 My name is Paniel Joseph and I'm a professor here at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. And it is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Lenomoto, who's president of HBO Films. First I want to say that this movie all the way that you're going to see, I've had a chance to see this film. It's an extraordinary film about really the most important social movement of our time and that is the civil rights movement. It talks about a time in our period, the heroic period of the civil rights movement, and a year from 1963 to 1964 where it took both a social movement leader in the form of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a progressive U.S. president in the form of Lyndon Johnson to transform American democracy and expand the range of citizenship in a historical way. So this movie is the story of our time. It's a narrative of American democracy over 50 years ago, but the reverberations are still being felt today. We would not have the age of Obama in the 21st century without the period that preceded it. At the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the LBJ Library, this film is really a testament to the collaborative spirit of those two entities, and the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, which has just been founded at the LBJ School, is committed to both active research and public programming around the civil rights movement in the 21st century. So these are issues that are still impacting us today. All we have to do is read a newspaper, the issues of racial justice, economic justice, gender justice, justice for LGBT and all American citizens. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Mr. Lenomoto, president of HBO Films. Thank you, Peniel. And thank you to Mark Uptegrove and the LBJ Presidential Library. We're thrilled to be here. HBO and the filmmakers are incredibly honored to attend this event and bring the film right to the heart of President Johnson's world, the place where he came home. I'd like to introduce some of the people responsible for this, bringing this story to the screen, and we're very happy that all of you could attend tonight. First, our executive producers from Amblin Television, who were executive producers along with Steven Spielberg, Justin Falvey and Daryl Frank. Hello. One of our extraordinary consultants, you know her, you love her, Doris Kearns Goodwin. The fearless captain of our ship as we made this movie, director and executive producer Jay Roach, portraying Dr. Martin Luther King, Anthony Mackey, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, the person, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for this man. He created the original play, he's our screenwriter, our executive producer, Robert Schenken. And finally portraying President Lyndon Baines Johnson, our executive producer, Brian Cranston. So thank you. We're going to get the show on the road now. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Later, after the film, we're going to have a Q&A, and we're going to have a panel up here, and many of our filmmakers will be on stage, and we can have a discussion about the film. So thanks very much for attending. So just say the tragedy of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 thrust upon the shoulders of Lyndon Johnson, not only the presidency of the United States, but the opportunity to fulfill a dream that he shared with Martin Luther King, passage of the Civil Rights Bill. So ladies and gentlemen, all the way. First off, congratulations. Congratulations. This is a stunning movie and a great accomplishment. Brian, I'm going to start with you. You have lived this character now for almost three years. Brian Cranston came to the LBJ presidential library in the summer of 2013 to study up on the party he was about to play, and Robert Schenken's soon to be Broadway play all the way. So you've lived with LBJ for a while. What drives this very enigmatic, very complex man? It's easy to say ambition, and that would be true. He had a deeply resonant experience as a young man that made him realize that the role of government was to accomplish things, and he wanted to be in that position. So from a very early age in his late 20s, as we know, he became a congressman, then a senator, and ascended to the vice presidency and presidency, and it probably worked out as he wished in that sense. He wanted to be in that position, and he thought the role of government was to be effective and do a lot of things. That being said, that's the outsider's view of it from an actor's point of view, looking at the man, the enormity of his personality, and it was very daunting, to say the least, to take on a character like that. But fortunately, we had Robert Schenken's play, which were guideposts, were set up along the way so you can carefully navigate how you would go about getting from point A to point Z in this case. So the way you research a party is you look for clues. When you were here at the library, you were looking for clues. Was there one thing that gave you insight into LBJ more than anything else? Yes, and you guys were so helpful. And often when an actor is looking to do research, he or she is asked, what are you looking for? How can I help guide you to what you're looking for? And the answer, by and large, is I don't know. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I do know when something feels right, when something feels helpful. I was here twice. And the first time I was here, I went through, and it's an amazing library. You've done a wonderful job. Everybody has. Yeah. Extremely helpful. And I was able to be on my own to go through it. And you can be inundated with the amount of material. It wasn't until the second time that I came down to look at it that was in between the Boston run and going to Broadway. And I noticed there was something else that I didn't see the first time. And it was really the key to unlock the emotional core of who Lyndon Johnson was to me. After in the displays, if you take your time to go see it. And the display of the assassination of President Kennedy, it goes chronologically. And I missed it the first time, but there was a framed picture in the corner. I didn't know what it was, and I went over to see it this time. And it was a letter written by Jackie Kennedy to the new president five days after the assassination of her husband. And in the letter, she said a couple interesting things. Thank you, Mr. President, for walking with Jack during his funeral procession. I know that the Secret Service was probably begging you not to. But you did anyway, and you walked with it. And I appreciate that. The family appreciates that. And she went on to say, thank you also for taking the time to write to my two children about what you felt the love and respect for their father. They don't know it now. They're too young. But in time, I will give them the letters and they will appreciate it as much hopefully more than I do now. God bless Jackie, paraphrasing, but to this end. And it struck me, this man within five days, four days probably, she wrote the letter back, of the assassination of President Kennedy, his ascension to the biggest job in the world. And all the responsibility and burden that that does carry on someone. The thoughts, the amount of phone calls coming in and the logistical nightmare that it must have been. And he took the time to write to two children about their fallen father. Just struck a core in me that I thought, my God, the depth of the compassion that this man had to do what was right. Not necessarily what would have been advised even at that time. He was probably told, sir, we don't have time for this. And he made the time to do that, a simple act of compassion. And that really then gave me the foundation to then build from there to create the LBJ, who was to me. Let's say it was not only a pleasure to have Brian here at the library, but quite an experience. And I was told by a docent, I'm not sure if this is apocryphal or not. But I was told by a docent, Brian and I were in the Oval Office. And I was taking him through. And there were a few people who came through the exhibit as we were there. I was told by a docent that there was one guy who came out and said to his wife, my God, it's Walter White. And he's in the Oval Office. That would prop that combination is probably the worst. Well, I think the second worst thing I can think of. Anthony, congratulations to you on a wonderful depiction of Martin Luther King. There are few figures in American history as revered as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And it has to be a very daunting exercise to portray him. Where do you start? I don't know. I don't know. I asked myself that question many times. And I talked to Jay several times before my first day of shooting. And I was like, you can recast this at any day. There are many actors you can get to do this. One thing I wanted to do, I felt like I looked nothing like Dr. King. I'm taller, I'm narrower, which is very different physical makeups. Let's put it that way. And I never wanted to disrespect him by trying to impersonate him. I feel like he's one of the only people in the history of the world where his actions define him much more than the way he looked. And I felt like at any point in time, you can talk about one instance in his life. And you'll say, oh yeah, well, he did that, he did that, he did that. And it was never he looked like this when he did that or he was wearing this when he did that. And that's why I tried to stay away from the idea of impersonation and capturing and impersonating and capture his essence. I feel like when you get the essence of the man, my goal in this movie was for the first time you see me to say, that's Dr. King, you don't look like Dr. King, Dr. King, you don't look nothing like that. And by the end of the movie, when you get to that triptych of a speech, you go, that's Dr. King, that's pretty much Dr. King. And that was my goal from reading this script to performing this role. Because there's no way of getting it right. Dr. King, like Bob Marley, like Jimi Hendrix, lived in so many different realities. There was the reality that he actually was the person that he was, the reality of his writings and his teachings and what you learned from the thing he said, and the reality of what people said about him. So I kind of, after Jay told me I had to do this movie, or else I wouldn't be in The Next Austin Powers, which he promised me. After I got past that, that was the most interesting thing to me, was realizing that 60% of the people that see this movie is going to hate me in this movie. But 33%, I'm going to rock them to death. So it was very important to me, whatever reality people saw me in as my facet of Dr. King that I got it right. Well, you said backstage that you've been offered the part of Martin Luther King before, aside from the promise of being in The Austin Powers sequel. What led you to commit to this project? The surroundings. I felt like when you take a chalkboard and you put the names and their resumes up there, this is not bad company. No, pretty