tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, with the emmy awards coming up this sunday, we thought it was good to catch up with laura dern, though canceled by hbo, for an outstanding actress in a miniseries. we are glad you could join us. our conversation with emmy nominee laura dern, coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: please welcome laura dern back to this program. the oscar nominee is enjoying great success with her latest project "enlightened," which 9:00 30, in nights. her second season. >> where have you been 14 of for 2 days?your days?

>> well, i was with that reporter, jeff. you met him. >> and? >> i do not want to talk to you about this kind of stuff, mom. it makes you nervous. you do not trust me. it would be great if you would be happy for me, but it never works out that way. >> thingsabout what? are going to change for the better, so i will tell you when the time is right. >> i do not understand. do you have a new boyfriend, or what? >> mom, it is more than that. that bigger life i dreamed about, i actually think i manifested it. be happy, mom. be happy. ok? that is all i need from you. tavis: alrighty then. >> my mother cracks me up. tavis: yeah, how cool is that? >> it is so cool to work with mom. tavis: when you say mom, it really is. tavis: iit really is.

want to get the series in a moment, but a lot has happenedsince you were last year, you actually won a golden globe for this series. >> yes, which was so amazing. thank you, tavis. and i will say both the foreign press and all the critics and you, there were so many champions of the show, which was huge for us to find our following and get to our second season, because it is a half- hour comedy, seemingly, but it is filled with a lot of pain and sadness and poetry and totally a new format of the half-hour in a way, so i think everyone supporting it in the way a did really helped us a lot. tavis: yes, before i move on, the things that happened since you were here last, doing a half-hour comedy on hbo worse is -- versus traditional network tv, what is

the -- >> you know, all i can tell you is for me, i am working on another independent film, which is my background of sorts. i had never done a series, so people were like, wow, you are working on a series, what is that like? it is a 12 week movie shoot where we are working 12-- insane hours to make our film. it happens to be five hours of content or four instead of a 1.5 hour film, so you are scrambling in terms of how much work you are doing in a day, but it is seamless, and i think that is why so many artists are going to hbo and doing shows where you have less content than doing 20 plus per season, and a ton of flexibility. it is like working for united artists in the 1970's.you know, they wanted their artists to have their own vision and voice, and they are awesome to work for.tavis:

and since you were last here last, you have become a twitterer. last week, we had the actor from "scandal," and he had not been a twitter person until he had started doing that show. he was going on and on about how this thing actually works, so now you are tweeting. >> well, i will tell you that it is a huge story point this season for my character, and she and i are pretty much on par about how egregiously naïve we are about everything technological, and she does not have a clue, i do not have a clue. you know, she writes on the show, and her first tweet is "my first twit." so i have no clue. a group of friends, all of whom had not been doing it, and i

think hbo and everybody thought it would be fun to do it because it is a path my character uses this season, and on another note, i think with what happened in connecticut over the holiday, so many of us in our devastation wanted to support the families by speaking about the families of gun control, and suddenly, we thought it is wonderful that we can sort of educate ourselves by reminding ourselves what letters we can write and who we can call. that was the first inspiration, and then now, it is a great way to utilize communicating with fans on the show. tavis: i was late to the game myself.on the entire social media thing. i have got a lot of misgivings.a lot of good about it, but there is a lot of silliness, and there is a lot of cyber hate and

a lot of nastiness. i think on balance, i have been able to appreciate the social media thing. are you starting to appreciate it? >> i am.i am looking forward to meeting -- tavis: and now you want to be followed by millions.now you won millions of followers. >> i am like wait a minute. tavis: that will not be a problem. thing, .the third i read an announcement that there was going to be a "jurassic 4." >> there is. tavis: what do you know about ?hat?are you signed up for it what is the story? >> i am not signed up, and i think there was a lot of back and forth in the development about whether steven spielberg would be directing. an opportunity for a new world and dinosaurs and all of that.i think they are figuring all of that out.god knows that working for

steven spielberg is the great joy. those of us who have been lucky enough to have that experience. but what i do know, which i heard from him recently, is that i will have a pleasure of sitting in a dark room with bizarre glasses on watching the original version in 3-d, which is going to be released this summer, and he said it was hilarious. he asked me how are you feeling about it coming out, and i said, "steven, i am coming out in a blockbuster this summer, and i am 23 in it."i am absolutely fine with it. this is like no actress can write that for herself, so i am i amy comfortable.tavis: not going to say the number, because you just at a birthday like this week. >> thank you. tavis: 25 or 26? >> exactly. park" was likec

