welcome to amanpour on pbs. we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews this year. tonight, one of the world's great theatrical productions, angels in america, about the devastating 1980s aids epidemic had a triumphant return to broadway earlier in the year and we devote this show to a conversation with the living legend and activist tony kushner who wrote the play. and one of hollywood's young actors. the broed way phenomenon and star of angels, andrew gar field. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> good evening, everyone and welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london. when angels in america first premiered, it was to the young donald trump. now, in 2018 with trump in the white house and a whole range of rights under threat, angels in america is just as relevant as it was a quarter century ago. andrew gar field stars in the new broadway production as prior walter, the young aids victim who evolves into a modern-day prophet. here's a clip. >> that's just a burst blood

vessel. >> not according to the best medical authorities. >> what? tell me. >> yes, baby. lesion number one. look, the wine dark kiss of the angel of death. >> please, i'm a lesion air. >> the play right tony kushner has transformed into a national treasure. he's been honored by president barack obama for his services to the arts. andrew garfield is best known for his thriving movie career starring in spider man, and "hacksaw ridge." now he's tackling this epic theatrical role. and i spoke with both of them in new york for their only tv interview together. gentlemen, welcome to the program. i want to start by asking you, tony kushner, the creator of this amazing enterprise why now, why 25 years later, why is it still relevant?

>> well, the decision to do it now had to do with the 25 years later part. it was i think because it was the 25th anniversary of the play opening at the national theater. none of us said anything about relevance at the time that we were all deciding to do this about three years ago. and we were all a little bit stunned at how timely it felt once we got it into the rehearsal room and got it in front of audiences. >> what do you think most especially sticks out in terms of timeliness? this was about that awful moment in america where aids was rampant and it was politically poison as well. >> well, the political poison has in a certain sense come to its full flowering. i mean, i think the political plague the play addresses, reagan counter revolution, has come to its malevolent in donald

trump. he spent 30 years telling people the government doesn't matter and you end up with someone like donald trump in the white house. i think it's the sense of crisis that we're all deeply immersed in right now that is very much like the mid '80s crisis that generated the play. the aids epidemic is now a global pandemic, a little bit like in the early '80s at any rate. it's become slightly invisible. you have to really read the newspaper to find it. >> andrew, you were barely a glimmer in anybody's eye when it first started. you you're so young and you have this pivotal role as prior, the star of this play to an extent. what do you think about the history of it and how do you sort of tune in with the politics of today? because it is a political play. >> absolutely. i was conceived in new york in the '80s so that's my connection

with that period of time. i have a very visceral symbiotic connection to this city during this period. and, yeah, i had the privilege of, of course, diving into the great master work that tony has created and it still is absolutely vital for a functioning american democracy and society as far as i'm concerned. it's like a kind of new chapter of the new new testament for how we move forward with humanity and empathy and compassion. and those are three of the many virtues i believe that tony is attempting to reintegrate and to place high on the value system of our culture right now, which we are being offered nothing but meaninglessness by the current state of politics. >> this week the walk-out of

high school and middle school students across the country are being organized and spearheaded by the incredible, brilliant, intelligent, pass at studenionas from parkland. so this play feels like a nice background song. >> i want to take you back, though. both of you, you will have heard this for the first time, to the reagan administration where larry speaks who was reagan's press conference man about this burgeoning crisis beginning to be noticed in society. and this reporter is not just an o ordained ordained episc opal ian priest. >> aids is an epidemic, 600 cases. a third of them die.

it it's known as gay plague. it is. it's a pretty serious thing. one in three that get it die. i wonder if the president is aware of it. >> i don't have it. do you? >> you don't have it, i'm relieved to hear that. >> tony, you must have remembered that, right? what sort of memories, what sort of flash backs? >> well, i mean, the immediate response is rage, which is what many of us were feeling at the time. the callousness and the indifference of the reagan administration in the -- for the entirety of his administration. finally by 1987, he mentioned it in a speech at which point thousands of people had already died from it. he did nothing. he didn't call on the country to do anything. and it's a permanent black mark

and an indelible stain among so many, in my opinion, of -- on the reagan administration and it speaks to a kind of core of heartlessness and a lack of a sense of community and human connectedness that was very much the sort of battle flag of reaganism. it seems incredible that that was the response, but -- >> i want to, i want to read -- given that this play -- first let me ask you, did you take everything from that incredible exchange? again, you were just being conceived at the time. >> i had listened to these tapes only a couple weeks ago actually for the first time. it felt like i was there and it felt as urgent as ever to have the rageful response, that first response tony said he had.

