tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight at conversations with actor kenneth branagh. his movie entitled "jack ryan: shadow recruit" has been described as an origin story that tells how he was recruited in the first phase. we are glad you joined us. a conversation with kenneth branagh coming up right now. ♪ captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. -- ♪ tavis: as one of this generation's leading interpreters of shakespeare, kenneth branagh has been nominated for five academy awards, five golden globes, and was knighted in 2012. kenneth directs and costars in the latest version of the jack

ryan saga called "jack ryan: shadow recruit." it looks at how the cia recruited jack ryan way back in the day. let's take a look at the clip. >> how was your flight? >> fine, thank you. that can be brutal. >> i survived. >> what can i do for you? martinez couldn't get to new york? >> not when you consider. >> you americans like to consider yourself as direct. i .onder if you are just rude >> you like to think of yourselves as poets, but maybe you are just touchy. >> why star and direct? would be justt directing. i knew the novels, and i really enjoyed the previous films. i

knew chris pine was going to play jack ryan, and i thought that was a fantastic combination. we got to the point where they were due to cast the russian villain. they were all nudging me a little. they got to be really good. actor ai will give this ring. you know what, he was available. to work with? >> i know where he is all the time. i get a lot of help. on set master director with kevin costner, so this is a withho is very generous

his instruction. we met 25 years ago when he was acting and directing in dancing with wolves, and we spoke about the process then. he was a help back then. 25 years later he was a help on jack ryan. tavis: is there no challenge directing a director? >> they are very sensitive about what they are going through. the major time preoccupation you have is logistics. thele need answers all time. that sometimes messes with your brain. his chief instruction was give yourself time. most directors who acts spend the least amount of time on their character and their performance. they are aware of the logistics and the timetable, and they can shortchange themselves. he was very keen about saying, take that extra take because when you get to the editing room you are going to want it. tavis: i want to get into how

you got into directing a little later. let's start with jack ryan. i am a tom clancy fan. this takes you back to the early and gives you a sense of how he became jack ryan. give us a sense of what the storyline is. that is an origin story tries to let us see who this man is. to work out in a good way why he is so compelling, but in many ways he is ordinary. he is more regular than you might expect someone in an action thriller to be, but he does have this exceptional mind, a tremendous analytical brain. also, he is like asked. he is the kind of guy who might be your friend, might be at the

supermarket, so i think from a personal point of view this tries to exploit that and put the audience right there with a good man, a principled man. without being self righteous, he is an intuitive feet in the ground oak tree sense of what is right and what is wrong, and he is the kind of guy you want to go on a journey with. you said that.d that is the jack ryan i know, yet i wonder whether or not areegoers in this era interested in people who are moral and good and conscientious, because it seems to me whenever they want to throw a loop that of they take the guy -- grow a loop at us wey take the guy we thought know, because there are so many who iss that star a cop rogue.

i want to know why this works in 2014. can be sexy. this i think honesty can be sexy. i think an intuitive and generous spirit can be compelling. in a way it is a harder thing to do. it is a difficult thing to do because quarks and darkness -- filmmakers what to do. make it darker. what the movie was about. what is it like to be a patriot? how can you be a patriot in the 21st century? how can you serve your country without being nationalist? what about simple country? triesyan in a flawed way to do that in this movie. it involves making a decision over whether he might decide to

work for a secret government organization so you cannot tell anyone that is what you are doing. you have to lie to your partner and your work mates. that is tremendous compromise but dramatically, it is interesting. he is semi-haunted but trying to find the right way through that. he has this knowledge of a very serious threat to america and the world in general. it puts us right in the middle of something that becomes very visceral, so you really feel jack ryan's journey through the story. >> you hit on something that troubles me, and it is they key is with which so many americans -- that you use -- the ease with which so many americans have slipped from patriotism to nationalism, and there are moments that is heightened when the nation is under threat.

