Take a shot. Charlie leslie odom, junior is here. He is an american actor and singer and he is currently part of the most talked about show on broadway hamilton. He stars as Vice President aaron burr. Ben brantley writes in the New York Times that the broadway production makes us feel the unstoppable urgent rhythm of a nation being born. I am pleased to have leslie odom, junior at this table for the first time. Welcome. Leslie i am so happy to be at this table. Charlie what brought you to hamilton . Leslie i was invited into hamilton. Sometimes you find that the best jobs that you get in this career and business, you did not audition for. I just asked tommy last week, because i have a superstition, sometimes if i get a straight offer, i do not want to ask how it came about. The director, tommy. Im afraid they might realize why did we ask this guy . I got invited about two years ago to do a reading for this show. And then i saw it at vassar. I saw them do about half an hour of it. I was blown away. When i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like i have never prepared before. I knew all of my music. I knew what they were working on. Charlie you knew it had powerful potential. Leslie i knew how it affected me. Lin is only a year older than i am, so this is our music. I recognized the rhythms and the syncopation and the pulse of the piece. I recognized that. It has been in my ears since i was born. Charlie people wondered when hiphop would come to broadway because rock had come to broadway. Leslie lin was so influential with that. The heights was such a watershed moment. I remember listening to it before i saw it. There was something about it i have chills thinking about it, there was something about, from the first moments of that album, the need to communicate has always moved me. I remember i saw a show when i was a teenager called death poetry jam. The way those people came out and they needed you to get it. They put something there is blood in the pen. There was an urgency and a fire in their bellies for you to get it. It came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal of us in hamilton, learning my part, and i said that we sound like that. I can hear that need. Charlie i read almost everything you have done had prepared you to play aaron burr. Rent. Leslie i think about rent a lot on stage. Because if you live long enough, your heroes can become your friends. Daphne rubin vega was at opening night. I think about them a lot because they were at the center of a tornado that is similar to ours and they still managed to stay present. It is not just the work, it is also life. It is also the disappointments that i have had, the fighting through depression, the point when you are not working in the business and you cannot figure out why. All of the things that you go through that fashion you into the person you need to be to stand in the center of a tornado like this and still do your job, and still stay sane, and still stay available to your friends and your family. It feels like the moment could not have happened at another moment. This moment for me. Charlie when you sit in a room when it happens, it is a magical moment. It has been enlarged. Because it is so powerful. Because you want to be in a room where it happens. Leslie i have done enough shows now to realize that at that point in the show, the way that number happens for me, it has the performance is only part of that audience response. What i mean by that is he had to light that within an inch of his life, tommy and andy had to direct the people around me. That is really their love for you. I can feel howells affection for me when a light comes on at a certain moment so the audience can see whatever i am feeling at that moment. Lin trusting me with his lifes work. He trusted me with some of the greatest music that may have ever been written for the theater. I can feel all of the love and support surrounding me to give me a moment like that. I want to be in the room where it happens. I want to be in the room where it happens. The room where it happens. I want to be in the room where it happens. Ive got to be in the room that big old room. Hold your nose and close your eyes. Charlie i hear all of the need and desire and energy and preparation to do justice to the text that you were given. How much of it was important to know aaron burr . You not only play a character, you play the narrator. You are there at every moment. Hamilton has a larger role, but aaron burr is the continuity. Leslie some of the favorite gifts that i have received are books. People come by with articles and books. Those have helped me a lot because i would not call myself a historian by any means. Lin at this point is. He has read enough about all of this and the events surrounding it, that he has come up with his own opinion on the events. That is what makes a historian. I have read enough on burr now to come up with my own theories. Charlie there are different opinions of him. Some good and some bad. Leslie at the end of the day, the text in the show is my bible. I have to play what he wrote. Lin has charlie you have to pour into what he has written, what you know and what you have experienced and what you feel. Leslie and what i believe. As far as what my job is as a performer. That is another one of those things that has intersected. I am ready there is a certain amount of vulnerability that this show requires of me that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. There is a certain amount of honesty that if i am doing my job right, i bring to the stage every night. That comes with time. Charlie tell me who aaron burr was. Leslie he was a soldier, a father, a husband, a lover, a friend, a murderer, a politician. He was all of those things. Like all of us, when people say who is the person you want to have dinner with, living or dead. Besides charlie rose, i would say aaron burr, having him at this table. Our show is him looking back. What have you learned . Charlie he had an interesting life after killing hamilton. Leslie it ruined his life. Charlie it ruined his political life. He had been Vice President. And then he fled. He was indicted for treason. Leslie he only had one child, theodosia who he loved very much. She died after the death of his only grandchild. His grandson died. He invited theodosia