kennedy and ronald reagan and here's a look

commemorating the 50th anniversary of bloody sunday. >> we're well served to remember that at the time of the marches many in power condemned rather than praised them. back then they were called communists or agitators. sexual and moral degenerates and worse, they were calls everything but the name their parents gave them. their faith were questions, lives were threatened, their patriotism challenged and what would be more american than what happened in this place. >> rose: the president has also shown a talent for comedy and delivered his eighth and final white house correspondents'

speech. >> i'm going to read it at goldman sachs. earn me serious tubman. it's a movie about investigative journalists with the resources and autonomy to chase down the truth and hold the powerful accountable. best fantasy film since "star wars." >> rose: here to discuss the craft, jon favreau he co-founded fenway strategists and jon lovett now a writer in headline wood. david litt was a senior speechwriter and joined funnier or die as head writer and producer. i am pleased to have all of them at the table tonight. the big question first because we'll talk about serious and funny speeches, what's is harder, the comedy or the great

arch of speech that stirs the nation. >> i have to say the latter. >> anybody can write about blah, blah, blah. jokes are hard. >> no, it's different in that the comedy's hard because -- and these guys know really well, writing comedy for anyone is difficult. writing for a politician or president is particularly difficult because plenty of funny things you can't say if you're in office especially president. >> rose: that happens in the winnoeing process? >> it's difficult in selecting what is tough. the speeches are difficult because you want to meet the moment and often times and you want to say something new and different and when he's been president eight years it's

challenging to keep it fresh. >> i agree the jokes are not even in the top ten most important things the president will say that week. >> i don't know. no, go on, make your point. >> if you write an applause line and nobody laughs nobody knows -- i didn't say it. >> rose: he looked at him and very proud and you should be but he knows when it doesn't work and when it works. >> i think that's right >> jokes have a use and even in a serious speech but they're always risky and it's so hard to explain why it's worth the risk. why's it worth having a joke jammed in the serious remark about the economy. well, if it works people hear about it and will talk bit.

it's difficult to say well, though you don't need it and though the speech will be fine without it we hope it resonates with people. >> rose: did the president think with this or face thing with do i have to do this? >> no, loved it. telling him you have to go to another correspondents he dinner again he's probably happy but knowing he has to go he looks forward to it because he thinks it's an art and gets to needle people through comedy he didn't get to do on a regular basis so he gets to pick. >> rose: in talking about orange and looking at mitch mcconnell and he said why don't have you a drink. i still like that one. a lot of the times the joke is he's not joking. >> rose: it's a joke with satire and a moment of truth. >> when we first started doing

it the first year in 2009 it was a draft where he said you can go harder. >> rose: talk about how he's good at it. you had several people who can deliver humor, george bush was good. >> because he was very self-deprecating and willing to be self-deprecating is one of the keys to succeeding. with bush, he was never afraid to make jokes how he wasn't that bright or how people said he wasn't that bright and obama was the same way. arrogant, aloof. all that stuff. >> rose: he'll say a student can make it to the white house. >> rose: what makes obama different? >> the only person who had the

same sense of timing was reagan because he was a professional. every year after the dinner i end up recapping with the professional comedian and their writers and whether it's conan o'brien or seth myers they were usually impress president had a sense of audience to deliver the punch line which they associate with professionals. it's not something you need to do to be president or most presidents are able to do. >> rose: in working with writers is it's often important to know when the joke ends. >> and he has a good sense of timing like that. though once in a while when he ad-libs it will be at then of the joke and if he gets a good response he'll keep going and smile and laugh at himself. >> jt stick to the script. >> rose: but they point out he can get away with it, comedians

say is not a good idea, he laughs at the joke before he delivers the punch line. >> there's two versions. the version is when that's how he performed the joke but the best version is when you slip in the joke and he doesn't see it on the read and it comes across on the prompter like this is funnier than i thought it was. something makes me happier then when he's accidentally laughing at a joke. >> if a professional comedian is laughing at a joke it's a breach but the president telling a joke is a president telling a joke. he understands what makes it funny. you're looking for jokes that make more sense for a president to tell than for a comedian to tell. >> rose: what's the rule for starting out? is there a start when you start

