hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. >> we are fighting for our survival as a generation. >> and the fight gains ground. one year after the high school massacre in parkland, florida, we talk with the student survivor turned activist, with the parents and with the journalist who will help us understand where the movement stands. plus -- >> i want you to remember something. >> giving voice to the victims of another tragedy. people disappeared during ireland's troubles. how personal history led a playwright and actress to tell their story. unabomber uniworld is a

proud sponsor. when bea coleman's culinary career began she didn't know the recipes from her cookbook would make their way to her river cruise line. uniworld. bea's cuisine is served through asia, india, and egypt. because according to bea, to travel is to eat. bookings available through your travel adviser. for more information visit uniworld.com. additional support has been provided by -- rosalynp. walter, the cheryl and philip milstein family judy and josh weston, the jpb foundation, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. it was a clear day a year ago in

parkland, florida. in fact, it was valentine's day and surely thoughts of love and friendship were in the air. but as classes were wrapping up, a former student arrived at the campus and he was armed with an ar-15. which is a military style assault rifle. and he entered and he began firing. this is the moment the police officers reached one class of terrified students. >> that's good. we're good. >> hands, hands. raise your hands. police, police. >> put your phones away. put your phones away. >> when it was over, 17 people lay dead. among them were nicolas, 17, jamie guttenberg, 14, and joaquin oliver, 17. and in a moment i'll speak with joaquin's parents. but first, the murders at marjory stoneman douglas high

school had an effect unlike any other mass shooting spurring survivors into action and fueling a nationwide movement. from school walkouts to state legislatures and a massive rally in the nation's capital. at the center of the movement were two young students, emma gonzales and david hogg. here's hogg the day after the massacre. >> my sister, she's a freshman and she had two of her best friends die. that's not acceptable. that is something we should not let happen in this country especially when we're going to school and something we need to take a look at. >> david hogg and indeed the entire march for our lives organization are going dark on this anniversary. they say they're swearing off social media through the weekend as they reflect on the tragedy and on their struggle ahead. i managed to speak with david from florida yesterday. david hogg, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> i wonder where you will be on this anniversary and what you're

thinking because clearly there are a lot of survivors, people who are affected who want to remember and clearly there are a lot who don't, or want to be at home, perhaps visit the cemetery, be quiet by themselves. what will you be doing and what do you think the gamut of remembrance will look like? >> i will be with my sister and i will be just being as close to her as possible and just making sure that i'm there for whatever she needs that day. she lost four friends a year ago on february 14th and i want to be there for her. i'm going to be reflecting at the same time at the effect that all the young people across the united states have had on gun violence prevention in this country. over the past year, we've gotten over 67 new gun laws passed in over 25 states. several states we enacted extremist protection orders which give people the ability to

disarm domestic abusers through due process. and all the amazing work that's been done this year because the advocacy of groups like march for our lives, like moms demand action, like the brady campaign. >> because you have taken on this massive political, social, cultural burden, if you like, or struggle, you're only 18. you were 17 when this happened i think. have you had the time yourself along with your sister, along with your friends to grieve and to mourn what happened or do you feel that you've been thrust into a political route so heavily? >> it's interesting that you say that because grieving is supposed to be a natural process of after you lose somebody. but you can't grieve after an

instance like this. you don't lose people to gun violence. people are stolen because of gun violence. people don't happen to die as a result of old age. they happen to die as a result of a man or woman with a gun. with a i work to do on a daily basis and my way of grieving is making sure that no matter whether people hate me or love me, they realize the second we start debating these issues and the second we start talking and yelling at each other and not fighting against the source of evil which is gun violence is the second we lose as americans because that's when somebody else dies as a result of preventable gun violence. as americans and human beings across the world, we have to realize that we cannot fight against each other when we're trying to solve an issue like gun violence. we have to fight against gun violence as the source of that evil. >> and fight together against that evil. but i just want to pick up on what you said. no matter if people love me, support me or if they hate me, this is what i have to do, just talk about that a little.

