>> charlie: welcome to the program. tonight we begin with kenneth branagh director of "murder on the orient express." >> it's what shakespeare calls the poison of deep brief that can awake the primal and something shocking occurs. that quiver under these sometimes apparently gentile stories with exotic and pleasing characters is fun for actors. >> charlie: we continue with john saunders. >> it's been a way of softening ers between people and breaking down projections and taking

concepts and complicating them with human characters. >> charlie: we conclude with macklemore and his new album "gemini." >> i want to hear the song i made and when you find that pocket and your voice. when you find out who you are as a person and that's translating to a record, that's when you realize i have something here. >> charlie: branagh, saunders and macklemore when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications

from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: en branagh is here and won for best director and best actor at age 29 for his film adaptation of henry v and start in murder of orient express with johnny depp and judi dench and penelope cruz. here is the trailer. >> would you mind if i join you? >> you're the world famous detective.

>> you're inauthentic. >> you're funny. >> i know what it feels like to be have a man in my bedroom. >> what do you think of a dead man. >> leave her out of it. >> the real killer is right here. i'm sleeping here where everyone can see me and a can see

everyone. >> trust no one. >> charlie: i'm pleased to have kenneth branagh back at the table. welcome. >> thanks, charlie. >> charlie: with everything you've been doing, why this? >> it's a fantastically gripping style. the prospect is kept that 15 characters might have performed this violent act of murder. i read it as an adolescent and got a passion for reading crime fiction. and when the opportunity came up what i sensed was a darker and more emotional tale under that crowd pleasing murder-mystery. that drew me in. >> charlie: it was made in '74. >> yes.

and it's gone in a different direction. there's a big cinematic invitation to the spectacle. with the landscape and exotic locations. we start in jerusalem and go to istanbul and the alps and then it's a parlor game and to my surprise it goes deep and dark and a psychological mystery unfolds with a dirty, powerful revenge story. >> charlie: that's where you wanted to go? >> yeah. think inside is the story about how human loss or what shakespeare calls the poison of deep grief can awaken the primal and something occurs and that quiver underneath these sometimes apparently gentile stories with exotic and pleasing

characters is quite the dynamic and fun for actors. >> charlie: is there one at the center than other films? >> the genius is she comes in and he backs away. he allows people to underestimate him. they find his mustache ludicrous. in our case it's a fairly sizable one and find his accent one they can condescend to and he's aware of these. he can speak perfect idiomatic english and the man with the stupid mustache you can tell he's easily a retired hair dresser. he is subject to this

condescension. while that's happening and sits behind the weighty mustache -- it's the assertion of his difference. he's happy to be someone to say the mustache is evidence of your incredible vanity to which he says, yes, so. i spent time preening the mustache. that's me and welcome to you. it becomes quite the tool in his interaction with people. >> charlie: you wanted to both direct and play him? directors and detectives are always looking for the body language under the forensic gaze and tells whether people are lying and if you're directing this wonderful group

of actors i found myself staring so carefully because i in this master class of people i very much admired in a setting in itself that was big and spectacular and the acting wanted to be intimate and personal and room-sized. there's an opportunity for subtlety and that was a pleasure to watch because these are all thoroughbred actors and people in command of their technique. i find when people are experts at it it's breath taking. >> charlie: exactly. it's also said they read this and took the opportunity and felt like they couldn't let down their fellow actors because they're so good. i have to bring my a-game. >> i think that was sweet. we had a den mother in dane judi

dench i saw actors walking up and curtsies because she played a queen so many times and though she's the most down to earth individual but had an aura they responded to. i got the sense they understood and i did eventually where you ask people to come to the pictures when they can get their entertainment 1,000 ways and to have the event of all those people in the room at the same time playing in scenes where the camera does not cut and it begins at one end with a close up of willem dafoe and michelle pfeiffer and the guy in the back turns out to be johnny depp. you haven't cut and they were all there and the energy and pace of the scene is create by their interaction. they're all what clint eastwood referred to as fast start-up

actors. they have incredible intuition. you want to catch them as fast you can and i learned to rehearse as little as possible and catch the happening. i love sport and watching athletes like before a wimbledon final and watching people how little they do. >> charlie: i'm fascinated by the idea of women wimbledon and an individual sport, a boxing match, how the idea of the role these people play is so far removed.

the talent is so extraordinary. i'm constantly asking there's the edge one has over the other it's all mental. that's the difference. >> i agree. it's fascinating to see at work. they're at the high level of performance capability and yet it's not percentage and has to do with the way they can apply and enjoy or find the way to enjoy because mostly the best of that happens when people are in the zonal grace.

even if people don't understand in those terms if they are intuitive, these masters of these art forms or whatever it might be. you could make a piece of furniture but when they're there you sense there's a potential and they can move and react swiftly it's a compelling and attractive quality. >> charlie: what's your take on him and how he changes? >> he begins the story in the film declaring there is right, there is wrong and nothing in between. he wants to believe if he can control the world and have criteria for judging, life for a man like him for whom imbalance and chaos is distressing. he's obsessive and tries to impose order when he discovers a violent crime but by the end of

the story what lies between good and bad occupies a moral gray zone. he has to take on board the pain of other human beings who may have arrived at some appalling violent act via tremendous personal pain that he may be forced to empathize with or understand in a different way but not as simple he hoped it might be or could be. in some way it's distressing to see. and he carries a tenderness and sensitivity of soul that wishes the world could be as it should be not as it is. for him he says in seeing it that way. -- >> charlie: is there a wariness. of him? >> the gift he has for detection makes life almost unbearable but it's good in the detection of

crime without self-city -- self-pity and makes him melancholic and he's got a delightful eccentricity and likes puddings and dickens and in those moments he's like a child. >> charlie: whose influenced you as a film director? >> literally and recently i had an experience with christopher nolan who directed "dunkirk" and i've admired robert aldman and people when i've had the chance of being near them have this incredible capacity -- we touched on it on other things on

high level performance. they're super prepared. they have brilliant technical skills and they can dance with it and lift off. i saw christopher nolan do that with dunkirk. he knew his subject inside-out and puts himself in a situation where there are so many variables with boats and tanks and thousand of people. >> charlie: therefore -- >> he's able to, as it were, work with the prepared piece and deal with the chaos. somehow have that quiver of life underneath something that's also been beautifully prepared. at that stage you have a great collision between the preparation of a great artist and the living in the moment of the same artist. >> charlie: someone told me he's

totally immersive. >> the focus is wonderful. watching him was like i imagine a great painter in front of a canvas. it's riveting. the power of concentration is striking. feel as though you're seeing a beam come out of their eyes and he never sits down. he prowls the set all day like a trans. he's the first director i've worked with in a costume fitting. you pictures and trust everybody else. not that he doesn't trust them but was there. it's a very bespoke thing and very impressive and particular. >> charlie: directing is one thing and acting is another but doing them at the same time, what's the secret to that?

>> our consultants were there various times to say, no, yes, more, less. i was warmed up. and sometimes it gets rid of the superficial i used to call nerves but i now call excitement because it's a more positive way of thinking about it. because of directing i have the luxury of being able to ask in this case the other brilliant actors but also of myself to pick up the camera when you're not quite ready and i've started the last few years with close ups at the beginning of the day

and of shooting any particular scene because in trying to capture the rawness -- it's like the italians in architecture. they always want something imperfect. i tried to create situation where's you do that and it's more uncomfortable but it's life and if you present that in a murder mystery some tension is helpful. >> charlie: for me in terms of over preparation is to stimulate the spontaneity. that's the only thing it ought to do. other people have argued to me in terms of this kind of thing you don't want to know too much. you want to know a lot but not too much. don't want to be hostage to what you know. you want what you know, in a sense, to inspire you. >> i agree.

to achieve liftoff particularly with the weird mysterious process of performance where my experience is in the classics where if you have been able to do that with a technically challenging medium like shakespeare you're hoping ultimately when you lift off the part will play you because you understand in the mind and art of a great proteic writer there is -- poetic writer there is something beyond words and you are merely the vessel. you might flack yourself you bring something to it but you want to do so much you can get out of the way and shakespeare can enter and then it's thrilling. you look good. >> charlie: other than the fact it has a great star and great director, why do you think

dunkirk resonated? >> the expeditionary force had been driven back to the french coast with the french army and the goal was to advocatevacuate and they overran europe with the blitzkrieg and essentially the entire british army was stuck on a long stretch of beach and ready to be picked off by german air forces in the incursion of the land forces and in a brief and miraculous spell those

400,000 men were rescued largely by the british navy but in the gap that was literally how close boats can get to the shore because of the way the tidal system works. nearly 800 small boats at the request of the government came across the channel. in some cases there was a canoe. a canoe came across to get some of these boys. it was amazing as churchill called it an amazing deliverance and miracle though you'd call it a retreat or as germans called it a defeat. and the idea that however dark the time if there is a determination not to give up or put one foot in front of the

other or trust and put your faith in basic humanity as it were your fellows came to meat you and lend a hand. that the a beautiful idea you need not give up. >> charlie: much success with this. >> thank you. >> charlie: george saunders is here and hailed as the master of the short story. earlier he relieved his first novel lincoln in the bardo. in a review colson whitehead said that it's a defeat of humanism and it's nice to see a writer you've followed for years reach a different level of achievement. welcome.

