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• Q & A with Sir Kingsley
• Lucky Number Slevin
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Tavis: I am honored to welcome Sir Ben Kingsley to this program. The Academy Award-winning actor will of course forever be immortalized in this business of Hollywood for his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi back in '82. Wow, '82. Other notable films include, of course, 'Bugsy,' 'Sexy Beast,' 'Schindler's List.'

His latest project, though, is "Lucky Number Slevin." That's right, I said it right. "Lucky Number Slevin.' My mother will call me and say, you mispronounced a word on the show last night.

Sir Ben Kingsley: Again.

Tavis: Again, yeah. (Laugh) Ben Kingsley got jokes, I see. All right. The all-star cast includes Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman. Here now, a scene from "Lucky Number Slevin.'

[A film clip is shown]

Tavis: Sir, nice to have you here, sir.

Kingsley: I'm not that good

Tavis: Yeah. (Laugh)

Kingsley: I'm not. Now that's really skillfully edited. Actually, the scene is slower, and it's quite different in the movie. And that's a very, very good clip, but it has also been compressed so that that delivery of the grass is always greener, where's my money, I could never do that. (Laugh) I couldn't never - I couldn't do that. That's lightning brain.

Tavis: You know what? That's a nice Jedi Mind Trick attempt, but we've seen your work over the years, and we know you are, in fact, that good. Did you have fun doing this project?

Kingsley: I really did because, of getting to know Bruce Willis. Now, Bruce is an icon, isn't he? And I've never been on a set with him. I met him for the first time in my life as he stepped out of the trailer up there in Montreal. Immediately, we warmed to each other and we had a great rapport. The scenes we have together in the film are quite extraordinary.

He was my bonus. That's not to diminish Morgan, who's a genius, and Josh, whom I love, and Lucy. I didn't have any scenes with Lucy, but she's wonderful. A great cast; spectacular writing. Really, really great, by Jason Smilovic. And our director. So it was a beautiful job. A beautiful job.

Tavis: Go a little farther. Go ahead and give me the storyline.

Kingsley: Well, the storyline is one of revenge, so I can't give you too much because it might just take the edge off the excitement of watching the film. But our central hero is a young man who has to avenge a terrible death in his childhood, a terrible loss. And in that sense, given that I am called the rabbi, but there is something biblical about the quest of the young man who is determined to bring to justice those who completely destroyed his life as a child.

And we see the various twists and turns, disguises, using pseudonyms, moving in and out of reality and disguise, and backwards and forwards in time as the film takes us to. And finally, in the last 20 minutes, you get this extraordinary montage of how he's done everything, and why he's done everything in the film that you've seen so far.

Tavis: The studio should think about putting you on a tour to talk about this movie

Kingsley: They are.

Tavis: Because you... (Laugh)

Kingsley: It's funny you should say that.

Tavis: You do a pretty good job. Now, as one who knows what the storyline is, I'm sitting here cracking up. That was a very good description. You gave just enough, but not too much, to give away the storyline. You've been practicing this, I see.

Kingsley: Well, I want them to come and see me. It's all about me.

Tavis: (Laugh) Speaking of you, I'm sure there's somebody watching right now who wants me to ask this obvious, this obligatory question, so let me just put it out there now and move past it. You have played religious figures in your career. You've played gangsters in your career. Now you weave the gangster and the faith. How does one do that?

Kingsley: What, you mean in this particular character?

Tavis: This character, yeah.

Kingsley: I never...

Tavis: A gangster rabbi, rabbi gangster. How do you put that together?

Kingsley: But all I do, honestly, is I see it on the page, and I read it on the page. Because the writing is extraordinary. The young author's a genius. I see on the page this man is called a rabbi because he is a rabbi, and he's also a gangster. He's been religiously ordained, and he's turned to crime. And I on the page, because the writing's so good, the director's so good, my ambiance on the film set was so perfect.

My relationship with Bruce and Morgan was so good, and Josh. Honestly, I'm sorry, this is gonna disappoint millions of viewers. I just learn my lines. Honestly. (Laugh) I learn my lines, I go onto the set word perfect, and I do what the script says that character does. I never beat my head up about how I can get round certain corners, and how I can make this character consistent.

Because no human being is consistent anyway. So honestly, I have this ability. This ability to translate comes from my years at work on Shakespeare when I was a young actor. Translate what is on the page into living tissue. But I never, honestly, beat myself up about how I can add these ingredients up to make a whole person. I simply follow the script.

Tavis: You said something a moment ago that I find fascinating. You said you learned your lines; you went on the set word perfect.

