its: i'm tavis smiley, runs a moss angeles from july 22 the thirty first. remember a powerful voice in the fight against cancer. the woman behind iconic films like "pretty woman" user platform to organize a historic fund-raiser called "stand up to cancer." she lost her own battle with cancer sunday night at the age of 61. we are glad you have joined us. a look back on our conversation

coming out right now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. >> nationwide is on your side >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- tavis: please welcome her to

this program. in addition to her role on the acclaimed series "nurse jackie," she is on tour with a one-woman show about health care. it runs july 20-31. we will talk about that in just a moment. here is a scene from "let me down easy." >> we can't find your records. could you tell me what kind of cancer you have? i said, this is appalling. she said, it is not just you. it happens here quite a bit. i said, the associate dean at the medical school. now he looks up. at this medical school, at the

yale school of medicine. he found my files within half an hour. tavis: i saw this in new york city and i loved it. i was able to catch you. >> i am honored. >> i enjoyed your telling me, you think it is even better now? >> it makes me look like a braggart, that was between you and me. >> i thought it was amazing, how could it be better? gosh i have been performing in since the fall of 2009, so it should be better. i have a chance to really get deeper and deeper into characters, i guess. this thing has 20 different characters. had you not crisscross?

>> why are you putting the idea in my head? i have to goack on stage, don't give me that idea. don't you remember that on talk shows they would always as aretha franklin, when you are singing a song, who are you thinking about? they say, i am trying to hit the note. it is technical stuff. >> what makes this fascinating for me is the research he did. tell me about the research you did to put together this particular thing. >> i interviewed 320 people on three continents. it is likely to do. i would love to see you act out the people that come here. gosh no, you don't. what were you getting from these people?

>> this is a confession. i often think about you, and out, since that wonderful event with a bunch of people in new york. if you have an expression, tell me something. it reminds me, tell me something good. what i am is a student of expression. i am looking for people to say something in a fantastic way. and everybody does in the course of an hour. what i have here is 20 gray, expressive people. they teach me something when i get in there and see what they do. >> you are not just recount in your conversations, you are in character. whether it is lance armstrong, whose characters are people that we actually know. what is the process for actually

getting into the character? you are studying them not just for voice and content, but other stuff as well. >> my acting technique comes from a man, a black man that only had an a grade education, my grandfather. he said to me, if you say a word often enough, it becomes you. it is all part of a big project that i started a long time ago. this play is about the eighteenth or something in that series. i have been trying to absorber america but putting down my tape recorder and talking to people, taking what they said and saying it over and over again. i am walking in somebody's words. the overall goal is to learn about the country that i live

then. >> what you learn from talking to american people about the health care crisis? >> that is a really big question. what i have learned, it is many interviews, a lot about the disparity of you gets what and the gap between rich and poor is bigger than ever. and if you have a lot of resources, fantastic things can happen for you and if you don't, you will probably not get that chance. what we have learned about america, it would be impossible to think of it as a person. but what i see recurring is that self-help. i feel that it is something that is really part of the american personality, his belief that things will be better. >> even about an issue as contentious as health care?

the debate was so ugly when it was in full effect, now that we are past it and we have a divided congress, we don't know how much they are going to try to roll back. would you make of the debate as we sit here today? >> i don't think the debate is helpful. debates are helpful, the as it was, even though the democrats admit what first got rolled out, it wasn't explained very well. now i will make my plug. i think we have an opportunity, artists do, you do, anybody that has any bit of public space, we have an opportunity to try to present points of view to the people and ask the people to use that chance to talk about it among themselves.

it is very important that we have a real common national conversation about this. >> we were there together and he came backstage to say hello to you and for the next three or four hours, we are in a decent discourse about the play and about the health care debate in this country because for us, it was impossible to see the play and appreciate art, disconnecting it from what is happening in the real world. the much interaction you had, when people see the play relative to what is happening in the real world -- >> all different kinds of things. if i perform parts of this play to doctors, they will say, think you so much for this. he reminds me why i got into medicine in the first place. doctors have science, the

marketplace, all this stuff. i think this play is also about the joy of life. i had a woman that said to me, thank you for this play. he really held my friend. he is impressed. a person found the play uplifting into joyous. it speaks both about us physically and what is going to happen, and it also speaks about what will happen to us as a caring nation. and also speaks about us spiritually, about the well- being in another kind of way, the part that is not physical. >> you feel a sense of hope -- tavis: you feel a sense of hope. i am not feeling the hope that i used to feel in this country. there are surveys that bear this

out, but some of the americans think that our best days are behind us. the hope you have been feeling during this, -- >> and about what is so. he talks about, who differentiating between hope and optimism. hope says it doesn't put the, the evidence is bad, i will create new possibilities based on visions that allow people to engage in heroic acts. i think about my cowboy, a rodeo cowboy living his own life without me, and one of the characters i performed talks about the termination. and that notion he says, we should not be able to stay on

top of a bowl. leeway 150 pounds and they wait 2,000 pounds. what keeps you on top of that bull is determination, something inside of you. the people see it clearly, but i still see the spirits are that wish. even in the face of disappointment. probably one of the characters that audiences talk about the must to me is a wide privileged woman that was a doctor in a hospital for poor people. people can't believe how, even though we saw a play out on the news how really poorly these poor people were treated. and the fact to me that middle- class audiences that have a pretty good lives are attracted to her warning of , which is ba.