to come with him. She was in mourning. She died on the ship. He died completely alone. He did have friends. He did not have much money. There were people who supported him because of what he had shown of himself the man he had shown himself to be throughout his life to his friends. He had friends in the war. People saw acts of heroics that endeared him to them all of the days of his life. Charlie did you know lin before . Leslie i did casually. It took us sharing a dressing room at the public. It was good because hamilton had us share a dressing room. It took me a while to talk to the guy. That intellect is so intimidating. It is nothing he does, he is a nice guy, the nicest you would want to meet. He is in the shows opposite me and he wrote the show. He wrote the book, the lyrics. Leslie how do you explain what we have here . This play, this musical. People are talking about this as changing the american musical theater. A significant evolution in the american musical theater. This is seen as more than a successful musical. It is being given the heavy weight of cultural moment. You know that is true. All you have to do is read the reviews. They talk about it. Leslie i am a spiritual guy too. This work is emotional, physical, and there is a spiritual component to it for me. I just i have seen it from the inside, charlie. There is a great deal of it that those guys, andy, tommy, and lin, they have planned within an inch of its life. They have planned meticulously. We were happy we opened because they were forced to put down their pencils. There is the part that they had nothing to do with. There is Something Else charlie what is that . Leslie it is the space between you and i. Between me saying it on stage and how it affects you and what it does to you. That is the part that none of us have any control over. None. You could not pay jimmy fallon to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. You cannot pay for that. That is something that we have no control over. Charlie i have everyone i know who has seen it, struggles to find words to give expression to how they felt about it. The presence in this play. This event. It is pride i think it is pride that the actors assembled, and their own diverse backgrounds, and men and women of color, and young. It gives some sense of what many people hope america will always be. I think it is some of the same aspiration people had in 2008 about barack obama. It says something good about the country. That a young black man, with great intellect, could be elected president. It made people feel good about the country. It made them feel good with regard to their friends all around the world. That is why i think the election of 2008 was so important. That is how the play makes us feel again. It comes out of the words of alexander hamilton. We were young and hungry and scrappy like this nation we want to shape. Leslie i think a lot of it number one, regarding 2008, that was really the first time that politics seemed to take an interest and engage my generation. They really got us involved. We felt like we were necessary, and we were vital to help make that change happen. I think if we have anything in common with that, i hope it is that. I hope the audience comes and feels like their presence is vital. We feel that on stage. We feel like every single one of us is there for a reason, for a unique, special purpose. Charlie you cannot forget slavery and all kinds of and we still see it happening. Awful acts. Of conflict. We still see it. But at the same time, there is about this play, and references, it is hiphop. It is on stage there. Even though hiphop had arrived, it was your music. And you feel that. Hiphop adds to the expression of this play. As do the youth and color and the diversity of the actors who bring a unique kind of passion to a great, historical event. Leslie i kind of think of my major as empathy. That is what i majored in at carnegie mellon. This is in its purest form, what we are doing. We are stepping inside these peoples shoes and we are learning about ourselves by talking about them. That is, i think, one of the most powerful elixirs for healing in the land. I honestly think that. If we could find a way in ferguson, and these places, because the pain is real. It is deep. It is historic. This pain goes back on both sides. In addition to policy, community watch, in addition to cell phones, because we have to be able to see the truth of what is happening, what will really bring healing is empathy. We have to be able to sit down and talk to each other and find out where you are coming from, and where i am coming from. That is what lin has done with aaron burr. What made him tick. It was a love for his wife and baby girl. A love for his theodosia. That way you can take a villain and turn him into a human being. Charlie in the same way that Lyndon Johnson was portrayed. Passing the Voting Rights bill. Here, we are seeing and it is all about the hardness and the giveandtake of transactional politics. We see the same thing with the founding fathers. It is transactional politics. Moving in some ways to a greater good. Leslie it is kind of the only way to get things done. If youre sitting down at a table and youre not thinking about the needs of this man across from you, and youre only thinking about yourself, i am not sure how successful you will be. Charlie what was it that intrigues you, beyond the text, about aaron burr . Did lin give you that in the text . That you took part of your performance on that. Leslie that was my way in and i think a lot of that did come from our text. My view on aaron burr like a lot of people, i knew that he was Vice President and he killed hamilton. No one teaches you about his daughter or what happened to him afterwards. When i got involved in the show, part of it was not written yet. Charlie was it fun to wrap your voice around that . Leslie oh yes. It is every night. This stuff is so dense, i am contracted for a year, it will give me plenty to play with. Charlie are there moments in each play that you look forward to each night . You still look forward to it. You look forward to getting up and ready, like an athlete, that you know that a big play is coming up. When are those moments . Leslie that is not fun until it is over because if i think about it, i have to start all over. I