because you have received so much support in your own country and around the world. but you've also received a certain amount of the haters. you know, the people who simply don't want to see you standing up to gun violence. what sort of hate have you had to absorb over the last year? >> oh, a massive amount. but i don't feed into it because i realize that is not what is going to end gun violence. what's going to end gun violence is getting people who hate me and people who love me to work together with the understanding even though you may not believe in new gun laws or support us in our efforts, the one thing we can agree on as human beings is preventable gun violence is an issue that must be addressed in the united states and if you believe in funding mental health care more, that's great. don't just say that as a politician or as an american. actually go out, if you're a politician, and fund health care

at a federal level in our schools and communities. go out and actually hold our politicians accountable in the first place and don't just continue to debate these issues and remain inactive. >> you have taken activism, grassroots activism to a whole new level. i want to know how you feel it's going, what you feel you've achieved. you mentioned the dozens and dozens of gun safety bills and things that have been passed. in 26 states or so and the district of columbia around the country. but the activism itself, the movement, the fact that you've put this in the public sphere where it looks like it can't be denied anymore. just give me a sense of what you've had to do and how you've done that. >> we've had to go across the country and make sure that we weren't voting for democrats or republicans but we're voting for people that actually represent us and care about the fact about whether or not we live through another school day. whether or not we're able to live our walk to school and not be shot on our way to school or in our school.

and what that activism has really looked like is probably the thing i'm most proud of is the stories we don't hear. we don't hear the stories of other mass shootings that don't happen or other acts of gun violence that don't happen because the laws we created prevent them from happening in the first place. there have been several of instances in mass shootings stopped by the protection orders that were enacted in over 13 states that need to be enacted in every state because they go through due process to disarm people that are a risk to themselves or to others like the shooter at my school that could have been stopped had we had this law at our school, in our state. >> have you had to learn what it means to be a protest movement? are there any great protesters of the past who you or your friends have taken lessons from or sought guidance from? >> of course there are many protesters we look to from the past. one person i always look towards

as a mentor of mine and an amazing person working for decades on gun violence prevention and never never gets enough credit because she's such an amazing woman is erica ford. she started the new york city crisis management system that is a system that, would through the public health department, not to incarcerate more youth but interrupt shootings as they happen and stop before they happen. by using people in the community to reduce gun violence. in one community there used to be 17 murders. in the year before they started. they've had one murder in the past 17 years. she continues to be a massive inspiration to me. people like noel in charge of my brother's keeper in houston, texas. continues to be inspiration to me. it's our fellow activists we work with like edna chavez, bria and others around the country working in gun violence prevention that have lost siblings, parents, aunts and you uncles and so many others that

continue to be an inspiration to me. of course there's the amazing people like dr. king who have always been an inspiration to me. and i continue to use his principles of nonviolence in my every day life and throughout my protests protests to make sure we're not attacking the people perpetrating because we understand that those people will always be there. as a movement, we have to attack the source of that evil and be united against that source. and not wage war or fights on each other but wage war against the source of that evil. that happens to be gun violence in this instance. >> gun violence and presumably you take on the nra, as well, and convince them. i ask you because in the dozens of successes you've had in bills and other such things over the last year, the nra countertouts their own successes like several states have enacted stand your ground laws and other such gun safety measures have been defeated. they're very proud about that.

i see you wearing a gun safety voter t-shirt. what are your political intentions for the upcoming 2020 elections for instance on this issue? >> to make sure that presidential candidates from either side of the political aisle don't see gun violence as a third rail. they see it as the only rail that they will have to address in the first place because the top polling issue with young voters across the country is gun violence. it is school shootings. it is every day shootings, right? and what we've been working to do is make sure we're able to increase youth voter turnout. in florida, compared to 2014, we were able to nearly double youth voter turnout in our state. the reason we don't focus on one individual or another is we realize no matter who is in power, if they're elected by the youth, they have to care about the youth no matter their political party. even though the nra says they've

had small victories, we're an organization that is drastically underfunded compared to the national rifle association. we are purely grassroots. we don't fund political campaigns but things to make sure students are getting politically involved and able to go out and go and vote and they have the ability to do that on their campus. e person they gave the most money to in american history donald trump recently banned bump stocks and the nra was incredibly silent about that issue. the nra has done a horrible job on their part in congress to pass their own agenda. they haven't been able to do an amazing job. i oftentimes question myself if i truly believed in what the nra believed in, which i don't, why would i be an nra member? they are terrible at their job. they've done a horrible job over the past year. >> david, i've heard it said that you might yourself consider running for office in 2025 if the conditions demand it. what would cause you to run for national office? >> i think just to make sure

that young people understand first of all that it is possible to go out and be a young person in congress and on top of that, i think if i truly felt that the politicians we had voted into office weren't taking this issue seriously enough, i along with thousands of other students that are going to run for political office in the coming years because of all the stuff that we've been facing will run for political office because i'm not doing this for myself. i'm doing -- we're doing this for our generation because we realize that if we don't run for office, if we don't turn out to vote in record numbers, we can be the last generation on this planet. >> it's dramatic to hear you say that. it's equally dramatic the effect that you have had and the way you have changed the playing field and you've changed the dynamic and the conversation. you look exhausted. i know you're very committed and determined. but just personally tell me how you're feeling and what you remember from that day.