the fact that they care about it is good news to me. we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is carrying about more than the person that is right next to us, the person along the way. tavis: you have distinguished yourself with these one-woman plays the you have done. that must do something for you. there is a lot of research and work in developing these characters. in one of my favorite movies, the american president, the something that keeps bringing you back to the stage. what you get out of it. >> that is a fantastic question and i think you for that. i appreciate the ec the work that goes into it. that reminds me of another

character. >> will get all 20. >> a brilliant sports writer who wrote lance armstrong of's books, and when she talks about athletes, what they really love is the process. it is really about the process. is not just about winning. i love people, i love ideas. i love when people talk. i have loved it since i was a little girl. i love studying how people are and how they are. what they are doing. i love these portraits that i make of people. that is what i love to do when i wake up in the morning. of think i will ever be tired of doing it.

that is what keeps me doing it, it is something that i truly loved. i like meeting people that are different than me with different ideas that i have. i feel like my work has been a path to freedom. fame and fortune could be with the path is for some people. it is learning about the person i should not care about. >> black and white was the old constructs, we now live in the most multi-cultural multi ethnic america ever. and as you travel that, he think we are going to make it? will we make it given the way that these tensions have caused four divides politically, socially, economically, and the

others? a- ibm a whole -- i'm a hope- holic. actors are supposed to see the world upside down and ask questions. i am concerned about our divisions. i am concerned about how big the gap is. not only who has a to doesn't have, but who knows and who doesn't know. that sends me and upsets me because is not just have you learned enough to have a trade, but i see how many people don't get as you have. just the joy of learning. to be cut off from that is

really not good. it happens everywhere, even people with access to education. i have real questions right now about our values and how we can turn that around. tavis: i have allot more questions, but no more time. you are at berkeley now. >> coming to this stage in july. i will see you again and i will decide if it is really better not. let me down easy is the play. remembering the life of a cancer awareness advocate. stay with us. when the movie producer was diagnosed with breast cancer in

2004, she vowed not only to fight the disease for herself, but for millions of women across the world. sadly, she lost her battle with cancer at the age of 61. as one of the most successful producers in hollywood, films like pretty woman and the spider-man trilogy, it was called stand-up to cancer. it aired on three broadcast networks and featured a who's who from the entertainment agency. she joined as days before the fund-raiser to talk about what motivated her to make a difference. >> i call at the national televised fund-raiser. i was very influenced by an inconvenience truth when it won for best documentary. i went to where i do all of my

market research. >> i like how you say that. >> i got a shopping bag. green the six months before would have meant something completely different. that really tells you the power for the medium in which we all work. the tip of the conversation, and as a cancer survivor, i thought, i have to use what i know how to do to raise awareness about this disease kills 5000 americans a day. they will die today from cancer. and tomorrow, and yesterday. 1500 americans dead today could mean anything. think of 9/11 every other day. as a nation, we have to do better. a lot of the show is about trying to get everyone to

recognize that every single person in this country is affected by this disease. if you haven't personally experienced it yourself, you know somebody, a friend or relative that has been touched by that. anticancer community, surprisingly, is very divisive. breast cancer people are fighting for breast cancer research, but we are all in it together. the science tells us that gleason the cancer won't be characterized by a body parts, it will be characterized by the type of cancer because that is what we're learning about, the biology of cancer. we are a huge, huge

constituency. we want to raise money, there is very specific research we want to fund and we also want to suggest to people as of global warming, her family did not fix the problem, but changed people's attitude. that make incremental changes increase soon, the big changes will come. >> i was just about to ask, how is it they get people to be hopeful? on one hand, you want to raise money, but those numbers are so damning and disparaging for people, the problem seems so massive. it is a troubling for me as it is for you, i expect. when they die, you expect to say cancer. everybody seems to be dying of some form of cancer. do that when you have

a problem that seems so out size? >> there are almost 11 million cancer survivors today. a wonderful doctor that treats me said that we don't have to win the war. we'll take a tie. there is now the current thinking about cancer therapy, we can make a chronic, manageable disease that you can live with. cancer isn't going to kill you. but there is a way to live with it. we're starting to understand it. that is one way we are hopeful. let all these incredibly difficult problems we have solved. this is a worldwide epidemic, but think what american

ingenuity has led to. we thought it was impossible to go to the moon, ha but someone challenged us to go there. wheat created a revolution that changed the way the world lives, and changed all of our lives. the first step is acknowledging the problem and the second step is saying we are committed. the drug companies and the scientists he committed to solving its. the other thing that is hopeful is that technology has put us on the brink of understanding the biology and the genetics of cancer. we did not really understand cancer or what the mechanisms are. now we do so much better. we can see the biological process. if we can figure out what causes

it, we know there are certain cancers that are more treatable than others and we can block them and cure it. >> let me ask quickly about your personal experience has made you want to do this rather than making you better. that says it was the best thing that ever happened to me. it was done at a very late stage. >> someone said to me, if you have cancer, how do feel working every day? i feel good, i feel like i am encouraging everyone else to get engaged, get involved, and demand that the problem be fixed. i feel empowered and i want the people that watch the show to

feel empowered because i feel positive about it. tavis: stand up to cancer was seen in 170 countries around the world bringing in over $100 million in just one night. all the money raised that night when to cancer research. her efforts on behalf of cancer patients everywhere will live on for decades to come. good night in thanks for watching. how has always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: join me next time for the look at a harrowing ordeal of an iranian captives held for 100 days. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help

with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more.