winnowing the process. >> the first thing we're looking for making sure there's a joke for every topic. this year we know we want trump jokes and need a hilary joke, a biden joke, republican joke. there's certain topical things in the news you want to make sure for each one of those categories have you a joke for. so when everyone sends them jokes we start putting them in categories for topic and see where we're thin and where we have too many. >> and for starting out we're starting with the topic and trying to find as jokes as we can for the topic but for the beginning it's always a search for a line that's confident and pithy and makes a joke about that says that's what this year is about or this moment's about. this year he said the thing about this being the last white

house correspondents' dinner. >> rose: you don't want to hit it out of the park the first time because you want to grab them and keep them engaged. >> you pick three or four to be stand-outs and you pace them out and you want the ebb and flow over the course. not just at the top but throughout so at specific moments you're bring everybody in with something surprising. >> and then it's essential to go through the remarks and delete any jokes that aren't yours. at's the final process. >> make sure that's in the e-mails archives so everyone knows in history ten, 20 years down the line. >> rose: how long is it? ten minutes? >> i thought 30.

i thought it should not be more than ten minutes. it ought to begin way middle. >> i was waiting for lovett's take. >> a lot of people help. it's the best way to take credit. how humble am i? >> we had boehner add a bit part and when everyone called his people he said he's happy to help and there for whatever you need and was so willing to be involved so we rewrote more. >> rose: he was there at the end. >> the reaction of the president. they were great. >> rose: take a look at this. this is on video. >> i know who i need to talk to.

hey, as the barack. can we get together? now that is a great movie. >> yeah, it gets me every time. >> so do you have any advice? >> first, stop sending me link d linkedin requests. you have all the time in the world to figure this out. you can be you for a while if you know how to do that again. >> so i can just be me? i can wear my mom jeans in piece. i hate these tight jeans. >> that's good. >> there's a lot of reasons to say no to doing something like this but what's great with this white house there's also a lot of people that want to say yes. there's a great digital team and adam garber and his team we came up with an idea and we said can

do you ten minutes the president's time on a friday and they do a great job so it's a great team of people that come together every year. >> and tyler lechtenberg did a great job doing a video with the president, first lady, former speaker of the house and plus a monologue and doing that with three other speeches at the same time is a lot. they have other things to do. >> rose: didn't bin laden happen? >> the day of the dinner which is also when he order ed the bid laden raid, lovett and i had a meeting to go through the jokes one more time and were told wait outside because he's on the phone with the general in afghanistan. we were like come on, these jokes are so important. he calls us in -- >> rose: one more conversation with one more general.

>> so he calls us in and we sit down and he says i love the jokes, i have one edit. there's one where the punch line is bid laden. i'd use another bad guy around the world or some other -- let's use mubarek. >> you could have gone with mccraven and he had wished him luck on the mission and then open the door and deal with us jokesters. >> rose: did he come back after the correspondent dinner and put it on or was that sunday? >> sunda i'd been in the white house three or four weeks at this point so i had sent the binnen joke in and wasn't in the immediating and got in the edit and was annoyed and i was like i haven't been here a long time

and thought bin laden was funnier and at the last minute i didn't and then i was like oh, i see where i'm working. i get this. >> rose: first, the speech he made in 2004 at the convection -- >> that's where i met him for the first time. >> rose: at the convention? >> i was working for john kerry. >> rose: you were a speechwriter in that campaign. >> i had to make sure all the speeches reflected the message of the kerry campaign to the extent there was one and we got a call from folks on the road saying john kerry has a line in his speech that barack obama has his speech and we need you to take the line out of barack obama's and i'm 22 at the time and i walked down the hall and obama is practicing his speech and meekly go up to him and ask him to take out the line and stares down at me within an inch