good. If you tweet this picture out, people are going to be like, you're way to go champ. I feel like when you look at the resumes of the people around me, it's very impressive company to be with. And I never want to be, I never take people's work lightly. I know from whence BC came, and that's your nickname, by the way, BC. Yeah, like the powder, make you feel better, BC. I know from whence Brian came and I know all of his work. And to see where he is now in his career is really magical. And it truly defines the idea of a career, and the fact that everybody up here is revered for their work. And that's how I would like to be considered one day in my career as well. Yeah, that certainly includes Dars Curran's Goodwin. And Dars, I sat next to her for a reason. Dars, you began your career with LBJ as a White House fellow in 1967. You came back here to Austin, Texas part time to help him write his memoir, A Vantage Point, so you spent a great deal of time with him then. And you wrote your first book about Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream. How has your view of LBJ changed 40 years after he's dead and gone? How has your perception of LBJ evolved in that time? Well, it certainly all began in a curious way because when I was selected as a White House fellow, I was a graduate student at Harvard. And I'd been active like so many young people in the anti-Vietnam War movement. And had written an article against LBJ, which had not yet come out in the New Republic when I was selected as a White House fellow. And President Johnson did dance with me that night. He did say, I want you to be assigned directly to me in the White House. But then this article came out two days later, and the title was How to Remove Lyndon Johnson from Power. So incredibly, everybody thought, this is the end of her. He said, bring her down here for a year. And if I can't win her over, no one can. So what has mattered so much to me, not only that he changed my life. I became a presidential historian, that experience of spending time with this extraordinary man in the sadder years of his life, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71. When he was feeling like his legacy had been cut in two. When he wanted to worry about how history would remember him. When he talked to me in ways he never would have had. I know him at the height of his power. He never would have had the time. And yet, I dreamed through all those years that I could have seen him in 64 and 65. I used to think, why didn't I know him then? And now I feel through this movie. That's why this movie means so much to me. That not only I, but the world is going to see the Lyndon Johnson that I only knew through my conversations with him. This man who believed, just as you said before, that government can do things for people. That government is the exercise of our collective power to make life better for people. This man who, when he taught at Coutula, saw the prejudice in the eyes of the Mexican American kids. And he said, I'm going to do something about it. And never did I dream that someday I would be president and I could really do something about this. This man who knew how to deal with Congress in a way that if there was a debt crisis, they all would have been living at the White House and never leaving until it was over. This man who understood how to empathize with other people. The man I saw a piece of, and I always imagined that other side of, and I dreamed of it. And now, honestly, through this movie, through the partnership between Brian and Anthony, the idea that the civil rights movement from the bottom up could make the country as a whole a better place when a president embraces that outside movement and makes it part of it. Plus, as you saw, it's funny. I mean, those tapes of LBJ, that's him. I mean, all of us who've listened to those. There's just a funny story that I remember years later when I was, I met this guy named Don Kendall, who was the president of Coca-Cola. And he's Pepsi-Cola. And he said to me, I know you knew Lyndon Johnson when you were a young girl, but I have a story you don't know. And he told me that when he came down to the ranch, right after Nixon was president, Nixon said, I have something sensitive I need to talk to LBJ about. Go talk to him at the ranch. And so I said, get to the ranch, Johnson's working on his memoirs. He looks up grumply. How am I supposed to remember what happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago? The only chapters are any good at all are I had this little taping machine in my oval office, which makes such a part of this wonderful movie. And I used to be able, when somebody called me, and it was important to turn it on, and I have verbatim conversations. And those chapters are great. So you go back and tell your good friend Nixon as he starts his presidency, there's nothing more important than a taping system. And thereby, Lyndon Johnson contributes to the downfall of his good friend Lyndon Johnson. But I must say, it is so exciting for me, and I've told Mark this. I think the library has done an incredible job. I think this film will only be fueling it. Lyndon Johnson deserves to be remembered for the man that he was. He changed the face of America. Nobody else since FDR has done what he did socially for social justice, for economic justice. And now, finally, 50 years later, the country is seeing this. And for me, as a young girl, to see now as an older woman that it is finally happening, it just makes my heart feel so happy. Thank you. Historians generally put