tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, part two of our interview with oscar winner kevin costner, one of the most recognizable stars of his era, including his latest project, "hatfields and mccoyss." >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like

you. thank you. our conversation with kevin costner. starting this monday, may 28, you can catch his latest project, a three-night, six- hour miniseries for the history channel. it is called "hatfields & mccoys." before we jump back into our conversation, here now another scene from "hatfields & mccoys."

chanl. since there are so many actors, a-list actors in fact, who are finding comfortable spaces on television to tell stories now, what is it about this particular miniseries that you think works well in this format that might not have worked so well as a movie? >> well, you can tell right awayit is not just the hatfields and mccoys. it is my uncles, it is my aunts, you know, it is my children. tavis: right.

>> so we were able to create a real community to try to understand how this thing actually happened. what most people do not know, west virginia and kentucky were ready to go to war over these two families. tavis: the governors got involved. that is how serious it is, yes. >> the hatfields were in west virginia and said you cannot just arbitrarily come over here and try to hunt our people. so here we just come out of one war and now we're going to have a whole other one. so this was more than people kind of that din-de-de-din and people's guns going off, if you know what i mean. you know, there is a cliché and i think there's probably a notion of is this a real story or is this folklore? tavis: when i went back and reread this thing, to your point, it was mind-boggling for me to consider or to be reminded in a second reading that two states were about to go at war over two families. >> that is right. tavis: that is a serious thing, man.

> that is right. well, we're taught in this country that we will go to war over one person, you know, if a wrong has been committed. now that is theory because we see wrong committed every day and we go, "well, where are you,where are you?" on here, but in principle that is who we are. tavis: what is your sense of the role that we are playing in the world, whether you want to call it the world's policemen or whether you want to call it picking and choosing our battles foreign policy? you frame it how you want to frame it, but give me your sense of our foreign policy, as it were, these days. >> obviously, a really big question. you know, when the world comes through our tv, it is hard to ignore. meaning when we see something think that has to righted and it is right in our living room and we think but why are we not righting this thing? where i am going with this is it is hard to know what to do. tavis: mm-hmm. >> it is hard to know how to be. america's like this big lumbering giant. it is like, if you need the light bulb, the big guy will go put the light bulb on.

that is us. that is your job, america. you go do that. for a long time, we were this big kind of thing, and we can fix this, and we can fix that, and you need to sit down. you know what i mean? people would look to us and it is very complicated now. our problems are and the reason the truth of what we should do is because we've complicated it because we have businesses in these countries. we have commerce and so sometimes our aim is not completely true. we're actually protecting our interests as opposed to being guided by our own moral code. you know, we have industry in this country. we cannot afford to lose that. we've got oil here. we cannot afford to lose that. i think the fingerprints of that have clouded our ability. it is called a conflict oftavis: i was about to ask you. time. it was created. we see it in legal terms. it is like conflict of interest. you cannot make a moral decision when you feel like maybe the thing that you need is

what is going to guide that. you know, we have not done a good job of separating those ideas, so our decisions at lot of times seem arbitrary. i am proud of america in so many ways and i also understand that our fingerprints are in a lot of places where we've created difficulty. tavis: i did not mean to cut you off. that phrase of moral code, whether or not we even know what our moral code is anymore. >> yes. tavis: i mean, i wrestle with that>> listen, it is hard to govern. we have senators and we haveyou know, you become president and you think you can govern and it is hard to govern in america. tavis: mm-hmm. >> it is hard to move america to the right place. you know, we think that magically a president can do that and then you run up against ego and ego is probably our biggest problem. you know, ego has slipped into our politics and it has not served us well because public service is just that. i think you should go into public service and, by the time

you get out, you should be so to run again. "why do i have to run again?" "because you are really good at this. joe blow who ran, he was pretty good for four years. go. he went in for a specific reason, you know, and there's something that brought him into actually good at it. you should stay in it." i think what happens is, too many go into public service and they stay there. they should be exhausted doing the public's work. "well, i got to do it this way because, if i do not do it this way, i will not get elected and, if i get elected another term, then i can fix it." that is the story we tell ourselves. that is the lie we tell ourselves. what happens is, politics slip into our moral code. they just do, so our ego, i think, has not served us well. about your growing up in this conservative baptist family. how much of those values, those

mores, still impact your decision-making today? has hollywood corrupted you? >> yes, they do. you know, i am not a rube, and i am excited by things i see. my eyes have been opened. i have seen a lot of stuff, so i love the vastness of the things i have seen in the world and to be able to travel the world. you know, it has grounded me in a lot of ways. i haven't been able to live a perfect life, but i understand the rights and wrongs. i get it. i do not know. i think religion is a funny thing because, when you see somebody who can really break it down, sometimes it feels foolish what you believe. you know, science can break it down. even a great, you know -- you know, i mention my friend, and maybe he's thinking, "would you quit mentioning me?"

