and ford >> we've gone from what, six to 12 million people? where did all of these disabled people come from? >> kroft: senator tom coburn says the congress pays out $135 billion to americans claiming to be disabled, and a lot of them are not. >> if the american public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits. >> kroft: we decided to look into what appears to be a large- scale disability scam. look, there are a lot of allegations out there that we wanted to talk to you about. >> i understand. >> pelley: you don't realize how overused the word "breathtaking" is until something actually takes your breath away.

ford builds 23,000 vehicles a day; lamborghini builds 11, each purchased a year in advance, each unique. it is very beautiful and it is completely impractical. >> yes. >> pelley: tonight, "60 minutes" celebrates 50 years of italy's super car, the lamborghini. >> stahl: cate blanchett is a won the academy award for best actress for her role in "blue jasmine," about a park avenue socialite married to a con man. >> you know, someday, when you come into great wealth, you must remember to be generous. >> stahl: she has played a queen, an elf, an albino, and a man. >> i guess i've got one of those faces that's not particularly beautiful, not too ugly, you know. i can look... >> stahl: come on. >> ...a bit masculine, i can

look a bit feminine, depending on how you're lit, how you're shot. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes". >> cbs money watch update sponsored by lincoln financial. calling all chief life officers. >> glor: king. ken feinberg tomorrow will unveil the terms of gm's ignition switch compensation plan. the supreme court rules tomorrow on whether businesses have to offer contraception coverage. and the white house will ask for more than $2 billion to help handle a surge of illegal immigrants. i'm jeff glor, cbs news. [ female announcer ] take skincare to the next level

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>> kroft: when it began back in the 1950s, the federal disability insurance program was envisioned as a small program to assist people who were unable to work because of illness or injury. today, it serves nearly 12 million people, up 20% in the last six years, and has a budget of $135 billion. that's more than the government spent last year on the department of homeland security, the justice department, and the labor department combined. it could be the first government benefits program to run out of cash. it's been called a "secret welfare system" with its own "disability industrial complex," and a system ravaged by waste and fraud. a lot of people want to know what's going on, especially senator tom coburn of oklahoma,

who we talked to last fall when this story first aired. >> tom coburn: go read the statute. if there's any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. that's pretty clear. so, where'd all those disabled people come from? >> kroft: the social security administration, which runs the disability program, says the surge in claims is due to aging baby boomers and the lingering effects of a bad economy. but senator tom coburn of oklahoma, the ranking republican on the senate subcommittee for investigations-- who's also a physician-- says it's more complicated than that. in 2012, his staff randomly selected hundreds of disability files, and found that 25% of them should never have been approved; another 20%, he said, were highly questionable. >> coburn: if all these people are disabled that apply, i want them all to get it. and then we need to figure out how we're going to fund it. but my investigation tells me and my common sense tells me that we got a system that's

being gamed pretty big right now. >> kroft: and by a lot of different people exploiting a vulnerable system. coburn says you need look no further than the commercials of disability lawyers trolling for new clients. namely, the two thirds of the people who have already applied for disability and been rejected. there's not much to lose, really. it doesn't cost you anything unless you win the appeal, and the lawyers collect from the federal government. >> marilyn zahm: if the american public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits. >> kroft: marilyn zahm and randy frye are two of the country's 1,500 disability judges. they are also the president and vice-president of the association of administrative law judges. they are each expected to read, hear, and decide up to 700 appeals a year to clear a backlog of nearly a million cases.

they say disability lawyers have flooded the system with cases that shouldn't be there. >> zahm: in 1971, fewer than 20% of claimants were represented. now, over 80% of claimants are represented by attorneys or representatives. >> kroft: why do you think there's so many more lawyers involved in this than there used to be? >> zahm: it's lucrative. >> randy frye: follow the money. >> kroft: in 2012, the social security administration paid a billion dollars to claimants' lawyers out of its cash-strapped disability trust fund. the biggest chunk, $70 million, went to binder and binder, the largest disability firm in the country. lawyer jenna fliszar and jessica white worked for binder and binder, representing clients in front of disability judges from new hampshire to west virginia. >> jenna fliszar: i call it a legal factory, because that's all it is. i mean, they have figured out the system and they've made it into a huge national firm that makes millions of dollars a year on social security disability.

>> jessica white: i was hired at the end of 2008, and business was booming because the economy was so bad. we had a lot of people who their unemployment ran out and this was the next step. >> fliszar: if you're unable to find a job, and you have any type of physical issue, then it really becomes a last ditch effort because the job market is so bad. >> kroft: many of the cases they handled involved ailments with subjective symptoms like backache, depression, and fibromyalgia, which is joint and muscle pain, along with chronic fatigue. hard to prove you've got it? >> fliszar: yes. and there's really no diagnostic testing for it. >> kroft: hard to deny you don't have it. >> fliszar: correct. >> kroft: out of the hundreds of people that you represented, how many of these cases involved strong cases for disability? >> fliszar: strong cases, i would say maybe 30% to 40%. and then i would say half of my cases were not deserving of disability. >> kroft: how many of them ultimately ended up getting benefits?

