A host of stars and influencers, including former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, gathered at the Academy Museum for A&E’s History Talks, drawing on the past while offering inspiration for the future in a series of insightful conversations.
Other speakers at the A&E Networks event included Kate Winslet, Kevin Costner, Kerry Washington, Nicole Avant, John Legend, Eva Longoria, Chuck Todd, and a handful of historians and experts.
Bush's conversation was off the record. Meanwhile, Obama and Gladwell spoke at length, touching on a variety of topics including the importance of storytelling, the Reconstruction era, and the Affordable Care Act. The pair stayed away from conversation about the current presidential race.
Obama told a story about his grandmother's younger brother, then just a teenager, who was part of an Army unit that liberated a concentration camp during World War II. The former president used the story in part to emphasize the importance of storytelling, a larger theme for the day.
“My grandmother always told me that when this Uncle Charlie, this 18- or 19-year-old boy, came home, he would go up into the attic and not talk to anyone for six months,” Obama said.
“There’s not even a name for it at the time, so imagine a child who basically witnesses that horror, goes home to Kansas, and it’s not talked about,” he continued. “There’s no story there. There’s nothing to help you make sense of what you saw and what happened and you don’t talk about it, and that’s the power of stories.”
The former president also got candid about the country’s initial thoughts on the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” as the pair called it during their conversation. “I was surprised it took this long to get popular,” Obama told Gladwell, before adding a touch of self-deprecating humor. “It didn’t help that we botched the website.”
Winslet spoke about her next film Downwinda film about photojournalist Lee Miller that has been in the works for nearly a decade, according to the actress. The actress spoke passionately about the project and its subject matter during the conversation, along with some cutting comments about the way people talk about actresses and to actresses.
Kate Winslet on the History Talks 2024 red carpet.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for HISTORY
“People say to me, 'Oh my God, you were so brave in that performance. You had no makeup on and you look really gross.' And I think, do we say to men, 'You were so brave, did you grow a beard?'” Winslet asked, to laughter and applause from the audience.
“And then there’s another one,” she continued. “‘How do you juggle being a mother and having a career? We say, ‘How do you juggle being a father and having a career?’ I mean, we need to change that dynamic.”
When asked how the roles have transformed her, Winslet gave a hesitant answer. “Sometimes I struggle to talk about the actor's process because at some point we don't find a cure for cancer,” she said.
“We’re not saving lives. We’re not doctors and nurses on a COVID ward,” she continued, before explaining that sometimes “you just have to go” for certain roles.
Costner spoke about his love for the American West, sharing an anecdote about his first experience with Westerns. “I was seven years old, [at] “a kid's birthday party,” the actor and director began, explaining that they drove from Santa Paula to the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles for How the West was conquered.
“It was a four-hour movie, so it's no surprise that mine is three,” Costner joked, referring to his latest project. Horizon: An American SagaThe first of the four films was released this summer, while the second was scheduled for August, before being pulled from the release schedule for now.
Other highlights of the event, hosted by A&E Networks president Paul Buccieri, included Kerry Washington and Nicole Avant talking about their new Netflix film The triple six eight. The period piece, produced by Avant and starring and produced by Washington, focuses on a predominantly black female Army battalion during World War II. “The whole country was in a kind of fog of disconnection and misunderstanding, and these women came in and saved the day, saved the fight,” Washington said of the film’s subjects.
The Los Angeles-based Roybal Film and Television Magnet School, co-founded by George Clooney, Grant Heslov and CAA CEO and co-chairman Bryan Lourd, was mentioned in the program, as the school had 100 students in attendance. Lourd spoke to the school’s crowd earlier in the day. In addition to Buccieri, high-level executives from several studios and networks were in attendance, including Disney CEO Bob Iger, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, CBS chairman and CEO and co-CEO of Paramount Global George Cheeks and Disney co-chairman Dana Walden.
The show concluded with a conversation between Longoria and Legend, who talked about speaking up and their relationship to activism. Legend also performed a short set for the cloud, including a Bob Marley cover and his hit “All of Me.”