have to ladle out that soup every night. He does not know that a musical number is coming. The way that song works best, i have no idea that the change will happen. Lin gave me a great note that it wasnt working that great in previews. I was trying to figure it out. What did i need to do. Lin gave me a note that unlocked it because he talked about the physical change that needs to happen once he makes the decision to run, once he makes the decision to go after something for the first time. I had been bouncing around the whole number. And he said dont. I feel like maybe if you simplify that physical movement, when we see that change from it, it will have a greater impact. It did. To answer your question, at the top of the show, i have a place, i wont say where, where i watch the audience before we start. I watch them for about two minutes and i get to know them, because they are my other scene partner, so i need to know them. Charlie you are playing to them during the performance . Leslie all of the time. The narrator it is that need to communicate. I feed on that response. I need them with me. So i watch them. That is one of my favorite parts. Then we have the on ramps, where sometimes you have the audience sitting back at the top of the show. You can feel it. When they are not quite with you, not quite feeling it, so i look forward to moments like when rene sings satisfied. I look forward to moments where righthand man, or the finale of act i. There are moments where, if they are sitting back, you can feel them start to lean forward. Charlie you can see that. Even if youre doing something much simpler, even when youre having a conversation with the audience. You can feel them becoming more engaged. It is almost your own rhythm of talking seems to be in touch with their rhythm of breathing. You know even before you hit what might be a funny line, and unscripted, they laugh almost before. Leslie sometimes, the applause will start even before we finish. Charlie they cant resist. It is so fun. Do you think this will change you . Leslie it already has. I can only imagine a year after this show. I hope that i get to leave and do other things and maybe come back. When i have a kid. I dont have any children. Yeah, as people important to me age, as i our show deals with life and death so much in a healing and honest way. To have this art to work through this stuff is a real gift that lin is not only giving to the world but to us from inside it. It moves me just as much as it moves you. Charlie i think what is great about this, and people that did not know hiphop. There is a line lin may have said this, that the life of hamilton embodied hiphop. It was excessively verbal. It was immigrant. Hamilton was all of that. Hiphop. Is all that. Leslie he found that connective tissue. He found the thing any show that connects with charlie rose and barack obama, and joe biden and jimmy fallon in the same way that it connects with common and Black Thought you are onto something. He found that connective tissue. He found the places that we are alike. He has mined and found all of the places that you are like me. The things that you care about are the things that i care about. Charlie those connections bind us also. Leslie that is what people are responding to. I have not found a demographic that does not like this show. It is 80yearold people it is eightyearold people, it is men and women. Charlie thank you. Leslie thank you. Charlie back in a moment. Charlie the city of yonkers received National Attention in the legal battle for housing desegregation three decades ago. The landmark suit, the United States versus the city of yonkers, took 27 years to resolve. Nick wasicsko was the 28yearold mayor at the center of the escalating fight that pitted the judiciary, city leaders, and yonkers residents against each other. The mayor is played by oscar isaac in a new hbo miniseries show me a hero. David simon created it. Here is the trailer for show me a hero. Dont tell anyone but i always wanted to be the man. I used to talk about it all of the time. Kids used to call me the mayor. Not a compliment. The city intentionally segregated housing for 40 years. The whole government is white. He wants to take low Income Housing and put it in east yonkers. I live here. I am nothing like what they describe. What are you going to do . It is that guy from yonkers again asking if he can get any help from the state of new york. What is the matter with these people . You wanted to live somewhere but everything has a cost. It is time you recognized your failure as a leader. You want to live where people are angry with you . You know, it is all property values, underneath it all it is fear. Quite a year for you mr. Mayor. Justice is not about popularity. No, it is not. But politics is. Charlie he has done it again. I am pleased to have both david simon and oscar isaac back at this table. Who is the mayor . David it was Nick Wasicsko and it was a tumultuous six years. In his career. It is what drives the piece. If we do not get him right, if we do not get his arc correct, then we have an amorphous explanation of Public Housing policy over six hours. This piece does not work without it being Nick Wasicskos story. We had to get the right actor. Charlie did you . Oscar it is quite dense. I was not used to reading not long form, but longer form than what i have been used to which is feature films. Even how to read it, i was a little bit i was new to it. We met with david and paul and paul said to me, a really smart thing for a director to say, he said i want you to do this oscar because i have no idea how you will do this. And that appeals to my sense of challenge. I saw a video of the actual Nick Wasicsko. It was not until i saw that that i said i want to do that. He broke my heart. Just to see the way he would move and talk. His voice it always sounded like he was appealing to someone that was not listening. His voice was always about to crack. It felt like someone that was a bit lost, trying so hard. Charlie tell me the story so we have a sense of what this is about. David it is a quotidian politician. A backbench politician, very young, who is put up to run for mayor. He is a sacrificial lamb. He is supposed to lose. To an incumbent who is pretty entrenched. He wins and he wins on the basis of his opposition t