>> chaie: welcome to our program. tonight we talk about hlywood acting in the film "moneyball" with the actor brad pitt, the actor jonah hill and the director bennett miller. >> it's a baseball movie on the one hand. on the other hand it's kind of puts the genre on its head and itid tease some of the you ght expect but they get put on their head. the film does have a climax and it does giv you one of those momes. buthat's not the resolution of the film. >> charlie: brad pitt, jonah hill and bennett miller when we

continue. it feels le you'll make it home. that's what it feels like to be a member.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: michael louis published "moneyball" in 2003 the book of the story from the a's manager transformed a baseball team into a winning franchise. i emphasis was on staying competitive. being in the "moneyball" philosophy continued to fascinate audiences around the world. the book sold more than a million copies and it was made into a movie starring brad pitt. here is the trailer for the fi. >> there are rich teams and there are poor teams. thenhere's 50 feet of crap. and then there's us. >> that's a dollar man. >> what. >> welcome to oakland. >> i need more money.

>> we' not in mork. >> find players with the money we dohave. >> an ugly girl friend means no confidence. >> you guys are talking the same old nonsense. >> we're looki for fabio. >> who is fabio. >> your goal shouldn't be to buy players your goal should be to buy wins. in oer to buy wins you need to buy runs. >> who are you. >> i'm peter. >> first job in baseball. >> it's my first job anywhere. >> we're going to shake things up. why don't you walk me through the board. >> i believe there's a championship team we can afford. there's an island of toys. >> we wantou at first base. >> i only ever played catcher. >> it' not that hard catch. >> tell him watch. >> it's incredibly hard. >> what can he do? >> he gets on ba. >> we are card at the black jack table. we're together to turn the odds on the casino. >> text me play-by-play.

>> wt, what. >> i don't watch the games. >> billy bean has tried to reinvent a system that's been working for years. there was a nice theory just not working out. >> how long is billy dean going to last. >> he's proven himself right out of a job. >> in their minds it's certainly a game. certainly in the way that they do things. >> hey daddy, do you think you'll lose your job. >> what? where did you hear that. >> i go on thenternet from timeo time. >> don'tgo on the internet or watch tv, talk to people. you're discounting what scouts have done for 150 years. what am i doing. what is happening in oakland. >> he defies everything we know about beball. >> just plain crazy. >> if we win, we will change the game.

this better work. >> charlie: brad pitt the star of the film, jonah film and her film stars and bennett miller the direct. i'm pleased to have all of them here to talk about this fine movie. but it wasn't easy to get it made. >> it took a bit of time. i mean, we h material that's, it's got science and metrics and ecomics at its forefront. took a while to figure it out. >> charlie: why did you hang on. when they changed directions you stayed in there. >> i couldn't let it go. i just couldn't let this book go. i greally, i' a big michael louis fan to begin with. this book, i mean there are several reasons. there's the acting i saw in the character and one of our first conversations about 69 film was

it felt like 570's film. it could feel like a 70's language type of film that you know when i started acting films, i was taught that we had to have a big epiphany of the character. through the years i found that to be bull. weon't change that much. what i love and what one of our first conversations was 70's where the beast at the beginning of the movie is the same beast at the end of the movie. they don't reall change. it's a world around them that changes and their perspective of the world. i became obsessed with that. sports, i never looked at it from the economic side. you think it's competition, you think it's a fair playing field. and how does the small market compete with these big market team ha that has talent. it is a game. >> charlie: what's the tier --

story that you believe this is. >> the first thing when i read the book, michael louis pointed out that billy dean was somebody who came to believe that the life he was supposed to be ling was somewhere else. he made ha decision when he was a kid to make a turn and go down the road and he inlded up in place that he really didn't belong. he could have taken a scholarship that had nothing to do with baseball. and he could haveeen doing what he should have been doing. i think it's a question that you got to ask yourself at some point if you made different decisions, if you understood things differently when you were younger. like what might have youone. and what stillmight be possible. i was really attractedo that. and i'm also was attracted to the fact that this is somebody who was willing to be different. and he was willing to, are he

was willing to challenge the world around him and to take whatever his lot was in life and he put it on the table and say i'm gog to bet on this thing that is a contradiction to every belief that i was raised in. and that is a very big theme and a big theme today. there's more of a harmony, maybe not the best word but a harm knee in the way pea -- harmony in the way people perceive political beliefs oraclural beliefs are represented. i think it's all a pretty narrow band width in terms of operating with boundaries. you settle down and step back and look and try something new. >> charlie: was billy being involved. >> do you want to take that. >> yes and no. it makes me laugh tha he still

