Oh, that its the first time i stopped hugging first. I like that. And a third time in 1994. Dont you sometimes just bust to share the joke. What joke . Well here is your friends thinking we are unmarried and into all sorts of wickedness when all along we are married and up to nothing at all. Tonight i will talk with debra winger about why she walked away from movie stardom and what she was walking toward, what she learned dating then governor bob kerrey, the life she has built with her fellow actor and picking up her movie career in recent years. The strange way Jonathan Demi wanted to direct her in rachel getting married and landmark documentary she worked on that changed the National Debate on fracking. Debra winger tonight up late. You did a film in which if i am not mistaken, an epiphany, you did a film and said, i dont want to dupe tho this any more. Arliss told me this story, one day his father had come home and taken apart a truck engine and left it in pieces. On the garage floor. Said to his son, you know put the together. And thats how, and the guy is like the greatest mechanic today. Because if you want to learn really a lot about something you have to figure out how to, it has to be taken apart. That was done for me. Because this film was dismantled. So it sort of is like wizard of oz if everything goes well on a film, you know, you never know, you never know where the money comes from, you never know really, really never know all of the tentacles. And you dont know all the back stories you. Dont know. You dont. You hardly know who painted the set unless you make a point to meet him or her. So i was by nature the person who wanted to know that all the time. I wanted to meet. Show up when i wasnt working. I could meet the guy who was painting the set. Because im interested in this in this unbelievable collaboration of artists you realize how collaborative it is the more you do it. It is beautiful. At some point it was. Im sure now on another level. If i was interested in the technology then i would love to go and meet the people that work the computers that do cgi. It is not my particular area of interest. But i respect it. And so, i just was always interested in that. And when it fell apart, when it fell apart one fell apart that i happened to be on. It wasnt quite so beautiful. Like there were a lot of faking things. Things that were not legal. Thing that were hurting people. People that got hurt. I had the same experience. For me one of the turning points. I had a producer come up to me. I was a producer on a film. I directed the film. The only film i ever directed. What was that . We had the rights to do a remake of the devil and daniel webster. Oh, yeah. I got, bill condin right before he won the Academy Award for gods and monsters. We joke and say we got him affordable, we got him cheap. And wonderful cast of people. The financiers committed bank fraud. Had people represent to get a loan from the bannic they hk th money. It happens a lot. If they can keep it rolling to show dailies. The dailies will generate fund. You get it. So i am there one day. This producer who was still in this business now and has a very prominent job. In jail two of our producer want to jail. We are laughing abut th ingi. We are never going to Work Together or in the business again after this. Thats what the show is for. Host a talk show on msnbc. The guest, established you come on the show you wont do movies ever again. That is okay for me. Im learning from you. No, i want to do movies. I see young filmmakers that i really, really want to work with. So i have a i have a new enlivened sense that there is now enough disparity between that business and the one i want to be in, that i think you want to start over . I dont think it is all one thing anymore. I think there is a world i want to play in, if, its not up to me. When demi called you were you happy . Yeah, i was happy. You hadnt worked in so long. When the phone call came, what was different that day when you said yes. He said i need you to create a character. Did you know him . Yeah, knew each other years ago. We deidnt Work Together. We were in the business at the same time. At one point we had the same agent. Way he came at it. I never worked on dv. I always look to know if what something is like, before i decide whether it is a good thing or bad thing. When you got back on the set of the film, what was it like . Interesting enough, alec, because of the nature of the character i was playing, i didnt really get on the set. Because basically, first of all, the way jonathan shot that was fascinating. He had dv cameras. All over the place. He even gave guests of the wedding cameras, roger corben was a guest at the wedding. Cameras where he was actually going to use. What they filmed. Sure. So they were able to film the crew. Filming the movie. Just making me crazy. So i just decided, first of all, i am, you know, i am i am i am game but i didnt really get when it started. Did it start before some one said action. I am very simpleminded. And i put on the makeup. Did my hair. Got in my wardrobe before i got in the car. Then when i got out of the car. Compared to themup are joan crawford. Sounds like that. I showed up ready is what i am saying. And i never wasnt her because i didnt know who was shooting me. I thought what if he likes something i said but i am, out of character and he uses it . You thought you had how to get out of the car ready. They may be shooting. They were taking your breakfast burrito. I was commando. I didnt think i played rosemarys dewitts mother, Ann Hathaways mother. I play the mother now. You play the mother. I used to be the guy that kissed the girl. Now im the cop that taps on the went shield to tell you to move on. I dont want you to kiss the girl. Oh, thats not true. A great job. A great job. So oldfashioned too, kissing the girl. Exactly. I play the mother, or i could if i wanted to. Because nay look to do that to middleaged women on tv. Oddly enough, my first job in the business was on the other side of the wall, in the studio where i did the soap opera. I did it for money. My dad died. I needed to support my family. It was good money. Regular money. You find out how rare it is. During the time i did it i begin to fall in love with it and doing it. I