of my face and says," are you telling me you have to take my favorite line out of the speec speech?" and we wrote the line and everything was fine and years later in the senate office obama hired me in the senate and said we're all reminiscing about the old days. does anyone remember in the convention when that little kid came up to me and asked me to take out the line, who was that? i said that was me and he said i would have never hired you. he wrote the speech himself. >> rose: that was going to be my question. did the right the race speech? >> he wrote a lot of the race speech. they decided to give it three days before and i was called saturday monday and i got a call he wanted to write a speech on

race and asked if i can get to him and i spoke to him saturday night and he i'd like you to do a draft and said i'll give you a few thoughts and it was a stream of consciousness and outlined every detail to the point i one this, this, 1-a, this and 2 and 2-b so he thought about it for a long time and i drafted on sunday and sent him and he stayed up to 4:00 in the morning and sent it back and i saw little paragraphs of my speech and the rest of the speech was blue with changes. he'd rewritten the speech. a lot of the structure was still there but the lines that i gave him were lines any politician could have said but his was i can no more disown --

>> i can no more disown him than i can does own him the black montgomer community. i cannot does own my grandmother as much as anything in this world but once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. >> rose: my point in this is he seems to take it seriously. not only has skill but appreciates the art. >> he does. >> i think if you talk to most speechwriters in confidence they will not say their boss makes

them look good. it's a goowriter and he wrote a book at 30 years old or something like that. that's not something a lot of presidents have done. >> imagine learning about learning and how to write and speechwriting from someone that good. we'd all written for politicians before and every time you got a speech back from barack obama and it has his tiny chicken scratch we were excited like i wonder what he did to the speech and it was always improved. >> rose: would you make xeroxs of that for your file? >> we probably should have done more. >> it's not just that you're good but you write something you become proud of and then you get the sense of the voice and president obama was scrawl in an add-in and it's like that sounds exactly like him. >> rose: my impression of you is you're the funniest guy in the room.

>> the things i'm the most proud of the more have us speeches, health care, economic speeches and i think -- >> lovett wrote a line if you like your insurance y can keep it. >> how dare you. it was cool getting to do both of these things but i think that the serious speeches are when you think that's when you feel the weight of what you're doing. >> rose: is he going to write and deliver a farewell to the nation speech? >> i imagine because everyone does one. i'm betting that and of course they haven't announced the

lineup but at the convention i imagine he'll give a speech at the convention and i feel like that will be a big one. >> rose: will he reach out to the same people? same people who did the white house corresndents' dinner. >> cody's team i imagine he'll be the main author of the speech and probably barack obama will write a lot of that too. i imagine it's farewell address but the speech you give in the oval to a camera with no crowd is different than a speech in a big convention hall. >> the/t9 reagan made is not what he made enormity which peggy wrote. a great speech. before that it was the speech in 1964 in that launched his national campaign. did he do that in front of an audience as i remember or in

television or something he recorded on television because he was giving it as a spokesman for ge. >> it was his way of how he introduced himself. >> rose: indeed. and it did become a launching pad for him to become governor of california. who else were the greats? peggy noon you suggested? ted sorensen for sure. and he was i assume what every speechwriter would to think he was an advisor. he was a right hand. he was kennedy's intellectual. along with other people like schlessenger and people like that. >> it makes sense because you really have to get in side

people's head. different writing had different structures. i tried to always make sure at least if a speechwriter was working with the president that person spent a lot of time with the president talking to them. because i think when speechwriting fails it's because you have lots of layers of people between the person you're writing for and the person doing the writing and there's other advisors or some had a speechwriter who doesn't let have you a lot of interaction for and that's what makes the speech. >> and it's like the game of telephone going up the chain and back down the chain. it's almost impossible for something to end up looking authentic. >> rose: what do you do after you've been writing speeches for the president of the united states. >> if you're me you work for a funnier guy and make your parents proud. >> i try to write. >> rose: you're in hollywood.

