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Who's Talking to Chris Wallace
Interview With Actor Bryan Cranston; Pink Talks To Chris Wallace. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired February 26, 2023 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:00]
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But, Jim, a really fun carpet tonight.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: I see that. One of the stars from "White Lotus" behind you. Very cool, and very cool interview with Jamie Lee Curtis. I'm a huge fan.
Stephanie Elam, have a great time. Thanks so much.
ELAM: Love her.
ACOSTA: Yes. Absolutely. That's the news. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. "WHO'S TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE?" is up next. Have a great week, everybody.
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Welcome back to WHO'S TALKING. My guests tonight are iconic entertainers, starting with one of the great American actors today. Bryan Cranston opens up about how a kiss changed his career path and the secret behind his best known character, meth-making chemistry teacher, Walter White.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRYAN CRANSTON, ACTOR, "YOUR HONOR": It's never been done in the history of television to have a series' star change character within the course of the series.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: And later, pop star Pink charts her fascinating journey from the biker chick rocker to now a happily married mother of two. And she clears the air about the drama behind one of her most famous songs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: If that had happened, because I watched this video, you would have kicked her ass.
PINK, SINGER: Well, maybe. But -- well.
We have two things in common.
HUGH JACKMAN, ACTOR: Do I get a hint? INA GARTEN, CHEF AND AUTHOR: I find cooking really hard. I find it
really stressful.
WALLACE: Do you feel your life is in danger?
TYLER PERRY, ACTOR: And the love of my mother is what brought me here.
WALLACE: What was the worst investment?
MARK CUBAN, BILLIONAIRE ENTREPRENEUR: There is a long list of really bad ones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON PAUL, ACTOR, "BREAKING BAD": This is art, Mr. White.
CRANSTON: Actually, it's just basic chemistry.
WALLACE (voice-over): There is nothing basic about Bryan Cranston.
CRANSTON: I am the danger.
WALLACE: He intrigued us as Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned drug dealer in "Breaking Bad," winning Emmy after Emmy after Emmy.
CRANSTON: The prosecution's case is closed.
WALLACE: Now he is tackling another riveting character in "Your Honor."
CRANSTON: I don't want to be this person.
WALLACE: But who is Bryan Cranston the person? We're about to dig into his life and his career. Stretching from TV to Broadway, and drama to comedy.
CRANSTON: Do something.
WALLACE: And the unlikely way he got into acting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Bryan Cranston, welcome. Great to talk with you again. Thank you for doing this.
CRANSTON: Thank you, Chris. Good to be here.
WALLACE: You are on the air right now in season two of the Showtime series "Your Honor." For those folks who haven't watched it, explain the premise of this show.
CRANSTON: My character Michael Desiato plays a very righteous man, a very good person.
WALLACE: A judge.
CRANSTON: A judge. His son gets involved in a car accident and panics and leaves the scene, therefore becoming a criminal because it's against the law. So the boy who he hit on a motorcycle passes away.
WALLACE: And we should point out one more thing, which is the boy who he hits who passes away is the son of the mob boss of the city.
CRANSTON: Yes. That little wrinkle is what creates the problem in the first season that I truly felt that if I allowed my son to go through the system, that that man would kill my son.
WALLACE: Well --
CRANSTON: And so I --
WALLACE: That tees it up perfectly.
CRANSTON: OK.
WALLACE: So here you are, to catch people up in season one, a judge who is committing all kinds of crimes to protect your son and pushing him hard to go along. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTER DOOHAN, ACTOR, "YOUR HONOR": Do you know what day it is tomorrow?
CRANSTON: Yes. It's Saturday.
DOOHAN: Yes, Saturday. And life will go on and Saturday will be Saturday, except that they are burying Rocco Baxter, Dad. Should I just pretend that isn't happening?
CRANSTON: Yes. Yes. That's what you do. You have to move on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Which raises the central question, which is how far would you go to protect your son or whatever it is that you love. So, Bryan, how far would you go?