but he has a very interesting take on things. the truth is, when i listen to him, i get it. i get what he's saying. so how is it that i can really get what he's saying or what somebody else is saying and still have this kind of "silly" belief? tavis: do not tell bill that. cut this out. do not let bill maher see this. [laughs] >> but i do say it, but i do believe it because i believe that i do not know why my life has turned out the way it has, but it has been good. tavis: mm-hmm. >> it has not been perfect, but it has been great. you know, i have been bruised, but i have been able to walk the walk on this world and around the world. i cannot think it is this

because i am just lucky. i know i have worked. you know, i know a lot, so i feel like there is something guiding my life. going, "there he goes again, this goofy faith." maybe that is true, but i feel like it is protected me in some ways. tavis: bill and i have had these conversations, as anyone who is on this show a thousand times, and you are a personal friend. >> bill has been on? tavis: oh, yes, a thousand times. we've had these conversations and, you know, the older i get, comfortable, the more comfortable i get believing that these two things can situate themselves beside each other. >> right. tavis: i do not think that science means that god does not exist. i do not think that god's existence means that science isn't real. i think that things can be complementary. it is not an either/or proposition. it is in both hands. >> well, i love peoples' point of view. i have never like kind of driven crazy, like "no, no, you have to a lot of sense. it does seem a little silly. but, you know, you believe and you believe that there is something guiding your life. tavis: what kind of stuff do you>> well, the last book -- i do not read as much as i would like. the last book i read was "devil in the white city." i really enjoyed that. music, but i do not read as much as i should. i just do not. tavis: speaking of music, i have in my little hands -- a little

birdie gave me a copy of this. >> [laughs] tavis: tell me about this cd in,spedir i suspect, by "hatfields & mccoys." but this is you and your band, 19 tracks on this. >> yes, yes. it is a concept record. i got deeper into this than i ever thought that i would and i came out of it, you know, with my band and wrote the theme to the movie, "i know these hills," then just kept writing music. my daughter sings on it, writes on it, and it is called "famous for killing each other." so when i say "concept," i am just simply saying that every song on there is about that experience, about those people. tavis: kevin costner's band, for those who do not know -- i know kevin costner and modern west. how did you come up with that one, modern west? >> that was the worst part of this whole musical thing for me coming back into music. there's one moment where we're playing and they wanted to pay us a little money to play -- quite a bit of money actually. finally, they said, "well, you need a name." i thought, "a what?" "you need a name."

tavis: a band has to have a name, man. [laughs] >> there i was as an adult with my friends trying to think of a name for this band. it was probably one of the low there was a big long list of names. it was like we finally came up with modern west. i actually do not even like it, but that is what they call it. so i came up with modern west and the band came up with kevin costner and modern west. they said, "please, it is got to be kevin costner and modern west." i said, "man, i feel like my head is so far out there to be chopped off." all right. so there it is. that was not a pleasant experience, coming up with a tavis: since we are talking about it, we talked earlier about how your faith has informed your life. how has music informed your life? >> music was the first thing that came because my grandmother played the piano. i was made to play the piano.

i was a wise guy and all that - well, wise man even when i was seven years old and the christmas things and the thing's coming across your ear and face and you do not know where the north star is. "hark, it is over there," and my mom's going, "you have to pay attention. you have to pay attention. it is like we practiced this." i got my staff and it does not comfort me and it is all kinds of crazy stuff. but music was first and then i sang in choirs and did musicals and moved away from music into acting and then came back toi play piano. it was just something i was really happy about, and suddenly, we play it all around the world. tavis: let me switch gears. i didn't think, even with a two- night show, i was going to go here and i didn't think i was going to go here because i know that you have talked about this and you spoke at whitney's funeral. i just figured that he's probably had enough of that and i am not even going to traverse that. traverse this territory until