>> i feel hopeful. i feel hopeful because one thing that always continues to inspire me on a daily basis is something that manuel oliver always says. manuel lost his son in the shooting at my high school. his name was joaquin oliver. one thing manuel always says is joaquin is not a victim. joaquin is an activist. one thing i look towards is robert f. kennedy's ripple of hope speech that the young people are able to create around the world and how that one person can make a difference. for the victims at our school and the people that can't speak anymore, we are their ripple of hope. their ripples throughout our time line and our lives continue to last and we will amplify those ripples until they turn into waves, until they turn into tsunamis that change the shoreline that is american politics and creates a politics that cares whether or not a kid makes it home from school no matter the zip code.

>> david hogg, thank you so much. we wish you and your fellow activists good luck. >> absolutely. thank you. you heard david mention manuel oliver and his son joaquin. manuel and his wife patricia have become an incredible force for change. they came to america from venezuela when their son was 3 years old. and he became a citizen just a year before he was killed. manuel and patricia have made it their life's work to build on the parkland legacy and to eradicate the scourge by its roots. and they're joining me now from new york. manuel and patricia, welcome to the program. >> thank you. thank you for having us. >> i just wonder what went through both of your minds as parents when you heard you know, one of the main activists invoke yourselves and your son as inspiration for the struggle. >> we empower each other in terms of movements, not david

and myself or david and patricia, but march for our lives and what we do. we just try to make the other one understand that there is hope and that together we can fix this. this is an amazing friend and as long as the future of this nation is in the hands of kids like him, i think we have a great future ahead. >> it's extraordinary when i hear your generation putting so much hope into your children's generation to power a better future. patricia, i wonder if you can -- what would you like us today to know about joaquin? i mean clearly as david said and you've said, you don't want us to think of him as a victim. but what should we know about the boy himself? >> joaquin was a very strong kid. joaquin, that's why we said, joaquin is power.

he's strength. he's determined. he's very determined. so he will be doing whatever he says in order to keep these changes going on because he left it in posters. you can read it on essays that he did in school. he posted so many social media that he used. we are just empowering him through his legacy that he left. and that's the kind of kid that you can see. his face that you see in that picture is a lover of the world. you can see the kind of kid he was. he was an amazing lovely and sweet kid. >> we are seeing pictures with both of you. i just wonder, we said that david andhe activists, march for your lives kids have gone dark for the day and for the next few days. they just want to reflect by themselves. does it help you today to talk about your son?

i mean, is it something that you want to do? >> well, today the media and this is a perfect example of what's happening today, the media wants to hear us. they want to know what we need to say. and we don't want to waste that opportunity to send the right message, not about how we feel but more about what we're doing and what we're planning to do. we are planning to solve this problem. not for joaquin because it's too late for that. we're planning to solve this problem for david, for emma and every single person that is today a possible victim of gun violence. so today, february 14th, we are here in front of a camera that is actually sending this message all around the world. it's time for america to be judged. the other nations are going to point to us and they're going to say shame on you. you have not been able to solve that easy problem to solve. and the only reason is that some

of your leaders are receiving money from a very powerful gun lobby and an organization called the nra. and we say no more to that. that's why we are here today talking to you. we are sad, very sad today. but we also have the attention of the media. we cannot waste one more minute. it's hard to understand for anyone that lives in england or in any other nation that we could leave this studio right now and be shot by someone that legally purchases an assault weapon. that is actually what happens in here. 40,000 people will lose their lives every single year until we do something. >> manuel, you are an artist and you have labelled your activism artivism. tell me what you're doing we have pictures and images. how are you using your art to make this point?