presidents in five different categories. The greats, the near greats, the average, the below average, and the failures. So in this quintile, most historians generally regard LBJ as a near great president. But that had yet to be seen in 1973 when he died. Did you foresee LBJ being elevated to the pantheon of American presidents? Well, you know, I think the last time that I spoke to him, what he said, was that if ever I am to be remembered, it will be for civil rights. And what struck me when I finally wrote about Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln, when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, who wanted to be remembered all his life for having done something worthy, said, if ever I'm to be remembered, it'll be for this, the Emancipation Proclamation. So I think there's no question that we could see then that civil rights would be a marker for him. But I don't think I've realized then the fabric of our American society, when you think of education, you think of Medicare, you think of Appalachia, you think of national broadcasting, the national arts and humanities, the collective will of the country made ourselves better. And I don't think it became so much a part of who we were that we forgot that it all happened then. And I don't think I could have seen that then. I mean, all these presidents get obsessed by their legacy. And I think he worried about it. I'll never forget, one night I was with President Clinton, and there had come out a poll when I was having dinner with him that day that marked him in the middle. This was before the Monica Lewinsky thing. He was so angry that he was only in the middle, so he kept turning at me. What do historians know? How can you possibly judge us? And so I remember that same day there had been an announcement that the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had moved to Los Angeles when I was a kid and undid my whole feeling of myself, they might come back to Brooklyn. And so I said to you, look, I'll make you a corrupt bargain. If you bring the Brooklyn Dodgers, the LA Dodgers back to Brooklyn, I'll put you up a notch on the president. And he said, I don't think I have the power. But nonetheless, when I think of LBJ, I think hopefully he knows. And he had some trust that what he had done to create the foundation of the country would eventually be remembered, and it is now. And thank God it is now. Jay, one of these, I mentioned to Jay backstage, one of the things I really admire about this film is everything is right. You look at the photographs in the Oval Office, and there are the photographs that LBJ actually had in his Oval Office. You really take pains to get the story right. What was the greatest challenge you had in telling this story? Well, it's capturing such a complicated guy in all of his variations, all of his personality, there's so many aspects to Johnson. But I think any time you're taking on a movie about history, and it can only be a movie about history, it can never in two hours be the history of an 11-month thing. But it's always about trying to get it right. It's the mantra I've always had in all the films I've done with the HBO, with Trumbo, is just get it right. You can't get it accurate because there is no such thing. They're actors, they're resets, they're all pretending that we're there. But you can try to make it feel like a time machine that takes you back and gives you a sense of the essence of what each person was at that time. And to do that, you have to talk to amazing consultants and amazing, you have to have great writers and great actors who are willing to embrace that struggle. And we did a ton of research. Your library was hugely important for me, and going to the ranch was hugely important for me. And the moment that I thought, okay, I now have access to how, for some reason, to me, like Brian's moment with the letter, I understand how to get, for example, the relationship between Lady Bird and LBJ right. And you played for me a call from between Lady Bird and LBJ about Walter Jenkins when he was fired after, and which became, I mean, it was already in the plays, it was a beautiful, but the way I shot it was really how it felt to me when I listened to it in your office. Of Lady Bird saying, we're not just going to abandon our friend, and LBJ, of course, saying, darling, I'm the president. You can't come out for this now in the middle of three weeks before the election and go on record. And she says, I understand you think this is what you have to do, but I'm not going to abandon our friend. And the strength and connection those two had at that moment, collaborators, partners, not president and a wife. It was two people who had shared this whole existence together and who had, Walter Jenkins had been with LBJ since 1938, and he'd helped them through Congress, the Senate, Vice President. And somehow the strength of that woman that came through that call, it just became personal. Like, that's what I thought would be the thing to do with a movie. The play got it too, but a camera can make it intimate. A camera, and the way it's cut, the way it's shot, can make it feel like, oh, my God, I'm right here. I've gone back in time. I'm right here with these people feeling their souls, their passion, their, and their love for each other and their shared predicament, their shared drive to get it right. And in that case, from her point of view, not from his point of view. And I thought, okay, if we can have a few epiphanies, a few reveals in our movie that take you that close to who these people