>> rose: welcome to the program. i'm charlie rose. tonight our charlryios special edition, the oscars. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. 85th academy awards will be announced sunday night february 24th. from mythic story telling to epic survival, the films take us on a voyage exploring where we were an where we are headed. this year's movies are about our political and cultural landscape. they show us a world in which we look terror in the face, a world of equality, a world of aspiration for a new and better society. tonight we bring 13 nominees who have talked about their craft over the last year.

we begin with three of the contenders for best actor. >> yeah, come on, dad, be nice. she's making crabby snacks and homemades. come on, dad! >> bradley cooper plays pat, an impassioned but fragile teacher getting his life back on track. >> about a week before the incident i called the cops and told them that my wife and the history guy were ploying against me by embezzling money from the local hospital which-- wasn't true, it was a delusion. and we later fund out from the hospital it's because i'm-- i'm diagnosed bipolar. >> yeah. >> why is this a character you dream of? >> so many reasons. well, i maybe how much he's different from me or how much i have to look into myself to find the connections to him. i mean first of all if he was sitting here, right, god knows what would come out of his mouth because he has no filter.

and his emotions are right just under the surface. and he's also fascinating because near logically it's a very unique pathway, the way he processes information and that's what, you know, causes him to have manic episodes. >> what we could define as bipolar being manic-depressive. but this guy, the beautiful thing about him, he couldn't be happier. you know he's in this manic delusion that's going to fall at some point but he really thinks that he's got it together. certain actors i talked to talked about how they learned things from the character they played. like in a profound way. and in this movie more than any other i really did feel like i kind of got out of the way in the morning and let him, and it sounds very sort of act ory but it is how i experienced it, charlie, that i kind of just walked away and let this guy take over this guy pat. and every time, we every time i see it i feel so much empathy. that's his bottom. we're watching this guy at a bottom.

>> so people with bipolar understand they have it. they just don't know when it's coming and what they're going to do. >> certainly pat didn't. he had no idea. the next moment of that is he talked about how he's been white knuckling it this whole time and not knowingment and now he's got-- the whole thing is he's got a strategy now. i think that we live in an age where you know because of social media and because of awareness, you know, there's a dialogue now. but there's a lot of work to be done. to destigmatize mental illness. >> do you simply want to deeply immerse yourself in as much as you can find? >> yes, that's accurate, yeah, absolutely. and it means different things for different projects. but it's whatever you can do to get to where james cagney says say what you mean and mean what you say. >> say what you mean and mean what you say. >> yeah. which basically means don't act. >> right. >> the other asset i have is that it is simple for me. i have one objective pretty much and that is to grow as an actor. i have said this before to

you. so how do you do that? you work with the best people. and i just want to work with the best filmmakers and best actors, now the sort of caveat to that is i really want to direct film. so i'm going to soak that up as much as i can, charlie, and learn as much as i can interested the david o rustles of the world until they stop hiring me and then i will hope to then start making movies. >> the citizen was goes in judgement of my place, who am i? >> hugh jackman brings to life jean valjean, the hero of victor hugo's less miserables, a man unfairly imprisoned who remakes his life and learns about second chances and forgiveness. >> my sister's child was close to death, we were starving. >> you will starve again ♪ ♪ unless you learn the meaning of the law ♪ ♪. >> or the meaning of those 19 years ♪ ♪ a slave ♪ of the law

♪. >> five years for what you did ♪ ♪ the rest because you tried to run ♪ ♪ yes 24601 ♪ my name is jean valjean. >> we had nine weeks of rehearsal which is also what tom protected for us. which i think made the difference on this project. that we had a lot of intellectual discussions. we looked at history, looked at the book but actually on set tom has a way of giving a sentence a little something to help frame a song without getting too intrusive which i think is part his genius. no matter what the film. i never feel i put less than 100 percent into it. but it's very rare when you get something where physically vocally as this is known, as a musical theatre role, tough and emotionally and what tom and i talked about and the way to make it interesting to do the justice of the journey, people like this don't exist very often and they rarely

get the opportunity to make movie musicals. so you just -- >> and because we were live it was the opening night and closing night every day. so it was that thing of, okay, on my day, let's just pray today's the day, you know. >> rose: did the originators of the original stage version write a song, a new song for you? >> it was tom's idea as victor hugo says of my character jean valjean that there were two thunderbolts or lightning bolts of realization in his life. one was the virtue when the bishop reprieves him with the candlesticks. the second is of love when he meets kosette. and it goes into long description how this 50-year-old man experiences love for the first time in his life. and it's an avalanche of emotion. and i remember tom saying this is unbelievable. we don't even have a song for this. he said write a song for this. and they came up with this song suddenly which as they were writing it, these guys were writing it for my voice it was a very out of body