>> well, i've been an artist my whole life. i'm being the same father with a new mission today. i need to keep on doing what i know, what my knowledge and skills, and put them together to do what i need to do now as a father which is protect my son, protect any other kid that is in the same risk that joaquin is. what we're doing today in new york for example, we're doing a big activation on the 29th and sixth avenue, a very proud corner in the city of manhattan. we're going to have this art displayed for a month that shows a very dramatic way of looking at valentine's day after what happened a year ago. we do use art to send messages because by using art, you can impact people. which is a faster way of convincing people and anyone that has that skill to communicate to someone to send a message should go ahead and use it.

because all kids are at risk here. all people are in the same risk. just get involved and be part of the solution. we use art. people peoples will use other things. >> patricia, i want to ask you about some of the letters being written and being created by a web page you both created, all sorts of letters to congress and comments written in joaquin's handwriting you have established a sort of format but also it's become this massacre part of american culture now. and it's talked about on late night. it's talked about even in, you know, in standup routines and you know, some mean even make offensive jokes about it. and you responded to one by louis c.k., both of you, with a video that ened with a recording of your son. i just want to play that. >> why didn't the skeleton cross the road? i have no idea.

>> because it didn't have a gun. ♪ >> patricia, tell me about that. i mean, it must be heart-breaking to see your son there. tell me about what that piece of video signifies. >> well, actually that was a hard video to make. and i say, well, trust this project as any other that have done before. and you know, seeing joaquin so happy with that smile but at the same time, imagine he's using his own image to create an awareness, to create change, to create respect because that was made by a person that was disrespecting what is the feel of the absence of a kid. you cannot make a joke out of anything. out of nowhere. that is not allowed anymore.

you have to respect and we have to put things in place. that is what is happening also. we're trying to put things in the right place now. >> very, very important what you say, using the right words, putting things in their place. i just wonder though whether ever you reflect on the fact that you came over from venezuela years ago. he was 3 years old, joaquin. you see what's happening in venezuela today. and yet, i mean, you face this terrible carnage and tragedy here in the united states. i just don't know what you even think about the juxtaposition of your two countries. >> let me put it this way. those are two different tragedies. what's going on in venezuela i could have a whole interview with you about my country and how hard it's been for all venezuelans to stay there and try to still live in that place. however, we have a problem here. we are american citizens. and we lost our son here in

america. so this is our cause right now. and as much as i get involved in venezuela and as much as i want my country to be free and live a real democracy, what is happening here it's not less important. i mean, we are killing each other here. we are arming this nation because some answers to the problem is to have more guns on more people. so that way we can protect ourselves. that is what really matters here. lives are -- while we started talking again, probably three, four, or five people already lost their lives. just while we're having this interview here. >> well, look, it's probably true what you say but it's also true you're making a difference and the kids are making a difference. this is a special moment. we really, really thank you as well as sending you our continued condolences. patricia and manuel oliver,

thank you for being with us today. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you very much. so it is a tragic reality that since the parkland massacre, gunfire continues to kill american children in large numbers. in fact, around 1,200 children have been killed like this in the past year alone. again, it was mobilized youngsters across the country who conducted that research and found those facts. more than 200 student reporters working with a nonprofit news organization the trace. they found more than 80 infants and toddlers were killed. dave cullen has been following the parkland story for past year and he's written a book, "parkland, birth of a movement," and he's joining me from new york. dave, welcome to the program. >> thank you very much for having me. >> i just want you to reflect on what you've heard from the oliver family having lost joaquin and also before that from david hogg. they're all in this together.

>> they are. i mean i -- luckily there's a box of kleenex here because that choked me up seeing him there. those are three of my heroes there. three amazing people that i got to meet last year. i'm sorry, i didn't expect to get choked up. but i think i was just reflecting, too, toward the end of like that's why this movement has had such power because consider how different each of those three people you just had on are. and that's why this movement is so powerful. it's not a single person. they bring such amazing things to the larger project. david i think of him as the fighter but he's really calmed down, hasn't he? the angry david. we all got to know last year? and he gradually calmed down through the year and i talked to him months out about so what's going on, you seem calmer.

but david is the fighter, but he's kind of the debater. i said i don't know about you, but i sat there thinking my god, this kid knows so much more than i do. he's putting me to shame. i could not have said a quarter of the things he did. he's got this amazing mind with all this. and then manny, he had me call him uncle manny. he was like an uncle to them. he's so creative. he goes there, the first time i saw him do one of those murals where he pounds 17 holes in this mural with like gunshots and then spatters you know red paint like blood, it's hard to watch but it's very, very powerful. he knows what he's doing. he's not -- he's really, really good at this. and he's a provocateur but he's kind of brilliant. he takes it further than the kids do. and patricia is kind of the soul of this.