were in this amazing time, then that's a movie, that's a story, that's something I'd want to be involved in trying to tell, be part of the conversation. You really get that relationship right. And I know you took pains to do so. I asked Brian what drives LBJ, what drives Lady Bird Johnson? That's a really interesting question. I mean, I don't, I wish I, you know, had gotten to know her. I wish I knew more about her to answer that with real authority. But one thing that I loved about her was that she had a sense of empathy, a sense of connection to people. When you hear her on the calls with people in, you know, during these crises, she understood people. And I feel like she was a person to give LBJ a window into the soul of other people that he may or may not have been able to get. Like that she could say, okay, you know, Walter's a great example of it, but there were lots of other stories that she wanted to make sure he was considering everything that was in play. I like that scene in the film by the river where she's walking with the dogs. And she says, talk from your heart. Talk from what matters to you. She had empathy for him as well. And LBJ was so, you know, so capable and so he could read people quite well himself. But that extra bit of sensitivity and wisdom that she brought, I think she was driven to make sure that was at least considered in every move they made. So that was amazing to watch. She was an amazing woman. Yeah. Robert, this all starts with you. When you put pen to paper earlier in this decade and created the play all the way, why did you want to tell this story? Well, I grew up here in Austin in the heart of the Hill Country and you could not escape the presence of Lyndon Baines Johnson. His presence was so acute and I have this very small but very personal family connection through my father who was brought down here to set up the first public television and radio station really in the Southwest and job number one was to go to Senator Johnson and get his permission because it would have been a direct competitor with his media empire or should I say Lady Bird's empire? Because it was in Lady Bird's name. And I'm pleased to say that he did give his permission and of course as president would go on to sign into law the bill that created the corporation for public broadcasting. So in my family growing up, he was a friend of the court. He was a good man and but he was such a theatrical figure in and of himself. We use the expression Shakespearean but I truly think Lyndon Baines Johnson fits that category, not just big physically which he certainly was but big in his ambitions, big in his hopes, big in his successes and his failures, his virtues, his vices, very, very complicated man fascinating in his own regard there. And then finally, I agree with Joe Califano Jr. who says we live in the world that LBJ made. I think his impact on the United States and on the world then was enormous. I think of, I often think of 1964 and this movie as an origin story for 2016. We entered a political cycle in 1964 which I think we are just now beginning to emerge from and that's why things are so crazy because we're leaving behind something we knew and we're moving into something that is only just now coming into shape. So a fascinating character, a story worth telling and an ability for me to get at themes that matter to me which in this case have to do with power. The acquisition and the exercise of power and the moral choices, the hard moral choices that leadership faces. And to see Dr. King and Lyndon Baines Johnson in this one moment, in this one year, coming to deal with the original sin of this country to confront it finally. And there are two men who share many things that you wouldn't normally think of in terms of the very, very delicate political line they are having to walk between their various constituencies and the wariness that they feel for each other and how they eventually reach this place where they can work together and they achieve greatness, inarguably achieve grace. That's a story worth telling and it's certainly worth telling today where of course the issue of race remains unsolved in this country. Is an ongoing struggle to achieve the promise of the founding fathers. Right. Brian Cranston has been in very high cotton recently. He had lunch with the president of the United States a couple of weeks ago in late April and there was an interview that the New York Times did with the president and Brian. And in that interview, and I would strongly suggest you read this, a fascinating interview. But in that interview, Brian, you revealed that you pitched one of the scenes in all the way, the scene in which LBJ is walking down a White House corridor and he bumps into Lucy Johnson, his youngest daughter who's in the audience tonight. What made you think that that scene needed to be included in this movie? Well, we didn't have Lucy or Linda in the, as characters, in the play. And when we went to a different medium, we were able to and given permission to and charged with opening it up, making it more visual story. And this visual experience came to me and I pitched my partners on this, Jay and Robert and I said, it would be nice, I think, to convey a sense of what it is like under the same roof and yet ships that are passing in the night, time that is sped up, important issues that need to be tackled, but isn't the family important? And what are the risks? What are you losing? Are you losing touch with people and that sort of thing? And so I pitched it out and Robert wrote this very