Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour & Co.

Here's what s coming up.

He's going to sell this to Ukraine.

He's going to sell Ukraine to Russia.

That s what he s - that s what a dealmaker does.

President Trump standing by Special Envoy Steve Whitcock amidst reports that he coached a close Putin aide on getting a Ukraine deal.

Is Kiev about to be sold out?

We'll ask the former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba.

Then, the 2500 year old play that's tearing up Broadway today.

I speak with Oedipus stars Mark Strong and Leslie Manville about their thrilling new production of a Sophocles classic, as fresh as today's headlines.

Walter Isaacson speaks with Country Music Hall of Famer Kenny Chesney about his best-selling memoir, Part Life Music.

(upbeat music) Amanpour & Co.

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Thank you.

Welcome to the program, everyone.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Since when has ending a war seeking peace been so controversial?

Well, the Trump administration's latest foray there is a prime example.

Delegations from Kiev, Washington and Europe meet to overhaul the Trump peace plan, which critics say sounded chapter and verse like Putin's permanent wish list.

Adding fuel to the firestorm of protest, a leaked transcript released by Bloomberg of a phone call between US Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff and Putin's main peace negotiator, especially coaching the Russian leader on how to get the most out of Trump.

But the US president has waived off any concerns while still using Kremlin-esque talking points.

Take a listen.

The way it's going, if you look, it's just moving in one direction.

So eventually this land that over the next couple of months might be gotten by Russia anyway.

So do you want to fight and lose another 50,000, 60,000 people?

Or do you want to do something now?

Of course, it was Trump's refusal to allow Congress to pass U.S.

military aid to Ukraine that hurt a lot throughout 2024.

Though that bill eventually did pass, now his envoy was entertaining Russia's maximalist demands that any final plan must block NATO membership of Ukraine, reduce the size of its armed forces, and hand over all of the Donbass to Russia, including territory that Russia doesn't even control.

Trump says Witkoff will travel to Moscow for more of these negotiations next week.

Meanwhile, civilian casualties in Ukraine spike as Russia intensifies its attacks on energy infrastructure and other areas.

For more on this, let us now bring in Dmytro Kuleba, who was Ukraine's foreign minister until last year.

So let me just ask you point blank.

First, welcome to the program.

Do you feel that the current setup is a recipe for selling Ukraine down the river, selling out Ukraine?

Well, I don't really see how this latest effort differs from what we saw in February-March this year or following the summit in Alaska.

So, there is kind of a deja vu effect where things just repeat themselves from time to time in the course of the year.

And they failed before.

I believe this is going to fail as well.

The problem is different.

The problem is how can we change the way President Trump and his team handles this war.

That is fundamental.

But whether Ukraine can or cannot be sold out will not be decided neither in Moscow nor in Washington.

It will be decided in Ukraine and in the European Union because as long as we as a Europe hold our line, none of them, none of other leaders will be able to sell this out.

You know, let me just play then, since you bring up the European Union and of course we know that over this past weekend they were enraged and all gathered to try to pull this so-called Trump peace plan, 28-point plan, back to some kind of acceptable, reasonable negotiating framework.

This is what President Macron has said.

Take a listen.

We are clearly at a crucial juncture.

Negotiations are getting a new impetus and we should size this momentum, not because there is reason for alarm, Ukraine is solid, Russia is slow and Europe is steadfast, but because there is finally a chance to make real progress towards a good peace.

OK, Foreign Minister, I think the two points he makes are very interesting.

So he says Europe is steadfast and there's finally a chance to make progress towards a good peace.

I want to ask you to react to that bit of what Macron said first.

Well, I think it is important to look into November 2026 now and realize one fact, that if things remain as they are, in November 2026 Ukraine is going to lose more territories, more people, our economy will be devastated even more, but we will not get a better deal than the one that is being on the table.

So, my point is that it is not enough to be steadfast.

Europe has to act faster.

Europe has to be more efficient when it comes to the production of weapons, seizing Russian frozen assets, unblocking accession talks for Ukraine.

All of these things are in the hands of Europe.

If Europe wants to be respected and heard, it has to act.

And the other thing he said was, we should seize the momentum not because there is reason for alarm.

Ukraine is solid, Russia is slow.

Your analysis of that statement?

As I said, Russia is slow, Ukraine is solid, but Russia is still making progress.

Which means that Ukrainian army is solid enough not to prevent Russian army from spill-overing across Ukraine.

We are strong enough not to allow the collapse of the front line.

We are not strong enough to stop their advancement.

This is why I am making the point that in November 2026, if nothing changes, President Macron will be able to repeat his words, but Russians will be in a far more advanced position compared to where they are now.

And things are not going to improve.

So it's not enough just to be steadfast.

I want to ask you, Foreign Minister, about these leaked transcripts that Bloomberg has published.