there are moments when we seem to not know where the line is between patriotism and nationalism as a character. you can answer it in that context or your own view as a citizen of the world, but talk about that slippery slope. >> i think it is well put. it is part of the territory we were working on that in this story we find early on jack ryan passing an act of tolence which we allow him feel very disturbed by. the moment death is brought into this picture, it is not glibly. it is not casually. encounter coming up and staring in the face what it is that takes another human being's life. ofn that becomes the center your relationship of what it bens to protect, defend, or

triumphalist about your country, things change. the value of human life becomes a essential. i think that is a huge part of who jack ryan is. i think that is what my american friends have, a sense that it is important and valuable, so it became that engagement with the degree to which you will serve your country, and what that means is an ongoing question. what it says to me is that is something that has to be questioned all the time because the world changes. is he is dealing with an interconnected global financial them, which means one tiny movement on the other side of the globe could have a catastrophic effect on people in wherever michigan, or that is, and that is very scary and new, yet it feels very credible.

it is an enormous thing to hitider because it might us. what ever they feel about patriotism, the world is changing so fast. sometimes you need jack ryan as a moral compass. tavis: that is what a good hollywood movie does. it makes me wrestle with the character, but also you have a guy who works for the cia. it makes you cross that line into the real world, and you try to get a sense of how this will play out in the real world. as you talked about how the world is changed, you are right. 11 seasons just underway right now, and over the holiday season, i think i was surprised times" andew york other publications slowly started to come out and say, we should rethink this punishment,

this pejorative treatment of edward snowden. maybe he has done the country a service. monthss heresy a few ago, but little by little people say, maybe we owe him a debt of gravity. maybe we ought to allow him back in, and maybe there ought to be some punishment, but those files being released have opened the books on a bunch of shenanigans the american people had a right to have access to. the other thing that comes to mind is it is not just that jack himself,tanding man but jack works for an upstanding cia, and that is not the cia so many americans see. you take my point. these lines are getting very blurred to me. tot was not a shout out robin thicke, but these lines are getting blurred.

>> there is certainly a moment of intense scrutiny where archetypal features of what it might mean to be an american or a brit is that we don't like snitches. way is way too simplistic a of regarding the snowden affair, so a much more complex pair of moral binoculars need to kind of look at that. where thenge is information is coming from, how accurate it is, how much there is. one thing is information he first of all enters the cia by questioning and saying to kevin costner's caret or her what about -- character, what about waterboarding? you will have to take a view on that at some point.

you will have to take a view on whether or not you can trust me. of howvates the idea many secrets are legitimate to in whatever organization is in our best interest, or does democratization of the internet ,ean that the open season unleashed the floodgates, let's see where everything is, let's not have it compartmentalized, but if we do that, it is a phenomenal amount of information to take in. one reason kevin costner wants jack ryan is we want the unusual combination of an extraordinarily complex brain able to manage the information in ways perhaps we are not, who also has a sense of moral position.

we are asking that. servants,t our public we want our people in positions of authority, we want those running organizations this side that isr in a world dangerous, so all these problems about how do you live a moral life in a complex digital age with secrets that give us more secrets and save more lives. keep the argue, secrets, and you will save more lives that way. how do we protect america? what is the right way to do it? secrecyof the nature of and the covert world as it has got at this point of history, that is a nice point, the point at which we say, let's talk about spying.