experience. normally for me ray song takes awhile to get in my bones so i came in, i sang with them, first time i sang it i was like felt like i wrote it, you know, that is how good these guys are. >> rose: oh wow. >> but it was a wonderful opportunity. >> we're in an uncontrolled dive, we have a jam stabilizer or something. >> and denzel washington at his most raw, portrays whip whitaker a flawed air pilot on the brink of self-destruction. >> an initial report shows that you had alcohol in your system. >> yeah, so that doesn't mean anything, a couple of beers the night before the flight. >> this toxicology report states that you were drunkment and if it is proven that your intoxication was the cause of the death of the four passengers now we're go to look at four counts of manslaughter. >> when you read something that just grabs you.

and it's very rare that that happens for me, anyway, where you just, it's a page turn heer and it's complex and interesting and something hadn't been done before. >> now was this an interesting character? >> i would say so. >> yeah, i would say so. >> you know, i mean i hadn't-- i mean there had been films about you know people with addiction issues. but i had never done one. and for him to be a pilot on top of that. >> and to be able to fly. >> and to be considered a hero over here when he's really. >> rose: he knows. >> yeah t just had a lot of elements. and a lot of truth. >> rose: and whether it's a painter or whether it's an actor, creativity is about making choices. >> uh-huh. >> rose: you play this this way or that way. you can do this or that, you know. >> but not necessarily conscious choices. >> rose: ah. >> van go just addses more paint. he doesn't go oh no i think i need 2.2 ounces.

>> not to say i'm comparing myself to van gogh. but i don't know half the time. that's why i have to trust the director. because i'm not sure either. i'm just putting it out there. you know, i will get a feeling or an instinct or a rhythm and i will keep pushing it. you know, like there is one scene where i end up falling on the table. i think i did an extra 15 minutes. i was like where is the part where i fell on the floor but they didn't use that partment but the more i saw the film, the story was already sold. -- tolted. i saw the film about six times before i saw the film. yeah. i just, the first time i saw it i was just, i don't know what i was. i was stunned. it's like i had-- it was almost too personal. it was like it was something about it that just, i just couldn't deal with it, actually. he had trouble even getting me to do the looping. i'm like i'm not going back in there. i'm not going back in there.

>> what do you mean. >> well, it just-- you know, i let it hang out, no pun intended. and it just affected mement i didn't expect-- i mean i knew what i had done. i done know if it was me personally exposed but it was just a raw feeling i got from it. it was emotional. it was very emotional to watch. and to see all the way through and you know because it touches on so many areas, you know, relationships with your wife or ex-wife. with your children. >> right. >> you know, and it may not be the same thing in my own life but i can relate, you know. and i remember having an argument with my son. it wasn't about alcohol or anything. but it was just, you know, i don't know. it was just honest. >> next three actresses at critical moments in their careers. >> there are two narratives

about the location of osama bin laden. >> jessica chas tain up-- chastain up for best actress is the cia analyst that gambles everything to pursue o bin laden in zero dark thirty. >> i didn't want to use your guys, i wanted to drop a bombment but people didn't believe in this to drop a bomb. so they are using you guys as canaries. and if bin laden isn't there, if you can sfleek away, no one will be the wiser. but bin laden is there. and you're going to kill him for me. >> what was it about mya that made you know you had to do it. >> when i read the script i was so blown away on page two, you know, even the way we meet maya, we're introduced to this character. and i thought wait a minute there's a woman at the centre of this. then i was up set at myself that i was so shocked that there would be a woman at the centre. why wouldn't there bement and her strength and even

when she comes up against brig walk-- brick walls whether it be interrogations that go where she wants or colleagues that don't believe in her lead, she doesn't take no for an answer. i was so inspired by her. and of course working with kathryn bigelow so immediately i sent kathryn an e-mail that said if you want me, i'm there, if we can make the schedule work, i'm there. >> are you happiest getting inside the character or the actual filming of the material. >> i'm always happiest in filming because there is a freedom in that. you do all the work before which sometimes is really difficult because you have to go to very dark places, learn things about humanity that you didn't know or you know, these horrible things, create secrets for your character. once i do that, i have this kind of book. this is who i am. i don't have to think about it any more. i just show up there and now it's in me. and it's like there's the intimacy between the actors