And I particularly want to just praise that in one of them, Steve Whitkoff, the President's Special Envoy, is talking to Yuri Ushakov, President Putin's special aide, in which he appears to be coaching him on how to get Putin to call President Trump and how best to make that call go, apparently, to get the maximalist stuff that the Russians can get out of it.

So, this is another part of the conversation.

I'm going to read it to you.

We've got it on the screen.

So, this is Steve Whitkoff.

He's now saying, "Now, me to you."

In other words, this is Steve Whitkoff talking directly to Yuri Ushakov.

I know what it's going to take to get a peace deal done.

Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere.

But I'm saying instead of talking like that, let's talk more hopefully.

Because I think we're going to get a deal here and I think, Yuri, the President will give me a lot of space and discretion to get the deal.

And here's one more thing.

Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday.

I know that, Yuri Ushakov laughs.

"I will go to that meeting," says Witkoff, "because they want me there.

But I think it's possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting."

Yuri says, "Before?

Before?

Yeah?"

Witkoff says, "Correct."

Now, I don't know what you make of that, but that is the envoy telling Putin's envoy the parameters of the peace.

It's not even the president.

It's the envoy is doing that.

And as we know, there is a sort of feeling abroad that Trump listens to the last person in his ear.

And so apparently the last person he talked to before meeting Zelensky in late October was Putin.

And it was about the tomahawks that the president was floating, selling to Zelensky.

After that meeting and apparently after having a call with Putin, no more tomahawks.

So how do you, is that how you see that?

You're right.

The real compromising part of this conversation is when, is where Stephen Whitcuff suggests to Yuri Ushakov that Putin calls Trump because Zelensky is coming to Washington.

So we should have no illusions.

Of course, the Russian intelligence knew, was aware that Zelensky was coming.

And in a different world of diplomacy, it would have been Russia who had to initiate a call between Putin and Trump.

But they are lucky because they have Stephen Witkow on the other side who actually comes up with his own idea, with exactly the same proposal, in order to effectively make an impact on the way the meeting between Trump and Zelensky would go.

So for me, from the diplomatic experience perspective, this episode just reaffirms how strongly Mr.

Vitkov is trying to help Russia in the effort to end the war and influence the flow of events inside Trump's team.

And it's clearly happening.

I don't know what you make because clearly over this weekend when all of this bust into the open Marco Rubio the Secretary of State flew to Geneva to try to I don't know I guess rescue some semblance of an acceptable peace deal, but here's another leak from a separate call Mr.

Kuleba between Yuri Ushakov who we were talking about and Kirill Dmitriev another very close Putin ally who's also apparently very close to Witkov.

This is Ushakov.

Well we need the maximum don't you think?

What do you think?

Otherwise what's the point of passing anything on?

Dmitriev, no look I think we'll just make this paper from our position and I'll informally pass it along making it clear that it's all informal and I'll let them do like their own but I don't think they'll take exactly our version but at least it'll be as close to it as possible.

So basically they're saying, well what do you make of that?

That 28-point plan is a list of Russian ultimatums blended with American ideas on how to make these ultimatums look better than they actually are.

I don't think it's a revelation to anyone that just copy-pasting Russian ultimatums as it was done once again clearly tells you where all this comes from.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

So if it looks like a Russian ultimatum, then probably it is.

It comes from Russia.

The problem is that it's being spoken about by the US, which are meant to be a) Ukraine's strongest ally and b) honest brokers.

So my question to you is this.

A) Should Whitkoff recuse himself?

And b) Do you still think the US has a semblance of your back?

Clearly we know the problems because they've been displayed for global audiences to see between Trump and Zelensky.

But then things seem to get a little bit more reasonable and now it seems to be going off the tracks again.

As Zelensky said, when all of this was leaked, we have to make a really difficult decision between our dignity and between a strong ally.

He didn't say the US, between the support of a strong ally.

So where do you think that balance is right now?

I think timeline is very important.

And the time when President Zelensky said those words is centuries ago compared to where we are now.

And this leak is a turning point.

Because, you know, it's important to analyze what is in it, but the most important question is this.

So someone is tapping the phones of senior officials, most probably it was Ushakov's phone, because he appears in both conversations while his interlocutors are different.

Anyone from the intelligence service will tell you that if you're tapping someone, you know, stay silent, don't let him know that you're doing that.

So, yesterday, someone, and we don't know who is doing that, but the one who was tapping Ushakov's phone found the situation so consequential that he decided that it's worth exposing the risk, the threat of the situation, is worth exposing the topic.

So the situation is completely different now.

And I think we can bury the 28-point plan because it's discredited, because nothing, it's very hard to imagine how you can actually move on from here now.

Okay, so let me then ask you, I just need, because I've got only a little bit of time left, the National Security Advisor, former Defense Minister Rustam Emerov has also publicly expressed some optimism about reaching a common understanding on the core terms.