>> i've been writing screen plays. >> rose: you created a company. >> though i can't seem to stay out of politics. i still write columns. hang around bloomberg for interviews. >> rose: where would you like to be in two years? >> in two years. >> he shortened it. >> i would like to be thinking and writing and talking about politics. i think i'll still be doing that. >> rose: you'll be writing or creating shows about politics. >> maybe all of it. >> rose: you're at the center of your lives. >> i feel like you have this chance as a speechwriter to be part of the conversation and yes, it's a step removed but you feel proud that i don't know what my comparative advantage in this moment is nobody else could

have written the sentence the way i did, well, maybe and then you step away and you want to keep having your chance to say something or say what i think i don't know. i feel that doesn't go away. >> and once you become good at something people want you to do more of it which is not something i anticipated five or six years ago as an intern in dc. >> rose: i once asked ted williams why baseball and he said well, i can hit it pretty well and people praised me and the more i wanted to do it and the more they praised me and he said i never thought about another sport except fishing. he did it well and got compliments for it. >> there you go. >> rose: thank you. >> it was great. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. "blackbird" stars jeff daniels and michelle williams.

the play focuses on a middle-aged man confronted by a woman who he had a relationship as a minor. it's about pain and passion and unforgiving. it's the best revival of a play, best performance by a lead actor and best performance by a leading actress. joining me are jeff daniels and michelle williams. thank you for coming. it's great to see you here. what does the playamean to you? you come back for another go. it's exhausting. it's demanding. what is it about this play for you? >> i think all of that. the demanding part really was a lure to come back. originally i'd done it in 2007 at manhattan theatre club off-broadway and i left it feeling i'd done what i was

supposed to do with it then they called and said let's bring it to broadway it was been there, done that but hadn't done it right. it was a role this there was more to. that's the allure which is turning whatever you did which was successful, turning it insight out and re-examining it with michelle and turning it into a completely new experience and not just because michelle s here and was new to it but the joe, the director and i gut the it. >> rose: you see it new then with fresh eyes? >> well, there's more clarity for me. what i didn't have before and what i have now is the addiction. the powerlessness that this

character has for underaged girls and it's wrong, it's criminal and horrific and he's powerless against it. like any alcoholic or any addict will tell you you are powerless against that thing. i didn't have that before. i didn't include that before and it certainly forms what we do from page on when the thing you're trying to fight and deny that you even have a problem with even if she's holder just walked in the door. it's like to an alcoholic it's a bottle of whiskey. >> rose: so here's a man who committed a crime, paid a price and all of a sudden the young woman, girl, now woman shows up. why does she show up? what is it about the experience has done to her that demands she come back? >> she was left entirely

unresolved which is what you find in the course of the play. she was left at a crucial moment in their relationship and has been trying to piece together what happened, why it happened, how it happened, who was at fault. she'd been trying to piece that together by herself for the last 15 years and stumbles across a photo of him looking happy. looking adjusted -- >> rose: and she's not. >> she's none of those things. she's entirely alone. her father who seemed like was the only person who wanted to protect her or look out for her is gone. she isn't in a relationship. you find out that hasn't worked out well for her. she's utterly alone and sees this photo. so i think there's a lot of what

she want, what she thinks she want in this meeting, her surface decipher to humiliate him to alarm him, to scare him to -- >> rose: to make him pay. >> to make him pay. i think that's what she comes there thinking she's going to do and then his reaction to her, her reaction to seeing him she loses control of the situation. >> rose: so where are they? you have drawn totally forward in the audience and have you 1,000 questions and you don't know which is part of the intrigue of the play. you do not know where they're going. have you no idea how it's going to end up. >> yeah, and it's completely unpredictable even the end which is is fairly ambiguous. >> rose: very ambiguous. >> there are a lot of questions about him.