CRANSTON: Well, I would lay down my life to protect my child. And I think any loving parent would say that. It's not an easy thing to say. But --
WALLACE: Would you commit crimes? I mean, it's one thing to say, you know, I'd step in front of him. But would you do the kinds of immoral, illegal things that your character does?
CRANSTON: If I truly believed that by doing so would save the life of my child, yes, I would.
WALLACE: This was originally supposed to be a limited series, one season. So why did you come back for season two? CRANSTON: What I was intrigued about the second season is the first
season a man loses his principles, loses his soul. The second season is about, is that person a throw-away?
[19:05:01]
Is he now forgotten? Or is there redemption possible in his future? I think I wanted to explore that. Our society feels coarser now, harder, less empathetic. And I wanted to explore an avenue of the area of human -- the human experience where we embrace the power and the goodness of forgiveness. And it's not a weakness. It is actually a strength of character.
WALLACE: You know, it's so interesting you say that because, you know, I think of people who have been on the wrong side of Me Too or various other things. And they're cast out of society.
CRANSTON: Yes.
WALLACE: And, you know, obviously, there are some people who should utterly be cast out of society and should be in prison. It seems like we're awfully quick to say capital punishment. It's over. You're irredeemable. Don't ever come back.
CRANSTON: I think in our greater business, you know, people who misbehave have gone by the wayside and have lost their careers. Should everyone lose their career? No, no. It's an individual by individual basis. And I believe that if someone truly has contrition, doesn't blame anybody, and does work on themselves personally, within time, society might allow that person to come back in. And I think that's the right thing.
WALLACE: I think it's fair to say that you are widely considered to be one of the great American actors today. You have won six Emmys, two Tonys, a number of iconic roles which we're going to get to. How do you feel when people say that?
CRANSTON: Slightly embarrassed about that because I feel that I have been very fortunate in the pathway that found me, and when people say, for example, no one could have done Walter White on "Breaking Bad" like you did, and I thought, oh, yes, they could. I know I could count on my hands how many people I know personally who could have done it. Obviously it would have been different. But I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
WALLACE: You did a lot of things as a young man from security guard to farm hand, killing chickens. And I understand it could not have been more random how you ended up taking an acting class in junior college.
CRANSTON: Our family had splintered. I didn't -- my father was out of the picture. I didn't see him since I was 11 years old. And now I'm graduated from high school, and I really don't know my pathway. So I went to this junior college to then transfer to UCLA to continue as a police science major. But in order to do that, I had to take some electives. So I saw acting, oh, acting, that's fun. I went to this acting class, and an overworked, underpaid teacher said
you two read this, you two read this and you two read this. And I happened to be standing next to a really pretty girl by luck. And we got this scene. I'm reading this scene with her. And the first sentence of the scene says, a couple is making out on a park bench. And I thought, oh, no. And we did the scene. She was absolutely into it completely. She was kissing me and kissing me and hands and tongue.
And it was like, I'm 19 years old. This was my job in this class. My head starts to explode at the break. I asked her for her number so we can go out to lunch. And she said, oh, no. I have a boyfriend.
WALLACE: I was acting.
CRANSTON: And walked away. And yes. So not only was my head spinning from the experience of kissing this pretty girl, my assignment in that class, but now she is telling me that she wasn't into me at all. She was -- oh my god, now what's this world to me. And so I thought I don't know what I want to do, but this is really attractive. And if I am going to go down that path, I better become really good at it.
WALLACE: The first time I remember having seen you was on "Seinfeld" when you played the sketchy dentist Tim Whatley.
CRANSTON: I beg your pardon, sketchy dentist?
WALLACE: Well --
CRANSTON: I was a professional.
WALLACE: Wait a minute. Take a look because this was the scene I remember.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRANSTON: Sheryl, would you ready the nitrous oxide, please?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: If you're not taking a hit of the nitrous oxide isn't a little sketchy. The question I have is, I understand that that bit was not in the script.
[19:10:01]
CRANSTON: It was not in the script. And I didn't think of it. We had rehearsed that scene.
WALLACE: Right.