that i find so incredible. just being able to look at someone and have it mean so much. it's very rare even in, you know, walking down the street that we really look at someone. and there's something about filming that, like i said it makes me feel part of something bigger. >> you also say it's a combination of twin lines. one is failure. >> yes, i have a fear of failure. i always like when i sign on to something, i'm like am i going to be okay at this. >> but you're taking a chance and you know you can nail it. >> or you have to think somewhere like i got this. even if you don't have it, and they always wrestle with each other. because if you are's too confident, you end up just not being good because your ego is driving efing. but also if you are too fearful you never take chances. because if it's scary, it means i don't know if i can do it which means i've never done it before. but it also means that if i throw myself into the lion's

den, you know, i may get eaten but also i'm going to have to rise to the challenge. and in doing so, sometimes i found actually i've always found that you learn more from failure than dow from success. so if i'm going to risk failure i'm going to throw myself out there, i'm not going to be good at this, that's fine because i'll learn more. >> you do have deep ties to al qaeda before you get sent to your next vocation which might be israel. depending on how candid you are today, i may be able to keep you in pakistan. >> what do you want to know. >> if you were teaching a master class about acting what would you want the students to know that you have learned? >> the most important thing i think is to prep before awe rife. absolutely. if it's someone who doesn't want to play themselve as the character. like in zero dark thirty i'm not playing jessica chastain as a cia agent because then i would be crying throughout the whole movie. yeah, no, it's always for me

the prep is about understanding the world that you're in, and really understanding the character. understanding your similarities and your differences. it's a lot of homework. that's absolutely what i would stress to people. >> is it true there's a child and the child is my daughter ♪ ♪ but the father abandoned us leaving us flat ♪ ♪ ann hathaway supported for best actress in a supporting role. her character is a wistful bird like creature who reminded us all of our own fragility. >> there were so many ways that all of this could have gone wrongment and really only one that it could have gone write. and i just put all my faith into the idea that everything was going to go well. and i didn't know how. and i had no guarantee but i just knew in my heart that everything was going to be fine. intellectually there was absolutely no guarantee whatsoever. but tom was so passionate and he had such a vision. and i remember hugh came

back from his first day of filmingment we did a preshoot, did you a little preshoot. and where you went up into the mountains in france and did 24 takes of singing at the top of his register in freezing conditions and wooden clogs. and the crew came back and they just said oh my godad it's one of the most powerful things i've ever seen. so at that point i kind of relaxed and said i know there is something to this. we're going be to be fine. >> rose: your character is not a negative or positive, not a glass half full or empty, your character's point of view is simply survival. >> survival for her child. >> rose: right. >> because i think my character as you mentioned becomes a prostitute. when she loses her job and i don't think that's something she would have done if she didn't have someone else to care for. now she does not have her child. she had to live away from her child which i think is already just about the most painful condition that i person can be in. she leaves her dhild with a couple and in order to keep from having the stigma of being an unwed mother.

of course when it is discovered that she is, she loses her job and then pretty much realizes she's never going to be able to have her child again. and its survival aspect of it, it's amazing what people are driven to do, not from the self-preservation standpoint but what we will do to help each other. we will, we will become, we will live in a state of living death in order to do that which is what fon teen does. and it costs herr soul. i mean hugo has this amazing part of the book which i'm paraphrasing but he talks about how fontine had to harden her heart into a place of hate and turn her heart to stone but kept one small light alive in the bottom just for her daughter. and as he is describing all of these terrible things that happen to her and how she is becoming more and more animallistic, he has one sentence in the middle of these very long descriptive heartbreaking paragraphs and says she bore chipped her-- worshipped her child. and that was so powerful to me because i just thought

this woman, she's not built for this world. she is too, and as you said it's not a positive or a negative. she just simply, i think, i persony believe that fontune is part angel and i don't think she has a mind to navigate these waters. >> thank you. thank you. >> and best ago res nominee naomi watts portrays tsunami victim maria bennett. her performance in the impossible bs ringus face-to-face with the 2004 indian ocean tragedy. >> you're a brave kid. >> oh.

