Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Mandy Patinkin is here. He is an emmy and Tony Awardwinning actor. He is one extraordinary singer. He stars in the showtime series homeland as you know. As you also know his character sal, a cia director and the show some say moral center. Here is a look at his performance. Saul. Saul rose his iconic role as a spanish wordsman in rob reiners film the Princess Bride has gained cult status. My name is monday toy avment you killed my father. Prepare to die. He also a broadway veteran of more than 30 years and interpreter of Stephen Sondheim. Im enormously pleased to have Mandy Patinkin back at this table. Welcome. Thank you, charlie. Rose youre just back from australia. Yes. Rose doing what . I was doing a series of concerts there with my dear friend nathan gunn, the wonderful, glorious glorious opera singer who just started rehearsals today at the met for magic flute. And we did three concerts in australia, sydney, Business Done brisbon, melbourne and automaticland and did one there. It was fascinating. I thought i was exhausted like id never been exhausted before. Between traveling where i had to go mo morocco to film some stuff and then to l. A. For some family. And i said to my wife, i said oh my god, honey, will i get through the first show. I just dont know. And it was one of those experience, i thought i was plug mood a Nuclear Reactor being with nathan out there. The sound of his voice was like being in one of those waterfalls that just bash on to your head and shoulders, just drench you in joy and electricity. And then being with him is fun. And i love it more than anything, just going out there. Rose sing something the first love. It is my first love, absolutely. If you told me, i could only do one thing thing and i had to choose i would choose the live concert venue with the audience, there is nothing like it. The reservoir of material endless. I never leave for the theatre without much whatting the news of that moment, whatever i can grab because it informs how we all listen what is happening out there. Songs that become classics that you want to hear over an over again. Theyre usually written with such simplicity that that can reflect every home of our lives whether it be joyous or terrifying. You take a song like over the rainbow it begins with when all the world is the hopeless jumble and the raindrops tumble all around, heaven opens a magic lane, when all the clouds darken up the sky where there is a rainbow to be found, leading from your window pain. Just a step beyond the sun, i forget, i forgot the last part of it. I wasnt singing it when i say it. Just as you were saying it, how do you remember. Well, i. Rose so much. Every day i work out. And i either take a long walk for an hour and a half or i go to the gymed. And i get on an elliptical and a run a qon zferment and i run it fast so i always stand next to someone without has got ear phones on so they dont hear me. And i run about an hour and 45 minutes worth of material. So that i, because i got about 10, 13 hours of letter income my head that i dont want to lose. So i just keep rolling over it and over it. So you keep rolling it over the time. I also think it is the best thing i got eye shot toward, you know, trying to ward off alzheimer or anything. Because they say learning something every day is new, and also interesting, when ive been away from learning for a while, i find very difficult. And then if i start homeland again and all of a sudden the dialogue starts coming. It will be a little rough in the beginning. Then all of a sudden pie brain starts kicking in and i notice im learning quicker and quicker and quicker. Im convinced it is similar to other muscles in our body. The brain is like, you build new cells. We learn more about that every day and youre absolutely right. Im positive about it ive vernsed it, im certain. There is also something you do which i found wonderful. And just help me understand because i have forgotten about it. You recite the names of people in your mind that you loved who are dead. Yes so that you well, my favorite line of anything ive ever heard was written by Oscar Hammerstein for the musical car o sell. I dont know where he got it but you have also heard it in other forms. And the line is as long as there is one person on earth who remembers you, it isnt over. So part of my meditation that i have put together before, that i do when a meditate, before i go in front of a camera, before every concert is one of the parts of this 10, 15 minute meditation is i say outloud every persons name that i knew whos passed on. And its my way of keeping them not only alive, but i, you know, what i love is part of what i love about your studio is what i love about being on stage. Im looking at black vel our drapes all around mement so when i look into the darkness, i can see everything. Rose yeah. Theres nothing that cant be there. Including all of those souls and forces. So it is very powerful to me. And i believe, people have asked me dow believe in god, are you religious, this or that. I believe in einstein and the theory of relativity and that energy never dies. Rose have you been on stage doing all the things that are you so renowned for among your friends, mandy the conversationalist, mandy who has some take on the way the world works and the way human beings work. Have you ever taken that to the stage and done a kind of one man show . This is what i do. When i do my concerts this is what i just did with nathan gunn. So you talk about life as well as singing. I do different concerts. When i do my solo concerts or my show with nathan its less structured. Its less formalize. When i do my show with Patti Lapointe its more skripted. There is one section more free form. The more free form pieces which is the basic concert that at this do which is called dress casual which is just different all the time, its smorgasbord of material, but i also say what hits me. Recently i was in australia and it was the day before thanksgiving. And nathan said something about thanksgiving. And it just hit me. And i want thanksgiving, yeah, i mean its fascinating to me. Here we are in a country that actually said that they were sorry