Andrei Yermak has said that we have, and used the word solid, security guarantees, I guess from the United States.

Do you think that's true or is that public relations?

Well, they had to radiate optimism, but at the same time it was said that the most difficult parts of the plan were left in brackets for the conversation between Trump and Zelensky.

And there is a rule in diplomacy, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

And as you can imagine, if you do not find agreement on the most controversial points, which I would guess would be about the land, about NATO, and about Ukraine's army, then it gets very, very hard to seriously argue that we made excellent progress.

But it's true that both sides, the US delegation led by Marco Rubio and Ukrainian delegation, they had to send a stabilizing message out after the crisis that erupted a week ago.

And that's what they did.

OK, well, listen, obviously this is still to be worked out and we will have you back and try to figure out what's going on.

Dimitri Kuleba, thank you very much indeed.

Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades is still burning, ripping through a high-rise apartment complex in the northern Tai Po district.

Authorities say at least 36 people have been killed.

Firefighters say scorching temperatures and drifting debris are hindering efforts to reach people inside the apartment.

Footage from the scene shows flames and thick smoke billowing across multiple buildings, latching onto bamboo scaffolding and construction netting that was enveloping the complex.

Residents watched as flames and smoke funneled up from the complex.

The fire left many people homeless and in need of shelter.

Correspondent Ivan Watson is at the scene of the fire and filed this report.

I can see a third ladder from a fire truck now spraying water on this side of the burning towers.

But I think there are more towers actually burning than I can see water hoses spraying on the towers from this side.

I think there are five burning right now.

As you can see, there are dozens and dozens of fire trucks that are on the scene.

But this is a deadly fire and is on track to perhaps be one of the deadliest that Hong Kong has seen in decades.

The most recent death of a firefighter in Hong Kong is a 13-year-old man named Ho Wai Ho.

He was a veteran firefighter with nine years of experience.

The authorities have expressed condolences to his family at his loss.

This is a public housing development that was constructed in 1983.

It's called Wong Fook Court.

It had more than 4,000 residents, nearly 2,000 apartments in there.

And it looks to me as if the towers of the public housing development are burning from the top, from the roof, down to the bottom floors.

And there are no signs of the fires being brought under control.

Now, I don't know from the live image that you're seeing, or perhaps Dan can show you, but there, you can see some of the bamboo scaffolding that sheathes the left side of one of those towers.

There were renovations going on around these towers when the fire broke out.

Hong Kong does its construction traditionally with bamboo scaffolding, which is lighter and I think that many would argue stronger in some respects than steel, than metal scaffolding.

The fire was spread out in a way that may have contributed to the spread of the fire, which the authorities say got an initial alert about a fire just before 3pm local time on a ground floor area that was under renovation.

The fire was spread out in a way that may have contributed to the spread of the fire, which the authorities say got an initial alert about a fire just before 3pm local time on a ground floor area that was under renovation.

The fire department was responding to it.

It seems to have quickly spread to neighboring towers at such a speed that by just two hours later, this fireman had already been declared dead.

The fireman was the leader of one of these fire trucks, an experienced officer.

Many of the residents would have been over 65 years old.

I am hoping, I am praying that people were evacuated in time to not have been caught in this terrible inferno that has climbed up at least four of these towers that I'm looking at right now.

Because even rescue, I think, is impossible to imagine with these types of flames.

And I don't see ladders reaching up into the buildings on this side of the towers.

This would be a deadly fire, the deadliest that I can remember in Hong Kong.

I've lived here for 10 years.

That has grown completely out of control here in Hong Kong's Taipo district.

Next, to a 2,500-year-old play, you may remember Oedipus Rex from your college classics course, but a new production written by Robert Eich and starring Mark Strong and Leslie Manville reimagines this Sophocles tragedy as a contemporary political thriller.

Even if you know the secrets that haunt the passionate marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, the play feels as shocking and fresh as the latest tabloid scandal.

And I sat down with Oedipus stars in New York for an intimate inside view of this new old classic.

Leslie Manville and Mark Strong, welcome to the program.

Thank you.

I say Oedipus, some people say Oedipus.

What is it?

Well, we say Oedipus in the UK, but I think mostly here people say Oedipus.

This is a 2,500 year old play by Sophocles, made for the current moment.

What is it that has brought it down to earth, so to speak?

It's the political angle, right, for this moment?

Well, Rob Ike, who's the writer-director, makes the point that when this play was done, originally 2,500 years ago, it would have been contemporary.

So the idea of modernising it and making it contemporary is not so outlandish.

But what it suits is the political framework that he's put it in, because he makes Oedipus a guy who's about to win a landslide election, which kind of relates to the idea that the original Oedipus probably had a little bit too much hubris.