>> why did you do this? >> that story that is inside of the bigger story, well, i mean yeah that was a big story in itself. just the beautiful relationships between these five people, and their need to survive and i just was struck by the courage that this woman had, and i mean i think when you go to see a film like this you always put yourself in that scenario and go how would i deal with this. who would i be. and i'm certain i would be nothing like maria. but maria talks about it and say its you don't know. and i don't think we do know. and i think we need to understand it and the movie help its us. >> rose: you get beaten up by the elements. >> yeah, yeah. very much so. >> rose: was it exhausting to film. >> yes, very exhausting am but every time you get to that point of feeling like you've reached your limit and wanting to complain and sano, i'm done k we to the do this anyore,sa you would

remember that this is nothing. we know we're safe. we foe-- you know what they went through was a totally different experience. so you better shut up and get on with t you're just an actor and keep your complaints to yourself. i mean that was the water stuff was the physically draining stuff. and-- and like nothing i've ever done before. and then we got to thailand and that's where all the emotional stuff. >> where are you, because it seems as if you are getting much better roles. >> oh, thank you, yeah. it's actually, yeah, despite what everyone says it's all over at 40,. >> rose: it's not all over at 40. >> well, i don't think so, no. i think you just have to be up for reinventing it. and changing it. and yeah, you can't play the roles that you used to be able to play. but there's better ones around the corner. and i think the longer the life the deeper it gets and the roles should reflect that. and women above 40 or

possibly going through bigger stories. and not just being the cute eat on someone's arm. not that i really ever was thaton. >> directors are the captains of cinema. our next nominees talk about their drive and inspiration. ang lee explores the surreal with life of pi, rich imagery and 3-d technology awaken our imagination asking to us take a leap of faith. >> my name is pi patel. i have been in a ship wreck. mi on a life boat alone with a tiger. please send help. >> so everybody else thought this was undoable unfilmable, impossible. and along comes afg lee and

says no, i can do it. >> for a long time i thought the same thing. >> rose: yeah. >> then i when i was asked to do it, i got seduced, it was so challenging. and two things made me take the leap of faithment one is having older pi tell the story, so you have the third person with a wise voice and the younger pi playing the story which is first person. so they are the same. so you have this power storytelling illusion within illusion am i got excited about that. the other is i thought if i add another dimension, 3-d, maybe, it is solvable. >> rose: what is the story. >> the story is about a young boy, the family own a zoo in india and the boat sinks, they-- 9 whole menagerie of the zoo, on the way to canada, the boat sink. and the boy wind up on the boat with a tiger,. >> rose: and a few others. >> yeah.

eventually just him and the tiger. and drift across the pas civic ocean. it's a story about faith, adventure, spirituality, and most of all it had a tricky ending that examine why we believe in spirituality, why we have faith, why we believe in god, why we believe in storytelling. >> rose: you always say that in my movies my ideas and 23409 me are the center of attention. >> i think it should be that way. you should do a service to that idea. instead of that idea of service for you. it's not you speaking but doing a service. >> rose: and what is the big idea you do in service to here? >> to this particular. >> rose: yeah. >> i wanted to take the audience to a spiritual experience of cinema, if you will.

>> david o russ sell the man behind silver lines playbookment his tribute to scorsese and capra embraces the human condition. he also holds a nomination for best adapted screenplay. >> i use food be on lithium and-- but i done take them anymore, no. they make me foggy and they also make me bloated. >> yeah, i was on xanax but i agree, i wasn't as sharp so i stopped. >> ever take clonipin. >> right. >> jesus. >> what? what day is it? how about traze doa n. >> it flattens you out, are you done. it takes the light out of your eyewitnesses because i have a son that has some of these emotional situations i immediately related to it otherwise i never would have and i said what a wonderful story and a wonderful world that is both tragic, heartbreaking, emotional and ultimately funny. >> rose: and you saw it as a movie. >> yes, immediately. it's very sin matic to me because you have all the raw material of the world on a

block in philadelphia am you have the three very powerful characters, the one played by robert de niro, bradley cooper and jennifer lawrence, they stand out. >> it's the story of a father and son. >> it's a romance inside of a family drama, you know this romance sneaks up on them in the form of this very, this girl who is very feared by the family. she's considered to be more trouble than the son. >> do you have the benefit here in which there's chem see-- chemistry from actors beyond what is expected from the text. >> it is a gift that these two had worked together and they had-- they made limitless together. they had a father son, i happened to go to mr. de niro's birthday son an saw that these two had a very good, comfortable relationship. and that goes a long way. >> you have said that where you are as a direct certificate somewhere between i think you said a wonderful life and goodfellas >> i love the rawness of the emotion and the authenticity of the world that i learn from the cinema that mr. de niro did with mr. scorsese.

i learned from that, i grew up on that the rhythms of it, you feel like you are a voyleure t is a very raw, unflinching emotional world. at the same time mr. capra, people forget he gave us the heart and the warmth which i also love and the redemption which i also love. so that's what puts me between the two. >> and then you go over the wing, coughing, you say. >> daddy, the water's going. >> beasts of the southern wild directed and cowritten-- say little movie with huge appeal. the story of a bayou community in the midst of impending doom reveals magical realism and extraordinary performances. >> they say we all going to drowned out here. but we ain't going nowhere.