to the native people. And why cant they say that in our country. How come we cant say were sorry. And how come, you know, we should give them the meal for thanksgiving, not feed ourselves. We should feed the native americans. Rose and when some president or another decides that we should apologize for something terrible that happened, you hear people dont apologize for america, that becomes the accusation in the political arena. Youre apologizing for something. As if. Look thats a crime. I actually, theres a part of it i find understandable. I dont think theres great value in saying youre sorry over and over again. I do think there is great value in saying it at least once and to recognize it. But at the end of the day, change your behaviour is really what i think is the ball game. Change your behaviour. Because words are cheap. Actions are everything. My brotherinlaw is a zen Buddhist Monk at the monday as terri in upstate new york. And he said a phrase to me once that i just love. Which is our actions are the ground we walk on. Rose now here about this, my friend david brooks. At the time everybody was saying youve got to find yourself, david brooks said no, thats not right. What you have to do is find something larger than self so you can lose yourself. Lose yourself in religion, lose yourself in the pursuit of an obsession. To pursue to do something do something thats not about who i am. Yes, i think the rescue whats that thing you throw out on a boat thats sir you can lar that says, the lifesaving, the when you throw that out, that rescues you. When its not but. Get your face and your head and your mind out of your own navel and Pay Attention to someone else. Pay attention to your wife to your children to your coworker. When im working i work so hard to prepare for one reason, so that when im out there in front of the audience or in front of the camera with the other actor, that i can forget befering. Milos foreman said to me one day when we were doing rag times years ago, he said mandy could coors, he said told me to hold the hat this way and i didnt and the tape was rolling and i stopped. He said what is the problem, what is the problem . I said well, you told me to do this and he told me to do this, he said mandy, everybody is going to tell you everything. Listen them and then forget about it. Forget about it. And i think, i forgot what the question was. Losing yourself in something that is larger than you. Otherwise you lose yourself in something bigger and greater than you. It could be family, your child, a thousand Different Things rather than just me, me, me, me, me. Yep. And the key, i think, is what i was trying to say earlier is so you do all that homework. So you can forget about it. So now i can be there with the other actor. I can be there with the audience and be in the moment so i can see not the words a learned but whats in your heartbeat, whats the temperature of the feeling of the nature of your tone, so when these people go to places where theyre having wars and finally a general has the good sense to sit and have a cutch of tea. And he realizes it changes the character and temperature of the whole room. And once you break bread and have a cup of tea with a human being, everythings different. And were no longer enemies. Were having tea. Rose were all the same as we are, we believe, we live, we die, we care about kids. So set the equation. It is what is in between. Then remind me later about whats between the white and black notes. Yeah. Un preparing for saul that you went down and talked to some cia people and the thing that unlocked something for you was when either brennan or someone else, youre looking where do i hang saul, i think. That was your question. And you are talking to these guys. And when he talked about family. Yes. You got it. Yes. Rose what did you get . Well, brennan just echoed what i had found earlier. I had read all the books. I asked alex and howard when i was preparing, what i can read. Hi this window of opportunity to prepare. So i read all these books. Many of them by talking heads of the cia. Most disgruntled about the cia and going on and on. And they really cant tell you anything thats going on or happened anyway. You know, its all corb never terms of the c, a for what they put out there anyway. And so im looking for that hook to hang my heart on, you know, for whats that heartbeat of that human being that im going play. And i went down. I found, they called spooks, you know, the guys who are the real guys. So i go down to langley and i find this guy that they hook me up with who is supposely one of the heads of the middle east and gi down there were talking and everything. Hes telling me hes this and that and im not believing a word. And i say dont schmooze a schmoozer. Come on, man, im in the same game, its just were different ends. Im paid to lie, youre paid to lie, you know, its just how good we do it. We have to make believe we believe it. So i said come on. You know, and then at one point he says and im to the getting what i need. And he mentioned something about his kids. And his daughters. I said daughters, where are your kids. How old are they, one is a graduate, someone almost graduating where. Are they, they are here. Right in line. Really, i can come over. And the kids come over. And the girls sit down and the nickel dropped. And at that moment i realized this was all about family. The girls were talking about what it was like growing up in these embassies, usually, around the world. Being with other people and fathers and parents who were involved with the cia. Just what life was like. And at that moment i actually learned it from doing ison, the enemy of the people, with Gerald Freedman who was my mentor and my teacher. And all these complicated, rich ideas that the great classics all hold. So complicated you could be overwhelmed in this sea of ideas. And then jerry one day said about these two brothers on this journey in this place, he said its a play about family. Its really a play about family. You know, as we go through this ride in our lives, i think we find a few songs that are the ones we like to sing. And triggers that theyre the ones in our pocket. Theyre the ones who are always