can have dubbed this as meg owe ma yak. he's comfortable about the film being made about him. but he's very forgiving and ope and savvy competitive. but a sharp and funny guy. we spent time throughout the years d they were pretty gracious letting us in the a's organization. >> charlie: what were you looking for, a sense of the culture, the community. >> yes, yessme yes, inside, aret happens underneath the stadium. that's another aspect of this movie. it's about process. i'm very interested in process. and i think we get in there. so it was just that. it was spending time with them and getting to see how they relate. >> charlie: when are you going to call and say we want you to appear in the movie

called "moneyball" and be involved. >> that's not exactly how it went down. >> charlie: it didn't happen that way. th said please please please please come. you don't need to test you just need to show up, you're the guy. >> yes, they said who do you want to hire and i said brad pitt. no. i believe that, yes, if steven spielberg's not available. no, i think i was at the bottom of a laundry list of fine dramatic actors. and i had known bennett socially and brad socially through our friends. you know, bennett a i had talked a lot about film in the past and i think he kind of noticed i was interested in sort of breaking o of whatever box i was in and wanted to take my career in different kind of directions, not just movies.

and he let me come and meet with him. we talked about the character and what we both thought about him. we both kind of agreed that it wathe character of peter, the story of peter is that he's a guy whose never had a light shined on him. >> charlie: he's a yale economist. >> he's a yale economist which is the polar opposite of my educational background you can bet. but, these guys just kept letting me have a chance and you get a table read and you meet and talk and eventually they let me be part of their film. >> charlie: is it anging your life. >> i think it's changed my life tremendously. it's given me a lot of confidence in myself as an actor to get the play with people at thisevel and feel like i didn't embarras them in the film. d i don't know. when we were watching the trailer just now, we were just watching it and i know you all

were just sing i love this movie and it sounded like a joke that i was being thousand percent genuine that i think it's an incredible movie and i feel very lky to be a part of . >> charlie: do you see, michael is there as well. >> yes. >> charlie: do you see any yourself in belly bean o billy bean in you. >> i felt a certain character of billy bean being dcribed in the book and upon meeting him. but my goal, you know i don't think michael thought a movie would be made. >> charlie: he never thought a movie could be made. >> i think that's how he got billy to sell his rhts. just sell the rights, you'll never get a movie out of this. >> charlie: what was the challenge for you when you stepped into this to tell this story. >> showup.

well, there are things that were just mentioned that were important. but they're not necessarily dramatic, you know. the book itself is made out of ideas. like the building blocks of the book are ideas. >> charlie: it's hard to show ideas. >> you can't build a movie on that, you know. and yet that's what was interesting, so my nichols says any great movie is about something and it's about something else. and so what we had was the story of billy bean who is putting this difficult situation and then he meets, you know, the baseball games with a little money and his team had been gutted. so that's the story that takes place up here. and it was about finding the under currents and a way to incaincarnate these ideas.

brad and i were attracted to the first time we meet about him. billy bean is a private character, he doesn't express a lot ofhese things. there's one line in the movie where he's confroed by pete where he's sort of forced to say look this is my ideal. i'm 4 years old and you know the high scol diploma, the daughter i'd like be able to pay for college, you know. and i get it but i'm like i'm going to see this thing through. 's the only time he mentions his personal feelings and yet you need toeel it throughout the movie. it how do you coordinate that you know. it's a very high exercise fitting something into the length of the movie. a film i think comparatively handicapped to like a novel or something like that. >> charlie: here's what brad

said about it. i'm quoting you. the film is about how we value things how we value each other and value ourselves and decide who is a winner based on those values. it questions the very idea how do define success. it's a grea value this quiet personality victory not splashed across the headlines and not necessarily result in trophies and that began at the end of the day we all hope that's what we are doing, we all hope that what we are doing would be of some value that would mean something. and i think that is this character's quest. >> yes. >> charlie: that was you, was it not. >> thanks for picking this up. >> that is, for me it was one of the many and major themes of the film is value and how we value each other and value ourselves. based on what is the success and what is a failure. these baseball players that we're not getting an opportunity i'm sure we'reefined as failures. m sure they felt that to som degree. someone comes along and says no