simple scene, which you saw tonight, which just was really beautiful. And I love the sensitivity that we saw in LBJ, almost slightly uncomfortable in this interaction with his daughter. Delighted to see her, but we realized that maybe it's been a while since they've had a conversation and she is getting tall and he didn't notice. How did he not notice that? And so he asks her something that someone outside of the family might ask her and when you came back with that, I thought that's perfect, that how you do it in school. You know, and it's like, wow, it's more of a general question. And it was, and we're just trying to get a sensibility of the pressure cooker that this man and this family shared and I think it worked effectively. That seems to be an epiphany that can only come from a father and I can't help but to think that you were thinking of the father that was the president of the United States. The father aspect of it, yeah. And I think everything is weighed by that, by how much ambition and it must have weighed on the president and the current administration and every administration. How much ambition and my agenda can I push forward and how am I alienating myself from my family the more I push for this agenda to accomplish but it's for the greater good so I can justify doing that but at what cost. And so I wanted to throw that out there and I think Robert came back with a good idea and we put it in the movie. Anthony, the LBJ that Brian portrays is really the master politician as was LBJ himself. But Martin Luther King was no slouch as a politician either. How do you think Martin Luther King ultimately viewed Lyndon Johnson? I think it was an idea of mutual respect. I think Dr. King was coming off the precipice of all of his dreams falling apart. Once he had so much invested in Kennedy that when Kennedy got assassinated it was the potential of LBJ getting in the office and saying that's not my fight. And then the entire movement would stall and not only stall but people would look to him as a leader and say you've led us to a dead end street. And once he, I felt, I think you see it in the first scene, you know, Jay and Robert, one of our early conversations was you have to see the fear and the possibility of failure in Dr. King and that's what gives him that urgency. That's what gives him that need for LBJ's camaraderie, friendship, understanding of what's going on in the world because he needs the black vote to be elected and only one person can give him the black vote. But to get the black vote, you've got to give me something too. Right. So it was, you know, it's Ali Frazier. It was a jousting match. And I'll give some, but I have to get some back. And I think, you know, when you're a man and you're in a fight, you realize a worthy opponent. You know, and I think the two of them, that mutual respect was realizing a worthy opponent and knowing they couldn't get around BS with them like they do with everybody else. And I think that's what's so great with this movie. You see LBJ, you know, working and needling everybody else around him. And as soon as he gets to Dr. King, he's like, ah, yeesh. You know, he knows that they're on the same platform. You know, he knows they're on the same level of urgency. You know, that movement was right at the precipice of those eight months. He might not be reelected. He might not be the leader of this movement anymore and fail in the eyes of an entire nation of people. So, you know, there was that mutual respect and understanding that in order for either of them to succeed, they had to rely on each other. Right. So, I think that was, yeah, for me, one of the most important things that Robert gave us, gave me as an actor with this script. Dars, you mentioned that President Johnson said to you toward the end of his life that he wanted to be remembered for civil rights. And in this movie, he says, I'm gonna out Lincoln Lincoln. He says to Hubert Humphrey, he pledges, I'm gonna out Lincoln Lincoln. Did he? Well, you know, it's interesting. Lincoln said, after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, he said, it's going to be 100 years, at least before this issue of race begins to be settled. He understood we were so far in 1863 from any kind of justice between blacks and whites. And I think what LBJ did, and it's important, I think what you said is so right, both sides here, Martin Luther King and LBJ risked a lot for this partnership. We now know it worked. That's the problem with history. You can't look at it and then you have to know what happened at the moment when it happened. When LBJ made that decision to go to that joint session of Congress right after JFK died and say, there's nothing more important for JFK's legacy or even for the country, he could have said, than the passage of this civil rights bill. He was taking an enormous risk. If that bill had failed, that was the end of his presidency. He would not have been elected in November. And he knew he was breaking the South apart. He knew that he was giving the South to the Republicans for a generation, as he says in this thing. Martin Luther King knew that unless he was able to deal with all the factors, that he's the factions within his party, just as LBJ had to deal with the factions with his, the Republicans, the Dick Russells of the world, they're both extraordinary politicians and yet they're both willing to compromise. I mean, the very thing that we see not in our government today. The idea that all of these people felt as Hubert Humphrey felt, as LBJ felt, as Martin Luther King felt, they