i mean she's just -- every time i've seen her, she hugs me. she's going through this and wants to make sure i'm okay and other people are okay. i feel guilty. she's the sweetest person. that reminds me of a lot of kids in the group. it's bringing these really different personalities and talents and it's all of them. this was two dozen kids and tio manny working with them. that's why they broke through amongst a lot of other things. plus they stood up and did something. >> break through, stand up and do something. look, we remember sandy hook when little kids were massacred and there was an outrage and there was you know, complete and utter heart break. and yet, even that didn't move the dial the way this did. what in terms of activism, you've written about all of this. you started writing after columbine 20 years ago plus. what -- why is this sort of --

what's so different about this one that has made it something you can't look away from? these kids have moved the dial. >> it was a perfect storm of things. part of it is the timing. the single biggest thing is the messenger. and what we thought everyone thought after sandy hook this time it will really change because you know, 6-year-old kids that's unthinkable. what we didn't realize at the time was it is not the horror. it can get more and more horrible and that isn't enough. it's the messenger is crucial. we thought when barack obama took this on in sort of a brilliant politician of our age, he made it the centerpiece of his state of the union address. everything seemed aligned. no. a politician can't be the leader on this. for a couple reasons. one, i don't think we really look to our politicians as our true leaders anymore. but also, we're so divisive between red and blue camps.

if a politician takes us on, it immediately puts half the country against him and we're locked in the battle and stalemate. a lot of different reasons. also the parents of these kids were involved. it had to be the kids themselves. one more point, when we see emmett and david and all these kids, we don't just see people who escaped with their lives. we see the faces of future targets, of kids like our sons and daughters, siblings, our own kids who are going to die and are dying if we don't do something. that has a power that transends everything else in a way we underestimate. >> you mentioned emma and the kids and their speaking and their activism and public face. we'll put a little snippet just to remind everybody of a very famous emma gonzales when she called the adults out on this issue.

>> politicians who sit in their gilded house and senate seats funded by the nra telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call bs! we say that you -- they say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. we call bs! >> i mean, it went on and she really put everybody on the spot. what do you -- do you think this movement will sustain itself? >> i really do. you know, having spent the better part of a year with these kids, they got from the beginning, they get so much. they understand organizing and i talked to jackie, one of the unsung heroes of the group about ten days after this happened and asked how long will it take. the media was saying can they really do this in five weeks. i thought that was ridiculously short. i was still thinking in silly

kind of terms. she said, well, the civil rights movement took many, many years. decades, a generation. this probably take a generation. i was like wow. of course. and looking back, you know, later people like john de le volpe were saying things like that. the kids figured that out in about a week. and right away, their first big target was the midterms. as the first battle, they knew this would be the first of many, and they saw so clearly what was ahead of them yeah, and so because they've seen this all along and they know what they're doing and right now, they're working on infrastructure on the really boring unglamorous part this semester is the big thing to take what they did last fall and work with college campuses across the country to have permanent march for our lives chapters on campuses across america. ing how to turn this from a ing volunteer organization into a

permanent organization that has a life that lives on. my money is on the kids. >> as david told us, dozens and dozens of bills and measures have been passed. you know, to address this. you obviously started writing, you were i think one of the first if not the first report in columbine when that massacre happened. maybe one can define that as the first school shooting of the television age maybe that was captured on television so exhaustively as it was. just tell me what you've experienced and what's changed between columbine and today and you said you would never write another book on this after columbine. it seriously affected you. >> it did. i mean, columbine changed everything. i look at it, i call it the school shooter era now which columbine wasn't the first and parkland obviously isn't the last. but columbine i think history

will see them as the beginning and the beginning of the end. and you know, i'll tell you one quick story. the first day at columbine was exactly what you would expect. pandemonium, chaos, kids hugging each other and clenching and sobbing. next morning is what did a number on me because, threw me for a loop. there was none of that. i was with more than a thousand kids, not a tear. they have these blank looks on their faces, shell shocked. in ptsd face it's the number of phase. almost never hits in those kinds of numbers. they were completely taken by surprise and didn't expect anything like this. i didn't see a single blank stare at parkland. i didn't see the obviously all the kids. so they may have been there, but it was these kids were expecting it. and so many of them told me they were expecting it. >> wow. >> and you know, closest