you have value. can use you and use you this way. >> charlie: we need you. >> we need you and it's going to work. and suddenly these guys see themselves differently. in billy bean's situation, here's a kid come out of high school. he's told he's the nt coming anit doesn't pan out. now he's dubbed a wash-out. he does something kind of incredible. he quits which is a bit you heard of. and bravely goes down another path to try something else. but he could see himself as a failure, he could be dobbed a failure or identified as a failure but it's those very missteps that ad to another success and it will be that success to leads to another failure. it's just entwined and i'm okay with that. but the beauty of it for me is there is that quiet victory,

it's something that i don't think we given. >> charlie: he knows it in the end or n. >> i'mure he's still wrestling witness to some degree. you feel it sometimes and question it the next d. that's what gives the impetus to keep going. but i recall i think is is 2000 olympics. i don't know much about gymnastics but i was watching one of the floor routines and it was a russian super starnd she was supposed to take it, take the gold. and she came out of the gate and she fell and ended up in a mess on her face and she picked herself up a announced,he goes oh my god she just lost the goldhe's thrown away the gold, it's a tragedy, travesty. and she gets up and the routines are long. and for me, it was one of the most amazing noble things i had seen to see her fin irthis

routine but sublimely. all the rhetoric that night is just about how she did it. i looked in the paper the next day to see if anyone was commenting on it. i didn't find anything. for me that was great nobility. >> charlie: and in the spirit. >> absolutely. >> charlie: thereis this story about how bill bean can take a group of people who others don't value and make them into a winning team. explain that to me, is that right. >> i think when you're talking about the metrics. which is basically a w of finding value in players that others don't see value in based on that alone. so my cracter per brand believed in the studies of this guy bill james who was a security guard at a sausage factory, a pork and beans factory.

and he had, yes, exactly. so he had these theories about a percentage on how that affected players. >> charlie: getting on base was the thing. >> that's all that matters basically. >> charlie: okay. >> charlie: books about what. >> he gave me a bill james book that was this big and i read it. >> charlie: the bill james book. yes the bill james book. >> did you really read it. >> yes, i read it. i skipped a page every now and en. there's 5,000 pages. >> i did my research on these facts. but basically, you know, using these new techniques, peter convinces billyhat using them we cou have a more effective team with way less money than

he's ever changed. he's bold enough to ercise these practices. i always thought bill was the sue cause and peter was the animation. >> charlie: you have so much good things to work for. you had the relationship between the two of them youhad a theory and a see of somebody coming off, looking for his last great chance even though he had given up on one great pursuit. how could you miss. >> i wish more people had thought the way you're thinking now charlie in the beginning because it's somebody who decided to roll the dice with it decided to go at it alone because that was not the popular conception, the perception of

the film at the time and couldn't find a financial partner in the studio. >> charlie: with brad involved and with you involved and the story with michael louis involved, you still couldn't see their way to a movie. is that it. >> there's a "moneyball" principle here which is that the perceived ingredients to what makes up a success were not here. in baseball movie they don't play abroad and they don't use it well here. that's probably the big curse. and ultimately, it is -- >> charlie: but i aume you talked about it, it's not baseball movie but a story about values and about dreams and about relationships. it's not aboutaseball pese it's about these other things. >> right. it's not a great pitch to start off with. it's not about, y know -- but i felt theame way you did, absolutely. >> charlie: obviously brad thought the same thing. >> not to deny the degree of difficulty, you know.

i mean, i think it's one of the things, it's the main thing that gets overlked or not understood when dealing with a film. it's great difficulty and then tone. because the tone goes in a hundred different directions. and it's to bent's credit and bennett's background i think that this film and let it stddle and authentic feel with people with baseball insiders, very experienced and smart people from baseball. and yet straddle this film that you have to invent. and i think it's great elegance and flawless. i can't say enough about it. >> charlie: let's take a look. this willgive someense of tone as well. >> all right, it's peter brand. i apologize. billy asked me to call you back, he's on another line.

he says he needs $225,000 for a recorder. please. yes, i added a please at the end. owe indicate holokay, hold on o, please. >> tell him i'll pay back for one next year i keep the money. >> okay. see billy says he will pay for rincon himself but when he sells him for more money next year he's keeping the profit. okay, thank you very much. we'll call you back. thank you. come on, come on. >> charlie: what did you say watching that. >> i don't remember. we do that all day long. >> i feel bad about.

