good evening from las vegas. i'm tavis smiley. more than 50 years ago now baldwin's rich, raw and prose is reprinted in a letter press edition with photographs from steve shapiro. tonight the photographer known from iconic images from the civil movement. then actress here to talk about david lynch, "star wars" and much more. conversation with steve shapiro and laura durham in just a moment.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ if pictures are worth a thousand words then steve shapiro can fill pages of several books. his latest project is letter press edition of james baldwin's "the fire next time." >> my pleasure. >> let me unpack this thing. it came in this beautiful

packaging and all of this. it is -- they sent this to me a few weeks ago. it is beautiful. >> i think they did an incredible job. i think it has a lot of interesting elements. the text of james baldwin "fire next time." it has an introduction by john lewis. it has a piece written by baldwin's sister and has about 120 of my civil rights photographs from 1963 through 1968. >> tell me specifically -- we can talk about your civil rights work for hours. tell me about hanging out with james baldwin. >> james baldwin was amazing. in 1962 i read the new yorker piece he wrote which became part of fire next time. i asked if i could do a photo essay with him. through the month of january '63 we travelled from harlem,

mississippi, new orleans. it was an adventure for me being a new yorker who had no experience with the south it was amazing. i was just amazed by his intellect. i was amazed by his love. there is a picture in which he is holding an abandoned child. just the feelings he had for people were so strong and just his ability to talk with leaders and the importance he had behind the scenes was really important in terms of the whole movement. >> because it is my show i get a chance to show you pictures and highlights. we will identify about six of these to get you to tell me about. tell me more about the experience this young white guy who had not been in the south, what did you see? what did you experience? how did you process all of it?

>> i came into jackson, mississippi. i had the longest hair and leather jacket. he took one look and pulled me into the barbershop and told them to give me a marine haircut and brought me a shirt saying white corduroy pants and transistor radio case to put my camera in. >> he had to get you ready for that experience. >> absolutely. >> that is hilarious. here is the first photo i picked out. tell me about this photo. >> i think it's an important picture. this is 1965. this is a maiddle aged woman in selma, alabama. it is as important today as it was then. it rings the same way and it still exists. >> since you were there and took the photo, what do you make of

the prophetic nature, the real world that we live in that makes that poster so relevant even today? >> i think there are two things. one at the time that picture was taken every sheriff, every policeman was against the movement and against black voting or anything like that. today i think it's a little different. i think there are some police who have a sense of caring. i think there are a lot of people who go into that profession with a sense of inner violence and use that violence unfortunately. >> picture number two. tell me about this. >> i felt that jimmy was a very lonely person at the time particularly in 1963. i have always liked that picture. do you love me? i thought it really had relevance to limbhim. it rang a bell for me in terms of how he was. he was an amazing person but very lonely.

>> is he holding the record? >> baldwin is holding the record and you happen to catch it in that moment with those words on the record. >> total candidly. >> do you love me. >> tell me about the photoright here. >> that is baldwin and his family with his sisters and their children. this was taken at his sister's house. he was extremely very fond of his family, very connected with his family. he just had a wonderful love of people in every way. >> he had a fascinating childhood. when i saw that picture and saw so much love it was beautiful to see. >> he and john lewis were early preachers at a very early age. >> they were indeed. they both had their own witness. tell me about this photo. >> we were in durham, north carolina. we just spent time walking

around town. it just strikes a bell in terms of these kids running around the outhouse there. it has become an extremely popular photograph. everyone relates to jojo's kitchen. i think it is a strong picture and in some ways resonates in terms of the time. >> why do you think everybody would make so much of this photo? >> you tell me. >> i can tell you one thing i don't relate to. french fries, 15 cents. >> and hair. hair style. >> there you go. >> get your chicken and your hair did in the same joint. i guess we discussed why everybody relates to it, then. tell us about this photo here. >> this is a photo in new orleans. we passed this soda fountain

store and suddenly we saw the sign which says colored entrance only. we wanted to take a picture of it. then we noticed that the proprietor was looking out the window at us. to me the picture resonates when there are other elements. you can do a portrait of baldwin with the sign but adding those elements it makes a much better picture. >> what did you learn -- i'm going back to the beginning of this conversation when your young aid changed your hair and your outfit. what did you feel about the way that you were perceived or particularly because you had a camera around your neck. how did you feel about the way you were perceived? >> i am basically applying the law and i am very quiet and i take in what i see. and the more i have the freedom

to move around i can look for the sense of a person or sense of an event and try to turn that into a picture which says something about that person or that event. so basically i also went on the segregational march in st. augustine. just say you are a member of the hunting party. and jb stoner was there who had a very bad reputation in terms of segregation to put it mildly. it is just taking in and trying to document what our world is about and to see it just the way it is. >> what do you recall -- let me move from your area of expertise taking photographs to something more personal. what do you recall about your conversations with james baldwin? >> i think we just -- we spent time with medgr everest.

