tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with actor val kilmer. he has played batman, jim morrison, and doc holliday, iconic figures real and imagined. mark twain, during any one-man show. this is our tenth season and we continue to introduce you to some of the folks that make the show possible every single night. thomas friedman is a line producer that means he does everything to keep us on schedule and budget. you can't imagine how much i love him. >> it is an honor to be on your team after all these years.

it is like going to school with a professor every day. you are the professor and i and the students. we are glad to have joined us, a conversation with a valid, coming up right now. >> there is a saying that dr. king had. he said, there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger and we have a lot of work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

tavis: any actor that decides to embody mark twain not only has to measure up to his larger- than-life persona, he has to compete with the masterful portrayal. he has turned his obsession with the man credited with writing the first american novel with -- to a powerful new one-man show. let's look at the same. >> providence protect children, i know it is true because i have tested this theory. whoad a terrible teacher stood there with a switch behind her back right in front of the class, standing up there so there anysaid, are

idiots in the room? if there are, please stand up. she was staring right at me. silence, i a long stood up. why do you think you are an idiot? hi hi don, i just hate to see you standing up there all by yourself. tavis: i told him a moment ago that i was excited about coming to see him when this play opens in a matter of days. i think it is worthy of being seen, which is not always the case in this town. why is this worthy of being seen? >> i don't mean this town necessarily, but that it is rare to have really great material.

he was so prolific. i even called him a profound thinker. he is a problem with the most quoted american. that mark twain is an onerous amount and father -- an honorary founding father. he is a distinctly american, original, and funny about a wide range of subjects that are important. about race, he turned packed into art in a humorous style. worst thing that happened to our nation besides allowing our nation to begin , the civil war, and

this great masterpiece with humor and love. mirroreare have been a up to nature and showed us who we are in such a loving way that i don't think you can be as racist if you are racist after you read that book. reassure usay to that we really are is ok. i say worthy because it is timely and it is great for a laugh or something, it can be just fluffy entertainment that has a place because life is tough. >> used the word pro found a couple of times now. you have used the word

pro found a couple of times now. how does his profundities speak to you as an artist? to be not justay commercially viable, but wildly successful and being original. a wildcat kind of confidence that is distinctly no obligation of history or acting like it. i think for me, personally, he is reassuring that things that we all believe, it is important to be yourself.

what are does for everyone is inp you understand yourself a distilled way. whether it is through painting or a scene in acting, a joke, it distills something about everyday life that can be important to you. was a sure-finn, it fire hit with tom sawyer. he went back to work and put it away for many years. withs not come up something that was valuable to him. what is really the failure of the civil war. all the racism was

still alive and well. it needed addressing. he finished out the story, addressing it more had gone that he had originally planned and created a masterpiece. tavis: i want to go back to mark twain specifically and a second here, but you mentioned that he had a sure-fire head -- hit. you're not just the start of this, this is your baby. haveid you know that you gotten this right and ready for the stage? it becomes a threshold. a lot of aspects of my development, telling a story is kind of backwards from tradition.

i started and wrote this movie about mark twain, a genius that he was obsessed with. -- she was an author and founded a religion called christian science. years of his0 life, he thought about her and her beliefs. the only person that he wrote a book about. i was looking for a story to tell to direct the film which i have always been interested in doing. i came about a way of telling a , and throughmerica these amazing characters. it took about 10 years on and off. it is hard to turn down the big

movies and i have a lot of things happening at the same time personally that made it transfer my interest into writing and directing. me, it took a long time and there are difficult complicated characters. ito caught in creating the character on the stage because i love the theater. sequencesseveral where he is on stage because that is how he started. he was a newspaperman and got a job as a correspondent. the stories were so funny. rent a stage and tell your story is on stage. is the first stand up.

acquainted guy, very radical and the same spirit of red fox or richard pryor, chris rock or louis c. k. leisurely deep thinking men that are also really funny. bit nasty. tavis: not mark twain. [laughter] >> yes. my first book was banned at the library, one of the happiest days of my life. word over 200that -- theyt for describing call my book trash. not for using the word but for

describing what treating people like trash implies. different to do is for all these years, to go for a ,ore behind-the-scenes version it is really a character study. a particular aspect of his character. tavis: i owe you an apology. i read something that i really don't believe and i approve of this when i read it and i should have looked a little more closely because i know what the intent was. i don't believe artists competing against each other and that competes.es i was really uncomfortable with my own words.

it raises the question that when someone has portrayed the character for so long and so well, how you find the courage more complex characters when everybody knows mark twain. abouthas been very kind and even supportive of. in the screenplay, and what i intend to direct is a very specific point in his life. and she represented not just to mark twain but the nation and the world, very radical ideas about god and man. i call it a love story because i story,hat is her life

about understanding love and a profound way. in that mark twain was both and hatedher ideas her tenacity. and he wonillionaire many fortunes and lost them by his own hubris. the film represents, to me, through these great americans, a quintessential story about america and where we are at now. we have an aspect of our character and how we present ourselves to the world. physical and allowed.