>> charlie: you feel bad about. >> sometimes people would do that to me on the street and it makes me laugh. >> i feel bad abou making a joke like you didn't read 19 books. >> jonah worked so hard on all of this stuff, anyway. >> charlie: where did you come up with that. >> it just happened once. >> i wasn't there for the filming. i mean, i don't remember unless we must have, i don't remember coming up with it at a certain point, you know. i don't know. just maybe once i start doing it i felt natural but i really did do a lot of research for this film. i read a lot more than i ever wanted to read about baseball. >> i'm buying it. >> one didn't wk without the other. >> charlie: it gives you

something. >> everything. i was such, it's a brave performance, studying a reserve. it's anti-thetical to an actor's, i think i was smart instinct from the get-go to pull back like that when billy bean is gregarious. >> charlie: tell me how you thought about what he just described in terms of how you knew you had to bring, what you had to bring to this chacter because of who you were playing against. >> i started to say earlier it was to the wall and it's a sto about the person who is on the wall gets t spotied shined on them f the first time. they see what responsibily's like and they see what life is like when they're notjust the person in the background. and i think immediately read the book and it was likhi oh, billys

everything pet's not and vice versa. so tether they create this reallywhole entity. and 24569 to me was a beautiful story and something i thought i could bring a lot to. there's one scene in particular, my favorite scene shot in the movies and this movie and almost the most difficult scene which is almost30 seconds long is when i have to trade -- he's been traded to another team because think it's really rare in a movie you see a perso grow up in the course of a 30 second scene. because he has all his ideas utilized. it's all been fun up to this point. he's been plucked from obscurity and given this opportunity everything. he's getting utilized by a powerf entity. and it's the first time he goes oh wait, no, your iashave consequences and you've negatively affected a man's liver by your ideas now go tell

him that you negatively affected his life. that to me was a really, like an unlocking type of scene for me as an actor. what this guy is going to. >> charlie: roll tape. here it is. >> have you got a minute? you can't start playing your first tonight. >> i don't want to go 15 rounds lly. that's all. >> that card is definitely yours. i'm st saying i can't start paying you on the first. >> i am starting the first. >> i don't think so. you play for detroit now. >> he traded paying it. >> he's fabulous and really came

in. old friends of bennett's since college. >> charlie: we talked about that right. >> last time we were here. came in and really did this solidly. he's ferocious, he comes to that obstacle. oh, we can't get pt th inpenetratable wall to get the idea across. phil just set it up like nobody's business. >> i feel so real with him too. it seemed like he's really upset with us. it makes you feel bad because he's such a good actor that you really, i think he just hated brad and i maybe. no, i'm kidding. i'm totally kidding. do you know what i'm saying when he was really upset you felt that kind of anger and hey trufd towards you snrievment yo. >> charlie: you talked about the human element about the book. tell me abt that.

>> dealing with this time and place. they started in actually, we started the film like it was a new idea. they started in the late 90's implementing these ideas and trying them out. i was arguing against any kind of back story and family story. and bennett very wisely was adamant about grounding him in that way, i guess. i think bennett -- >> with his daughter. >> yes, could explain it better. >> charlie: what did you think was nessary for the film to have? >> i like sports movies. i think that good sports movies never really are about sports at the end of the day. there was always something else there. what attract me to the film in the first place were these more personal issues. and how do you weave these

things together and how do you ma the you know. >> charlie: war movies are like that too. in the end it's about relationships and courage and whole set of values rather has not who won that battle and this battle kind of thing. thother interesting thing about this thing is you had a pursuit of this in a row and gave you a certain drama and a certain way to tell that story. >> it's a baseball movie on the one hand and on the other hand it's really, it kind of puts, you know, the genre on its head and it does tease some of the trophs you might expect but the closer it gets to them they get put on their head. the lm does have a climax and it does give you one of those moments but that's not the resolution of the film. the film itself does not offer the traditional, you know, carry

off on the shoulders champagne trophy whatever. the triumph at the end is very quiet, internal, not so, you know, bright burning short, you know but a quieter looking deeper and more meaningful. a little epiphany. a little shifting of perspective. brad said he's right, he's the same guy at the end of the movie but i do think he's realized that the adventure that he's been on is really, he thought he was trying to win baseball games but it brought him to a place that has, that offered a personal. >> charlie: what's the revelation? that he had a chance to or has a chance to. >> the whole film is about val judgments. from the time he's like 17, he's like do you want a scholarship to college or do you want to go