he put a towel over his license plate which was a joke. i think it is basically really listening to just the sense of the person who was unique in terms of both intelligence and in terms of his feeling for other people. such a strong feeling and such a strong warmth for other people. that is what impregnated me with our experience. >> i am only saying this because you would appreciate this. it turns out that i have a staff photographer who takes pictures of my guests and me when we are talking. before you leave the stage they will give you a couple of copies of photos he took while we are sitting here talking. his name is van everest. he is the youngest child. he is taking pictures of you right now. >> hi, van.

>> while we are sitting up here talking. you are hanging out with his dad. >> baldwin really introduced me to the whole civilized world as to the situation in the south. i was a new york boy and this was a whole new experience for me. and through baldwin i started working with jerome smith who had been one of the original freedom riders who jimmy introduced me to and really energized me to really want to show what was happening here from 1963 through 1968. >> what did you personally take away from that experience? of covering so deeply and so intimately the civil rights era? >> i took away the importance of nonviolence. i took away more values and the importance ofmorally values and reaction to people who did not have moral values and they should.

it was a life experience in terms of humanity really that i got from him. >> how would you -- i don't want to say compare. how would you situate of all things you covered over the years, how would you situate covering the civil rights movement among all other projects and events that you have trained on. >> i would say it is the most important in many ways. i travelled with bobby kennedy. i did his campaign posters. i have worked with a lot of people. i think this is like one of the most important things in terms of america. and i see it that way today. i saw it that way then. again, when you start with something i didn't know that martin luther king when i first photographed him was going to be the martin luther king we know about. you start off and you take a lot of pictures and meet a lot of people and you really don't know the outcome of those pictures and of the meetings with those

people. so you learn a lot. and ist's been a life experienc to learning. >> you have been an eyewitness to history. >> i have been very lucky. >> the book is called "the fire next time." steve shapiro. it is a book in words and pictures about the life and time of one james baldwin. i highly recommend it. an honor to have you on this program. >> it is an honor to be on the program with you. up next actress laura durham. stay with us. ♪ pleased to welcome oscar nominee back on the program. critical love for performance in "big little lies" which is currently streaming on demand. she teamed up with david lynch for the big revival and portrays

private officer in "star wars." good to see you. >> that's what my kids feel like. >> have they seen you much lately? >> luckily now i have time with them. it's been a crazy year. >> what makes for that in a career where everything seems to just in one year? >> i don't know. great good fortune particularly because my parents both being actors raised me on the idea that you should constantly keep yourself questioning character and having compassion for complicated kinds of characters, play all kinds of different people. to in one year play so many different characters is also just so delicious and something i think actors pine for. i got really lucky. >> the big project, you having fun on this? >> so much fun.

all of them are my dearest friends, people i have loved or am very close to, directors that i care more than anything about and all in the last couple of years have been working with my favorite people. that is really, really exciting. >> and you can't tell me anything, can you, about twin peaks? >> when a photo was released of my character in "star wars" i was like thank god i can talk about something a little bit. twin peaks is still a mystery. it's starting to unfold. what i can say is being with david lynch is the time of my life as i have been here with you talking about david before. he is such a genius. more than any film maker we have to me his work is moving art. it's as illusive and complicated and wild and outrageous as the

original twin peaks. i think amazing surprises. i feel privileged to get to be a part of it. >> i guess for every actor or for many actors there is a special relationship with a particular director. what is it about the love between you and david lynch? >> he became my family. he literally has watched me grow up. he knows my family. he knows everything about me. so being directed by a family member has such a specific in m intimacy because he trusts actors so implicitly but something about the way he knows me i think pushes me to perhaps more of the further reaches of what david expects of an actor than i might have been bold enough to attempt myself.