And then there were references to him having to show his birth certificate, and people reacted to that because of the Obama-Trump sort of thing.

So there are quite a lot of modern-day relevant instances there.

So I want to read something from Vogue, which I thought was really quite good and I want to ask you to comment on it.

So this is about the play.

"They are or were the perfect couple.

They've been together for years.

They have adult children.

Why should a little quirk in the family tree, only just discovered, mean everything has to change?

Does a man really have to separate from his loving, supportive, gorgeous, funny wife just because she happens to be his mother?

I mean, it's put like that.

Well, part of the joy of the play and part of the experience that people have is that there is a very strong love story at its core.

And it works because you want them to be together and they can't help themselves at the end.

One of the things I read that you had said is that you insisted that the audience has to be rooting for this couple to stay together despite everything.

Yes, because of course at the beginning of the play, their knowledge of their own relationship is that they are a 23 year long marriage.

It's a great marriage.

They're not just sugary and cute.

There's a depth to their relationship.

They're a sophisticated, intelligent couple who are very supportive of each other.

She's very politically astute, in the same way that he is.

And she's had a very interesting past.

She's had a troublesome past, which is shared with the audience throughout the play.

So, of course, you know, it's only when you get to the end that you realise that they realise that they're a mother-son relationship.

And I think the audience are thrown into a chaos of their own, because on one hand there's the moralist in you saying, "Well, that's got to stop."

But then other people say, "Well, but they've been doing it for 23 years.

They've made a family."

There is an argument, but of course it's an argument that Oedipus can't live with, because he is a truth-seeking missile.

And that's been the downfall.

And that is actually... I don't know whether that's in the original, it was because of your truth-seeking that you couldn't live with it, but certainly that was a huge... you know, the emblem for this play.

And we live in a world, certainly for me, the idea of the truth is sacrosanct.

And even your, you know, merch says "Truth is a XXXX."

Oh, excuse me, I X-ed the wrong word.

"Truth is a mother XXX."

Yeah, yeah.

I love that.

That says a lot about you.

Do you want to have a drink tonight?

I'll try English coming out.

But in the same way that you're asking the audience to think about how they feel about mother and son having that loving relationship, you're also asking them to think about the audience how they feel about the fact that this man's need and search for the truth actually destroys everything that they have.

Which is another difficult thing, because I mean, I want to keep searching for the truth, but I don't want it to destroy us.

Can we just actually, now that we've talked about it, just go back.

Me, okay, I know about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

Me, I couldn't remember all the details.

It was like, okay, guy kills his father and marries his mother, but it's not like that.

The story unfolds in a way, as you said, that neither of you know who you actually are, and there is a ticking clock, an electronic clock, which is so, it makes you so tense, actually.

The great thing about this play, I think, is the fact that all the action has happened before the play begins.

So all the things that become revelations have already taken place.

He's already, you know, his dad is already sick.

In the original, it's a road rage incident.

The two, he meets his father, unbeknownst to him, it's his father in a cart, and they have an argument, and he kills the guy.

In our version, it's a car accident.

He's still culpable for the problem, but it's just been developed in a slightly different way.

It's still in line with what the original intention was.

And your character, Jocasta, eventually you all start putting it together halfway through the play, the bits of the puzzle, particularly around the car crash.

You know, you were married to Laius.

Yes.

And he was the one who was killed in the car crash.

Yes.

Yes.

She decides to reveal this story, the real back story of her life, her history with Laius.

And then slowly the puzzle of Laius's death, the truth of Laius's death, which makes him, puts him in a very difficult position.

And of course she's panicking because she knows that he is not going to, in the clock ticking, in half an hour's time, make this speech as the new leader.

It's a night of cataclysmic events.

All on the verge of winning an election.

All with the clock ticking that in 24 minutes, 13 minutes, 5 minutes, he's going to be named the new leader.

And he is saying eventually, "I'm not going to make that speech until I know who I am."

And that for her is, you know... And then the final revelation happens and the clock's reached zero.

It's all real time, that's the interesting thing.

So the thing plays over two hours between the polls closing and the results being announced.

But as I said, it's all happened off stage, all the things that become revealed have already happened.

That's the genius of the play.

And the genius I think of the production, certainly as an audience member, is that you actually do know what the story is.

You know because it's a 2,500 year old play by Sotheby's.

Well surprisingly though not everybody does.

I mean I had somebody in the other night who had no idea how it ended.

You hear the odd gasp.

Yeah, but I agree with you.

And yet what I'm saying is I'm still on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen and actually are they going to stay together?

Are they not?

When obviously I know that it's going to come to a very... And that really is the dramatic genius of Rob.

Because of course, you know, you're looking at the clock and you think, "There's so much to find out and there's two and a half minutes left.

So where is this going to go?

How is it?"

I almost don't want to get to where it's going to go, but we will.