actually -- david's sister lauren hogg is amazing. she was the closest i saw to that early on. i met her in the kitchen after talking to david a month out. she looked pretty bad. and i saw her every three to four weeks for much of the next year. each time, you could see the improvement on her face and i talked to her several months into this because i didn't want to speak too soon. i asked her, what i'm seeing, is that how you're feeling? she said yeah, i'm definitely getting better. then i talked to their mom rebecca who is amazing and hysterical. she said yeah, but she's also still having nightmares. >> right. >> for the story tellers, too, you had two episodes of secondary ptsd. describe that, describe the impact on the story tellers, the

reporters like yourselves. >> yeah, i didn't know that existed. until well into the first year. i went to a conference and heard dr. akberg who started an organization at columbia, the center for journalism and trauma. oh, wow he's describing. i had depression pretty bad that year and got treatment and thought i was fine and, of urse, i didn't stick to any rules my shrink said i needed to. i thought i was fine. and seven years later, it took me down much worse. i had a really bad relapse. and then i agreed to a lot of the rules that and so i was, one of it was i was never allowed to go back right away. i went to virginia and las vegas where we meet with survivors months after the fact but never right into the scene of a crime. but this time, i wanted to go cover trauma or a killer or what

it was like to document the horror. i went back because right away these kids were blowing my mind. i was like they may really do something. and i didn't -- i thought i might get into trouble for doing that. i was so wrong. they healed me. i was talking to alphonso over thanksgiving. we had a really long talk about some of his ups and downs and i said, you guys have healed me. i didn't realize how much secondary ptsd was still in me at the start of this year, i thought i was fine. i was doing pretty good as long as i watched and followed the rules. but i didn't realize the lingering sadness and sort of cloud over my life until i saw the after picture by thanksgiving of the year with these kids. i'm like, you healed a part of me i didn't know was still sick. i feel like that's part of what -- i hope -- i feel like

what's that's what they're doing to america. i really do. i think they're giving us hope. they're extraordinary. i don't know how to thank them enough for what they're doing for all of us. >> i think that's so important. before you were crushed by the violence of what you had reported and now you're able to see the hope and the way these kids are taking matters into their own hands. it's really remarkable. dave cullen, thank you so much for joining us. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> when faced with violence, the parkland survivors responded by speaking out. but too often violence can breathe silence and secrecy especially as we look back in history. in northern ireland the conflict known as the troubles stretched for decades. it affected every family, catholic and protestant alike. that includes the actor laura donnelly whose uncle disappeared. his body was later found buried in a bog.

her partner is the playwright jez butterworth. he used that tragic story as inspiration for his latest play "the ferryman," that opened in london to rave reviews and now it's on broadway where the couple sat down with our hari sreenivasan. >> what is this play about? >> it's about three and a half hours long. it's set in northern ireland in 1981. in the middle of the troubles. in the middle of a hunger strike on a farm where the harvest is being brought in. >> there's disappearance at the center of this. and this is based in part on your family history. it seems that families don't really talk about that much. how did this get into the play? >> yeah, they definitely don't. and that was part of how it did come up was because we had been watching a documentary on the disappeared in northern ireland

and my uncle's face appeared at the end as they put the faces up of all the people who had been disappeared and my uncle's face came up. i, in that moment, it was only then that the penny really dropped that he was one of them. i'd always known his story but i hadn't really put with two and two together even while watching the documentary. it wasn't until the end i said that's my uncle. it came obviously as a bigger shock to you than to me, but i still, yeah, realized at that point that having known about it, still didn't really know. >> tell us about that. what was the story with the uncle in the first place for the people who might not have seen the play? >> uncle eugene simons, my mother's brother, was disappeared on new year's day in 1981. his body was discovered three and a bit years later in a bog in county louth in ireland. he was discovered by accident actually but it became clear