CRANSTON: And then I wanted to stay on my set to get used to the stool where the tools were and things just to get comfortable in that dental office. And I hear, hey, you know what would be funny? And I look around, and there is a guy on a ladder adjusting a lamp. And I go, no, a guy on a ladder adjusting a lamp, what would be funny? He said if you took a hit of the nitrous oxide first before you give it to Jerry. And I thought that's brilliant.
What you saw there in the clip is like take number 22 or 23 because when I first did it, Jerry fell over laughing. And then Larry loved the bit, and he said, Jerry, stop laughing, Jerry, Jerry, stop laughing, stop laughing. And Jerry had to stop laughing.
WALLACE: Well, what did Jerry do? What did he say? Because I understand you do good impressions of both of them.
CRANSTON: I don't want to stop laughing. It's very funny.
WALLACE: So the next time I remember seeing you was as Hal, the hapless dad on "Malcolm in the Middle," and this scene captures exactly who Hal was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRANSTON: Who wants to make five bucks? I need someone to take the fall.
JANE KACZMAREK, ACTRESS, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE": Oh, my god.
FRANKI MUNIZ, ACTOR, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE": What did you do?
CRANSTON: I can't tell you. Yes or no, no questions asked.
KACZMAREK: Oh, my god.
MUNIZ: Make it 10.
CRANSTON: Done.
KACZMAREK: Oh, my god.
CRANSTON: You're a good son. I got it, honey. I got it, don't worry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: I'm glad you enjoyed your own work there. It is so Hal. I mean, I'm paying off my kids to take the rap for something that I did to my wife. Is it true that the writers on the show used to try to come up with ever more humiliating stunts for you to do, and in fact made a game of it called "What Won't Bryan Do?"
CRANSTON: That's what I was told. Yes. That they had that list -- they had a list on the board there of the crazy things. And --
WALLACE: Such as?
CRANSTON: Well, you know, I had, I don't know, 25,000, 30,000 bees on me I wore in one episode, honeybees. That it was felt like a chain mail. It was so heavy. And so it was amazing. And I did that. And then I was naked and covered in blue paint completely.
WALLACE: That's not so bad.
CRANSTON: It's not so bad. You've done that before.
WALLACE: I mean --
CRANSTON: Strapped to the front of a moving bus in the city. I mean, roller skating, you know, I just didn't do whatever because as an actor, you're looking for opportunities to step into someone else's shoes and experiences.
WALLACE: When he we come back, we dig into Bryan Cranston's most famous role, "Breaking Bad's" Walter White. And we explore the silly side of this Emmy Award-winning dramatic actor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: And what's the stupidest piece of fruit you've stuffed down your pants?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:17:03]
WALLACE: In 2008, Bryan Cranston took on the role of a lifetime, Walter White, a chemistry teacher turned meth maker in the hit series "Breaking Bad." He earned three back-to-back-to-back Emmys for his performance, thanks in part to iconic scenes like this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: This is art, Mr. White.
CRANSTON: Actually, it's just basic chemistry, but thank you, Jesse. I'm glad it's acceptable.
PAUL: Acceptable? You're the goddamn Iron Chef. Every jibhead from here to Timbuktu is going to want a taste. Now I've got to try this.
CRANSTON: No, no. No, we only sell it. We don't use it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: What was the key to creating Walter White?
CRANSTON: In every character that I take on, my goal is to find the emotional core of a character. I couldn't find his. And then I realized it was calloused over. He is forgotten. He was a forgotten man. He is filled with regrets and missed opportunities. And he -- I wanted to have him look at the beginning of that. He blended into the walls. He became invisible to society and to himself until he found something that he did really well. And unfortunately it was illegal. And -- but he allowed his ego to be infused by that power, and it got the better of him.
WALLACE: As the show went on, and you won three straight Emmys, the first person to do it, maybe the only one since Bill Cosby, you transformed in the words of the series creator Vince Gilligan, I love this, from Mr. Chips, because you were a chemistry teacher, to "Scarface." Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRANSTON: You clearly don't know who you're talking to. So let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skylar. I am the danger. A guy opens his store and gets shot, you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: That's pretty different from the beginning. Why do you think this became such an iconic series?