i believe he makes me braver and more radical and more trusting of my ownself as a actor which is just incredible to have that relationship. >> are there characteristics and traits of directors that work best for getting the most out of you? it's a strange question because i assume given how great you are that every time you step on the set you are delivering your best. as i heard you describe with david almost something about him makes him pull something additional out of you. >> when i'm out of worry i am sure i'm my truest self in every area of my life. so compassionate, loving people who trust you, i think for me brings the best art out of the story. it's what i have experienced and it is certainly what i experience in relationships in life with my children, with

friends. so work is very much that way and david is at the top of that list. i have had several film makers who are like that. jonathan who we just lost who i'm sure you knew and was one of my dearest friends. you are home when you are with artists and film makers like that who make you feel so confident that you will try anything. i think it's the daring take after take with which you find something incredibly unexpected or broken or honest or funny that wasn't even necessarily in the writing. that is when it gets really exciting to explore. >> since you mentioned and we did a number of projects together we were just at standing rock. his last one we did together in south dakota. i miss him terribly, what do you think his legacy as a film maker is? >> his legacy as a human that

you know watching the people who circled around after he passed and seeing all of us who loved him, there was no one that wasn't from a different area of his life. to imagine like activists, animal lover, father, husband, artist, a man who if he is worried about what is happening in haiti he moves to haiti. if he hears about occupy wall street he lives in a tent if he is documenting what is happening. i know very few people who throw themselves into life with such joy. food, oysters, wine. his animals like he was just a great lover of all of it. the beauty and the mess of this journey we are on. and i am blessed like you to have been part of his ride. what a gift. >> you mentioned the "star wars"

outfit. "vanity fair" kind of broke this the other day. the costume is out now. what can you tell me about the last jedi? >> all i can say -- >> here we go again. you know it is not going anywhere when you start out with all i can say is. >> i really love my costume. and yes i am an admiral and actually what i can say, you and i are sitting here having dinner not on a talk show i would say oh my god i was in "star wars." i remember thinking i am 8 years old and i am playing at my friend's house and we are playing "star wars." and that is chewbacca. how is that happening to me? so i really was a kid in a candy store. i couldn't believe my good

fortune. >> i assume you didn't think long about that. >> i did not. not for even a second. kathie kennedy who produced this amazing legacy we did that together and so to hear from her and work with her in any capacity is beautiful. to be part of the "star wars" saga is incredible. film maker is amazing. ryan johnson who wrote and directed it, who did looper which was incredible. he is so inventive and you feel like you are on a small independent movie. some of us i remember at one point like are we supposed to remind him? feeling so comfortable and easy and so familial. this massive undertaking. but time of my life. >> how do you process? you said a word about this moment ago. how do you process this when you

see your life sort of come full circle? you're a kid watching this and as an adult you get a chance to star in it. >> the amazing thing about our careers as we have now are having a lifetime of having these careers and having the relationships that we have is that that keeps happening over and over again. i'm talking to the president of the united states. i'm talking to mandela. you have had this incredible career and now legacy of interviews that are forever archived, too. they are extraordinary. and for me it is like i'm in "star wars" or i'm with my dad at the academy awards or with my mother and she is being honored. all of the things that i get to do in my life that feel like i'm pinching myself. i remember as a kid watching my parents when i'm at home with my grandma doing what they love.

now i get to be in part of this community that they introduced me to of film that i am madly in love with. >> i promised you i wouldn't raise this. i lied. i know i lied. and i premise this by saying i know that you cannot talk about this but fits into this conversation because you did not say anything else anyway. if you start out by saying all i can say to you is -- >> i got you with a couple of articles where there are a number of people in this town and there are a number of high profile people saying you ought to consider running for the academy. i know you are not campaigning for it. that must feel good when your colleagues are banding your name about it to somebody. there have been other actors head of the academy. that must feel good to have people say you would be a good

candidate to be president of the academy. all you can say is -- >> all i can say is -- [ laughter ] >> incredibly generous to be thought of in that way. i love the academy. i am so excited about the academy museum. it will be the most extraordinary museum of l.a.'s history, history of film. people from around the world will go crazy when they see this extraordinary story of film history and will be sharing the campus. so that is going to be incredible to be a part of in whatever capacity they would like me to participate, i am excited. you know. >> i'll take it. >> this conversation who said nothing about nothing but always welcome to come on this program and talk about nothing. can't talk about nothing.

can't talk about it. she is in "star wars" can't talk about it. i love you and there is nothing you can do about it. good to see you again. >> glad to see you. nchl that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching and as always keep the faith. for more information on today's show visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join us for a conversation with novelist about his memoir. that's next time. we'll see you then.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with the prolific actor as winston churchi churchill. he has taken awards. this weekend you can catch him obthe big screen as billionaire property developer. we are glad you have joined us. conversation coming up in just a moment.