Kingsley: Truly.

Tavis: Every actor has his or her own style for how they get the project done. I have heard and read, and now you confirmed, that your style is to be infinitely prepared when you step onto the set. Why is that your style? Where'd that come from? Why does that word perfect style work for you?

Kingsley: I think if a musician, in his formative years, worked on Mozart, he or she would have an enormous respect for the notes written on the page. As they turn the pages of Mozart, you can only play that sequence in notes in Mozart, because it's sacred. It's Mozart. I cut my teeth on Shakespeare, and from my early twenties more or less right through to when I played Mahatma Gandhi.

It was 17, 16 years of classical theater where the script was the law. If you didn't understand a line, you worked and worked for weeks in a rehearsal room until suddenly you realized exactly how the rhythm of "to be or not to be" by Hamlet suddenly made total sense to you. "To be or not to be, that is the question."

And suddenly, in a rehearsal room, it hits you like a truck. You don't change the words. You don't change a syllable. You just breathe life into those lines and pray for the miracle to happen, or the practice to happen. What did that famous boxer, he said, "I practice and practice.' (Unintelligible) 'I practice and practice, and hope to get lucky."

(Laugh) And I think this is what I do. But my love of the written word came from Shakespeare, and my determination to make what is on the page work and be prepared, so I don't let my fellow actors down. There are no other actors here. (Laugh) I don't let my fellow actors down, I don't let the technicians down, I don't let the sound man down. That wonderful sound man who is on a long boom in an intimate scene.

And he's whizzing the boom here, and then he's turning around and whizzing it over to the other actor. And out of respect and affection for his process and concentration, I won't suddenly screw up a line so that he's got the microphone on the wrong actor at the wrong time, because I've made a mistake.

Tavis: Now you've really done it. My whole crew is like, 'we wish Tavis came to work like that every day."

Kingsley: I thought he did. He said you did.

Tavis: (Laugh) No, Brian's, like, please, not Tavis. (Laugh) Not hardly. You said something now that also fascinates me. I was just, before, waiting for your arrival at the studio, I was in my dressing room doing some reading, and I...

Kingsley: You've got a dressing room?

Tavis: It's about that big. Real small.

Kingsley: They didn't give me a dressing room.

Tavis: Yeah, this is a little small cubbyhole.

Kingsley: They gave me a bowl of oranges.

Tavis: (Laugh) I tried to work out, they said - I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

(Laugh) No, no, no.

Kingsley: I'm very sorry.

Tavis: (Laugh) Please, it's your time. Whatever you wanna talk about.

Kingsley: You're in your, no, no. You were in your dressing room.

Tavis: I was in my dressing room a moment ago, and I was reading, I've read it a thousand times, but one of my favorite texts is a book that contains the essential writings of Dr. King, as in Martin Luther King Jr. And there was a particular passage that I wanted to reread again today. So I went back and I found the speech and I read the passage again, because it speaks to me in so many different ways every time I read it.

So I went back and reread this passage moments before I came out here. When you speak of Shakespeare and how in rehearsal you finally get to a place where a particular line just jumps out at you and you get it and you understand it and you embrace it, I'm putting you on the spot here. Of all the Shakespeare that you have done, give me one phrase that even right now you love the utterance, you love what it means, you love the statement that it makes. Give me one.

Kingsley: 'He is a man in whom I place an absolute trust.'

Tavis: And that resonates with you why?

Kingsley: I think the balance, the rhythm of the line is so beautiful, it gives it authority. It's unquestionable. 'He is a man in whom I place an absolute trust.' It's one of those perfect iambic pentameters, because he wrote with five beats to a line. So it's almost musical, it's almost operatic. It's almost sung, but it's spoken. It is poetry, but it's spoken as language between a king to his fellow citizens.

About a man who ultimately betrays him terribly, so for me it has a poignance. It's virile. It's full of trust. And it's full of a kind of camaraderie that I've only found when I've been with people in the armed forces, or certain extremely difficult days on film sets where we're fighting more than the clock.

We're fighting, like in "Schindler's List" we were fighting some terrible things on that set. But "he is a man in whom I place an absolute trust" always has resonance for me. I always find it very moving. I met Dr. King's widow.

Tavis: Coretta, yeah.

Kingsley: Yeah, because we screened it at the Center, because he was such a devoted disciple of Gandhi's that one of the first screenings that Attenborough had in the United States was at the Center there in Atlanta.

Tavis: I get the sense, from what you've said just in this brief conversation, my firs time meeting you, that that line might resonate with you because you want persons who close to you to be able to say that about you? It ties in to what you said about not wanting to disappoint people on the set.