CRANSTON: I think people related to this guy. They empathized with him, to have a man who is trying to really instill enthusiasm in his science to nothing but a sea of apathy with his students to having to have a second job for his special needs son's care. So the teaching profession, the health care system, these were all a part of it. And you felt for him. And he's got terminal cancer. This poor son of a gun it's like, oh, and then -- and that was all by design.
[19:20:00]
Create the empathy, and then everybody was signed on and rooting for him. But then he does something illegal? Well, I'll give him a pass. And something a little brutal, a little more, a little more. And Vince Gilligan wanted to see how long he can go and how far he can go away from that initial man and still keep the allegiance from the audience. So it was a real test, and it's never been done in the history of television to have a series' star change character within the course of the series. And so I was blown away by that prospect and wanted to be a part of it.
WALLACE: And then there is your most recent Broadway appearance as Howard Beale, the anchorman turned mad prophet in "Network." And what strikes me, is based on a movie that came out in 1976, its message about politics and media and corporate greed stands up pretty well today, doesn't it?
CRANSTON: We thought it did, yes. What I didn't realize when I was a young boy growing up watching your father, watching, I didn't know that there were decisions made by producers to say, well, let's go with these four stories now. And we'll lead with this one. And I just thought it was just presented. And so once you realize, oh, there are human beings behind all these decisions about what to say and what not to say, you realize, oh, it can be altered.
It can be biased. It could be anything. And that's what we realize is that it's a business. It's really a business. And it's hard to carve in and find out who is speaking the truth to you. It's really difficult.
WALLACE: And the choices that are made by the people on the air and the people behind the scenes can affect what the audience sees and how they receive it?
CRANSTON: Yes, very much so.
WALLACE: And what they end up thinking.
CRANSTON: Right. So now we have opinion shows that are massed under the umbrella heading of news. And it's like, wait a minute, is that really news or this is this person's point of view? And it gets muddy. And it crosses over. And it confuses people. And in a way that I think people want it to be confusing.
WALLACE: The people behind the scenes?
CRANSTON: Yes.
WALLACE: You got into a tussle recently with Bill Maher.
CRANSTON: I did.
WALLACE: About critical race theory and wokeness. When you look at the political discourse in our country today and the role that media plays in it, what do you think?
CRANSTON: It's difficult to try to find truly unbiased reporting, news that really is straight shooters. You know, this conversation I had with Bill, we're talking about critical race theory. And I think it's imperative that it's taught, that we look at our history much the same I think that Germany has looked at their history involvement in the wars, one and two, and embrace it and say this is where we went wrong. This is how it went wrong.
When I see the Make America Great Again, my comment is, do you accept that that could possibly be construed as a racist remark? And most people, a lot of people go, how could that be racist? Make America great again? I said so just ask yourself from an African-American experience, when was it ever great in America for the African- American? When was it great? So if you're making it great again, it's not including them.
WALLACE: To end this on a different note, for all of the serious talk, your co-stars on "Breaking Bad" say that you are a child trapped in a man's body, and that they've never known anyone who found it so amusing to stuff fruit down his pants.
CRANSTON: That's -- you know, that kind of rumor is what makes me smile.
WALLACE: Rumor or fact?
CRANSTON: You know, there can be some fact to some of these things. You know, as someone who comes on a set and I lead a cast, whether it's on Broadway or the movie or whatever, I want to -- I want to protect and have fun with my cast and crew. And sometimes in the 16th hour, everybody is dragging, and it's like I think we need a little perk. And so I'll do something silly or even borderline stupid in order to just make everybody wake up and laugh and finish the work before we all go home.
[19:25:11]
WALLACE: And what's the stupidest piece of fruit you stuffed down your pants?
CRANSTON: Well, I don't know if you can call it stupid but, you know, blueberries, perhaps, because they keep falling down. They don't stay.
WALLACE: Coming up, we hit the stage with pop star Pink, who gets emotional talking about her newest song and sets the record straight about the reported drama between her and Christina Aguilera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: So did she really want to throw down with you?