over the course of decades that followed that there were a number of people i think about 16 or 17 people in total who had also been disappeared. mostly by the i.r.a. and had been secretly buried, and their families hadn't known what happened to them. on top of that, there were rumors spread about those people to their families that they had been spotted you know in other parts of ireland or in england or even in america. so it would keep the idea of the possibility of them being alive still in the heads of their families. >> using hope almost to pick the scab. >> absolutely, yeah. >> there's a cost to this silence, the idea that her family didn't discuss it, that you tried to mine out and it cuts across generations. >> at the time i was really surprised that it was like coming into laura's consciousness as it was coming into mine. it struck me as very odd that that wasn't a known fact in her

family and it's only since i've got to know her family better and got to know more and more about the troubles that it's completely normal that would not have risen up into be a known fact amongst the family. >> why? is it about shame, is it about fear? >> i don't remember the name of the shame. there's a line in one where he says whatever you say say nothing. >> it's something that just pervades northern ireland. it's to do with self-preservation as much as it's to do with shame and all the things that you mentioned there. >> of all of the research that i've done for this play and all the experience i've had with laura, i feel dumb struck by what it is they've had to go through and how it's affected both families, how it's affected laura's family and thousands

and thousands of families. and i think that law has normalized the whole thing. she just -- one of the ways in which her generation kind of survived this is to say it's no big deal but it is a big deal. >> did you feel a greater responsibility to this partly because this is your family? i mean, did you have to feel like, well, now he's going to take this and make a play out of it, do i need to get permissioning? >> i felt a sense of responsibility to my mom and she was the only person that i really gave a lot of thought to in that moment. and i discussed it with her, and she was very happy for it to go ahead and she's immensely proud of the fact that it has become what it has become. so that was my main concern. >> what about you? you're talking to not someone just as actor but as a life partner like i can't screw this up. >> that was actually a nightmare.

i think the play doesn't include many actual like identifiable details of your family's experience. >> no. >> yet, what that family went through, how they responded, how disappearances, vanishings, just as you say, pick at the scab. don't allow normal grieving processes to begin all of that is precisely what laura's family went through. >> we have a clip to set it up. this is a rural family. right around harvest time. this is a toast. >> these 50 acres of yours, your first harvest in. young and all, i want to you remember something. that a man who takes care of his family is a man who can look himself in the eye in the morning. and i hope you find a strong a rock as i have.

to mary. >> aye, to mary. >> finally on behalf of this entire clan, i'd like to thank kaitlan for this wonderful food. and for everything she's done for this family over the past ten years. to kaitlan. >> to caught lynn. >> to kaitlan. >> you start to see all these different themes in that little clip here. there's a bit of just a simple family story. there's this national politics and loyalty and struggle story and then there's a complicated love story. which one as a director or a playwright and an actor do you pick up on when you're in these scenes? >> you can't act politics. you can't -- there is no action in that. it's just the background that they're all existing in, but for her, the love story and the suppression of that love and the secrets that she keeps are what drives her through the entire three acts. it just makes sense.

it's just there and it feels like real life when you read it. so to just get up and do it seems to be enough. it rarely requires any real you know, crowbaring a bit. >> there's a clip we want to play. it really is one of the first scenes if not the first scene in the play. >> you're on a ship with the rolling stones, the beatles and led zeppelin. it hits an iceberg. there's only room in the lifeboat for you plus one of those legendary combos. three seconds, go. >> led zeppelin. >> you have three seconds. >> i don't need three seconds. >> you would say led zeppelin. >> just said i would. >> the beatles, the stones are all going to die. >> later on in that scene you kind of start to see this intense flirtation happening, and you kind of are saying, what's going on here? you're trying to figure this out. when you position that scene, it's almost like that was something that was really middle

to end of play but you're starting, you've given me a sound bite, something for me to grasp on to. it's like this late night session that these two are having. >> yeah. i think about half my plays start at the end of a night. jerusalem does, mojo does this does where people have been up all night and then the action begins. but i don't know why that is. i think it's an experience i've had a lot. but and it gets interesting when people are sleep deprived. >> even if you're not alcohol, it's sort of in a different state. >> when they've crossed that barrier, but, yeah, i did want to start at the end and wanted to you fall in love with them in the first five minutes of the play. people put on blindfolds and dance around at the end of plays. not the beginning. > it's an emotional roller coaster ride to watch you from

really scene one until the end and you're, oh, my gosh, she's carrying a lot of weight. and i wondered just as a viewer how exhausted you must be at the end of every performance to put yourself physically through that every day. >> yeah, i mean, we were just discussing this very recently actually which i don't think that i was aware going into this broadway run quite how much it was going to cost me emotionally and physically and just energy levels. when i had done the run in london in the west end, i was pregnant the whole time. and i finished up at six months pregnant. i put my exhaustion down to pregnancy. i thought that's what it was. it wasn't until i got out here and started again that realized i don't think the pregnancy had anything to do with it. it was the play. the play is hugely draining. but the most satisfying thing that i could possibly do.