pro. and since then, it's just, it's value called and it's like this player versus that player. it's worth this much like all movie, these max on max off exercises. and then at the end of the movie, herrives at a place that's very similar to the place he was when he was a kid. which is a very big check on 69 table and a very tempt -- on the table and a very tempting offer but now seasoned with experience and can apply, you know, the wisdom the discipline. and something happens at the end of the movie, a tiny little thing, just a little crystal of salt is put, dropped in and the whole film, the hope is that it chrisalizes and there's a decision he makes which is very eccentric but very personal. where he is able to walk ay from what. >> charlie: he might have dreamed to have. >> yes.

that's the small. i just realized, you know, i'm fighting fighting fightin sothing and here it is. >> charlie: somehow wanting something all your life and all of a sunda sudden when you get e there's something more important. >> people tease me about it but it's kind of like the wizard of oz. it's like kind of like king author, wizard of oz kind of journey where your dislocated from your life from the place you're supposed to be and you're given some impossible task, t itith the broomstick and we go through all sorts of difficult to do it and bring it to the wise person. there's always a wise person at e end. it so happens that the story, the way it unfolded happened the same way. and you go to the wise person and you say okay, like give it to me. and nothing happens and you realize you already know it, you know.

>> charlie: your wife is coming in to see us today. she ju directed a film. do you want to do that? >> do i want to do that, do i want to direct? no, i have no desire. >> charlie: you're engaged in terms of tone. >> it's ultimately the director's voice. i know me too well. i'm too obsessive about getting it right. it uld consume me, take me away from my kids and i really want to spend more time with my kids and irenjoy putting the pieces together and delivering the story. i would not benefit from it nor woulthe crowd benefit from me doing it. >> i don't know. i don't know. i mean brad, is very designe

>> charlie: well said, design design. >> he doesn't want to hear it. it's like he's a very gifted fellow in that regard and i have watched, we've done a little hanging out and i've watched him, you know how he tweakshis or that or whater. i cod see you losing your mind but i could see it becoming like i think. >> i would like to challenge those energies into something designing. >> charlie: you're doing a bit of that on your own, aren't

you. >> i'm getting older so i would like to try a few other things. >> charlie: like? >> designing. >>harlie: like designing things. what does designing things mean. >> i'm curious about an art that's more autonomous. this was a beautiful collaboration. and i appreciate that. at the same time i find myself as i get older, i don't know if you had this yet, but longing for something that's more challenging myself that's completely autonomous and it's just me that succeeds and in my eyes if it fails it fails. i'm 100% completely responsible for it. >> charlie: writing. >> i don't have that talent either. >> but something, something else in the arts. >> charlie: tell me about the kids and how it changes you.

>> it's the greatest delight. i just never anticipated a kind of love like this. and the nobility again i feel in the responsibility of shog them around, preparing them and just the joy they bring me. you can only talk really about it to other parents because otherwise it's annoying. but i did not understand the depth of that kind of love and joy. it just been, the family's just, with angie and i both, it's just been an utter most life changing important thing that i've been involved in. it's the best i can do. >> charlie: i know you're saying you do the best you can do but the way you say it gives it a certain nobility t.

what's interesting, not to go deeper on this because it is what it is, and clear direcd from the heart. it is also to see these kids because they come from six different places. >> that's my vision of the world. that's the world i want to see. i don't see this my high school's better than your high school kind of men fallity that werow up with. i wan to see theorld with no lines. at t end of the day we're all after the same thing. it's just we get cluttered with the other 2% and suddenlyhat becomes the wall that separates us and it becomes isolation. we all have the sameantsnd desires to better ourselves and better our families and live peacefully. anyway. >> charlie: back to this movie in terms of what you wanted to do with it in terms of making it. talk to me a bit about sort of mixing the sort of real from the

fiction. the sense of how you would tell the story using actual film. >> well again i think that being the movie that were attracve to me, to us are not spectacular as a marketing department might want, you know. they're real and i get some of the guarded feeling that these people expfer has. just some personal stuff. and dude it, i just felt that you need to be grounded in the real. the thing had to have a veracity to it. >> charlie: true. >> you have to believe it. >> movies are like people. you ust them or you don't. i wanted people to know this

happened. >> charlie: there was a man. >> there was a man. all of it happened and some things that happed in the movie are kind of unbelievable, you know. this team that had the second lowest payroll in baseball had just been gutted, put together a roster of guys who many of whom had been dismissed. and they end up not just winning, they end up not losing for a trench that imagination defines. to win 20 games in a row which had never been done in the american league before is unbelievable. and part of the challenge is to present it in such a way that said you know it happens, this actually happened. you're watching a movie but this it's truthful. it's real. and so the movie doesntegrate in its own way real. >>harlie: he's another scene. take a look. >> what's up with you.