I was going to say, it's the way he's structured it, and the drip-feed of information is handled so suavely that as an audience you literally are just pulled forward into your seat and you just want to find out what happens.

And all the time this drip-feed of information is happening, this clock is running down.

So there's half of your brain thinking, "Hang on, there's only a few minutes to go."

I was thinking that.

And there's still, there's more I need to know.

I was thinking that, and I was wondering, how are they going to get there?

Obviously, I mean, you guys have been doing it for how long?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, then we get there.

Well, we've been doing it for months now, haven't we?

Well, we did that.

And in England?

Over a hundred performances in London.

Have you got it down to a tee in terms of the clock or is there any sort of wiggle room at all?

Or do you sometimes think, "Oh my God, I'm a little bit slower"?

Listen, the clock has to adapt to us.

That's all we're going to reveal.

Although, the truth is, the play never varies beyond about a minute.

No.

It's pretty much the same most evenings.

Sometimes, but we never look at the clock and think, "Oh, I better speak quickly."

Because you could not possibly do that when you're dealing with such emotional dialogue.

So, many, many scenes, but the one that was just, I mean, unforgettable, is that when you have both realized what's going on, and then at some point you've been given the announcement that you've won, and you're getting out of your sort of day clothes, and you are getting undressed, and dressed up again, I suppose, to go and give the victory speech, that is an incredible scene.

No words, and you're just... It's incredible.

Is that hard to play, that one?

It's not really because you know that what's marinating at that point is the sum total of everything that everybody's seen during the play.

They've seen them as a family, they've seen them in love, they've seen Oedipus be vicious to her brother-in-law, you know, nasty to the... You were jolly horrible to him.

He's quite nasty in the beginning.

I think there's quite a sort of macho aggression at the beginning, but that's again part of the hubris element that he's sort of almost too high, he's overreaching.

And I love the journey that takes him actually to where he just ends up becoming like a completely helpless.

But it's that moment when we have to get changed is it's brilliant because it allows everybody to just work out in their own minds what's happened, where they're at, how they would behave, what they're feeling, how's he going to make that speech, what's going to happen to them now in their lives, there's so much going on and to just do it in silence for that long is great.

I guess many people, if they haven't read Sophocles, they would have heard of Sigmund Freud and the Oedipus Complex.

What do you think about that and what people might be thinking about that?

Because I think you did say, let me just... You're going to quote me?

Yeah, I'm going to quote you, actually.

Because in the play, you said sarcastically, as Jocasta, "Every man has the 'effing his mother' dream."

Yes, well that is... And then everybody giggled.

That is actually one of the only lines in our version that's taken from Sophocles.

Almost word for word.

Almost word for word.

Yeah, that's the only... How do they say it in Greek?

I don't know.

Don't ask us.

We don't have to believe it.

The interesting thing about that time of psychiatry and everything and the fact that Freud took on the idea of the Oedipus Complex and made it one of the tenets of his psychiatry is it's just a theory, isn't it?

It's just an idea.

Do we believe it?

I mean genuinely, is that a real thing or not?

I'm not so sure.

I wonder whether it wasn't a clever Viennese guy just thinking, "Hey, I'm going to go down that path."

Could have been.

I mean, I'm sure lots of men have had that dream, but it's, as you say, it's a theory.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm a psychiatrist.

Where does this stand for you?

I mean, I'm sure you love all your babies, i.e.

all your performances, your films, theatre.

I'm sure every one of them has incredible meaning because they're all incredible experiences.

But how does this, for both of you, stack up against some of the incredible film work, for instance, that you've done?

Well, for me, funnily enough, I would say my two favourite experiences, the things that I've probably got the most out of, were both plays.

And one was Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge that I did about ten years ago, also on Broadway, and this one.

And the funny thing about that Miller play is it's very Greek.

In the stage directions, it specifies the Greek tragedians.

The two things I've done based on Greek tragedy, I don't know what that means.

Those guys obviously knew when they were writing what they were doing because those are my two favourite experiences.

Film is great but there's nothing quite like a live audience and feeling the vibration and the moment when you hear an audience gasp or you feel that silence and realise that their brains are turning over and they're finding things difficult.

There's nothing quite like it.

And for you?

Yeah, well, I mean, listen, if you're going to say you're going to do 104 performances in London, probably the same number here, you've got to know that it's something you really want to do.

And I never tire of doing Oedipus, and it is, like with Mark, it's absolutely up there for me with a small handful of other plays that I've done.

And that doesn't negate my work with Mike Lee, my work with Paul Thomas Anderson at all.

Great directors.

They're just... It's different.

And different skills are required of you.

And for me, nothing beats the responsibility that is yours and yours alone and your comrades on stage of going out there and you are responsible for that arc of the evening.

You can't be edited if you're no good.

It's you and it's down to good acting.

And that's thrilling.

