i have to say you had an experience in
your career you've had a lot of
wonderful experiences but
i happen to know that you when selma was
coming out
you had the opportunity to screen this
very beautiful and powerful movie for
president and mrs obama at
the white house and i'm trying to
imagine
um what that must have been like
to go to the white house and and screen
this project
for them and and and it it sounds like
it would have been a very beautiful and
kind of very
memorable evening it was completely
surreal if i'm totally honest because
for so many reasons a
it was doing this film which was about
voting rights
in a situation where we now had a black
president
um but also it was
the the centenary it was a hundred years
since the first time a film had been
screened at the white house
and that film had been birth of a nation
right
the very racist film that became a
recruiting tool for the ku klux klan
and so to be screening selma there
with a black president um under those
circumstances was
was truly surreal but one of the
extremely extraordinary things that that
happened that night
was we we screened the film we had this
dinner
and then we were we were in the white
house and
myself and maybe three three other
people
were invited by barack obama into this
room where the gettysburg address
was in a glass cabinet and he
took us into to look at it and
i kid you not the most incredible thing
happened he started reading it
oh wow and i i i don't know if you've
ever had
a moment like this where you know you're
going about your day it was all
always you know extraordinary to be in
the white house anyway with barack obama
but then suddenly you go i'm literally
in one of the biggest moments of my life
right now yeah
take it in take it in take it in and he
started reading the gettysburg address
and he read
the entire thing
and it was just so mind-blowingly
moving to me to be there to experience
it
um and it was it was one of those
stories that
you know that even as i say to you i
can't believe it quite it happened but
very moving yeah yeah but as you know i
just did this
film with with george clooney uh the
midnight sky
and i told him this story because george
is famously a rack on tour
full of stories and i like okay i'm
gonna i'm gonna wheel out one of my uh
one of my one of my big ones
and i told him this story and he goes oh
yeah barack yeah he did that to me
[Laughter]
the exact same thing the exact same
thing yeah
he read the whole thing yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah my my world
just just sort of creates it
it turns out that this is something
president obama did all the time
it's like a bit
like it's like his little his little
thing he does
yeah yeah no it'd be great so like uh
someone would show up and say uh mr
president i'm just here from
uh directv i'm here to fix the cable
come on in here
come on in we're gonna go to the lincoln
bedroom i'm gonna read you the
gettysburg address
okay i'm all right and then i'll connect
the cable
exactly wow exactly