knew they had done something that would stand the test of time. You talk about ambition, Brian, and your ambition can be a wonderful thing if the desire for power is to make life better for people. That's the worthy ambition that you hope anybody in any field has. And LBJ was hugely ambitious, but most of the time he wanted to use the power. That's what we said when you get to the presidency, what is power for, but to do something good with it? And the same with Martin Luther King. They were willing to use their power to take risks for themselves. And I hadn't thought about it until you just said it, and it's so true in the movie. They're both risking their leadership by this partnership. And what do we need in America anymore today than politicians, and I wonder where they are, who come into politics because they want to do something with the collective power of the American people to make life better for all of us. Rather than talk to them. So that's why I think this film could not be more timely and the remembrance of a partnership between an African American and a white person that came together, that made compromises, that made people mad, and yet changed the country. And it happened then, we have to believe it can happen again. That's the main task, I think, of this film to make you feel America's going through a terribly hard time right now. It looks like we can't get things done. It looks like people cannot come together. It looks really scary. And we've done it before, we can do it again. And that's what we have to believe. And I think this film gives you that optimism. Right. I'll ask Robert Jay, as Doris suggests, we're in a time of upheaval once again, just as we were in 1964. What do you hope people derive from this film? Well, I mean, I think Doris has put her finger on it. It's inspiring in the lesson of achievement is hard won. Achievement comes with costs. Achievement requires effort. You don't always get everything you want. You don't get always everything you want when you want it. But you never get it if you don't reach for it, if you don't aspire, if you don't try. And I think the movie is very inspiring in that way in giving us, as LBJ would say, a look at all of these people. It's an extraordinary collection of leadership, really, when you look at the breadth and depth of the men and women who are fighting at this time for social progress, for social justice. And it's a, as LBJ would say, it's a barks off look at these people. And I think we're all the much better for it. So that's my hope, is that people come away thinking, well, we did that once. It is doable, and that's how it's doable. That's how it's doable. Yeah, yeah. What's your hope, Jay? You know, I'm tempted, first of all, to yield all my time back to Doros. But I'll take a shot, because I love hearing you talk. I just can't tell you this. But, you know, it's partly related to everything that you said, Doros, is that in a time where it seems to be the way to get attention as a politician is to demonize politicians, demonize government, delegitimize government, look at government as not the solution. When, you know, I mean, I talk about LBJ's specific Texan, my parents were from Texas, from Amorello, and the idea of... Amorello! I grew up in Albuquerque, but I have relatives in San Angelo and Houston, and I spent all my summers in Texas, and I know Texas, but I kind of wish I lived here, but I didn't grow up here. However, I do know that the spirit of being a kind of rancher stock is that you cooperate with your neighbors, your well-being is only as good as your neighbor's, and that's what you do. You're only as good as your neighbor's well-being, and if you need a road, you team up and you do it. If a guy's barn burns down, you go and help him fix it, and LBJ went into government knowing from that sense of the land, it was why it was so great that you took me to the ranch, is that I knew that the connection to the ground, to the idea of making life, a life in a place that wasn't easy, required cooperation and compromise and sometimes fierce determination, but it was about teaming up to do things great for the quality of life, and now it's about when it all costs, government is not the solution, it's the problem, and until we re-legitimize our own government, our own commitment to cooperation, how, if we elect people who go into government right away seeking to abolish most of government or to make it dysfunctional, how do we not see that as fulfilling the prophecy of, yeah, government doesn't work when you keep electing people who don't believe in government? So why not, why not go, you know, isn't LBJ, isn't LBJ looking back and saying, oh right, this is what it was like when people had experience in government who cared about it, like our founding fathers all did, who were willing to put everything into improving the quality of life of Americans, and eliminating suffering for many more Americans as the civil rights act did, so that's, I just hope the film becomes part of that conversation of can't government, good government, yeah, too small a government is bad, too big a government is bad, but good government can do amazing things, and LBJ showed us how to do that in those first few years, it was amazing. I wanna just congratulate you again on a stunning accomplishment, and just say what is obvious to everybody in this room if they know your bodies of work, and that is you are masters of your crafts. We are truly honored to have you on this stage, and we thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.