And finally, I want to ask you, because you all came out very sombre.

Obviously it's a really difficult play, but have you decided how you're going to face the curtain call?

Well, Mark, you're Mark, Rob directed the curtain call.

He thinks things like that are important, and I agree, in the same way that he's, in a way, although he isn't directing, but he has certainly directed the front-of-house staff on how to conduct themselves during our play.

They're not allowed to just wander around.

People aren't allowed to be readmitted.

So it's about making the whole event.

And he felt that if we're all grinning at the curtain call, as if we've just done 42nd Street, it lets the audience off the hook and makes them think, "Oh, well, they're all right.

They're all happy now."

He wants us to kind of stay in that bubble that we've created.

It's difficult, too, because Broadway audiences, they want to be involved.

This idea that you get around and you come on, that's not British or West End at all.

They did when you came on.

Yeah, well, they did it when the curtain went down.

We've tried to crush that, because I've always come on with a kind of big, taking off the coat, a big sigh, "Oh, thank God the campaign's over now, we can relax."

We've cut the sigh so there isn't a kind of "look at me" moment, but they still do.

But the thing that annoys me the most is taking our photograph at the curtain call.

I saw you get annoyed last night.

Yeah, be warned.

You know, be in that moment.

If you want to clap, fantastic.

If you want to stand up and clap, even better.

But let's preserve something.

Let's not make everything about cameras and Instagram and social media.

This is theatre.

Let it cook and feel it.

Just let your soul and your heart have the emotions of the evening without going, "Got to record this."

And some people even walk to the front to do it.

I've got to let it go, I know.

You have, you've got to, It's going to happen, but it's about maintaining the spell, I think.

And that's why Lesley Sophia is with the camera thing.

And why we don't give it large at the curtain call, it's a spell.

It is, and it's gripping, really, it's phenomenal.

Lesley Manville, Mark Strong, thank you both very much.

Thank you.

Now to a country music legend, the American singer-songwriter Kenny Chesney has sold 30 million albums worldwide and racked up dozens of number one singles.

And just last month he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Now his memoir, Heart Life Music, takes us back to where it all started, growing up in a small town in Tennessee, dreaming of stardom.

He joins Walter Isaacson from Nashville to discuss how country music changed his life.

Thank You Krishan and Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me man.

I really appreciate it.

At the beginning of this wonderful memoir You talked about lying on your back in the grass and looking at the stars.

Yeah, what you learned from that?

Well as a child, I live with my grandmother my mom and I lived with my grandparents while my stepfather was in Vietnam and you know when you live that far outside of Knoxville you know there's no light pollution at all so on a clear night in the summer you can see forever and I would I don't know why I did it I would just go out it was make me feel good I would go out and lie out in her backyard and stare up at the sky and now as an adult looking back, that's where this curiosity for life started.

And you also talk about the fact that you know that every other kid in every dot in the map is probably doing the same thing.

I would like to think so.

I can't be the only one, right?

So I only knew, you know, I had three roads that I went down as a kid.

I knew the road to church.

I knew the road to school.

And I knew the road to the ballpark.

And that was about it.

But I was always really curious as to what was past my county line and what else was out there in the cosmos, you know.

And so it wasn't necessarily dreaming of music.

It was just dreaming to dream.

And it wasn't that I wanted to leave.

It was just that I wondered what was out there.

And when you're age three, they give you a plastic guitar and a little microphone.

Did they know at age three?

I don't know.

I look at that picture that's in the book, and if you look at pictures of me now at 57, I stand the exact same way as I did as a three-year-old with that guitar.

It's crazy.

And you said that you automatically got your left hand on the fret.

I automatically knew.

It was unbelievable.

But you know what?

I felt like that over the years, early on, I had no idea music was going to be my life.

But it was always, whatever higher power you believe in, it was always, it was as if God or whatever was touching me on the shoulder with music.

Now, I wanted to, sports consumed my life.

But there was always music in it here and there, never knowing that one day that I realized that I could be creative and creativity just consumed my life when I figured that out.

You know, I come from New Orleans, we talk about the spirituals and the marching bands and all flowing together to create jazz.

What was flowing, what rivers were flowing together to create your music?

There was bluegrass early on and then there was my, in my mom's kitchen and on the way to school I heard a lot of country music.

But once I got into I realized there was a group called Van Halen.

And then I realized there was a group called Leonard Skidder.

I realized there was AC/DC.

And then when I got into college is when I realized the genius of Bruce Springsteen, of Jimmy Buffett, and Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Now if it's possible to put all those acts into a stew, that would be my music.

Because I'm a true believer that the music that you digest as a child and as a young adult, when you become an adult and start making your own records, it's only natural for the music that you make as an adult, what comes out of you as an adult, is the direct reflection of the music that you digested early on in life.

Well, let's unpack all that music you digested and how it fit in.