PINK, SINGER: She did. She was upset that I was sitting in her chair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): Pop star Pink has kept the party going for more than 20 years. An international sensation who's sold more than 60 million albums.
[19:30:04]
Now, she is raising a glass to a new studio album.
But it's not all dancing and rocking out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Your latest album is out.
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: And before we get to the music, I want to get to the title, "Trustfall." What does that mean?
PINK: Do you know what a trust fall is?
WALLACE: No.
PINK: A trust fall is when you fall backwards, and people are supposed to catch you.
WALLACE: Oh, yes.
PINK: It's like a team building exercise.
WALLACE: Yes, yes. PINK: But to me, it means, in order to get out of bed in the morning
right now, it feels like it requires a lot of trust in the universe and trust in yourself and trust in those around you and to drop your kids off at school and participate in elections and love vulnerably, it just requires a lot.
And a lot of people feel like they're falling backwards and we don't know where the ground is and that is a really unsettling feeling. And so it begs the questions: What do you fall -- what do you jump for? What do you fall for? Who is supposed to catch you? Do you catch yourself?
So, all of these questions running through my head as I'm making this album, it felt like once I had a completed body of work that that made sense. It encapsulates how I feel right now.
WALLACE: The first track on the new album is called "When I Get There" and it's a tribute, complete with home videos to your dad, Jim, who you lost to cancer two years ago.
Let's take a look at a clip from that.
(Clip from "When I Get There.")
PINK: Don't make me cry --
WALLACE: Well, actually, when I thought we were going to play that clip, I thought this could get emotional real quickly.
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: But you say who you are is --
PINK: I know how to make myself not cry from years of crying during makeup.
WALLACE: Okay, don't cry.
PINK: You just do that and then you breathe normally.
WALLACE: So you say who you are is because of him. What do you mean?
PINK: I think, in a lot of ways that in most ways that's true. It's the nature versus nurture. Right?
I definitely came out with a lot of this, but he was a fighter. His nickname was Mr. Cause. He was a letter writer.
We were marching on Washington when I was three years old. I wasn't so much think -- I was carried on someone's shoulders, but I still feel like I was marching.
And his favorite saying was "To thine own self be true." And he said, "Honey, sometimes you're going to have to stand on that mountain alone, and if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." And this is this -- this is the way that I was raised. We did carwashes to raise money for the homeless on weekends. Every
Thanksgiving meal was serving the homeless and women and children from shelters and you really grow up with a sense of service and camaraderie and watching grown men hug and cry.
It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to witness as a child.
WALLACE: I want to ask you -- because you've got this album and you're going to go on tour this summer starting in July, this Summer Carnival Tour in the United States, but you're also a huge draw, which I didn't realize and in Britain and Australia.
(Clip from "Pink: All I Know So Far.")
WALLACE: Explain to us mortals. What is it like when you're that? When walk out on a stage and there are 50,000 screaming adoring fans, what does that like?
PINK: It's amazing. It's amazing, but it's an authentic -- like I feel like it's group therapy. We're having this amazing experience together. Music is an experience. Lyrics, you experience them in a sensory way. It's a memory. It's a song you might have shared with your parent or your child or your best friend or music can --
[19:35:07]
PINK: I mean, if you put on Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Night," I'm in my living room with my dad. I'm a certain age and I feel loved and safe. Songs do that.
And so in a concert experience for us, for us, fifty thousand and one, it's beautiful.
WALLACE: So when you were 15, you'd been expelled from school, you had been kicked out of your own home.
PINK: Well, I dropped out, I like to think that was more of a choice.
WALLACE: Okay, but you were no longer living in your home with your mom and dad.
PINK: Yes, this is true. Yes.
WALLACE: You were doing drugs. You were in a punk rock band. Were you just always a badass?
PINK: I mean, I had a lot of nicknames back then. I was always a person that questioned authority, and the issue I had in school was, I had a lot of questions. I would look at a person and say, "Well, you don't seem very happy, so why should I take your advice?" And also, "I don't really think I should be here. I think I should be somewhere else." "I feel like I signed up for something else."