>> how are you looking first base, man? >> it's coming along. picking it up, you know. it's a transition but i'm feeling better with it. baseball is being hit in my general direction. >> seriously, what is it? >> no seriously, thatis. hey, good luck with that. >> charlie: give us a sense of being in this movie for you, for being with brad, directed by bennett and having these other characters there. what did you learn, what did you see in what was it that you would tell people about having seen the movie and seen your performance and having people

cheering about whatyou do. >> the whole experience and we are saying it, but it's incredibly surreal, i wouldization when i got the phone call about the movie. when i got the pho call when i was told i was accepted to play the part, you know. i felt like i had gotten io rvard or something. it really did feel, it just felt very momentous, from the moment that i knew i was make the part, it felt like something very special and it felt like not to sound like i'm talking about myself. it sounded like annvolvement, like an evolution, like in my career and my muration as a person that i was going to do something completely different than i was ever given an opportunity to do. like i think i made so many movies about being immature,

right. and then you have to understand -- [laughter] the early part in my career and films i'm really really proud of are about being mature and not figuring out how to take that next step. then i get this movie and it felt, i mean you look at me. i mean i look totally different. it was a very maturing thing for me. it felt like i had been stamped, it felt like it's time to grow up, it's time to, you know, be bold and change, you know, and not change like leave everything hind but change and evolve. and it just been the most beautiful, it's been a really beautiful experience fore. >> that's ally sweet, it is. >> of course. >> he's one of the most genuine people i've me across and i so appreciate that. it wasn't that b of a deal to

us. it seemed like a natural fit. you seemed like equals from our perspective. what these guys have been doing, you dan mcbride, you go down the roster. it's been, i've seen the biggest novations or the biggest jumps and the most exciting stuff happening from what these guys have been doing. when i say these guys came out as a comedy guy or we doubled - dubbed him as a comedy guy. these guys have been doing rebel just stuff, grounding in this humanity that i think that sometimes it's mainful and russell brand would be another one anyway i can't say enough about it. these are the films i spent time watching. >> i meant as playing an immature person. >> it's impossible to be put in a box as an actor if you do something and get categorized a

couple tes and play a roll rolee out of it. from our perspective, it was not, people were saying wow. and by the way the blogs were not very optistic bit, you know, projecting the outcome of is thing. i ink the wholething but specifically there is some chatter about jonah being casted. to me, you were so ripe for this thing. we are so lucky to have, you know, he's like you're a big gun, jonah. you totally totally realize at that point. now he's kind of realizing. i can't imagine him getting too heavy about anything really. from our perspective, you were so right to do something. brad i think sometimes you take

from comedy like jerry lewis in the king of comedies one of the great stunning like out of no where performances. and i can imagine doing all sorts of stuff,ll sorts of stuff. >> hopefully you get those chances. >> crlie: there's a thing here that i find something which you said those are the kind of meefdzimovies i like to watch. is there a place for the kindof challenge that billy bean felt like he could change baseball. are the films what might change. >> i certainly want to contribute. this is on my mind. i feel a ticking clock. i feel very fortunate to in the game. while i'm here that iant to contribute something to it. and whatever he says, whatever shape it takes, i want to help,

i want to shave a corner of it or shape it in some way. i want to contribute. otherwise, why am i here. i felt earlier on when i was starting off in a couple roles, they were kind of plug in component roles. you could put any of us in and it just occurred to me probably, i don't know, about a decade ago that you start telling personal stories. you got to start by contributing is the best way i can explain it i want to add something to it at the end of the day. i want to add value. iteans something to me. >> finally there's this before we go. michael louis is a friend of this program andhis is michael talking about"moneyball" and talking about billy. here it is. >> the gist of it that this team that has no money is able to compete only byindi people who other teams have found defective and putting them