You mentioned Jimmy Buffett.

And there's a Gulf Island inflection to your music.

I think you did something, "Waiting for a Hurricane" or something with him.

Well, when I first started in this business, first of all, Jimmy was the first one that taught me that it was possible on any level to paint pictures with words.

And I didn't know that was possible, right?

I was a kid from East Tennessee, but Jimmy created space, just like Bruce did and other people.

In a way, Jimmy created space for my dream.

Jimmy showed me, Jimmy had a really big dream.

me that, "Wow, I could have a big dream too."

That's when I started to get really creative.

Never knowing that I was going to have a place in the U.S.

Virgin Islands and spend a lot of time down there.

But when I did do that, I met a lot of people from a lot of different places, different religious beliefs, different political beliefs.

They just didn't grow up like I did.

A lot of them were from New England and from all over the world.

And the longer I was down there, the more that I realized that I just don't have to make music for people that are in the genre of country.

I can make music for everyone.

And that's how much of a profound impact it had on me as an artist, as a creative person, and it really changed my life in a lot of ways.

I find that fascinating because different types of music are either very diverse and they bring things together and inclusive.

I always thought, and forgive me for saying it, that country music didn't have quite as much diversity, but you're saying you were able to bring all that in.

Well, not all of it does.

I mean, that's true, but for me, when I was first getting into the business, I was just trying to get my songs on the radio, and I was trying to do what worked, right?

I was just trying to get into the business at all.

But I did that, but at the core of it, I knew that I wasn't making music that was truly authentic to me.

And I truly believe that all of us, when we hear music, we like it to be authentic.

And when it comes to music, we're all pretty much suckers for the truth.

So when I was able to do that, around 2002, I've been on the road since 1993.

And I was doing exactly the same thing that everyone else was doing up until around 2001.

And that's when my life changed.

That's when I started being very authentic and realizing that, "Oh, wow, I didn't have to make music just for these people.

I could make it for everybody."

And that's when my music truly changed.

Well, what happens in 2002 is you come up with this great album, you know, No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem.

Yeah.

And it also has a Springsteen.

You cover a Springsteen song on it.

I did.

Is that where the change happens?

Yeah, it was that album, the No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems album.

And when I was in college, I heard Bruce's Tunnel of Love album.

And I always felt like that it spoke to me in a lot of different ways.

And so I love the song One Step Up and Two Steps Back.

I absolutely still love it.

It's one of my favorite songs.

So when I got to that place in my life that I was recording No Shoes album, I felt like that it was possible that I had lived enough maybe to make that song authentic to me.

I went in and recorded it.

I was proud of it.

My friend and the person that I co-wrote this book with, Holly Gleason, she's been in my life a long time.

She urged me to send Bruce a copy of the song.

So I did, never expecting anything.

And about two weeks later, I got an unbelievable letter from Bruce thanking me for the care of his song.

And that started a friendship with Bruce over the years.

And that was just such an amazing thing because the fact that he even heard it at all was really thrilling.

We're speaking now right before Thanksgiving.

And I think one of the greatest memories in your book is the Thanksgiving Day.

Suddenly, your family is saying, your mom is saying, and others are saying, "Let's go to a concert."

When I read about the concert, I went, "Whoa, that was a concert.

Tell me about it."

That was, yeah.

So, we always have Thanksgiving during the day, you know, and at night there's really nothing to do.

Which I've always thought was a genius thing for a concert promoter to have a concert on Thanksgiving night because everybody's looking for something to do.

But that specific night, we went to see George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Conway Twitty all in the same show, all in our town of Knoxville, Tennessee.

And we went.

And I was a kid, you know, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I was playing basketball and baseball and football.

I thought I wanted And then I went and saw those guys and I got to tell you man, something changed inside of me.

I went, oh my God, that's what I want to do.

I don't know how I could ever do that.

But I saw the connection between the artist and the audience and how the audience reacted to the artist and just the synergy between the two.

It was, I don't know, there's something it's another way it was it was God tapping me on the shoulder going one day maybe, you know, so, but I had no idea how.

But I remember that night I was going home going, well, one day, hopefully.

I think lightning is what you call it.

Yeah, to see that show and look, one of the things that I'm very thankful for close to Thanksgiving is that as a young person you have all these people that you look up to and that you try to emulate and learn from and then one day you become actual friends with them on some level and create with them and share the stage with them.

And there's a lot of those moments in this book that just, like I said, when I got into high school I loved Van Halen, I loved George Strait, I loved Joel Walsh, I loved Steve Miller, I loved even the Wailers.

Later on I got to know a lot of those guys.

I mean, it was not Bob, obviously, because he died in the 80s, but my career and my musical life has been filled with people that I loved early on that I got to meet.

And not everybody can say that.

