good evening from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. the actor known of the most interesting man in the world. he's successful and his new memoir of stay interesting and regina king joining us in front and behind the camera. coming up in just a moment. ♪

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ before becoming something of a cultural icon jonathan gold spends decades appearing in hollywood of hundreds of tv shows but never make it big until he landed the role of the most interesting man in the world. look at that face. his new memoir calls "what if." i don't ever tell stories about

my life but when i do, they are true and amazing. i am honored to have you in this program >> thank you, my pleasure. you must not be going anywhere now without being stopped. >> good, i am delighted about that. keep it coming. >> yeah. >> not at all. >> the back story is that for 45 years basically, you were in this town. >> right? >> trying to make it like everybody else and then eventually this commercial. we'll come to the commercials in just a second. tell me of the 45 years journey of what it is like trying to be in the business. >> i was in the business and i made a living at it and i did not do anything else but it was a same struggle that everybody has, you know? >> it is so many ifs, ands and maybes and close calls. those dreams just trous on so often. never being right for anything exactly. >> yeah. >> it takes its toll. i got out of the business for ten years. >> yeah.

>> then i got a call from my new agent, one of the few would handle many after being god in hollywood for ten years. it has a special meaning in hollywood >> you h yuh-huh. >> he said there is a commercial being cast and i had a hunch for it and i did not know her very well. what do i have to do? it is an improvisation and you have to end with the line and that's how i armed wrestle as fidel castro. >> i have been living in the business world for ten years and got into some financial problems and i always wanted to go back, you know, it is my dreams and goal and even though i guest starred on 350 show, i had not made it. i am driving this truck down, do

i still have it or is it possible if i ever have it and can i fool them one more time? i had money but not enough really where i did not want to shave and so i slept in the back of my truck up in malibu in sycamore. it was a long night by myself and there was no hot water and i just wondered. can i stand another disappointment? i was not 30 or 40 or 50, i was almost 70 years of age. then the ride and the long ride to the audition, going through hollywood and all the areas that i had been in and driven a garbage truck and got down to the casting office on south some brea and i see a line of people all looked like juan valdez and

i said this agent made a mistake, they don't want me, they want some young latino. i went in and she called, you will never forgive yourself. don't run away from this. i wanted to run away. i felt helpless, well, i have come so far, at least make them laugh. it was my turn and i went into an empty stew judio and it was whole bank of equipment on my wall. the director were back in new york. tell me about yourself and now sitting outside, my god, what am i going to do? i am from the bronx, i am not latino. i thought about my buddy who features a lot in the book. >> sure. >> the greatest rock contour and come on. help me here. i have been dead for ten years. i channelled him for big time.

tell me about yourself and what did you want to do when you are a kid. >> i said i was torn. i was not sure i wanted to be a white hunter and then as i got older and to fifth grade, i want to be an obgyn and they started laughing. [ laughter ] >> and they kept on laughing. i kept up this stream of bs. >> yeah. >> how i met him through chaise. they're laughing and i don't know where i got it from. >> anyway, afterwards -- they went around and they did not have me on that first one. they went around the country to all the big markets and to mexico and south america and three months later, i got it. >> that's a lot of searching. >> they had to find the most interesting guy in the world.

>> they went around the world to find him >> yeah, they did. >> in retrospect, what do you believe or what do they tell you made the difference for you, jonathan? >> nobody ever told me what it was and i don't know what it was. i know that i loved doing it and i love making people smile. and i love the lady and the atmosphere and the charm and the campaign was so beautifully written and much a young kid and you know i get a lot of attention from it but they created that. i don't know, exactly. how does it feel when you have got through -- >> you just laid out for 45 years and right place and right time and right opportunity that hits and you are known around the world for one thing. >> yeah. >> how do you process that? >> it is wonderful. i love it. >> yeah. [ laughter ]

>> well, it is a lot of great athletes and a lot of beautiful people and there is only one. well, there is only one and now there is another one. i thoroughly in jenjoyed it. it brought a smile to people's face and we need a smile these days. >> absolutely. >> number two, it was something that everybody g tried tried t emulate and including me. who did not want to be like him. i was getting off a bus in new york and elderly gentleman with a gold handle cane and did a double take. he said driv"driver, stop." >> sony, when i come back i want to be you. [ laughter ] it was great. it was just great. how many times a day do people come up to you and want you to say something and get that voice?