it makes me ashamed to be a human being in a way, that our species is capable of that amount of inhumanity, lack of connectedness, and a callousness. yeah, we need tremendous healing. >> jeffrey wright who starred in the original production said i think the arc from that period, stone wall to -- the arc to hodges is a pretty clear one. and i think a&m jelds hngels ha meaningful place. you talk about the inhumanity that that's past, but there has been so much progress. do you sigh the ligee the light? >> definitely. there is still tremendous work to be done. there is still tremendous fear of the other, whatever that means, whatever the other is,

specifically for the lgbt community. even though there have been evident strides forward, i think tony's play is a big part of that, it's a big rallying cry, a big part of that movement as far as i'm concerned. it's -- the work seems to be not going to be completed in my lifetime. >> political struggle is never complete. it's almost pass over. we say in every generation that there are rises to enslave us, the struggle for justice is never ending. >> you must have felt quite gratified, though. i believe you got married and your wedding was the first same-sex marriage to be featured in the famous "the new york times" vow section, which is a great stamp of legitimacy. >> there are strides forward, in job protection, in adoption rights, in recognition have been

enormous and we have to really -- the fact that the struggle doesn't end doesn't mean the gains aren't real. they're very real and you can't keep struggling unless you're willing to say there has been progress if you think that it's all sort of spinning on a pivot, why bother. >> exactly. >> in point of fact, being a lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual, transgender person at this point in time is not the easiest thing in the world, but it's infinitely easier than it was a very short while ago. and we really -- everybody worked very hard to make that happen. >> this is an eight-hour event with a break. do you do the eight hours every day? how does it actually work? >> we do that twice a week, wednesdays and saturdays. come and see it on wednesdays and saturdays. >> it's really a remarkable experience to do both shows in one day. some of the people in the buildings have done it. talk about community-making, usually in the theater you're very angry, your seat neighbor

infringing on your space, but in the course of eight hours together, you have to come -- you have to fall in love with each other. that's what seems to be happening, which is a beautiful thing. you'll go through some form of transformation together as the characters are going through. so, for me, i have to really manage myself and take care of myself, but that's really my only job. say these amazing words. >> so let's talk about nathan lane's character. he plays roy kohn, that character. roy cohn was the acolyte to joseph mccarthy in the 1960s and famously became a mentor to the current president of the united states, donald trump. just describe his character, what he represented in your play. and can you imagine it's his actual mentee is president. >> it's very strange because for a long stretch of time in the early and mid '90s i would get

letters from college professors saying that when they asked students if they had ever heard of roy cohn, the answer was almost always, yeah, he's a character in angel of america. people had forgotten the mccarthy era. now he's having this new wave of infamy as a consigliary of donald trump. he's a gay jew, i'm a gay jew. i could at least sense that connection. when i came from new york to louisiana where i grew up, to go to college, it was the '70s. it was his heyday and then the epidemic happened. there was an article when he died by an old lion of the west that was shockingly homophobic gloating about his death. the last paragraph was just

horrendous description of roy's body at the end of his life. i found myself in this very weird position of feeling angry on roy cohn's behalf, something i never thought i would feel. that's a good place to start. a play. so it was 1986 and that's when i -- >> let's flesch it out a little bit to remind the audience. a lot has been written about the trump/roy cohn connection. his modus operandi was if you quit hit, fight back until you kill the other or devastate the other. he lied about being homosexual. donald trump in the play actually abandoned him when he knew -- >> instantly. >> when he knew he was gay. >> which i think is the main difference between roy and trump. the reason i could write a character based on roy cohn, i think it would be difficult to write a character based on donald trump or ronald reagan for that matter. you need to have a core

coherence to be interesting adds a dramatic character. roy had that. there was a deep loyalty in this guy which is, of course, absolutely the antithesis in trump. so it's a strange thing to say, but i think he was a much finer person in his way for all the evils that he did than his client. >> that is quite a dramatic statement. i want to turn to you, andrew about the angel because the angel is not the angel of the christmas tree fairy. it's not the white winged, angelic benign angel. some people were actually a little bit troubled by the portrayal of the angel and that the angel is not necessarily there to save humanity. what is the angel to you, the angels in this play? is that a ph.d. thesis or is that a fair question?

>> i spend 3 hours 45 minutes on stage trying to figure that out. >> just when you think you're approaching some semblance of an understanding, it gets snatched away from you. i think that's the genius of what tony has written, as well as the torture of it, is that it's -- what is it? it's a lot of things. i think where i'm landing more and more is that the character that i play, pryor, needs the angel until he doesn't. and when he finally doesn't is when he finally accepts his fate and falls in love with himself, falls in love with the mystery of being who he is with this particular disease or disease or whatever, you know. i think that's why it's a universal -- a universally

appealing and relatable character. no matter that he's -- he does drag and he happens to be a gay man in new york in the '80s. his disease is all of our disease somehow. and how do we incorporate our own sense of disease with being who we are as we are with all of our falablity and imperfection. >> this 25th anniversary revival confirms its place in the pantheon of drama that stretches toward the heavens. the sky is the limit and no work since has quite matched its reach. >> what do you do with that? >> what do you do with that? that is amazing. >> do you ignore that, do you incorporate that? >> it's really lovely. thank you, ben, for saying that.