bathtub has more holidays than the whole rest of the world. >> it's a film, it's about how to survive loss. and not just physically survive loss but emotionally, you know, survive loss with your joy intact. and that was the connection between the two things, you know there was this story that i was interested in about these communities in south louisiana that were losing their land. but when you went, when you go there and meet the people there isn't this sort of sorrow. there isn't this, you know, there isn't people feeling story for themselves, there is a real pride in staying and a joy in the culture that remains and then that was sort of a parallel to the story of this little girl who has to survive the loss of a parent. and the connections between the loss of a parent and the loss of a place were what resonated to me and that's something that i was-- i didn't necessarily understand when i started making the film but which i saw was true.

the story is about hush puppie and she lives in this town called the bathtub cut off from the world by a giant water production system in a sort of mythic version of louisiana and you know, the film is about a sort of environmental myth logical a position lips that comes to this town that she has to survive with her father. so much of how the film was written was, came from interviews with people, came from travel income south louisiana and you know, individual places were written into the film it wasn't like we showed up with those things written in. >> we would find a place that was extraordinary and alter the entire script to allow it into the film. that was essential in cleating the film. you know, just if there is any ambition that i have in making movies it's to create those characters to become part of the culture, they become a moral compass for behavior. when you think about, you know, what is charity, you think about robin hood. when you think about what is

wisdom, you think about sherlock holmes. these sort of characters that really become hero, folk heroes and that's what i imagined her to be writing her. and i think that those specific elliott from et and huckle barry finn were specific ones we looked at and thought that is who this girl is. she's going to-- in her simplicity and innocence and in her purity she's going to be the answer. >> two other best picture contenders are zero dark thirty and less miserables. using cia sources, intelligence and reporting kathryn bigelow directs a gripping thriller about the hunt for osama bin laden. >> well, i mean, in my

humble opinion mark did an extraordinary job of reporting this and then out of the reporting turning this into an incredibly dramatic screenplay so i'm the lucky recipient of that, simply trying to transform those pages on to a screen. but early on and again my understanding from the firsthand accounts, there was a courier that swabs that in the case of this movie, the woman in the intelligence community decided to focus on. >> would you say you're made to make that kind of movie, to capture the essence of that 40 minutes. >> i mean that was a very logistically challenging sequence to shoot. but fascinating. just learning about the methodology of how the special forces operate, for instance, you know, the way they move. there is a kind of methodical nature to the way they move, very careful, very considered. and having to shoot in a quote, unquote, low light condition because it was meant to be a moonless night. so we were shooting, we

decided, we opted for a digital format in order to do that. and we also used real night vision lenses that we put on to the lenses themselves. and then we had to go into a no light condition so that those lenses would operate, they would operate, you know, to the best of their ability. so that was, you know, basically we had to figure out all the logistics, all the choreography. we built that compound from the ground up. and it had to be built with a really pretty serious foundation because of the blackhawk helicopters and the rotor wash would have taken apart any normal, let's say, movie set, taken that down. so if, you know, there were a lot of logistical elements that had to be figured out before we broke ground in january on the compound itself. >> you have said about this movie, you wanted to show the human face of the world of counter terrorism. >> i knew very little about, i just sort of imagined it,

sort of, you know, it takes place in the shadows, as it should. as it needs to. but then you know, to be able to-- to be able to peel back the curtain and have a glimpse at a process and a character and what kind of, what is the psychology behind somebody that dedicates ten years of their life exclusively to finding one person. >> but does life-and-death motivate new the movies you made are about life-and-death. >> there's a gravity. there's a gravity at the heart of this piece. i mean you know, there were many lives lost over the course of those ten years. and so i suppose it kind of real substantive gravity moves me. ♪ in the rain ♪ pavement shines like silver ♪ ♪. >> less miserables is a film musical based on vickar

hugo's 1862 novel. director tom hooper breathes new life into the classics. lyric and song paint a portrait of gritty france right before the revolution. >> how hard is it to take this kind of play and put it into a musical this kind of musical and put it on film? >> it's extremely hard with. what makes it hard is you're starting on a journey with a musical that 60 million people have seen but so many people hold so close to their hearts. and i realize people have a kind of protective and proprietorial attitude to the musical. so i had to study what it is that people feel protective about. and why is it people go back to match this musical. i became convinced it's because the musical offers people the opportunity to reexperience these strong emotions time and again and sometimes they get stronger with time. >> you said a fascinating thing to me which i often asked what acting is all about.