-- and loud. immediately claiming a palace that is rare in human history. into theve moved looking at solving a problem with more sensitivity that he would go about it. tavis: not shocked and off? >> the sensitivity that women in general represent about problem- solving for strength and endurance, even a different way islooking at the world which now our destiny, that is what the movie is about.

of the harderome questions, but i like to think -- is not fair to think about him as a split personality, but it made up this that was nota look an accident. can look atns, you the more sensible or sensitive or the genius aspect. patriotic, very humble american. thomas jefferson and mark twain like uncle sam sticking his finger in our face. iswants that laugh when he

standing on stage. things i wrote or found, but people start clapping. i love complement's. i was born modest, but it wore off. i love complement's, it is like angels licking me. often feel they have not gone far enough. he is a funny guy. and about virtually anything. of hisre dictionaries quotes. i will send you one, handy for your occupation because you can look up anything.

are quieterts, they than children. funny about everything. looking for mye book and i will stop you if i don't find it. earlier --ething >> i know what you're going to say, betty white. tavis: something that is not at all funny. want to vent about that? bacon, too. i am probably the only person -- accolades, she

has to steal my grammy. [laughter] she knows what she did is all i am saying. tavis: i love betty white. >> everybody does. would you like to see betty white and mark twain go at it? tavis: speaking of fighting. the n word. i hate saying "the n word." takes awaying it the animus and the sting and meaning. for the sake of this conversation, i will say that. you raise an issue still being hotly debated to this day. there are still debates on whether he should be read.

some school districts are not down with it, some libraries don't. you have a sense of what you feel about this debate, the n word 200 times? >> i don't think it is hotly debated, i think it is foolish we debated. language is about in tension. samuel clemens was raised in a object,y where it meant as property. i have an ex-slave say it. , auntthe title of a guy polly's slave. he brings it up. maybe i will explain that in my

play, mark twain is dead and he knows he is dead. which is something that he wrote about very humorously, but he is talking today. quentin tarantino used it in django unchained, i use it in huckleberry finn. you use it so often that you understand and forget that a human being is an object in the story. without the specific use of that language, you just don't point asd the accurately. it is about what is behind the word and what is very legitimately debated right now with a gun laws.

the subject is fear and violence. there is a common-sense logic that you can't debate. i was young when the nuclear debate was on, whether they were good and bad was the issue. acceptasier for us to that a nuclear bomb exploded both ways. just analyzing the device without an agenda behind it, there are obvious conclusions to be reached. on both sides of the debate about whether we will be safer. our nation has expressed how they feel about that, right? not fair to ask, that emboldens

you to not shy away from playing these larger-than-life characters? batman -- >> moses, too. that was risky. in a musical, too. i did that last time i was on stage. you have to challenge yourself as an actor. grew up that way. hard to perfect the craft and to get to a point in any endeavor where you can say the person is an artist. it is a good aspiration. i don't use that word lightly. or aner to be an artist

actor tackling the classics, there is lots of discipline and physical work. found, i know i it is something that i have been passionate about for years and years. with mark twain, i love character acting. jokes that i came across 13 years ago that still make me laugh. in the king of comedy? have been in my basement laughing at my jokes for a few years and out and you go a little crazy. it is good to get validated on

stage. the audiences are finding the play worthy. tavis: i think i see him every night on one of these channels. heat is a great film. we will appreciate the role he is starring in starting june 28, citizen twain. i am anxious to see it. that is our show for tonight, as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with woody dice clay about allen's new movie blue jazzmen.

>> there is a saying that dr. king had. he said, there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger and we have a lot of work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. >> be more. pbs.

>> welcome to "film school shorts," a showcase of the most exciting new talent from across the country. experience the future of film, next on "film school shorts." "film school shorts" is made possible by a grant from maurice kanbar, celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image, and by the members of kqed. [ heart monitor beeping ] >> [ woman speaking spanish ]