three years ago. "enlightened." you are up here, and then you got kicked down to the basement, basically, so tell me about this storyline arc as far as your character is concerned. >> it was about her having a breakdown and being demoted and her trying to find her weight back, literally from the basement up in this corporation she had worked at for about 15 years, and the focus, i think, of the first season is very much about how to have a voice and be healthy, but as many of us do after coming back from the awakening realization that you have to keep your eyes on your own paper, amy does that by deciding she is going to change her ex-husband, change her mother, change her workplace, anything to avoid the self focus, and i think that is what happens, but as it grows, she

believes that she can take his energy and this light and make the world a better place, and she just gets more slammed in her face constantly, and at the end of the season, she makes the decision to burn it to the ground symbolically, and now this season starts with what is amy going to do, and the question of what is a whistleblower, and who are whistleblowers now, and as you and i spoke about last time when i was here, which i know interests us both, with the cultural apathy that has been going on, who gets in the street anymore? where are our voices? does it take someone who is crazy enough and overtly emotional and boundary-less enough that she will lose her job, lose her marriage, move back in with her mom at 40 just to make sure and injustice is seen and that we heal? know what thet

technical terms are, but i think you are like a producer on this, and there is writing on this, and there is your project. thecool is it, or what is challenge, you tell me, of having a vehicle like this where first and foremost you want to entertain us, obviously, but you get a chance to address in the issues that matter to you, that are important in the world, and not just on the world stage, but the human dynamic, the things that we wrestle with with regard to fear and to being truth tellers, i mean, tell me more about how you process putting that on the page through this character. >> it is a great dream. you hope your whole life as an artist in any capacity that if you have a vision that you feel can make the smallest possible know, difference, you

that you're going to have that opportunity, so to go to hbo and if this outrageously complicated ranger is the only person that is going to have a voice these days, and can we go to town, and can we look at an american corporation, perhaps like a, b, or c, and will you let us party and explore this and give us carte blanche at that? that is an incredible gift and a blast. this is a strange subject to raise, and i went to be careful, and i am not drawing any comparisons, and i want to be clear on that, as we talked about whistleblowers. we all know that famously and infamously that whistleblowers get treated a certain way. i think the country in the coming days is going to come to anotherth having

conversation about this alleged cop killer in l a, and i am very careful about this because my name was written in this manifesto that he put forth, so i become part of the story is my name was in it, but i raise it at all because i think the country is still a bit skittish about whistleblowers, and you get a chance to do it through an entertainment vehicle. >> yes. wonder if you will share your thoughts more about whistleblowers, and, again, i am not condoning in any way what he had done. he said he was a whistleblower, they fired me, and eventually, he went off in the direction he did, and i think at some point now that the lapd has reopened this case, and they say they not toopened the case appease them but so their process is transparent to the public, so apparently, lapd was feeling sufficient enough rusher from somewhere to reopen the case because they want to make sure where whistleblowing is concerned that the public does

not think that this guy was maltreated because of that, so, again, i suspect in this city and beyond, we are going to come back to a conversation about what it means to be a whistleblower with that as a huge back rock. tell me about how that applies in this particular show. >> i think we have turned in on there with the term, and is such a misunderstanding, and, you know, corporations would love the word whistleblower to be a smeared name, because it is very complicated, and there is and youg called loyalty do not want people airing the dirty laundry of the corporation, in theory, but the whistleblower was dr. king. whistleblowing was using your voice to put light on something that had tried to be buried, and

we are our greatest gifts to the country. they have been our purest whistleblowers. what is interesting in this story and why we can't do it hopefully with irreverence and humor is what is now the carefully strategized whistleblower does it in the right way? does that really affect change anymore? because people do not get in the streets. they do it in cyberspace or write an article, but do journalists really change the day? what if the person is not? is, oh, my person god, i cannot believe what they just did pay it they are dumping in the l.a. river. this last episode. the assumption is if it is amy dumping in the l.a. river, but she is going to keep saying it until somebody hears her, and

she will take it to "the l.a. imes," and she will think, will probably lose my job, it is not smart. i have said nothing publicly about it until now because my name was in that manifesto, but if this particular guy in l.a. had a case, i wonder to what extent whistleblowing has been given another black eye and another bad name because of the way he responded after he thought he was maltreated because of his whistleblowing, but that takes me back to your point about dr. king. you are right. dr. king is the ultimate whistleblower, and dr. king had to pay the price with his life for being a whistleblower. why take an issue that is such a serious issue and choose to do it in a comedic setting? >> "network" is one of my favorite movies of all time, and