I mean, I told my kindergarten teacher, "I don't need to learn math. I'm going to have an accountant." It was like, I was tough. I'm still tough, but I'm funny. WALLACE: How do you explain the fact that you're now 43. You're
happily married. You have two wonderful children. You're a reasonably responsible member of society. How did that happen?
PINK: I think I'm one of the most responsible people I know. I shake my head sometimes. How did that happen? I mean, the pendulum swings, and if you would have seen my room at Willow's age, 11 or 12, you would think that something really bad happened in there. And now like, my favorite activity is vacuuming.
I don't know. We just -- we go through phases in our life and then we become the culmination of all of it, but I like me. I like who I've become and I like that I had those experiences along the way, too.
WALLACE: So I want to ask you about a thing, but hear me out here, okay.
PINK: Okay.
WALLACE: Okay? I think you know where I'm headed.
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: The first song that I identify you with, not to a lot of your fans, but then I identify your when is it "Lady Marmalade."
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: In 2001, you signed with Christina Aguilera and Maya and Lil Kim.
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: Let's take a look.
PINK: And Missy Elliott.
(Clip from "Lady Marmalade.")
WALLACE: I read that, at one point, Christina wanted to have a fight with you.
PINK: She did.
WALLACE: As to who was going to sing which part of the song. If that had happened, because I watched this video, you would have kicked her ass?
PINK: Well, maybe. But well, our personalities just didn't -- you know, not everybody is supposed to like each other, and that's okay. And back then, our personalities did not mix at all and that was okay.
And then we hugged it out, kissed it out, and we have many times since.
WALLACE: So did she really want to throw down with you? PINK: She was upset that I was sitting in her chair, and so was going
to shut down the entire production and I didn't know I was sitting in her chair. And I'm also -- I've been -- I was homeless at 15. Like, you can't talk to me any kind of way.
And so, I've -- you know, you picked the wrong one. But that's over, it is over.
WALLACE: I understand, but it is a pretty interesting story.
PINK: It is just like -- it is an interesting story, but it probably happens every day in every workplace. People just -- some people don't get along and then they figure it out and they realize what's important and they hug it out and they move on.
WALLACE: You should see me and Wolf Blitzer. It goes on all the time.
PINK: I can imagine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Coming up, Pink is known for aerial acrobatics during her concerts. She explains how she sings upside down and spinning.
And don't miss our duet, which left her a bit surprised.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PINK: You can sing.
WALLACE: Yes, a little bit. This is one of my favorites. I love this one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:43:43]
WALLACE: Pink has always been outspoken in both her lyrics and her life. From "Getting the Party Started" to songs that carry a political point of view. We continue our conversation exploring the message in her music.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Your next big hit was "Get the Party Started." So let's get it started.
PINK: Yes.
(Clip from "Get the Party Started.")
PINK: As you can see, I have not changed very much.
WALLACE: So this oddly enough brings us to Madonna. Is it true that you thought at one point that you were Madonna's child and that your mother had adopted you?
PINK: I had hoped? Yes. Because I was like, "Well, we're so much alike. I've got to be related to you."
WALLACE: Really?
PINK: I was -- yes, but okay, I love my mom. I love you, Judy. Yes, I mean, Madonna when we were -- when I was a little girl, she was just oh, "Desperately Seeking Susan" and "Who's that Girl." Come on, she was amazing.
WALLACE: So how far did you carry your thought that maybe Madonna was your real birth mother?
[19:45:07]
PINK: I just -- not very far.
WALLACE: Just --
PINK: Because I was like, "Dad, did you ever meet Madonna? Because I'm definitely yours."
WALLACE: You performed a couple of years later at the Grammys. And you didn't just sing.
PINK: No.
(Clip from The Recording Academy/CBS.)
WALLACE: So I had never seen this before, and I had a couple of thoughts. First of all, I thought, when did Pink become a circus performer? I mean, why did you decide to incorporate aerial acrobatics into your performance?
PINK: I was a gymnast. That was my first dream. I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. And I -- once you're -- you start gymnastics at four and you do it five days a week for eight years. It's in you.