and you said to me, or you said, acting is the illusion of being free at the moment. >> well, yes, i mean what-- what is very interesting about this is that all the actors had this huge challenge which was to take these in some cases globally iconic songs and create the illusion that they were, that their characters were the authors and inventors of these songs in the moment. so anne was not doing a rendition of dreamed a dream. hugh was not doing a rendition of the soliloquy. these songs in the films terms had never existed until now. and they were going to be ripped out of the soul of these pained individuals in their moment of need n their moment of self-reflection. and that was the challenge i laid down to them. and you know, the reason i wanted to do it live and the reason i needed such foremidable actors as i was lucky enough to find is they

were able, you know, when you watched dreamed a dream you were able to forget that this has ever been performed before. and you were able to see this song a fresh. and annie's version of that character completely owns that moment. it's like she's singing her thoughts. it's like a soliloquy in i shakespeare play. >> great stories are often told by the principleses documentaries taken us into these worlds, one nominee is the gatekeepers about israel's security agency shin bet, filmmaker droemoreh stopped in to tell us about this. >> i think this film should be seen by almost anybody who really cares about politics, cares about the use of force and intention of that. and where does it lead you at the end.

and i intended first and foremost, definitely the israeli public. the israeli public were my primarily subject to watch the film. and i think that this is relevant also to the international community as well to watch the gate keepers. it's about the first time that heads of the israeli secret service come and speak for the first time about their time in job, how they see the future of israel f it will continue to move on the path that it is moving. and it's the first time that these guys have spoken or are speaking to the cameras. i was knocked down at least 20 times from each interview that i did with them, this is the guy, this is the spy masters 6 israel. these are the guys that maintain the security of israel. indeed, everything that they could in their power to maintain the security of israel. so i was really, they blew me away. if there is something which is common to all of them that i can say is that they are all very, very pragmatic persons. they understand the

limitation of power. an if i am talking strategically, now, which is a motto in the movie, speak strategically, not tractically, strategically they are all of the same level of saying israel has to move as much as it can towards peace. to reconcile with the palestinian and to be long-lasting peace. i don't know if they, again by saying that they are magazine matic, i don't think that they believe that this is something that be can reached easily. i think that this is a very difficult tas stock reach but they say that it is for the best interest of israel to do that, to go forward all the time towards that. >> supporting actors give us unforgetable characters. the neck two nominees are masters. robert de niro gives his version of an obsessive compulsive father in silver lines playbookment his character pat senior's nuanced and touching. >> what are you so up about? >> he's very happy. >> no, you're so up, up, up. >> isn't that a good thing.

>> no, you're just up, up, up. i don't know what that is. are you taking the proper doesage of your medication. >> am i taking the right dose, of course i am. >> okay. what we just did, silver linings, with david, you can't, the style in which he directs you can't take-- you can't think it. you got to just do it. and be ready-- you have to be prepared with the dialogue, this, the character, but he gives you things as are you doing it. and you have to go with that. you can't like stop and say wait, i can't, i didn't have my motivation or all that. you just have to go with it. and you can't overthink things. i think it's very important not always but in certain situations where you just ride with it. and that's what we discussed after he starts says yeez, you know, i don't know what it's going to be. but it's really interesting and good. and i'm having a good time. and i said yeah, yeah, because there was one act, i

any who like didn't quite, you were telling me, didn't quite get it at the moment, kind of like resisted. you can't resist it. you've got to go with it, trust it, especially if he's doing it, he knows all the characters. if he says it it kind of frees you so you don't have to worry about what's this. how do i do that. he kind of does it for you in a way. >> and the more confident you are in your own skills, the easier it is to go. >> yeah, you just-- and it's simpler than you think. so with david if we are just working and working and doing all these thingsing you don't have time to do this or that and how do i spin it or interpret it, you just have to do it and it will take care of itself. that's very important. it just, you know, it's not, it's not as complicated or it doesn't need as much something behind it like a spin, i call it, for it to be-- unfortunate because you don't do anything but you don't have to do anything. it's that simple. especially in film.