i wouldn't want it any other way. >> who is the ferryman in this? is there a harkening back from greek mythology afterwards, there's this person carrying the souls into the after life. as i'm sitting there watching the play, they did call it the ferryman intentionally, right? is there -- why? >> well, i think it's -- it has that title because that passage around 400 lines into book six deals with the idea that the most punished souls are those that are forbidden burial, that have been unburied and hidden passage across. and so that idea that that is a forgotten, despairing, chronic state and that it curses those that knew the dead as well as

the dead themselves just is an idea that, you know, it's thousands of years old. it will be true in thousands of years time. it's an idea that i'm sure that whoever dreamt up the campaign of vanishing people rather than dumping their body inside the street will have been aware of. >> what's the reception been like with members of your family who perhaps have longer memories of living through this era if they've come and seen this play or if they've read about it. >> mostly hugely supportive. the nature of northern irish families who have been through traumas is that there's a lot of like we were talking about the silence. there's a lot of separation. there's a lot of anger and things. there are huge elements, huge sections of my family that i have no contact with, and haven't done all my life.

and that's just to say that is to speak to the damage that the politics in northern ireland have done to people and families. >> why do you think that resonates with an american audience here in new york? >> because i don't think it's spec to northern ireland. i think it's intense in northern ireland. i think that every family once it's had like 20 you know holidays to get through together there's just some tense standoff, isn't there? it goes both ways. it's just right below the surface for all these angers and resentments and beefs and the stuff people have lovingly curated over decades to present to one another at crisis. i think that that element of family life, the idea of things going unrecognized things bubbling under is just a universal truth. >> also, just a production question. you've got a goose, a rabbit, a real baby, i think everyone in the crowd immediately starts to go oh.

when they realize that's a real baby on the set. how do you pull that off? >> i was as surprised as anyone about how much it took. you know, it's very easy to write he brings on a goat. >> right. >> but the baby? how do you keep -- again, stand-in babies? >> that was one of the first ideas that i had was an image in my head of lights going up on stage and a baby being alone on the stage. and decided to put it after the first interval. there's all kinds of things you can do to make people forget the interval. there's all kinds of tricks you can pull to make people forget how hard it was to get to the theater that night and how uncomfortable the seat is, for example, or how much they have to fork out for the ticket. there's tricks that drop you into believing something is -- that believing in the illusion that theater is that are available to you in the theater that aren't on film.

i love exploiting them. i love the fact that if you walk a live goose on to a stage, it's different to watching one on film. no one gives a monkey on film but it reminds you of the real and but also at the same time, sort of the hyper real thing it is to witness something unfolding on the stage. it also allows for the sense that this is going to imminently go very wrong. and i think that's one of the most exciting things you can ever watch on the stage. that baby is going to malfunction. that goose is going to dot, dot, dot. he's going to drop the rabbit. >> the rabbit leapt from his hands a few shows ago. >> i love to hear that. that's great. >> and half the actors on the stage went went oh? suddenly the whole scene was completely electric. we were having as tense a time as at audience were at that point. it was brilliant. >> mark once said to me the thing he loved most about being on stage was nothing could go wrong.

it's taken me ages to work out what he means. if that goose were to you know, free itself and flap into the audience and run down the aisle and create mayhem, that would be worth paying for. what could be better? >> jez, laura, thank you so much. >> thank you. and as they say, it will be all right on the night. what a talented couple and what a great way to end the show this valentine's day. we want to dedicate this show to the victims of parkland and to all the victims of all the school shootings. we hope that there won't be any more from now on. that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour & co." on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bea coleman's career began, she didn't know the recipes from

her cookbook would make their way to her river cruise line. uniworld. bea's locallien spird cuisine is served while cruising through europe, asia, india and egypt. because according to bea, to travel is to eat. bookings available through your travel adviser. for more information advice the uniworld.com. additional support has been provided by -- rosalyn p. walter, the cheryl and philip milstein family, seton melvin, judy and josh weston, the j.p.b foundation, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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