he's been deny, deny, deny. i'm not that. >> rose: there's a moment. >> everything gets thrown out going, who is he? it's tough. i've never done a play like this where you can feel the audience bracing themselves from page one on. you can feel -- usually you do a comedy and you go, oh, my god, the wave of laufghlaughter and audience is judgmental and there's a monologue where you can hear a pin drop. >> rose: it's mentally and physically demanding. you're constantly there and

moving. >> i don't know how to quite feel about it. i don't do anything during the day. i sleep all through the day and take care of my daughter and do the show at night twice on wednesday and twice on saturday and it's a radical form of exercise like this broadway diet. i can't eat enough to sustain a sensible weight because of what the show demands. it's physically -- we're both covered in. >> the tank is empty at curtain call as they say in sports. we didn't leave it in the locker room. and we've discovered and we tried in previews to find an

easier way to kind of -- there's one way to do it. >> rose: so when the curtain opens you know what you're in for that day, that night because it's the same thing it was last night. it compelled you to do it. >> well, i liken it to you have to jump on the horse while it's galloping. those old westerns because you have to come in the room, both of us on a galloping horse. so whatever you have to do before the so the get that horse galloping in your mind and it's got to happen. we start where a lot of plays climax as far as the passion and intensity. once you get on top of the horse the show gets easier to do but it's a miserable experience if you didn't quite get up there. oh my god. >> there's no way to cheat it. no way to make it slightly

easier. making it easier makes it harder on yourself -- >> rose: did you see it in rehearsal it would be this demanding of you? >> when i decided to do this i'd just come off doing a year on broadway doing cabaret. my sense of proportion of what difficult was and wasn't was stretched to a whole new level. i knew it was going to be demanding but wasn't as long and didn't involve singing and dancing but there was a six-page monologue in the middle which i've never come near attempting something like that so how was i going to do that i don't know. the only way it do it we figured out is to only do this. nothing else. there is no real-life beyond play. >> do you think you know where he is in terms of as you

experienced as deeply inside of it as you both are, do you think and it's ambiguous, is it ambiguous for? you >> very. whatever jeff knows about his character is not stuff we know. >> in rehearsal you don't discuss that and you have to come up with something whether you're doing this or that but don't tell us. >> rose: so you have a sense of the attraction to young women and you have a sense of why he's trying to deny it. and have you a sense of why he can't. you have to have what? how would you define that in theatre? some sense of you have to know otherwise you can't give what the character demands. >> you have to have a plan. whatever happens to your character in the end you may need to set some of that up early and that's the change that having come back to it, oh,

okay. i can plant that there and now it makes sense. that's a painful sort of sense but there it is. >> can you tell us where you think he is at the end or should we not say because of people watching? >> he is still confused. >> rose: tell me the journey he's taken. they have the trial and the then served a six-year -- >> rose: even the circumstances leading to the trial are ambiguous to me. >> yeah, who was right, who was wrong. >> rose: or what exactly happened, where was he, where was she, why was he -- >> the night they went in the ferry and the communication and went back to get her which i think was true and she wasn't there -- what a mess.

yeah, he's created a whole new life. new name, new woman, there's a relationship and a new job where they know him as this fictitious and she walks in and the bottle of whiskey walks in right there. so i'm fighting her but i'm also fighting in me. i'm not one of them. i'm not one of those guys. i'm not. i could be talking to the mirror. >> rose: i'm not a predator. >> but -- and when you look at her he sees 12. that's new for me. >> rose: even at the moment she comes back he sees 12. >> constantly seeing 12. >> rose: does she think she's 12? >> i think when this trauma happens at this early of an age part of you developmentally stays stuck there forever. i part of her is 12. part of her will never leave

that room ever and that's what's so -- he gets to leave. he did this. she's the monster he created but he's able to walk out of the room and she'll never be able to leave. >> rose: what's interesting is the trauma. what kind of person was she when she saw him? >> when she was 12? >> yeah. >> it's why the play -- >> rose: did she know? >> it's why the play exists because the set up is he's the bad guy and she's the good guy. okay, we can see she was the victim and he was the perpetrator but then it gets confusing because he's likable because she's full of spikes and damages and difficulties and you think do i feel tenderly towards this person or this person and the play goes back and forth. who can you believe, who can you trust, who can you align