>> did you learn that later learn earlier. >> no, i just i observe people. and you see how they behave. and emotional, dramatic situations. and it's-- it's-- it's-- you just see it. in actual life situations. and you can see that a lot more now because everybody has a camera. you see all these things. and it's right there. when i say if you are doing something always just go-- if you have a-- looking at a scene, well, let's just go back to what the reality of it would be. the reality might be nothing, fine, do nothing, nothing is better than doing something that is going to feel like you're pushing it. it is like a novel. you read a novel, you can mabling what it is. and that's the same in many ways with acting. not always, certain things.

it's important, but that's just understood. >> have you ever had any interest in teaching like a master class? >> i thought of maybe doing like-- not teaching but whatever, sometimes, or come to sit in on some, like i don't know, sim both -- symposiums at certain schools or something and talk. i might do that, yeah. >> it's not wise to assume in this instance, i think it's pretty safe. point being, don't get so carried away with your -- >> then there is christoph walts an inspiration to-- he ignites the screen in django unchained. you simply can to the get enough of his dr. cane schultz schultz w so when gwyn fin tarantino arrives with a part what do you say? >> let me see the script, i'm not sure you're up to this? >> well, i don't know the

general case. i just know mine. first time it was completely different because you know i was presented the screenplay, i said yeah, you're kidding me, ha ha, what do you want me to do. he said no, no, this-- in this case, with django he said would you mind coming up to my house. i show you something. and he put 20 pages in front of me. >> on the table. >> on the table, kitchen table. >> yes, like this. and i said dow want me to read it. he said -- >> that's why are you here. >> so i started reading it, he was kind of hovering around watching me. and. >> you never seen if before. >> no, no no. nobody has seen it before. so i read this and you know, bottom of page 1 it kind of, i start to get an ing ling, at the top of page two i kind of feel that he's trying to tell me something. and telling, he did.

you know. and this is how, you know t was 20 pages, a few weeks passed he called me up again. i read another 40 and so on until i got to the end of the script. >> what was it that drew you in? >> it was first of all, it starts with a slaves being lead or rather driven across america or parts of it. and all of a sudden this character appears. >> before the civil war. >> this is very short time before the civil war. >> yeah. >> like maybe a year or a year and a half. and this character appears out of the dark, literally, out of the dark, with a little lantern. a little light dances through the dark. and from then on everything changes, in a way that's what this character is. it brings. >> a light and a dark. >> a little light into the

dark. and you know, if this light is passed from one to the other, it enlightens the area around it. and i think this was the objective of my character. whereas jango was the person living in the dark and taking on the light in a way. >> so you two come together. >> yeah. >> to do what? >> to first find three criminals that my character is hunting as it turns out, a bounty hunter. and once that's ton, to go and liberate django's wife. >> writing is what makes a film's story, action, image and language all come together. next we present three nominees who put it all down

on paper. >> i believe you when you insist that amending the constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war. >> tony kushner has brought an historic figure home to us. lincoln is perhaps our greatest president, steven spielberg's lincoln shows us a journey where the man, the presidency and the country neat in one defining moment. >> steven brought the book, i think in 2000 before doris had actually finished it. and it was the book that steven asked me to adapt. i read it. eagerly. and i love telephone. i think it's a masterpiece. but team of rivals is a 900 page four way political biography, the living definition of something that isn't going to make a feature length film. so he asked me about two months after the oscars were done that year if i would like to take a look at what he was thinking about with lincoln. and i said no. and i said no for about six months. >> rose: why did you say no. >> because it's abraham lincoln. and i thought you know a

what we were just talking been. you want to understand motives, you want to understand what is going on inside the heads of characters that you create. and i 4 no hope of ever really understanding how abraham lincoln did what he did any more than i have of understanding how shakespeare wrote hamlet or mozart wrote-- or george elliott wrote middle march. i don't know. i can't understand that. these people are geniuss. they have a function on a higher plane than most people. and if i knew how to write hamlet i would write hamlet. but you know, when you read the major lincoln biographies and i feel by now i've read all of them, you get, you know, however many there are 10 or 12 that i think are really significant am you get 10 or 12 different abraham lincolns, the basic facts aren't changed. but the way that you interpret those facts, he schemes to be an indexhausably interpretable figure. and so you sort of pick which lincoln you want to, you know, draum advertise.

and-- dramatize and lincoln that doris creates in team of rivals that he is presents, that she interprets in team of rivals is a fundamentally political guy. he has other kinds of genius. he's a great writer. he's a statesman, moral visionary but more than anything else in doris's book he's a person who has an absolute con summate mastery of political processment and i found that incredibly appealing and steven found it incredibly appealing. so the book gave us, you know, the field on which to embark on the journey to figure out how to dramatize this. doris makes the point in team of rivals and i think it's absolutely true that lincoln considered these giant public, these days he called them his public baths where he would go down to one of the big rooms in the first floor of the white house and the whole country was sort of invited to come byment and we talk to thousands of people over the course of every month. and it is kind of astonishing that that kind