Kingsley: It's possible. I don't think that, well, creative people are extremely vulnerable. And I think in our business, where we're scrutinized daily by the camera and by our audiences, I think we have to surround ourself. And I have my own little modest company, and I have surrounded myself with people in whom I place an absolute trust.

I think that if you aspire to leading a creative life, which is ultimately a healing life, anyone who creates heals, you need to surround yourself with people who have faith in you, however you interpret that word. But they have faith in you, they love sharing your aspirations with you, your hopes with you.

Your enthusiasm is contagious amongst them. It is, yes, it is important to me, just as if you're with people who do not have faith in you, do not believe in you, would not shoulder a burden with you, people with whom you would not go into battle, then you feel that your energy's being distorted and robbed and bled away.

And we only have one shot. We only have one life. It's infinite. It's finite, I'm sorry. It is not infinite, it's finite. The days go. So we do need people who will root for us and be with us.

Let me challenge you, respectfully, on something you said a moment ago, and I'm only challenging you because I wanna give you a chance to help me understand this. Maybe I'm missing part of the picture here that you're painting on this canvas. When you say that those who create, heal, that's not absolute.

I can think of things that have been created that did the exact opposite. So, tell what you meant about that. I think I know what you meant, but it's not an absolute statement.

Well, it's possible that an example you could very easily use is someone who's created a means of destruction. Someone who's created something that could be devastating. That, I would not term as a creative act. I would term that as ultimately destructive.

Tavis: Gotcha, yeah. So it's how you define create, then.

Kingsley: Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah.

Kingsley: So creativity is life-enhancing and would further the evolution of the human spirit. That would be a creative act. Whether it's embracing a child or designing a spectacular building for people to be happy and create in.

Tavis: So you've done something that is worthy enough of people trusting you, believing you, admiring you, revering you enough for the queen to give you that knighthood. So we introduce you now as Sir Ben Kingsley. So that happened a few years ago, and my first time meeting you, again. So what does that mean? How does it change your life? What happens when - nobody called me sir, so I'm jealous of you, quite frankly. I admit that, though.

Sir Ben Kingsley: Hopefully it translates itself into accepting invitations that perhaps I'd never be able to accept. For example, last year I went with the (unintelligible) foundation to the Palestinian refugee camps, and we screened 'Gandhi' literally on the wall that divides the Israeli territory from the Palestinian territory.

It was screened, translated into Palestinian Arabic. Shortly after that, I was able to go to Afghanistan with Save the Children. And this year, I was able to go to Pakistan with Relief International to be filmed visiting and analyzing and sharing with the western audience the devastation in Pakistan after the earthquake, and the extraordinary resilience of those beautiful people there.

So because of the title, I have been at the receiving end of some extraordinary invitations to visit places and people that I never would get an opportunity to visit. Perhaps be a voice for them. Because even by sitting here, and you've graciously given me the time to answer this question, even by sitting here now, at least I can mention that there are places like Palestine, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that are populated by the most extraordinarily beautiful, graceful people. And at least I've had the opportunity firsthand to visit them and shake hands with them and talk with them about their struggles.

Tavis: What does it mean to you - I know what it means to me, but that's irrelevant. What does it mean to you that almost 25 years after its making, you are in the Palestinian territory months ago screening 'Gandhi?' I was waiting for you to say we were screening "Lucky Number Slevin" or something. You're screening 'Gandhi' almost 25 years after. What does that mean to you? What's that say?

Kingsley: It's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Because one would hope that, and we all hoped when we made the film that it would have the kind of impact that might invite new ways of thinking. But 25 years later, it's more urgent than it was when it was made in '82, more relevant. And there are kids so enraged that all they can do is pick up a rock and throw it at an Israeli soldier, which is suicidal.

But they're desperate. So, we were just, they invited us to screen the film so that they could show to their young people a different way of looking at things. I think Richard's film is an extraordinary gift to the future. I really think that is a genuine act of creation. A genuine work of art. And as I say, I fear it might have to be screened for another 25 years. But if it does, then I'm glad that that document exists, and that other way of thinking does exist, too.

Tavis: I wonder if you would be honest with me, I'm sure you will, and share with me what the downside, you mentioned it's a double-edged sword. You made a different point, which I totally got. But it also made me think that it might be, how can I put this? It might be a double-edged sword for Sir Ben Kingsley to be known as the guy who played that character for time and eternity. There's an upside to that, but what's the downside to people saying, there's the Gandhi guy?