it is a script i would never forget, and the idea that this is a news man who gives us the news every day who is so fed up with the news that in the middle of this live telecast, which you can do if you wanted, you could stand up out of your chair and go to the window if you wanted mad as hell, and i am not going to take it anymore." i do not know if i will inspire you here, but there is something really fun and wonderful to do with satire, that you just cannot say the same things, and i think internal watchdogs, internal whistleblowers have in negativee focus and in positive, british petroleum being one. they felt that until board bebers were saying we might interested in tony hayward stepping down because of how the

oil spill was handled, no one was listening, he can sometimes it takes people within the company that say, hey, we may have known things. we did not make the healthiest choices for citizens of that area. know, you have a moral responsibility wherever you set to use your voice, if it is in your marriage, with your children, something on the street, and my grandmother, i remember her, having come from alabama, saying if somebody needed something, you cooked a meal for them and brought it out to them. nobody in your neighborhood did not have food at night, he does if you had it, you would feed them, so i remember right before my grandma passed, she had seen a news report about a horrible atrocity on the streets of new york city, and they said that something like 80 people were standing around and watching the scorer, and nobody did anything, and my grandmother could not

compute. there was nothing about her that could understand how that happened. we have been anesthetized from that kind of connection, and the hope is that we continue to get fired up to the truth, and maybe with irreverence and stupidity, like my character would bring to the situation, we could get away with a lot more. know when you like i do over the years, no one has to fire you up. you are pretty much on point. but in the writing or creating of a character like this or any other in your career, you have calm, i want to phrase this in the right way, in the writing or the creating of the character, have you ever come to see that character as a nearer? do you see my point? that you end up even learning from the character, challenged by the character that you are

creating? >> absolutely. i pray that i am quitting acting if i ever have to say to you that i do not, and there will be many aspects that have nothing is someth me, but there core connection to and opportunity to take personal for some wound or place that i can learn more fun that i should be having with my own flaws. amy is a wonderful meurer in that way, because the truth is, she is so honest. she is not trying to hide that she is a nightmare, and it is such a refreshing character to play. i am impossible. she is not guarded from her flaw. that is very refreshing, as we all tend to be very careful about anybody finding us out. tavis: how much is this process spoiling you? i mean this idea of being able

to write the character, produce the project, star in the project. not everything in this town works this way. how much is this going to spoil you? my children work very hard in the morning. i want an espresso. i need a cappuccino. if you are seven years old, you are old enough to handle this. it is for them. i do not know why this is, but life will always give you opportunities for humility, and just when you think some things are easier, there are other things that make life also very difficult, so life is the grand leveler, and i wish for opportunities in both every day. the cappuccino and the reminder. tavis: and the croissants. thisre you fighting

process of raising these kids? i have known you and these babies, by extension, a long time. they are not babies anymore. how are you navigating this parental meyer? >> yes, i am learning every day. they are hilarious. and so they teach me every day. starting to navigate what it is like to coparent and parent .eparately with a split family. you know, there is a lot to learn in terms of how to figure out how to best serve their needs, so every day i am learning, and i have not figured it all out. i still have a lot to learn, but they make it really funny. they are hysterical. might be personal, because i know you and your ex-

husband, the father of the children, but you mentioned your grandmother, and this is not a perfect parallel, but the divorce rate was not as high back in the day. so what would your grandmother saying now about the challenge of parenting, as you put it, and coparenting, because you did not plan to do this, and life took a turn, and here you are. what would your grandmother say with you trying to do both of these? >> she was always very forthright about my parents in a very southern and amusing way. she would say, that is a fine dinner. tavis: that is a fine dinner. >> that sort of sums it up. the take-home might be more complicated, and for the child of the take him, maybe you just have to leave it at the dinner.

and we are really fun to be at a birthday party with. grandchildren. i got here, and i am so lucky and blessed, and i have amazing, brilliant, hilarious parents, but them not trying to shy away from why they are not together or how life looks different in our family than this family or that family, although, like you said, it is so common now. it is just part of the process. tavis: so common now. so how much longer do you want this wonderful series to run? second season. you are about an episode six now? >> i think when we first started talking about it, we always very clearly saw three seasons in the description of the sort of three different phases of what name he -- what amy was navigating, so i think we would be interested, intrigued in completing that

vision. and i am not sure beyond that. is a fun spot anyway. it is such a blast playing her. tavis: as long as you are there, we will watch. tell your mama i said hello. i send my love to her. laura dern with her series "enlightened" on hbo. >> it is always great to be here. is our show for this time. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i am tavis smiley. join me next time with an author. that is next time. we will see you then.

>>and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. daniel mansergh: >> be more.

(♪ upbeat theme music ) (♪) (♪) daniel mansergh: imagemakers is made possible by a grant from: celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image. and by the: