today on larry king now the venerable forest whitaker who may win another hasta the movie deals of the civil rights movement it is a continuum it's not dealing with the civil rights movement as a piece of history it's dealing with the civil rights movement as a tolerant piece of of of life and you want to be an actor i don't think that when i was a kid that seemed like it would be a possibility that deep into my career my folks always thought that i needed to go find what does not do for a living plus director to leave daniels do you think do you buy it some day like to do two hundred million dollar extravaganza if hollywood ever lets me it will be but not let you go i don't know of an african-american that's been able to direct a two hundred million dollars extravaganza all next on larry king now.

welcome to larry king now my special guest is farce with it one of my favorite actors who is absolutely brilliant in one of the great movies i've seen a long long while the movie is the butler it opens on the sixteenth satisfied with is thanks so glad you liked it oh i love that nope we're told a story and auditioned a bunch of six people even auditioned you yeah and academy award went up yes submit to an audition yeah i came in and she was already doing her lee had a relationship and i came into the hotel and i read for them but they gave me a job by the end of the audition they walked away and skye stated that she said that did you like the role right away just like the script i thought it was a beautiful script that those whose amazing i thought it was as an actor as an artist is amazing challenging as well most challenging character ever played you know and to get to do that in a movie that i think they said light on things and says something is really special . always why working with oprah who is even though this is

a third film still basically a novice and i don't think a brazen now it's really brilliant yeah. she was startling sometimes when we do the scenes in she was so real right in the moment. as the characters is a gave up trying to figure out how to do it because she's just played an alcoholic we lost a son she was so much pain i was trying to figure out how do you come from how do i comfort her you know how to make her feel better you know because it was so true she's i think she's amazing she's beautiful what do you mean. personally for you. as a black man a successful way to have to relive all those things that happened. it was a great weight you know very painful. some of the moments in the losses injustices that humiliations you know the new to see even asking for a raise became like this military experience you know. that i had to endure

and it was all those things that he carried with them that we carry with us you know the pain stuff that started to aid him slowly we see him at the end carrying the weight of the world or of the times you think people will learn a lot from this one certainly younger people will i think they will not only will they learn a little bit about the civil rights movement and history but i think in a field a little bit because i think you do want to be very experimental it'll be a big deal with the motions of what it felt like to go through some of this i think lead it is amazing things like with the young kids in college when they were like getting prepared with loss and you know to go in like sit at the counter and fight for just you know to be able to be there and you watch the pain they were going through i was in awe this lifetime yes oh yes it's like it wasn't that long ago. to see that is pretty amazing in a must son to depersonalize it you know like you know you see the footage and you see the image that we were. or use of like them hosing people down but then once

you care about this guy then you see him actually in that experience and the difficulty in the pain is trying to protect the girl he loves in it's just a hope it will it is stand. not just what happened but what it means to stand up for what you want him to do like. i did like you have to like the clarity of play but. i think you always have to like the character . or find something or let you know you have to because you can't just like these reasons why we are the way we are for whatever experiences if you don't like a character if i play completely i mean he did a lot of what will things i'm still looking to back when he was a little baby would all do whatever happened in the created he was happy but when you get to the core of him you see the beauty of the something special like that same light it's in all of us you know where you're going to go. for that reason to continue to explore humanity to continue to try to understand the breath and the

depth of humanity because every time i play a part in a way i get to reincarnate again every time i live a new life and i when i'm living a life i'm among covering all these things to try to get to the source of that lights or pull in the way experiences that i get to grow i get to learn and i get to connect and understand more about how i connect to the world you want to be an actor. no i don't think that when i was a kid did that seem like it would be a possibility there was just maybe one act they were going to sleep or he was working in and then they would be wanted a time it was that kind of a thing even deep into my career my folks always thought that i needed to go find what is going to throw everything at the back of you know you know that's nice video to go back to school when did i first when we first see four hours with it was your first film that's out there is my high oh yeah yeah i played a football player. and. it would go in all that. beginning you know of back at it. i think i do think about every beginning sometimes you know.

i remember all the direction i got pretty much which is more angry worrying trick you know and i was like you know what i. have come. a long way and types of walls and stuff i'm very fortunate you grew up in los angeles would it be safe to say you didn't see racism or did you course i mean well you know i just you know l.a. was a segregated city for a long period of time i mean up until this into the sixty's i mean it was it was a really we moved to south into l.a. and then we moved to another area in carson which is a carson compton area and as a kid most of my time was spent in like the four blocks four city blocks i just go to school and i come back on the corner of my house and forty forty nice street there was it was a building here in my record over here is where the black panther party was so i would see those guys every day you know they would pick me up really nicely you

know so i kind of just got to stand them in a different way that is some analytical way it was just the guys who like just asked because the breakfast you know i mean so but yeah and then as my world grew my worldview grew i got to go out and see other people in other cultures. but i was insulated for a long period of time like much of my my father's. my father we come from longview texas and it was like a river in the town it was like a cross river dam it as the area with a white people lived in and lived on frost lived across the river you know other side tracked. well you know still i show once an interview did way you said you'd been first in your life and the reason i think. you have been even here in new york. and as tell with that many times in my life through it i guess you know it's just because your mind that we have with it is so so far we have to still go you know. to move that equation forward it's

a process of being able to see t. t. heal right now to act like it's not really the movie deals or the civil rights movement it isn't continuum it's not dealing with the civil rights movement as a piece of history it's dealing with the civil rights movement as a current piece of of life you know living history because the fact is that they started with an ideal that they were reaching towards that ideal has not been met yet for any one for you for me you know to be able to live in a society that people have certain rights in a legal rights is more luther king said the promissary note here was a promissory note given that we would be able to have equal rights of freedom and the right to pursue a good life you know i mean and so we're still pursuing that promissary note and so right now we're we're we're sitting in and we're moving through in the movie does that it's the movie was still moving towards it ended king spent time with king was an amazing man to be a really good around with you jackie robinson what did he say to you always like we're hearing yeah there was something you remember there was all. i want take with

me and. i just like you know i went with him. to tallahassee my lord by the way to go up to tallahassee with him. and interviewed him and he was going into great moto and they knew they were going to let a man who's going to be arrested but he wanted to do this moto. and i was standing here and my lawyer was then martin luther king in crowds outside and he went up to the desk and he said to the clerk i have a reservation on the cain approach as i see it but the ticking we don't take negroes so i went outside and sat on the there's about twenty room hotel he sat on the bench the porch leading up the steps he's blocking the entrance is that now so the squad cars coming up the hill in tallahassee and the owner of the motel not the clerk comes out not belligerent i think he just looks down king is sitting our standing king is sitting and the only looks down them and says what do you want.

what do you want this king looked up and said. my dignity. is. frozen in time. that moment so i cry when i think of it first you should out of sequence very. hard it was tough at times with this one because sometimes of my work twenty hours a day because i would start off like like it's a ninety year old and i had this make a put on and then i would move to a four year old and you know what i mean a day maybe i played thirty year olds you now know how you will look at ninety right you know when i think i'm a look a little better than that you know there's my all my grandparents lived into the ninety's so you got good genes you know how do they do that how do they figure out how to make up a whole i'm going to think what he did with you they did was he he had my face and he started these things like what happens to the face with gravity you need. and

like you know as you get older and stuff and they start doing these computer renderings of it and they would do the same thing with my hair and it was it was interesting because it actually helped me to be a look in the mirror and say ok fifteen now i think was that i would sometimes have to go like thirty thirty five forty forty five i was trying to differentiate between when i was forty when i was forty five you know if you were eight eight presidents yes i was very specific about the little little tiny changes what's next . movie from. black to t.v. . it's for twenty six fox musical with jennifer hudson angela bassett take a lot of what you saying i do us in the do which is of i have a movie that opens today actually it's a documentary called rising from the ashes it's a documentary about a wanted bicycling team and it deals with how they deal with genocide is the bike to move them as a vehicle you know where it. i didn't read it but you said far as great

a solution then great movie farce would it be the film is the puppet opening the sixteenth don't miss it next the director of the film leave daniels joins a bit. cold war. in iraq. come on my. prime. counting on.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are the day. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

is one of our truly great directors he's lead in those the film believe daniels' the butler will open friday aug sixteenth that's what wes week said to the other people involved this is a brilliant movie maybe the best civil rights movie ever made an important film that everyone should see so so the first film i've seen with a director's name is included in the title this is because what are brothers into thousands in one thousand and sixteen had a short film called the but which all of us saw so naturally this was going to come up we all had seen that nine hundred sixteen film it was logical that they would protest but you got your name above the time i did i don't know how i feel about that how do it where you should i don't know i don't think because the mutate i left when you are when you are. creating your magic i call i mean my coon and i'm anything negative will hurt the baby and i don't want anything so when this came to be it they protest yeah i mean it took me out of

my cool and it was not i didn't and then that and that's what helped him call a movie and i couldn't think about because it was going to hurt the baby so uh uh. and then i found as i stepped out of the coon to realize that the m.p.a. had titled it for me lead angels the butler you know your ego says disposing feel good about it but i'm not martin scorsese so i felt like you know you are going to look at me look at me you're a great director all this is good was produced she did produce it she raised the money she was raising money for it. on up until the day she died we were developing the script up until the day she died on thursday we were going to do two sony pictures sony didn't feel that this movie justified the budget that it was they wouldn't give us twenty five million it was more like a ten million dollars event and. she then they were gracious enough any pascal to to give it to laura to go raise money independently and then the

first for one of the last meetings i had with her was inside and of santa monica and some black woman at the number lottery and she said we've got a live one lee i think we'll get some money from her and and so yeah black would be hit the lotto and she wanted to be in the movie business in so we sat down and i said as if you ok she says i'm ok she went to scissor bed two days later she succumbed and god bless or and harvey then did what harvey came in after we finished the film and bought it i was just going to call oprah. she had produced me for precious. and we were looking for something to do together so i sent her this script the next thing i said there was you have seen a movie misery with kathy bates or a center ice and a serial killer and she said we crazy. serial killer crazy so

once we decided to let that ship say our i gave her this and i said i'm not going to take no for an answer this is something that you have to do and i and i and i came after came after him to see and she told me in bars where to go back to it was pick the day you try them out. dish and for me can you imagine an oscar winner auditioning for me like you know he came in his house and that's that's that's the sign that he was that he would humble himself to come in to audition you know where did you come up with the idea of the robin williams would play eisenhower john cusack act would play make sure we were putting pictures together and we would we would more from and i hope robin williams. and problems trying to get him because we don't pay any money so who would pay you a bag of chips and some m. and m's they believe that there's take less money to yeah you know what we didn't we didn't have the money to pay money went up on screen and on costumes in

production that was a. fait accompli you must be very proud i mean you do have to take pride in your work you're a great director and this you must take tremendous pride in this film i am proud my kids are proud and that's more important than. anything else you think people are going to learn a lot about civil rights watching this special younger people. you know larry i made the movie because i couldn't understand why. it was hard for me. my son is now followed in stores he's. from thirteen to seventeen these last three years followed stores followed people watch him when he goes seven eleven watches out of stores and he and for me to have that conversation with him you know for me to what i think is going to rob the store again and for me to be with him as i try to raise my hand to get a taxi and for them for me to be bypassed and then you know my dad and his son

get a taxi. i did it so that he could understand from where it all started . and for him to have been under because the kids understand that the you know he knows more about and frank that he does about the civil rights movement he's talked more about in frank in school only i don't know go figure. you know would you care so much oprah one of the problems you might face is people will say look at oprah or she show brigand. i think she disappears you think this appears to me totally disappeared it could yeah it was hard to make her disappear in the beginning you notice that she does it to do an oprah move you start. to go up you know every time she would bring a backyard to become a director i start writing and you know i had some dark things happen to me in it as a child and so i would disappear and start drawing and writing to sort of skate

the world that i was in their rough childhood pretty rough. well in comparison to whom you know who gave you a job as a film director how did you get your first film first film was working on under the purple rain for four prints and i was in charge of finding talent for that was my first so that gig and it sort of got the bug. and it will look back on makes a good director. a director that will. is very clear about what he wants and is a collaborator with his actors you know a good director they can get his actors to trust. him unequivocally or her and quickly do you think you buy somebody like to do two hundred million. extravaganza blockbuster action over the top movie

you know if hollywood ever lets me i don't know that he might not let you know i don't know of an african-american that's been able to direct that two hundred million dollars extravaganza now does that mean it's not open to them or because it's what should be really good because it's not open to young bucks don't think of being directors. and what came first larry why are you doing this to me to get cameras right here and you know what i mean to make me think in the reason why you are you you know he's my family i'm a big advantage huge fan. that's a powerful statement and it's sad testament to the times that we're in and. things in changed what do you hope that they do change you know i hope that kids will be looking at this and think that they can lead a poor run again yeah why do you think. this image incredible

that the gay movement has moved faster than the black moved. on again so but if i told you four years ago get married in america most people big it's ok . you wouldn't believe that you know. so maybe we all get better you think. that i hope. you know i'm not sorry i don't think so larry i think that when i got to. when i think about this. because i just finished the scene with with johnson it's clear my head i just finished movie five days ago and the butler oh my they have five days i've wrapped it and. and i'm still tinkering with l.b.j.'s voters bill what they're doing right now what congress is doing right now is inconceivable to

me i have no answer which i've never understood so i don't know how to explain to you but you just keep on making great films thanks or you're going to get more demand if there is so much of it and i don't know as long as as long as i can do. informational i'm ok being an artist you're both gay and black right cease in your board you got what's left a ban. on what's left the truth how do you know it's this we don't choose our sexuality just argue with jerry falwell all the time but there's a but when i was across the truth i don't know you were gay when did i know i was gay. but. i was five and five that i knew something wasn't right or that something wasn't i wasn't writing in paris my brothers because my dad was playing cards one sunday with his cop friends and i put my mother's red pumps and walked down the stairs and he.

would know what's going on. and i got i got beat baby severely for really. really bad but that didn't stop me because the following sunday i put on a blue i feel shoes and walked down the stairs this time with her purse in an interview a year ago you said gay people are third citizens and i meant that as an agenda. i think that they're prejudiced upon even from the african-americans too i think that the reason why we have aids i did a movie called precious and untrue. and what i've learned i expected i expected when i was doing the research for precious i walked into the gay men's health crisis center in new york city expecting to see studying aids hiv and i expected to see a room full of gay men will there are nothing but women that are there and the reason

why women there black women with kids i thought had walked into this so the welfare office but. they service. black men with aids why because. black men can't come out why because it's simply you can't do it your family says it your church says it your teachers say it. if your parents say it your friends see it your work says it so you're so you're living in you're on this d.l. thing and you're infecting black women and so it's killing it's killing us and so i think that there's a and i think that i think that because you know the black culture and culture have a thing about this that's true you know there was a gay rights woman in miami in the early seventy's and then went to guarantee the rise for gays yet and the black community voted ninety six percent against it i believe that i believe that i've experienced look larry you know why am i doing the

bother you know i went to an all white school my mother wanted me in this all white school because she didn't want me she would end up like my brother. and my relatives that were killed dealing drugs and she put me into two rather villanova. and i was called every day i was called sissy every day i was called every day and. and and that put a wall of steel around it put a wall of steel around me and i think that that's the reason why i'm able to go out and make these movies even against hollywood when they tell me no that's ok i found the money because it's made me more of a man to to. to go out and do my thing. so you would maim angry i'm not angry or are you i'm a little sad sometimes. you know well. no i'm not angry at all i'm i'm i'm. disappointed is the word disappointed is the word

well we're not disappointed in you you'll have contributed to our society in great fashion with your films and bisphenol will send you over the top i predict you will now get a budget of one hundred fifty million if you do this i think we daniels' the butler is going to thank you there i'm a call you on that or i'm a bar one hundred fifty from you doing what opie and i said oh ok we'll play a white jewish guy walker mistrials up search and select thanks to my guests fars with a girl in the lead daniels' the butler opens in theaters august sixteenth and remember you could probably be on twitter at kings things i'll see you next time.

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to live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food. you know how fabulous i got so many i mean the towns i know that i've seen the same thing really messed up. in the old very closely. of. the worst shurtleff a little light out of a. radio guy in fort lauderdale minestrone. i want to quote for about fifteen years you've never seen anything like this i'm told. us up guys i mean martin this is crazy on the set it's now been thirty three days with possible.