Sir Ben Kingsley: Honestly, in the last five years since "Sexy Beast" and "Slevin" and other films that I've made that have been so hip and radical, and that I'm allowed to be ferociously violent and antisocial in them, I think people now accept that there's a very broad spectrum. I was even called a bipolar actor, which is a great compliment. (Laugh) And I've named our little film company Bipolar Pictures after that extraordinary compliment.

Tavis: I like that. (Laugh)

Kingsley: I'm sure, if I can just paint a picture, that if I were walking along the street with you and you said to me, you see that guy over there? He's the actor who played Gandhi. I'd be heartbroken, because that would mean that I also screen tested for that role all those years ago and I wasn't given it. I'd be heartbroken.

I remember sitting in that little makeup room at Pinewood Studios when Lord Attenborough, Richard, Sir Richard, he was then, was outside waiting to see how my screen test was going. And there was nobody in the room other than myself, at the age of 36, and looking in the mirror at this very, very frail old man that they'd made me up to be.

And I remember muttering to my reflection in the mirror, saying this is as close as you'll ever get. This is as close as you'll ever get. And then he knocked on the door and walked in and said, "Ben, I want you to do it." So I made that quantum leap into actually doing it. I would be heartbroken if that was taken away from me. And I'm so proud of it.

Tavis: As well you should be. When you share with me now this memory, this reflection of sitting looking into the camera, into the mirror at this old Gandhi that you're made up to be, did the opportunity to fast-forward to the end of Gandhi's life and play this old man who had made this enormous contribution, did that in any way allow you, permit you, challenge to, get you to think about your life in toto, and your contribution?

I can't imagine that I would have, this is just me talking, have the opportunity to play a character like Gandhi, and to have learned everything you did about his life and then get to the end and look back and not think about my own self about my own life, my own contribution, in a parallel sort of way. Did that happen for you at all?

Kingsley: Well, because there were certain days where indeed I would be in my twenties as a young lawyer, and then in the afternoon, because of the location available to us, I'd have to be 82. So I'd have to move 50, 60 years in one day, in terms of makeup. So in order to find some kind of a consistency that would make that leap as non-disruptive as possible, I had to find a spine to the character.

And I had to find the fuel that made his life possible, and made him go the distance for his people, which he certainly did, as did Dr. King. And that fuel surprised me. I realized that he was immensely angry. And that, but that he had a great gift to translate his anger into something creative, rather than destructive.

But it was the terrible indignation of being thrown off a train because he was sitting in the wrong compartment, according to the laws that pertained in South Africa at the time. And that must have been so traumatizing for him, coming from London Law School, and just the inconceivable notion of throwing somebody off a train because of their ethnicity must have been so enraging that that fueled him for the rest of his life.

So it was, strangely enough, paradoxically, you speak about the man of peace, but they're not necessarily nice people, these people. They're furious. But they translate it into something that is so modified and so modulated and so articulate and so irrefutable.

Tavis: That's a brilliant point, though. Nothing wrong with being angry. You just have to fuel that in the right way.

Kingsley: You do. You have, yeah.

Tavis: Folk who change our world are folk who are angry about what they're tired of having to deal with. It's a good point. How cool is it, though, that you are one of those persons who can play a variety? You were talking about ethnics a moment ago. You get to play a variety of ethnic personalities. That's pretty cool, huh?

Kingsley: It is. It is.

Tavis: It gives you a broader range of stuff to choose from?

Kingsley: Well also, it gives me an opportunity to empathize in a way that I would never be able to empathize in normal life. For example, Colonial Behrani leaving Iran, coming to America, and pretending to his wife that he's running a successful business somewhere, and actually he's working on the roads shoveling tarmac, you know?

So, that level of empathy would not be available to me if I had just carried on playing the same kind of character over and over again. So that I've played Iranians, I've played European Jews in concentration camps. Harrowing. That level of empathy, I would never have had otherwise. There's one extraordinary way of understanding a European Jew in 1940, is to put on a coat with a yellow star sewn onto it. See how that feels. It feels very strange. It feels very strange.

Tavis: I'm so glad you've had all these opportunities and these experiences that you get a chance to share with us. The new movie, "Lucky Number Slevin," starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman and...

Kingsley: Lucy Liu.

Tavis: Lucy Liu and everybody. (Laugh) Everybody. You can't miss with this cast. Anyway, it's an honor to have you here.

Kingsley: Thank you.

Tavis: Nice to meet you.

Kingsley: Lovely to meet you.

Tavis: "Lucky Number Slevin,' go check it out. That's our show from tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.

[A film clip is shown]