looking for, whoever we are. They are not the same. They are who we are t is your finger werent. And the family one is the game for me, that i loved it so. And all the dimensions of it when it works, when it doesnt, when we break t when we nurture it, when we ignore it, when we wish for it. When we miss it. So homeland is about family, its about the American Family . Its about the family of saul and keri, about the family of brody and his family. Its about the family of you, saul and his wife,. The cia. The humanity in the pop las of america and the humanity of the world at large. The World Community as a family. And how we listened to each other to me thats the nervous system of the whole piece. Whether or not we are listening to each other. But you have as we talk and look at the sort of arc of your own professional life. Yes. An personal life. Yes. I mean do you sometimes say dammit, i didnt listen. And you know you have made a mistake . Yes, sir. Those are the most painful moments of my life. And i dont know who i would be without those moments as well. So you mean theyre shaping influences. Yes. You dont get to pick and choose your mistakes or your successes. You pick and choose everything. That is what shapes you. It all shapes you. But when i think back on the most you know how we are as human beings, all these wonderful things happen every second of our life. And we just go on. We ignore them. We ignore the fact that we breathe. And all these things are going on. And then one little tiny thread happens. You can hardly see t just some little negative thing and sgu tumbling down. I know. It takes a mountain to build you back up but a thread to knock you down. And so but yeah, so boy, those mistakes, i refer to them as mistakes, troubled. Those errors, those moments when i didnt listen myself. I paid for that. Of all those, what stands highest . Not letting my father know that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And listening to my elders, his two sisters, the doctor, and family who said for various reasons, daddy would freak out if he knew this in 1972 before cancer became more discussable. And so we have to lie to him. And tell daddy that he has hepatitis instead of pancreatic cancer. And that 18yearold mandy has been recovering from that lie all the rest of his life. By needing too much truth. Rose people always want to know, dont they . Do you think he wanted to know . Yes, i think i think so, you know. Im a j buddhist. They call me a jew bu. And i love them both. I love what they both have. Rose what does buddhism bring. I think brings all the best parts of all religions. I think it is the melting pot, for me, of all religions. Its also a practice. I love the word practice, how do you get to Carnegie Hall, you practice. How do you get to the Carnegie Hall of your soul, of your life, to the concert hall where you make the best music inside your house, you practice. How do you practice, you change your behaviour. Every day, its very difficult. And you constantly are falling down and you have to constantly try to change it again. And what i love about the practice is you sit and you meditate and you try to simply do nothing but listen the sound of your breath and not have a thought. And the teacher up at the the monas terri, he said of all the creatures in the universe, the only one from the house fly to the rhinoceros they all rest in a waking state except man. Mankind is the only one that doesnt rest while hes awake. And we were talking earlier, taking that little five minute nap. The power of the nap. I mean just take, you can literally feel the fat agency leaving you if you just let it go. Yeah. You are at the gym, you know when i go to bet, i hit the pillow and im sleeping in a minute. And our brains are cellular material that are no different than your muscles. So if you take a weight and lift it x amount of times you have no trouble, on the 20th time you can hardly do t by the 30th you cant do it you future down, you wait a minute, you can do another 20. Exactly right. So let me talk about this homeland too. Bring some of these other things. Did you appreciate what it was when you first saw it . And what was it for you . Saul. Well, i got the phone call on my birthday. Thats good. Said youre going to get an offer tomorrow morning, read this i read it and i knew the pedigree of the writers. I knew it was written extraordinarily well. And i knew claire was involved. And i knew her gifts. Right. I gave it to my wife who is the smartest person i know. And one other friend. I said tell me if im wrong but i think this has the potential to unravel as a slow onion peel and never stop because to me it was a mirror as shakespeare says to ourselves, our country and our world at large. Both on the family nucleus and every metaphor that springs springs from. And they agreed with me. And then i went to work to do the pilot. You never know, its show business. You make this pilot. Goodbye, got go. It gets picked up. And we arrive to do the First Episodes of the season. Nobodys seen it. Each episode is coming in. And theyre extraordinary. And no one talks about it. I mean make up trailer, everyone, none of them on the crew, everyone is reading, no one is talking about it. Rose because they dont want to sglintion it or because i think because you dont want to sglintion it. But also it was so wonderful that my biggest concern was its too good. When things are this good, sometimes they want a Little Something dumber. I mean tracei lutes who is now on our show said this is really television for grownups. He said this is really smart television. One of the most gifted people we have on the planet. And so the joy was, you didnt want to break it we would have wonderful dinners together as a company. We just had a joyous time. But i have been around awhile. I knew this doesnt come every day. And my soul was telling me i want every secretary of this. I dont care whether were here 15, 16, 17 hours. I dont want the day to end. Because you dont get days like this you dont get material like this you dont get other actors in a company like this every day. You dont get writers in the writers room like this and you dont get a crew like we have every day. Everyt