yourself with, who's on the right side here? and hopefully there's a clarifying moment in the play towards the end when it becomes apparent. >> everything gets thrown up in the air and you don't know anything. that's me over here. >> rose: don't know anything. he doesn't know anything? >> he knows but whether the audience knows. >> rose: i don't think the audience knows. >> there's a lot of is he or isn't he? >> rose: there was a lot of that. that's the magic of the play. >> and what i'm coming on with is always will be whether he acts on it or not. >> rose: there's no cure? there's no -- once you are you always are. >> i -- yes. very rarely do you hear about someone who did it once. >> rose: what's interesting about this is the

predator/non-predator you don't know in terms of whether the history of his history before that. you know he's there and meets her. he's clearly interested. he want it all of that, you don't understand the consensual aspect it doesn't matter because her age doesn't matter. it's statutory i guess. so we don't really know who she is. >> who she was then. you get information dropped like he says you were strong, you knew what you wanted you were full of big ideas, you were worldly and wise and knew yourself. of course, i don't buy it. 12 is 12 but for una is very confusing. what did i do and also it felt good. she says i was so happy, i was in love.

it's very confusing. she felt good about the experience but then told it was bad. it seems to have ruined her life but still yearns to be with him and be close to him and connected to him. to be -- so that's what she's been trying to untangle the whole time. >> rose: an author of a book that's a memoir in terms of talking about his father. his father who had gotten a young girlfriend pregnant but said it stole my life. you got the sense of what happned to her stole her life. that's what it did. >> exactly. exactly. >> i can change my name i can move away. >> rose: but it's inside of her. >> she's living it. >> which is what happens at the end of the play. he leaves the room and she's there forever calling out for

him. >> rose: and he's gone. how do you pace yourself? you've got that monologue -- >> you think we do, do we? >> rose: you don't pace yourself? >> we talked about this. i've likened it to sprinting a marathon. >> rose: sprinting a marathon. you can't sprint a marathon. >> but we do and we do one show at a time and run as fast as we can face first into the wall and we've both been to shows where -- and i get it. i've done it, eight shows a week, month five you phone it in. you think what you're going to eat in the middle of your monologue because you can. >> i know for me and jeff we'll be working on the show until the day we close it and the play bears that kind of attention. it does. it's generative. the more you give the more it

gives back and tells you about who they are and the more ideas you get. we're constantly trying things and because we only have i've other to be inspired by and relationship with and looking with in context we can't let the other one down. i never want jeff to be sitting there thinking like here she goes again. >> and because of film which is so different, different take, take two is different than four and have you choices in the editing room and we cover ourselves by giving five versions. that's what we give to the stage. it's two people on stage reacting. >> rose: they're going to make a film of this? >> i think they have. it's done. >> rose: and they called in una.

either because in terms of hollywood makes a different or because it's seen as her story? >> i don't know. i don't know anything about -- >> i think it's hers. >> rose: it's her story though this is a guy who comes to grips whatever he might be. whatever wiring there was he knows because she's presenting him with the challenge again. >> whatever they did in the movie they probably picked it and funneled it down. >> possibly. maybe they narrowed the titletitle " title "blackbird" was taken. it may just be the six-page monologue. >> rose: and made her something else. what does the director do in broad way? what does joe mandel do? >> i think what he did for us and good directors do this, they

he always says it could be this and his choice of what i should do in that moment is better than i what i thought of and that's his strength. >> rose: what you would do is better than what you would have thought of? >> yeah. >> rose: and you're a thinking actor. >> but i'm winging it with instincts and that and other ties you go what if i did this and you go yes, of course. >> it's the reason i wanted to do broadway again is in theatre you're directed. feel like have you a partnership with somebody so after a while after you've been doing this as long as i have and you have it

gets a little boring to be yourself over and over again. you're limited by you're experiences and processing them and understanding of them. a great director can help you look at things from another angle and they open one door and you open ten of the windows in the room and all of a sudden you're in a different territory because somebody with they're intellect has taken you in a new direction and that is what makes it exciting again. you grow beyond yourself. >> rose: in a play with this kind of confrontation do you on purpose avoid each other at all? in other words you don't have sunday brunch.