of connection. and i, you know, i found some letter that he wrote in 1863 to i think, a big meeting in illinois, when he says that people are, he just makes a blank statement but it's a great thing hearing a president say, people are driven by motive. and i just love that. he's like a playwright. >> you're in luck. i got you one-on-one. >> seriously? thank you. >> don't you thank me until i hear what i want for it. i want to you take care of all this before your favorite subject. >> when mark boal was pursuing his subject about osama bin laden he had no idea history would intervene. much has been said about the fill-- film, its accuracy and message however one feels this is sharp storytelling. >> her hurt locker was finished we were talking about what the next picture might be. and we decided to focus on the attempt to kill bin laden in tora bora in 2001

when u.s. special forces more or less had him in a one square mile box. >> rose: right. >> and the eyes of the world were on him and september 11th was so fresh in everybody's mind. it was just a couple months after that. we were working on that film for a number of years, researching it, writing it and were pretty close to actually making it and then things changed. but i think we were both curious just as americans or as citizens or what have you. >> rose: what was going on there, why did it take so long. what were they doing. how, you have america, the most powerful nation on the planet and you have this guy. and ten years. an to try to kind of unpack that and take people behind the scenes and show them what it would be like to be an intel officer, tracking bin laden and bring that intel to life. >> rose: and how they did it. >> and how they did it. >> rose: so if i go to the cia i will find a young agent that looked like jessica chastain that was at the centre of this team that

found -- >> well, first of all, there are some public figures that are represented in the film. everybody else in the film we didn't cast actors that had any physical resemblance because these are civil servants. and we want to be respectful of their privacy. >> rose: but did you the research. >> i did the research. >> rose: you were -- >> i gathered a lot of it this. >> rose: before you became a screenwriter. >> and i gathered a lot of firsthand accounts from people that were directly involved in this operation. >> rose: do you know whether they, the cia agent who was part of tracking down the courier was there watching them leave? is that factually accurate or not? >> rather than get into a scene by scene analysis i will say that first of all this is not a documentary. however, to the best of my ability within the constraints of a motion picture, i tried to be as faithful to the research as i could. and there is going to be a lot of books written about this event so hopefully i'm consistent with those books and gratified that so far no

one has stood up and said, you know, so but there is definitely an agent deployed and i think that hopefully we bring that to life. >> rose: fair enough. i'm to the going to make you go through scene by scene and say is this accurate or not. >> it is a true story is what i can tell you. >> i'm curious ma makes you such a mandingo expert. >> i'm curious what makes so you curious. >> rose: best original screenplay quentin tarantino's dream was to make a spa geti western. his django unchained is an homage to the works of past masters, nothing quentin does is small or subtle. he pushes his passion to the limits in a daring film. >> my film writing lead me to my next film. and then using that fascist lead, bleak, barron, brutal, violent surreal west as a jumping off point, well,

what is the true americanul equivalent of that. and that would be being a slave in the antebellum south. i wanted to go into the bleakest time of america's history, the truly the biggest sin that the country committed. and the sin that we're still paying forward to this day. we haven't gotten past the sin. and part of the reason is because we can't even deal with-- we condition even deal with the sin. we have to almost lie about it. and lie by omission. and i wanted to throw it out there on the table. i wanted to take a modern day audience and stick them in the antebellum south and see what america was like at that time in that part of the country. and deal with it. now i want to do it in an entertaining way and you know to me the way to do that is to do it as a genre piecement because it seems like most of the time whenever it has been dealt with, at least in the last 30 years or 40 years, it's

been either historical with a capital h. i wanted to do it like an exciting western adventure. and as a genre movie first, that uses slavery and the antebellum south as a back drop in order to tell this adventure. and the adventure that he was down with, is of a black male rising up, becoming a cowboy, becoming a spaghetti western hero, becoming a folkloric hero and goes out and saves s woman. she is in the pit of hell and he's going to go and extrack her from it. and i wanted to give this kind of story of a black man in that time period where he's considered three fifths of a human to be able to go all the way to the pit of hell to extract his woman, his princess in exile, who is basically locked in the tower of the evil kingdom by the evil ruler. and get her out.

and play it in that-- and give it the spaghetti western opera attic view of the whole thing, the big innocence-- bigness of op ra, the hugeness of folkloric legend and mix that also with negrofolklore of the time. of the powerless animal who is able to triumph over the powerful animal in the jungle in the forest through cunning and gile. >> rose: we wish all of the nominees the best of luck on sunday night. in the end they're all winners. talented professionals would come together if collaboration to tell us wonderful, fascinating, interesting stories. we'll be watching on sunday night. we love the movies, thank you for joining us this evening. we'll see you next time.

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