>> nice to be here. >> charlie: tell me about winning the booker prize. you don't know when you go. >> i got the message it with a bit going to happen and i shouldn't get my hopes up. >> charlie: last year was the first time an american won. >> i was too nervous to eat my dinner and was focussed on applauding when someone else won. i had it prepared just in case. >> charlie: what did you tell them? >> i talked about the historical moment we're in and that the inclination and time of difficultiy is difficulty is to deon i quoted a story where it was

said of a character's daughter she hopes she understands she's not helpless like the dress under the iron. and for those concerned with the historical moment can maybe reassure ourselves with the idea we're not helpless or alone and through literature and intellectual engagement you can pull yourself up. literature is a force for communication and compassion and at a time like this is when we maybe need it the most. >> charlie: to have compassion as much as we can in difficult circumstances or to give support to others we feel maybe in the same place. and i think as we have seen

literature as a way to soften borders and taking dismissive concept and complicating them. any of us can use that in a world that is dominated by what i would consider a fairly shallow and pervasive mode of media in which you tend to think of the other person as an invisible anonymous other in opposition to you. literature says, no, the person you think is your enemy regarded with enough affection and time and care and love will be seen to be very similar to you actually even if they're quite different in the world we emanate from the same root. to me this is a time when maybe a certain cultural tendency to minimize art or treat it an indulgence is called into question. we should recognize art is the way people think best about the

world and most deeply about the world when we're engaged in a work of art. >> charlie: you're best known for writing short stories. everybody wondered when you'd write a novel. >> i slipped up. willy was 11 and his favorite son and died of typhoid quickly. i thought that's a good one for somebody to write but not me. part of an artist's job is to know your limits. at that time i was carving out a place for myself and there was no intersection on what i could do and what the book would require. over the years i got older and got -- i felt well, i've lived as much as anybody and the circles start to intersect more.

>> charlie: you said why not? if you have a small town and work it you don't want to leave everything on the table and get to the point where i was at where i was so scared i almost turned from te challenge. there was a period where i thought it may be hard and might not work but in the sake of future work you have to give it a try. >> charlie: and you decided to do it through the vehicle of monologue? >> yeah. a former student said if you ever wrote a story it would be in the form of monologue and i got excited like that could be good. you're trying to do it where it's not dead on arrival and has potential and maybe

self-confusion. as you're writing the best feeling is i'm not sure this is going to work and it made it to the end a not at a foregone con like the book would work. >> charlie: to the end you weren't sure? >> that was one of the funny things about a novel, you really don't know. it doesn't go out in the worldfu worldful world until you're done. i don't know if it's difficult. sometimes people are saying it is. it's got a narrow entry point nep first 30 pages are disorienting by design. i wasn't sure if people would take that gamble with me and find at the end it paid off. that was sort of the thing i wasn't certain about. >> charlie: and have you historical characters, link o lincoln and his wife and two sons.

>> and others. >> charlie: and there's a dinner at the white house. >> there was a famous party the lincolns had. one thing that drew me in in the first place is the heartbreaking idea that the lincolns were going to have this big reception and right about the day willy and his brother got sick. they said we think it will be okay go ahead and have the party. so they did and willy got worse that night and went down hill and died a couple weeks later and he can probably hear the marine band from upstairs. it's every parents' nightmare that you did something to hasten your child -- >> charlie: you talk about life and love. what's that? what kept coming up in my mind is this weird dilemma where we're designed to love one another and we find so much meaning in it.

in my darkest hour what i find is what i love and you look up and you realize it's the other unnegotiable truth is i end, you end, our loved ones end. it seemed hard to reconcile those. it's set on the night when lincoln is doing that. he can't deny he love his son and knows in his body and yet life goes on and he has to lead the country out of this war. >> charlie: what's the definition of bardo? >> it's a tibetan word for transitional state. we're between birth and death. and lincoln is in this bardo of interesting to transition from grief into a functional state. >> charlie: he thought the war was going to be over quickly in the beginning. >> everybody did. it's set a