>> socialize? >> rose: you're spending half your life with this woman. >> we try to make it fun and it's such a brutal -- >> rose: how do you make it fun? >> you look for jokes after a show. did you see the guy in row three sleeping. yeah, i did see that. you just lighten it up. you find a lightness to get back to the dressing room otherwise it's a pretty dark existence. >> rose: will you be happy to see it end? >> yeah. >> i realize we have five weeks and i thought today, oh, i'm going miss it. only 40 more shows. only 40 more times. >> i didn't feel that. >> rose: let me ask you, how is it changed for you from day one to today? do you see the same -- have you learned more about her?

has it changed a sense of how to portray her one and information of her, two. >> i think it always does the more times you spend with something. do you through phases with it. you go through a phase of where it seems old where you're not learning new information and then you breakthrough and you find another territory to work in. we're always doing things -- i'm always trying things out, reading books or trying a movement class or trying things to keep myself feeling new. >> rose: you said to the writer adam green when things aspoken allowed there's power. the power is aloneness. >> she's been alone which is why

she unfurls that monologue. she needs to share -- she hasn't been able to share this. the only person who was there has been gone for 15 years. she needs him to fill in some of the details and she also needs to be able to fill in her own details to let him know what happened because she's been alone in a dark room with shameful secrets and they've been eating away at her and destroying her and i think she can reclaim part of herself by confronting him and that's not what happened. >> rose: could it have happened? i'm talking about the character now. could ray have done something in those encounters to have knowing what you think about where his head is about women, young girls, could he have somehow is there some way he could have answered her need without it being sexual?

>> no. >> rose: no. >> no. it's too strong. >> rose: here's what's interesting to me about this. it is the overpowering hold on him. he couldn't have used it because that's what his wiring or something. >> deny, deny, deny is how you're wired and now she comes in and she's 27 and maybe it's okay but it's still what i did. he runs out of the room. he's not resolved. he's at screwed up maybe more so because can a 40-year-old and 27-year-old can it be the love of their lives for the play you think i don't know, maybe, sort of. >> rose: you forget she's 12 at this time too. >> and one thing about the production is don't forget the

12-year-old. keep the 12-year-old in the room. >> rose: 12 becomes a number because these two people had this thing and he was the responsible adult and should have known better. >> sure should have. >> rose: and controlled. >> sure should have. yeah. >> rose: here's what's interesting to me too is the notion that you don't think there's anything he could do. it was in him forever to stay. he can try to deny and build this new thi. >> it's in me it made me believe and he believes it. he believes he isn't one of them. and whether he wants to do any other underaged young woman he realizes he's as addicted to young girls as he was way back when. >> rose: though he's now 50 -- >> still there. still there.

>> rose: where is she at the end? she's unsatisfied? >> at the very end? >> rose: yeah. >> i think she's regressed. yeah. there's a point in the play when the lights go out and she's left in a room which is mirroring the story she just told about being left by him and not knowing what time it was or what was going on and after she tells the story of the events and the lights go off and she's left alone again and all these things trigger the early experiences she had with him of being abandoned and being in love so that i think what happened on her conscious motivation for coming is to make him pay. her unconscious motivation is to have her 12-year-old needs met

to be held again and special again and taken care of again and happy. they come close to it and then -- >> rose: but. but he backs away because he doesn't want to acknowledge he's one of them is that it? >> whoever i was then want to, yes, take care of her and be there. >> rose: you're still that. >> yeah, well, i'm not that now. >> rose: yes, you are. >> no, i'm not. >> rose: yes, you are. >> no, i'm not >> rose: it makes me want to go see it again. >> i know where i'll be. can't start without it. >> rose: thank you. a pleasure to have you back. thank you, michelle. >> thank you so much. it's through june. it's running until june 11. you cannot miss it. please, go. thank you for joining us. see you next time.

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man: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. woman: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.