together into this unit of under dog who had becom a juggernaut during the regular season for the last four years. >> charlie: this is the yankee experience. >> it is. the yanke can go and buy whatever they need. if they make mistakes it doesn't matter because they can bury them. they canpend $10 million on a cuban pitcher who can't pitch in the big leagu it doesn't matter because they've got hundreds of millions of more after that. this is a team that's got $40 million to spend on beball as opposed to 140 or 150. so they've got to be absolutely right or it all falls apart. it forced them to rethink the baseball. just the idea that as tradition as baseball, it was possible for there could be innovation and new knowledge with astonishing. >> charlie: here's what michael says, there are two avenues of this tape. once you recognize the predicament talking about what's going to happen to billy bill. there are two avenues. on you recognize the predicament that you're basically doomed, that you are

basically doomed in oakland. one is to become the aa's trying to go from a small mark team to a big market team. the second avenue is to find another indust where tho kind of inefficiencies still exist. to be able to look and see. >> that's interesting. >> apparently and i know billy's ry interested in soccer. and they've beenaking a good hard look at this. but the real iny in it for like for the a's, the jeannie's out the bottle, they're back square one. the rich teams can employ the tactics and still buy out of town. >> charlie: exactly. >> so they had a window. >> looking for the next inefficiency. >> charlie: that's an interesting idea for me the search for inefficiencies where you can look at some circumstance and say if in fact they bid it differently, it would present a realpportunity to change something big. >> i'm just asking the question why. this is something paul presented

to us. i think he called it the 90th question. if we were to begin today doing this, playing this game is this how we would do it? what made sense 150 years ago does not make sense for us now. >> charlie: i love it. it is the idea of things clearly thinking from the beginning. >> which has its application in baseball and it might have a more application and more meaningful application in something like film making. >> charlie: that's why i keep asking the question. where might it be. >> well, the difference in film making is not simply the market of it. where are we going to find the next subject, the other ingredients that are going to keep attracting audiences. but you know, film is a mium that communicates like no other, you know. you can communicate in a way with this very powerful mediu ifhat you're looking for is to

just to recle, you know, formulashat are believedto attract audiences as opposed to taking new ground and a kind of exploration into what it means to be alive today in a culture. to recognize the, how that vitality of that is attractive. that if you make a movie that cuts deep and is relevant to an odaudience, they will come see . that's never really been something that you could gamble on. it's like it's not like saying let's make a crude comedy, let's duty actiodo the action thing. it's not a genre like a true seeking true speakg exploration of a film. that's not a genre anyway.

but every so oftenomebody comes through and it cracks something open and people show up and you scratch your head and wonder why and you try to rep indicate the ingredients of it. buy think that there is, you know, a radigm shift that could happen in awe mup ose who decide to get fanned, they coul -- get financed, rerecognize that. >> charlie: there are so many different ways to tell stories, so many different kinds of platforms to tell stories that somehow more peoe will ve an opportunity to tell stories and tell this kind of quiet person story you're talking about. that it dsn't necessarily have to be through the same kind of system. >> and the dingel ding digital d

change. >> how it's going to unfold and you know how the shifting distribution and the increased amount of nse as well is going to affect what it's created and what voices rise or reach people. i don't ink getting one, nobody has that figured out yet. people anyhow do we monetize that. it's changing so fast. and i thin it's not going to be somebody kind of like it's just going to happen in an evolionary type of life. it will present itself. >> charlie: why did it take you so long to make another movie. >> well ... >> charlie: the last was 2005 or 06. it's now 2011. >> i committed myself to a film

that dn't happen. i didn't belve at it was the going to happen and kindf stuck th it. bualso it's hard to, for me to get excited enough for myself to do misery. [laughter] >> brad and i, i think the thing that case brad out of the director's chair is -- >> charlie: what you all go through. >> we have the same nature like that. it's like you get in it and it's like everything else goes away. >> charlie: how do you exain our mutual friend george. >> no one does it better. orge is so wired. he's so figured out how to get instant projects done and enjoy it at the same time. i don't have that make up. it's a talent. >> charlie: you think he enjoys it as much as he an joys

acting or more. >> i think he enjoys all of it. and e people who work with him enjoy it. >> absolutely. >> charlie: and good at it. >> yes. >> charlie: really good at it. >> totally. >> charlie: yes. thank y. >> thank you. >> charlie: congratulation >> thank you. >> thank you crlie. >> charlie: look forward to having you at theable. and you my friend, good luck. >> tnk you.