what kind of spying is legitimate? can you imagine the government conference, a glimpse of how we are going to spy on each other. you can bug me but only at that level. yaltaer, way back at stalin had all the rooms and as , so truman,course churchill, all bugs as a matter of course. >> i would be fascinated to know barack would say to obama at that meeting for the rules of engagement about spying on each other. i want to have that room swept. it is not what you think. every director wants to have a superb cast in whatever

project he or she is directing, but because this is a story line that jack ryan fans are familiar with, you are introducing new people. it seems to me you did a pretty good job of casting. cast of thebout the specific film. tochris pine becomes central this as an actor capable of doing what i thought was essential to this. we need to be interesting actors i could watch inking. thinking is going to be part of the entertaining. it sounds as identical to film. it sounds antistatic -- antit hetical to film. it is putting two guys on a bench late at night in moscow talking about things while one leaving ana dog or

envelope. there are a number of times when it is just two people talking to each other. in those times you need complexity, depth, humor, warmth, affability, and a sense of intelligence that it challenges authority, and that needs to be matched in that context, but it is interesting, in a movie star context, by someone who is now legendary and andred as kevin costner, incredibly sexy, bigger risk i -- also occupy that space big star, but also significant films across a range of years. when he is in that kind of role you feel those layers of experience. for thisthe capacity

man's talent, this man's taste, but for kevin a specially, you have this lifetime of experience where it is sore effective. there is naturalism that has some roots in the ground. it is not just get out of here. we have five hours. kevin comes in to the movie. we take quite a lot of time to like tout what it is kill someone, so we realize we are in this situation. this is not by choice. this is not to get some kind of adrenaline rush. you get that same intelligence from someone like keira knightley as well.

when did you decide you were going to do double duty as a career choice. >> for my first picture, henry the whole package was in the role. a major reason for accepting this was chris pine was playing jack ryan. there was no reason to do it unless the central thing was there in the form of the actor, so when it came to trying to persuade people to give me money to play henry the fifth, it was to do with an understanding of how to play the role, and if there is some distinguishing connection between the films i have done as a director, it has

been in an approach to the acting, the performance is central to the way the tone shifts, so naturalism in delivery. and trying to be real direct and all the reality shakespeare lives with when well guess it has so i been to do with a global approach the way the material is presented. the actors were as crucial to this as the story. tavis: i had no idea until researching for tonight's conversation, and many times you have honored us coming on this program -- i did not realize you have never been on the stage in new york city, which would mean you have never been on stage on broadway. how is that the case? are my facts correct?

>> your facts are correct. i once had the joy of directing a broadway show, a play that i wrote which had been a big success in london. we had a great time in new york. i do not know why. there were numerous times it might have been a possibility. 14 me i have directed feature films, and it has always been an amazement they get up and running. for me the idea of acting in new york remains -- it seems a fabulous and fantastical possibility i do not take for granted. however, i have the great privilege this summer to play at the armory on the upper east side in park avenue, new york in the heart of new york city, and i am widely excited. they say if you can make

it you can make it anywhere. career in front of you. >> i am looking forward to how it goes. tavis: why mac beth as the vehicle? it in a roundut about way. he is a wonderful american teamtor, so as a creative we are very happy working together. and seen the play so many times over the years. i have circled around because it is difficult to get right. it is a wonderful thriller, but it is easy to miss by a thousand miles for all sorts of reasons. we felt we had an elemental last yeare launched at the manchester festival in a the outskirts of

manchester, which was already an event itself, because there is something about witchcraft woven into the heart of that play which makes you very cautious. as soon as we rehearsed it, the very first morning in felt as if you were being blasphemous in the very act of rehearsal. thisde you aware of atmosphere, and atmosphere that leads a good man to go to the bad, to sell his soul to the devil and his wife along with him. we have a very significant battle. we have rain and snow. it is quite an event. we put the audience there physically and emotionally, so that play is always an event,

but we tried to meet that in a theatrical way, and i hope we can make it work. tavis: it is not the church, but it is the armory. isnew york city, branagh coming to town, so get your tickets now if you are in new york city. i want to try to get their myself now that i have got the hookup. in the meantime, all of us can see him in "jack ryan: shadow ," which is in theaters as we speak, starring and directed by kenneth branagh. that's it. 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 -- as we celebrate the life and legacy of martin luther king, junior, as we delve into one of his most our full speeches.

that is next time. we will see you then. .- most powerful speeches we will see you then. ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

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