>> oh, a lot. >> a lot. >> now where i live is in the mountains and vermont, less and less. does the ten years run that you have of dose seque does it? >> how do you struggle of all the years? >> oh my lord, you forget rapidly when you get so much and i am a lucky guy. you know so much recognition and people that appreciates you, the rest goes away. it goes away. >> yeah. >> it was worth it. >> trust me. people say well, what's happening now, gee, are you off that show? one door shuts and ten opened and in my case, i have been fortunate and i am able to do things that i really cared about like at ttequila. >> it is a marvelous story

behind that and it is a great, great special taste. that's one thing i am doing. and something else, i am not too much into the digital world but enough to recognize excellence in a company called luma. high speed internet, no buff buffering and good stuff. >> not getting too much into your business, can one do economically well with the commercial that big for ten years? >> oh yeah. >> indeed. you are not homeless. >> not anymore. >> not sleeping in the back of the truck anymore. >> i think you are okay. this story, i don't have time to get into it now, you live a fascinating life in hollywood. you did not just attract girls in that commercial, you had a fair share of -- >> you are getting to warra warrant -- >> you have a fair share of your fridge in this town. >> you have to do somethi when you are not working. >> i guess so.

>> and you need to have a hobby, right? [ laughter ] >> when i started going through these names that you hung out with, i am like my goodness. you put your free time to good use. >> well, you have to. it is a one time trip. it is not a dress rehearsal. >> you are taken care of yourself, you are so hand some. >> i am almost 80, i am 78, i work out everyday but one, vein, vanity keeps me going. i don't want to get old. my father calls me peter pan. >> that's good though. >> i think it is good and i feel good. a lot of kids and grandchildren. eight great grandchildren. i started very early of course. >> yes. >> everybody needs a hobby, of course. >> it is an amazing story. you know the face and there is no way you cannot see the commercial for ten years. when i saw the back story, i got

interested in his back story, he does quite a back story, the book is called i don't tell stories about my life but when i do, it is interesting." >> jonathan gold, it is good to have you my friend. >> all the best to you >> up next, actress regina king, stay with us. ♪ regina king is an actress. she appears on so many films. >> she ls gone to her two back-to-back in the awaemmy awa. before we start our conversations tonight, they'll look back at some of her brilliant work. >> why every time you talk about a female, you got to say -- >> that's what you are. i don't know what you do for

your 4% but this man, my husband has whole plan, an image. when you put him in a water bed warehouse commercial, excuse me, you are making him comic when you know he deserve the big car, clothes and the four jowewels o this. >> i want you to leave her and come be with our baby. >> i ain't damn well going to leave my family. >> you are damn fool between the dope and the music and me. you see the way jason spimiles you? >> no one else will ever love you like that, ever -- no one will know what it feels like regg reggie, i want to be able to hold that kind of love in my

arms. i want look at my child's eye and i want to see someone i care for. >> i am laughing because it is so impressive just to look at that because there are so many child actors who just don't make it. >> yeah. and those who make it don't make it in the way you do. >> i mean, you have al serious body of work here. >> i have been blessed. >> yes. >> to be able to do what i love and you know when you sit there and watch it like that. you know you are always live ng the moment so you don't think about all of the places that you been before this moment right now and very cool. >> yeah. you are very modest, it is more than cool. >> it is. >> how do you reach -- i guess

it is an actress' job, how do you reach those emotional places that you are so good at that? >> well, thank you. i don't know, i think part of it is just -- it is my art, you know? >> i guess when a painter paints or a writer writes or a musician plays whatever space they go in into, to go into express their creativity, it will be the kw equivalent to that and i have been training all my life so there are certain buttons inside that i push to make certain things happen but for the most part i am in the moment of the character that i am playing, you know i am really channelling or trying to embody whatever that woman is in that piece. > >> yeah. i know this is a fair question, when you were a kid getting started, is this what you wanted

and expecting this or having the time? sthoo it is t >> kind of started to be a good time, i wanted to be a dentist. >> yeah. >> ain't no problem of that. >> yeah, the realization having to be in people's mouth, i think kind of -- let that be a fleet thing. i love my dentist growing up sop i think that's why he was such a great dentist and i heard other kids talk about how much they hated their dentist but i loved doctor rubel. that's what made me to be a dentist. it is a hobby and i used to go to acting classes and i enjoyed it and we do plays and things like that and 227 came and it kept ongoing and i went to college and decided that i did not want to stay in college, i wanted to really approach it as a career as opposed to a hobby. >> yeah. >> you were blessed as my word