And so, I, then became a singer and many, many, many years later, I'm in a Cher concert in Vegas and I'm watching these dancers behind her and I'm going, "Why do they get to have all the fun? Why haven't singers done this? I can do this."
I was an asthmatic, really bad asthmatic kid, so I had to do diaphragm training from very early on, which in turn was what I would have needed to do to learn how to sing upside down.
WALLACE: And how hard is it to sing and to sing great when you're hanging upside down and you're spinning through the air?
PINK: I'll let you know if I ever sound great.
WALLACE: No, you sound great.
PINK: No, you know, you train for it. But also, it was like, it forced me to take my craft very, very, very seriously. Rock and roll is you know, I see some artists out there with a bottle of wine or some whiskey on stage and is just sweaty and amazing and unpredictable, and for me, it's a sport and I take it very seriously and I work really hard at it.
And I'm always trying to top myself because it makes people happy. It makes me happy. When I fly around through the air, there is -- it's just -- it is wonderful. And when you can go in four seconds from the stage to the back of the stadium and be right over that wheelchair section and waving at people with tears coming down their face, it is just -- you can't imagine it. You should do it. You should come on. I'll put you in the harness. You're going to love it.
WALLACE: Yes. Okay. Well, you know, you are coming to Washington this summer for the tour.
PINK: Yes. I'll meet you there.
WALLACE: So I want to come anyway, but I don't know that I'm going in a harness and flying around National Mall.
PINK: My daughter has done it.
WALLACE: Yes. I mean, your daughter is braver than I am. She's also not my age.
And then there is my all-time favorite Pink song.
PINK: Oh, my God.
WALLACE: Here it is.
PINK: I didn't know.
(Clip from "Raise Your Glass.")
WALLACE: All right, you were saying, "Let's sing."
PINK: Let's sing.
WALLACE: Can't stop coming in hot.
PINK: I should be locked up right on the spot.
It's so on right now.
WALLACE: It's so on right now.
PINK: You could sing.
WALLACE: Yes, a little bit. Not upside down and spinning.
PINK: What's your favorite song to sing?
WALLACE: Well, this is one of my favorites. I love this song. But the thing about that song, it's so raw and it's so real. I mean, you're talking to me.
PINK: Oh, I love that. That makes me so happy. Yes, I think we should all celebrate ourselves more.
WALLACE: I want to talk about a different side of you. You mentioned it before, asthma. You have a real history of asthma and you're doing an ad campaign now for people who have risk factors to take COVID more seriously.
So when you got COVID as you did, with your history of asthma, how serious was it?
PINK: I was using a nebulizer for the first time in 30 years. It was very scary. And in hindsight, looking back, my son was actually the sickest.
When your kid is projectile vomiting and screaming and covered in a rash and telling you, they can't breathe, it is the scariest thing. I mean, any parent knows when your child is sick, it is dunzo. Game over is how it feels.
WALLACE: Right. So in doing that ad, and it is part of a drug company, but I mean, what's the real message you're trying to get out of here?
PINK: The real message is it's not about the politics, it is about -- I'm also not telling you to get the jab or anything else. I'm saying have a plan. Just take care of yourselves. Have a plan. Talk to your doctor.
WALLACE: You are outspoken.
PINK: I am.
[19:50:00]
WALLACE: About politics and one of the big issues is abortion and I want to play a clip from one of your songs "Irrelevant" that you dropped shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
PINK: Okay.
(Clip from "Irrelevant.")
WALLACE: Is it true that you've gotten death threats over some of your political views?
PINK: Oh, absolutely.
WALLACE: Really?
PINK: Many. Every day.
WALLACE: Because --
PINK: Almost.
WALLACE: -- you espouse a woman's right to choose?
PINK: Yes. Many, for many reasons. That's a big one. Yes.
WALLACE: And how seriously do you have to take it?
PINK: Well, I mean, in this day and age, pretty seriously. I think that for the most part people are -- I call them keyboard warriors. You know, there are a lot of people that will say a lot of things online that they would never say, in person.