you know, it's -- i try to not think about it at all. >> how do you match it? >> you can't. you know, i mean -- i've said this before. i know that the first line, author of angels in america, that's fine. i'm happy that there will be an obituary -- i mean, i'm not happy there will be an obituary, but -- >> i know what you mean. how do you prepare for this humongous role? it's monumental. >> uh-huh, yes, it is. >> that's the question every morning. that's the question every day. it's a strange thing and this is something tony says as well and i believe in this being the kind of -- the intention every day. it has to feel dangerous. it has to feel like we don't know what's going to happen the next moment even though we do. we've rehearsed ad nauseam and got under the skin of this amazing piece of work as ease i had as we possibly can.

and we continue, but there is something about the terror of them attempting it every time, which is what i think you need to stay in contact with in a strange way. you feel like you're diving without a parachute and hope you'll land somewhere so. . >> how does this compare -- this doesn't compare. "hacksaw ridge" was an amazing performance based on a true story of a passivist based on the campaign of world war ii. tell me about these esthetic characters you tend to play -- >> it's been a period of my life that i think will be over after we finish in july. there's been -- i've been strangely drawn to a monastic kind of stripping away and a simplification. i've been longing to get to the core of what we're doing here, and i think, you know, culminating in what this character goes through and the sense of joy and hope that he gets to at the end of this

7 1/2-hour epic and this life, as tony was saying, this life-affirming knowledge of the brew at this and the mystery of being incarnate, every breath being a miracle, we're attuned to it. i know that's a kind of trite reduction of what tony is getting at, but it's my trite reduction. >> i'm sticking with it. >> i think there's -- you know, that's what i've been drawn to, i think all of my life. and i think what pryor has given me is a series of answers and nonanswers and a kind of acceptance of things as they are rather than as i would have them be. >> what he's saying is he's available in july for comedy. that's what he wants to do. >> commercial. >> you are straight and you play a very famous gay man in this play. now, i believe that that's what

actors do. you take on other roles. but as you know, there's been a lot in the community, in the sphere of some questioning as to whether you should and should you have chosen a gay actor. obviously there are gay actors. what is your answer to that? as i said, you're an actor, you play a role. but some don't believe it should be like that. the really interesting important discussion and i think the discussion is changing every day. i think it's a tender discussion. my stance right now is i'm doing this play, i just am. and i wanted to and i believe tony wanted me to. that's enough for me. >> you know i did. >> that's enough for me. and i want to be engaged in the conversation around, you know, equality and people, you know,

equal opportunity within the arts. that's what i think the conversation is really about, how one's sexual preferences -- to get to the point where one's sexual preferences don't affect one's standing in any career whatsoever, in any industry. that's where we're all -- anyone with a heart and without the ignorance of whatever, we're going to go into that. but that's where we're all longing to head, i believe. but i'm very curious and i want to be involved this that discussion. >> did you ever have a second thought about that? obviously there were many fewer out actors when you first put this play on. >> i have to say i'm not as polite about this as andrew. >> i'm gay and i feel like i'm older so it's okay for me to be grumpy about it. i agree with andrew the discussion is important. and i don't denigrate the people that are having the discussion. i think the discussion has to be a discussion and not turn into a kind of, you know, attack

mentality or some sort of like you know, purification or cleansing ritual. the idea of asking an actor who they sleep with before i cast them is repellent to me. i would never do that. i don't even think it's legal: it shouldn't be legal. it's none of my business. as with andrew, i've seen a lot of his work so i know he's a very great actor and i don't have to ask him to audition. although i don't know his great work that well, i'll ask him to integrate, their political preference, none of that is any of my business. this is a profession and i work with actors. i need work with the best actors i can get. so he's one of the best actors alive. this is a very billing difficult part. and as a gay man -- don't listen to this, but i'm enormously moved by how -- i've never seen

any straight man perform a gay character with more intimate knowledge and getting -- things in andrew's performance you can only see. that's the miracle of imagination. that's what actors do. i can learn from having the story of my tribe, gay people are americans, told by people who are not that. i'm very curious to see a british writer or french writer or an afghan writer write about us. this crossing of boundaries. i mean, do we want to build trumpian walls around human experience? >> i should say obviously everybody, including in the gay community, believes that you do this to perfection, so it's really fantastic. the reviews you have got, and you're so young to be portraying

these incredibly i would say tortured characters. in this play and many of the films. i want to give you the last word about -- >> why would you do that? >> why not? you're eloquent. >> i'll take it. >> as a young person, what do you want this play to say in its 25th year as we go forward? why are you doing it, apart from it's a great role? >> oh, gees. the end of the play is what i want to say. i want to just recite the end of the play right now. that's what i want to say. the world only spins forward. the dead will be commemorated and we'll struggle on with the living and we are not going away. we won't die secret deaths any more. the world only spins forward. we will be citizens. the time has come. you are fabulous creatures, each and every one of you, and i bless you, more life and i think

more life is the mantra right now, more life. that can mean whatever you want it to mean, and the great work beginning. that can mean whatever you want it to mean. hope, community, an awakeness to the golden thread that connects each and every living thing on this planet including the planet itself and all the other planets and galaxies all around it. if we have an awareness of the miracle of life, then i think that's a pretty good place to start. >> honestly, that was wonderful. tony kushner, thank you so much. >> that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching amanpour on pbs and join us again next time. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you're watching pbs.

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