and you choose your own word. >> i like that word. >> you liked that? >> yes. >> it seems that you were blessed when you are in 227 when you are around some veterans, you could have started doing something else and not have been in that sort of incubator, that had to be -- >> it was and i will remind people all the time about marla being one of the first like with a trailblazer and people forget marla was the executive producer of 227 and the star of 227 and she had her marla's memory lane and acting, it was not an acting school. it was aking like shrine, you know? >> yeah. >> so marla, i got to get in front row seat to see how a woman is a boss operates.

i didn't realize how getting all of that as i was -- absorbing it because i am making similar moves now. m marla, that's my other mommy. >> you are not just aking, you are producing and writing and directing. >> it is a natural progression or expansion i would like to say. i am never leaving the one in the dust, kind of do it all together. but, i think one of the things i love about acting is that we observe things and that's what actors do, we take it in and we are students of life. you know just that you do thisag ta

tabs, i will remember to do this and this. because i am taking it all in all the time, i am able to employ these gifts that come along the way. >> yeah. >> how has the directing aid in your a your acting? >> in a huge way. one aids the other as an actor that went out and directed a film and came back as an actor, i immediately respected the director even more. not that i did not respect the director before but i was more willing to just the directo director -- tell me where you need me. we don't need to talk about it. so i guess it opened me up more in a lot of ways and then as a director, it helps my communication with other actors.

>> this may not be the words you choose regina, it seems to me that american crimes get nothing else for you, it stretched you. those threen s, i hate to see it go. >> but, tell me about the experience of "american crimes." >> it is hard to put that in words because as actors, we dream to be apart of a situation like that for a lack of a better word to come to my mind quickly. i would say situation minimizes it because a beautiful beautiful -- utopia. >> yeah, really, really as actors, the perfect world is to have a repertory like getting paid like you get paid on tv or movies but not broadway money. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> we had that feeling so at the end of one season, it was just

the excitement to find out well, what story are we going to tell this season or what are we coming back to do and john feeling us in a little bit and we would have a long conversation. john is not short on words. >> we noticed. >> yes, yes, we'll converse of the roles that he was thinking about for us to play for the next season. you know we'll speak for hours and he will take that and go to the writer's room and come back with these gems. what's your engain game to the extent that there is one. >> i don't think there is an in g game. you know i got the battery in my back, you know?

[ laughter ] >> i love that. >> i keep ongoing and going. when people ask, would you expect to be here or did you think that this is going to be what your life is? i cannot say that i thought that it was, i cannot say that i thought it was not. i just feel that i have listened to the universe and kind of just let the universe guide me. there is no in game and who's to say where and when come back and sit in this chair or what i will be talking about or what i will be doing. >> you talked about this and you have been contagious and speaking about this and the reality of empowering to watch you keep moving. anyway. >> yes, you know, i have had so many people that have been so supportive of whatever i want to

do and when i was making the move to direct just all of the men that embrace me in our industry from paris barkley to john well to christopher chulat to jon singleton and i can name so many that did not allow me to doubt myself, they saw something that i did not even know kpited. when i came over and said to john welsh, you know i wanted to direct and he was like well, of course you can, that was no the responsible that i was expecting. i would think they would think it is a vanity thing and she wants to do this like so many actors before that they just want to have a flash, he knew that i really wanted to tell stories and paris barkley asked me a few questions and the way i responded, he just gave me so

much information and he pushed me in the direction of applying for the abc director's program and people see that you do this, they'll know it is not vanity. they know you are willing to do the work and you know fall back and be behind the scene and really believe that. he was right. >> you got a big deal. >> yeah, abc is family. >> all right, i am so proud of you. >> i received that. >> anybody says that they don't appreciate when someone genuinely expresses that and pays that forward, they're lying. >> it is a beautiful thing. >> we all are. >> good to see you.

>> that's our show tonight thanks yfor watching, as always keep the fate. >> for more on today's show, visit tavis smiley. >> join us next time of our academy award winner kelly hunter. that's next time, we'll see you then. ♪ and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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