mean i wasnt really signed on. I begin to fall in love with it. And i did it. Was it in your family . No, no. My father was a school teacher. And my point is that after a couple years oh, thought this is really hard to do this well. I really begin to enjoy it. I wanted to, you know, commit to it in that way. See, i love that. I love that. Because it is hard to do well. It is also easy if you dont do it well. Really easy. Like what you can concentrate on. Totally. Do you know what i am saying . Uhhuh. I love that is the neuron that fired off you know, that in you. Was, oh, this is hard to do well. Not everybody would have that particular synapse. So there you go. Thats why you got so many. I did it. Then i realized that, you know whatever you are looking for, truth, beauty, truth and beauty. And that that, two things i will say. I dont want to take up forever with this. The opportunities to embrace that were more elusive. A job, money. The scripts i wanted to do, were elusive. Also another condition, mentorship. I had a guy who was my agent. My first agent when i started. My agent for 11 years. I bet i know the guy. Michael bloom. A Little Agency here in new york. Michael was my agent. He was a real mentor. Some body who would say to me. We would run our agency like a small Vietnamese Coffee shop. But they did care lining up what you were interested in in life, you know where you were at in your life with, what you wanted to explore in a role. Because were living our lives, while we are acting. So, for me, i mean this may sound you know, people are now either turning the channel or rolling their eyes so loudly that the person next to them cannot hear. If i am doing this thing, with the same time that i am living, breathe might heart is beating, and i am taking in air, so i am not really making that happen. Thats happening to me. I should be trying to sync them up. So i didnt really want to be doing things that, that didnt help me investigate something that i was interested in. Dead you fiid you find that move sprees you we movies you were making . Yes, magic that they came. I believed that, it was magical that i got to do what i got to do. And so when people ask me excuse me, but the stupid question of what i said no to or what i didnt do . You know what . I was busy doing this. And also, i didnt it isnt that i had any opinion. About other things. I just am focused on what i am interested in. Like now. I am not walking away from anything. Right. I am walking towards the thing that right. That im interested in. It may not concern you or involve you is the problem. You snow like it may be my children because theyre at an age where i really want to be with them. It may be this cause because i cant understand going on without it if something happens to. I must address that. Our water. Nothing else will matter to me. I fuound that i would i would get to the point where he would say to me, his program, was here is here are decisions you are going to make. I want you to see how this is a short term decision and here is a long term decision. Here its for the short term. Here its of what the industry wants you to do. Here are the consequences, see, see, see, see. Nowadays, my agent i have now. Everything is timeless. Completely selfdetermining now. A pz tiositive way of puttin. Self determination. Well, because there is no i think in a way time its different. You know, time has been messed with. I mean if, because if you do something then it doesnt matter when you do it because it will be on the internet, you know, or anybody can google it on youtube, i have all these terms right . Because you know i dont do any of these. You know this. That, you know you dont quote somebody anymore you retweet. So the whole the thing has changed the part that is interesting to me is how its messed with time. There is not the same chronology to a career because it its sort of they can dig up stuff. People dont understand who you are as one famous actor, i admire, he had this interesting if i guess it, will you tell me . Off camera. You can write it down on a piece of paper. No pens here. No pens. You could write me notes. This very famous man who was going through reversal in his private life. He said the internet represents the death of forgetting. Because there are some things that need to be forgotten. You cant move on. He said, we cant reinvent ourselves. Dont think its the death of forgetting. Its the birth of forgetting. Because we dont have to remember anything. Amke care of business. They always have. They always will. Thats why you take charge of your future. Your retirement. Ameriprise advisors can help you like theyve helped millions of others. Listening, planning, working one on one. To help you retire your way. With confidence. Thats what Ameriprise Financial does. Thats what they can do with you. Ameriprise financial. More within reach. Since fleeing Hollywood Debra winger made a second act. As an activist, a vocal opponent of fracking the process to drill for deposits of gas pumping water, sand and unspecified chemicals into the ground to release the gas, fracking can have dangerous side effects. Tainted water supplies, sickening cattle and triggering minor earthquakes. Debra winger was a consultant on gas land which brought attentions to communities fighting fracking across the country. As a fracking opponent, i wanted to hear about her involvement in the fight against fracking and how she became passionate about it. I am pretty much down to one sentence about fracking. Do you want the sentence now . Yeah. I just feel, at this point, after, you know, six, seven years working on this issue and trying to find out and really because i kid consider it a pub health issue, i am not an environmentalist, per se. I have no other causes. You dont . I hadnt. I of course support a Healthy Lifestyle and the mother earth as, you know, pretty important thing to preserve. But i am not a tree hugger per se. So, i guess when this issue came up i saw that i remember from my childhood, which i think was your childhood, that the Term Public Health was often used, right . And the Term Public Health went out of parlance. You know, you dont hear it anymore, you hear environmental. So this to me took me back to the word Public Health. A Public Health issue. Because once our water is tainted there is nothing to do. No way to clean it. So, from this how did that be dpgin for yo . That engagement . I live in the cat skills. A lot of the planning, pipes were being laid. Still we still have the issue. The issue is open in new york state. I will say that i have traveled across the united states, you know, helped bring gas land into the world, had josh fox was the sole, you know, engine behind that film. The second one. But he had a lot of help from people that, you know knew it was the biggest cannon to fire. Traveling across the country for this many years and understanding that the oil and gas industry are the wealthiest, they basically are. Runt c the country. Are america. They have had this much time. They have this, they have access off to anybody, any any resources, and they have not been able to make it safe. And in as many years. So i was not antifracking. I was antiunsafe fracking which turns out to be an oxymoron, or red redundant. You cant say it there is no safe fracking. I think it is criminal. What if i took chemicals, took them to the boss and dumped them in his well. They would have me in the pen so fast my head could spin. Look they can come out here and do whatever they want to. They dont even have to report and tell us that theyre putting in there. I caught the tail end of the 60s. And my brother. Followed my brother around. Went to berkeley, and you know, shouted, threw things. And so i had that although i wasnt fully like on to my adulthood in the 60s. I caught the tail end of it. I did have enough awakening to say, oh, it is not the way that they told me it was. And the government does not have to look like grownups to me. In other word, we had this sort of daddy thing going on. Where you know if they didnt look. And then i i, you know you live through nixon. And you, you go, why do i want somebody that is lying to me. I would quote the example. That it was a writer. He wrote a book about jfks assassination. This year, 50th anniversary of his assassination. And wrote this book in which he said, lets view everything through the same filter, prewatergate. Most watergate. There was watergate. That really taught us what was going on what the country was doing. It was going on before that. Yeah. We werent aware. We werent able to see it as much. I think the war you know, for me, watching as a, young girl, when we used to be able to see it on tv, remember when they used to show us the bodies. Instead of make us imagine them. That had a profound effect on me that that, things were wrong. Military did the best to make sure that didnt happen again. Which is a shocking thing if you think about it that we accept it somehow. Sure. Also, i guess, i was just at west point oddly last month because were trying to figure out some kind of program for what will be shakespearean in its tragedy the numbers of returning troops that will come home to an infrastructure that is not ready for them. That does not have programs for them. To employment that doesnt, a job market that will be. And we have nothing, you know, there are small in roads being made. But the, its just not set up for it. And this guy that i spoke to at west point, the head of west point. This its so funny. I want to say, generalissimo. A lot of stuff on his plate. A lot of salad. A lot of salad. I said something about ptsd. He said we dont use the term . I am about to learn something. He said, because everyone comes back with it. That is the legacy of this war. Because the it was about getting your brain rattled. And getting interesting to say it cant be a condition specific to people. Everyone has it. How brilliant. You dont really need a diagnosis if you have been there. Then i became overwhelmed by this idea that that ape lot of the guys are coming back, solomon county, we have a High Percentage of returning vets. They grew up in a rural community. So many new organic farmers are trying to keep this land, you know, clean because, if we frack we will lose all of our organic, and a lot of these restaurants in new york city who depend on. Blue hill stuff. Whats the farm to table the biggest, wines, cheeses, our yogurt, that come from upstate. So the idea was that, maybe these vets could be trained in organic farming. And eventually they could feed west point. Because west point is also in the hudson valley. This was my little idea that i had one night. I think i couldnt sleep. So thats huh i got to west point. Awe hauch you ev have you ever wanted to run for office . No i run from office. That wasnt always the case . You dated people that were in office . I couldnt ask any one to vote for me. I barely think any one likes me. Well that is not true. I think it is. And its look do you get this a lot. Make life easier for you. You get this a lot. I know you get this a lot. Someone says i told so and so i know you. And they said, i like her. I get people say to me, you are so much nicer than i thought you would be. In a defensive, people half to be, defend the right to like you. Haha. Am i right . So we are just in that category of that kind of person. Opinion ated peop opinionate. I know a lot of people with opinions that people like a lot easier. Were any just offensive in some way. Well, well get to that. Were going to got to that. But when you dated someone, a while back, who was a public figure in politics. Buy, we are really going a while back. It is a while back. I have been married 21 years. What did it make you see about politics . That this hand wave is silly. Right. Really, what is that . Were you doing a bit of that . Is it saving wrist. Oh, i have a can you get carpal tunnel that way . Different. Elbow tunnel. Something up here. What did i find out . I found out that your life is not your own. Because he was scheduled every 15 minutes. How can you hatch ofve a conver with a person in 15 minutes that, you know, i mean, in other word. And then you are right into the next one. So, i guess that was the first thing i learned was this its set up wrong. He has constituency, ostensibly, you need to get to know and be part of. The power comes from that. Correct. Those guys are always putting ten pounds in a five pound bag. Very, very busy. Then the fundraising which is ridiculous amount. Thats my primary issue was Campaign