WALLACE: It is so funny you say that. I call it the courage of the keyboard.
PINK: Yes.
WALLACE: You know, that somebody will say you --
PINK: My daughter asked me, "Mama, why do you do this?" Because we do have security at our house. And I said, "What do I do what?" She said, "Why do you fight?" And I said, because it's in me, because I have a responsibility. I have a platform, because I care, because I feel in my whole body that you have a responsibility to help people that don't have the voice that you have.
And if it were me, I would want that help and people have helped us like you see the suffragettes in that video, they helped us, so we have to help the next generation.
WALLACE: You talk about the next generation, you talk about family, you have two beautiful children.
PINK: They're the best kids that were ever made.
WALLACE: Except for mine, but anyway --
PINK: Except for you.
WALLACE: Willow and Jameson, and I wonder because you say that when you were a kid, you were the kid that no parents wanted in their house with their kids because you were the one who was always in trouble.
So my question is, what kind of a parent are you? And what boundaries do you set for Willow and Jameson?
PINK: That is a daily question I have for myself. I am a tough parent. I am -- I was raised again by a military family. I'm also the goofiest parent. So both things are true at the same time.
We roller skate in the house. We cook dinner together every night. My daughter and I have incredibly deep conversations about life. I expect them to practice gratitude and be grateful and have manners and take their plates to the sink and make their bed and look people in the eyes when they're spoken to.
Yes, I'm tough cop. I have a high bar for myself and for others, but I'm also the most loving, cuddly, needy, goofy person in the world, I think. I mean we have a great relationship and I'm grateful for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Up next, two of our guests have something in common with Homer Simpson.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:36]
WALLACE: Finally, tonight, we talked to a lot of successful people on this show and now, we have the proof.
"Forbes" recently released its list of the world's 10 highest paid entertainers of 2022. And two of our guests, Tyler Perry and James Cameron are on it, along with several musicians and the guys who created "The Simpsons."
Perry is the only billionaire on the list, in part because of his 300- acre production studio in Atlanta, which we talked about last fall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Let me get this right, 12 soundstages, 15 sets, including a pretty good version of the White House. You also own all of your movies and TV shows and I wonder, how do you explain it? How do you explain that you were able to put all this together?
TYLER PERRY, ACTOR AND DIRECTOR: You know a lot of that comes from just growing up. My father was a subcontractor and I'd watch him build houses and come home because so happy because he had made $800.00, but then I watch the man who owned the house sell for $80,000.00, and I always wanted to be the guy who owned the house.
So I think that because of the work ethic, because of how much I was touring, the audience behind me, the support they gave me building that whole base and foundation and just that nucleus of ownership led me to this place.
This is far more than I ever could have imagined my life being and I'm grateful for it. But it was those common denominators that led to this. I wouldn't sell anything, I had to own it all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Then there's James Cameron, thanks to his "Avatar" sequel, which has now grossed more than $2 billion. That success will allow him to finish his "Avatar" saga, and I recently tried to get him to give us a sneak peek.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: You say that three is basically shot. You haven't done all the CGI work, but it's basically shot. Do you know, in your head, do you know the entire "Avatar" story? Do you know the last scene? Do you know the last -- JAMES CAMERON, FILMMAKER: Oh, yes. It's all been --
WALLACE: The last --
CAMERON: It was all the scripts for two, three, four, and five were all finished over five years ago.
So, it's all mapped out. It's kind of like having a set of four novels to adapt if you want to think of it that way, but they're actually shooting scripts. So it's really just, you know, the painstaking and time consuming process of actually going through the production.
WALLACE: You want to tell us what the last line in the last movie is?
CAMERON: Let's see if I can remember it. No, of course not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: There is so much more of our conversations with both Tyler Perry and James Cameron, as well as our sit-downs with Bryan Cranston and Pink. You can catch the full interviews anytime you want on HBO Max.
And join us next Sunday night here on CNN when my guests our Hall of Fame College Basketball Coach, Mike Krzyzewski and legendary composer, John Williams.
Thank you for watching and goodnight.
[20:00:00]