I mean, it was just, there's so many people that championed me in a small way that I never thought would even know me on any level.

And I'm very thankful for that.

- You write something about songwriting, which I'm gonna quote you if you don't mind, which is, "The job is to take a slice of life, write all about it, slice it down to what matters, and cut that feeling wide open."

Is there a song of yours that you think exemplifies that?

- Well, that's a hard thing to do.

I talk about it, you know.

There's several songs that I wrote.

There's a song called "I Go Back" that I wrote on a bus rolling through Colorado one night.

And that's one of my favorite songs I ever wrote.

I wrote it by myself.

The one that I truly am proud of, though, and a lot of people think just because of the nature of the title, it's called Beer in Mexico.

But they think it's a drinking song, but it's not.

Sit right here and have another beer in Mexico.

Let the waters of these blues away.

Some critics would dismiss it because they thought it was just a drinking song.

But that was a true snapshot of my soul at the time.

Sammy Hagar, I met Sammy on a night off in Columbus, Ohio.

Van Halen was playing the same arena that we were playing the next night.

And I met Sammy.

He was great to us.

And he invited me to come play his birthday party later on that year.

And so we did.

But there was something that was stirring inside my soul.

Now, this is an example of how you write songs as you live them.

You know, I was something was I was 36 years old.

All of my friends had had their thought they had their life figured out in family kids.

I didn't I wasn't there yet and I was like going.

Okay.

Well, is there something wrong with me?

And then I went back to the house where Sammy got us a place to stay.

I pulled my guitar out and a notepad and I just started writing down all the things I was feeling.

And by the time the band got back, I had written an almost finished Beer in Mexico.

And it was a true snapshot of my soul at the time.

And that's one of the few songs that I've written where that was that authentically A lot of stuff is that we hear on the radio and I've done it is made up and it feels good.

It sounds good And I like that but beer in Mexico is one of those an example of what you were talking about of just shit Shredding it all down and giving people a snapshot of your soul You know you toured almost non-stop, but you hit a wall I think in 2009 and there was during the final song "Better as a Memory" I think it was you began to cry what happened?

I had just been going non-stop since 1993 and I had my life during that period from 1993 to 2009 there was a lot that had happened in my life there was a lot of change in my life there was a lot of loss in my life there was a lot of just me coming to terms with being this person and all of a sudden earlier that year in 2009 I started to feel numb numb to music numb to life numb to my friends numb just numb I didn't feel great I didn't feel bad I just felt in the middle this middle grain it was just there was I just felt numb and that's no way to make music and it's no way to have connection with an audience and that last weekend I think I was in Indianapolis playing the Indianapolis Coats football stadium and I went into that song and it just hit me I thought wow this might be over for a while I didn't know if it was going to be 2 months or 2 years or 20 I had no idea but I knew I couldn't go on feeling like that and it just hit me it was just such an emotion like the dam broke inside of me.

How did you pull out of it?

Well I didn't I pulled out of it I didn't that night you know luckily that was the last song you know of the show but I took to I took all of 2010 off and then I started making a film for ESPN called Boys of Football and all of a sudden I was in the living rooms and I was the interviewer.

I was interviewing Bobby Bowden, Nick Saban, Bill Parcells, John Madden, all these people that meant so much to the sports world and to me and my father because we watched a lot of football.

And all of a sudden I felt it back.

I felt, "Oh, this is inspiring me in ways that nothing else could at the moment."

And all of a sudden I felt this creative energy.

It was a godsend and I needed it so bad.

And after that I felt creative again.

I felt happier.

I felt lighter.

I was a better son.

I was a better friend.

I was a better songwriter.

And I really needed it.

I really did.

Tell me about being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, it still blows my mind.

I mean, for a long time it took me a minute to accept it, honestly.

I have been so busy for so long and I've never took the time to sit an accomplishment that much.

I just don't do it.

And for them to get that call, and not only did I get the call, they came to my house to tell me.

It was almost like winning the lottery, I guess.

They came to my front door and told me.

And it took me forever to accept it, even to the day of the induction.

And all of a sudden, though, there's something about walking into that rotunda where all these plaques are on the wall of some of your friends and a lot of your heroes, people that inspired you.

And when you walk into that room and they say your name as a Hall of Famer, it hits you.

I promise you, it hit me.

And then you take a group shot with all the living members and all of a sudden you're in that group.

I promise you, it hit me then.

And I promise you that picture is going to be really big in my house.

I still can't believe it though.

I can't.

But one of the things that was really great, I'm 57 and I was able to sit right beside.

I was able to sit right beside my mother and my father sitting right beside me.

And that was a gift.

That's a real gift.

That's one of the few pictures that we actually have together and it's a great one.

Kenny Chesney, hey, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate the opportunity.

And that's it for our program tonight.

If you want to find out what's coming up every night, sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org/amanpour.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.