last night when we played that scenes with you and whitney houston. >> right. tavis: my hearing is still pretty good and i could swear i saw you look away from the screen and utter these words, "what happened there?" did i hear you say that? >> i did, actually. i said, "what happened there?" tavis: i heard you whisper to yourself, "what happened there?" do you have an answer to that question? >> well, i do not. i think i was looking at it with you and i thought she looked so pretty and so alive and so real and such a big thing could come outside of that little body of hers to sing. it is weird when the world talks about someone and you have a level of intimate knowledge about them. i remember when it happened, i was watching on television and i was watching all the programs that were suddenly talking abouti am sitting in the dark and i am thinking about my own

life, like how did i come to the point where i actually knew famous people? it is an odd thing to look at and to know that you had some kind of intimate relationship with her, a professional one, now the world's talking about this person. that was not my first instinct to come on your show or come on piers' show or anybody's show. i just simply didn't do it and finally dionne reached out to me, dionne warwick, so would you come speak? i said that i would. tavis: had you done that before for another famous person? that is, give a tribute at a funeral? >> no. no. tavis: that is your first time doing it? >> yes. tavis: so how did you prepare for that? >> i have talked about some famous people. i made a speech about muhammad ali. actually, it was supposed to be

about myself, but i thought how stupid. i know myself. it was his fight night and they give you an award and your name brings people in, so you are going to talk about your career. about this guy. tavis: how'd you prepare for the whitney thing, though? >> well, i panicked. [laughs] tavis: yes, that is a good start. >> yes, yes. i could hear how broken dionne sounded on the phone. i'd spoken at one other funeral before and i didn't even know how to do it. i did not feel like i had done it right, and i thought, "oh, my, why is somebody asking me?" to be writing this, so i started. i just started and all the way on the plane to new york i was writing, all that night. the night light was on, my wife turned over, and i am, like, writing, and i am writing all the way to the church, and now we are at the church an hour early because of that conservative background. i am always there early. i said, "ride around the block." i went around the block and i still kept crossing out things. the hardest thing was to know what the when to end was. how do you start talking about

this little songbird? it was interesting that it was the idea that we had more in common than people might think and that is what allowed me in. we had this thing, this thing where church was your community, where you ran around and you got in trouble. i can remember my mom says, "if you play in your church clothes" -- i would come back, and there would be a hole in it. now i am going to get a whipping. tavis: yes. >> you know, church was like a good thing and a bad thing -- [laughs] you know? i do not like wearing suits to this day because i remember how my shirt is out, and my tie is off. that is the way i feel right now. dramas. beause you do not want to get a whooping for messing up your clothes. [laughs] >> i just do not want to put on a tie, but we did. what happened there, you know, i think that is a question, and we all feel like we think we know, but she had a big voice, and she was a friend to me, and we werewe were not anything.

we did not enter into each other lives. a couple times during the course of her life, some friends thought things were not exactly right for her and said, "would you write her?" i always wondered why, you know, why it was me. so the idea that i would speak at her thing was an interesting moment too which was i did not realize that the world has connected us so much. i just thought whitney was a beautiful woman. the first woman i ever thought was beautiful was diana ross, so it was never a shock to me when i asked whitney to be in "the bodyguard." i just -- she was statuesque to me. tavis: and we have you to thank for "and i will always love you." >> yes. tavis: we got you to thank for that. >> well, i told the audience it was going to be "broken heart," and then when we could not do that, and jim wilson and myself, we started looking for a song, and it whittled its way down to three songs. i said, "that is the song."

i remember, that must have put on song, for whitney, but it was right, and it was electric. she is a part of a lot of our lives because of that simple thing, her voice. tavis: well, you were marvelous at the service. >> thank you. tavis: you were marvelous, as you are in "hatfields & mccoys" coming to the history channel may 28 starring one kevin costner. wonderful cast, great project and there is a cd out as well of music by kevin costner and modern west, "famous for killing each other," a wonderful concept project. kevin, i have delighted in this tavis: thank you so much, man. i appreciate it. that is our show for tonight. you can dial in our new app at the app store.

thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. >> so how is the new guy? >> he has got white hair. >> he is very good, -- >> yes, but did you have to get me an old man? >> i do not trust you. goodbye, rachael. >> good bye. is should stay, i would only in your way so i --

>> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with -- a legendary blues musician, buddy guy, on the release of his new memoir. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more.

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