>> fliszar: half. >> kroft: we tried repeatedly to reach binder and binder for comment, but our phone calls were not returned. >> coburn: we ought to err on the side of... somebody being potentially disabled. and we have a ton of people in our country that are, but what's coming about now with where we are is the very people who are truly disabled, because we have so many scallywags in the system, are going to get hurt severely when this trust fund runs out of money. >> kroft: senator coburn says disability payments are now propping up the economy in some of the poorest regions in the country, which is why he sent his investigators to the border area of kentucky and west virginia. more than a quarter of a million people in this area are on disability-- 10% to 15% of the population, about three times the national average. jennifer griffith and sarah carver processed disability claims at the social security

regional office in huntington, west virginia. how important are disability checks to people in this part of the country? >> jennifer griffith: they're a vital part of our economy. a lot of people depend on them to... to survive. >> kroft: to see it first-hand, they suggested we come back right after the disability checks went out. and we did, to find crowds and traffic jams. >> griffith: you avoid the pharmacy, you avoid wal-mart. you avoid, you know, restaurants because it's just... >> sarah carver: any grocery stores. >> griffith: it's just extremely crowded. everybody's received their benefits. "let's go shopping." >> kroft: not everyone in the throngs we saw is on disability, but jennifer griffith and sarah carver say there's no question that a lot of them are and probably shouldn't be. >> carver: we have a lot of people who have exhausted their unemployment checks and have moved onto social security disability. >> kroft: this is, sort of, a bridge between unemployment and collecting social security.

>> carver: generally, yes. >> kroft: are they disabled? >> carver: not always, no. >> griffith: more often than not, no. >> kroft: around here, people call it "getting on the draw" or "getting on the check," but they have other names for it. >> carver: i think you could call it a scheme. you could call it a scam. you could call it fraud. i mean, there's different definitions for it. >> kroft: large scale? >> griffith: very large scale. >> kroft: they began complaining to their bosses at the social security administration six years ago after discovering that an outsized number of claims and some questionable medical evidence was being submitted by eric conn, a flamboyant attorney whose face is plastered on billboards throughout the area and on local tv. he runs one of the largest disability practices in the country out of the eric c. conn law center, which is just off route 23 in stanville, kentucky. it's a complex of several doublewides welded together with

an imposing replica of the lincoln memorial in the parking lot. surprisingly, it has only one space for the disabled. i mean, it's kind of hard to miss eric conn around here, isn't it? >> griffith: you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know who he is in this area. >> kroft: he calls himself "mr. social security." and some of his ads say "guaranteed success." how can he make that claim? >> carver: he backs that up. >> kroft: a slam dunk? >> carver: mm-hmm. pretty much. >> kroft: that's a remarkable record. >> carver: yes, it is. >> kroft: is he that good a lawyer? >> carver:: you know... >> griffith: no. >> kroft: a lot of conn's success, they say, had to do with a particularly friendly disability judge, david daugherty, who sought out conn's cases and approved virtually all 1,823 of them, awarding a half a billion dollars worth of lifetime benefits to conn's clients. the decisions were based on the recommendations of a loyal group of doctors who often examined conn's clients right in his law

offices and always endorsed them for the disability rolls. were most of the medical reports submitted by the same doctors? >> griffith: yes. >> carver: yes. sometimes, up to 13 to 20 reports a day. >> griffith: i know on one, we counted 16 exams by the same doctor all in one day at his office. >> kroft: and they were all approved? >> griffith: they were all approved. >> kroft: were all those valid claims? >> carver: there's no way that you're going to have 100% of clients walk through your door and be disabled. 100% of claimants, there's no way. >> kroft: we were hoping that, given eric conn's outgoing personality and love of publicity, he would be eager to talk to us, but that turned out not to be the case. at first, we were told he wasn't in the office. we said we'd wait. >> hey, take some pens, too, all right? >> kroft: okay. great. about an hour later, we got a call from his lawyer in washington. you know, we don't want to make it seem like he's hiding from us. the lawyer said he'd try to coax conn out of the office, and eventually, he emerged.

>> eric conn: i'm very much familiar with you. how we doing today? >> kroft: i'm doing good. look, there's a lot of allegations out there... >> conn: there are. >> kroft: ...about you that we wanted to talk to you about. conn: i understand. well, i'm not normally a shy person, but i think it's probably best i speak in the legal realm rather than here. i know you all have come a long way, and i don't mean to be in... inhospitable, but i just think it's probably best right now. >> kroft: you can't talk about your relationship with judge daugherty or your incredible success in... in disability court? >> conn: boy, that's tempting. ( laughter ) oh, i would love to comment on some of that. but not... i'm really sorry, i don't think i should right now. >> kroft: conn didn't want to go into it with senator coburn's investigators, either. they worked on the case for two years, interviewing witnesses and poring over disability documents. that's why they asked us to protect their identities. what did you find out in west virginia and kentucky? >> coburn: significant fraud.

>> kroft: does the name eric conn ring a bell? >> coburn: mm-hmm. i would tell you, i wouldn't want him for a brother-in-law. and he's got a lot of money, and the american taxpayer paid him that money. >> kroft: is he breaking the law? >> coburn: that's probably going to be determined by the department of justice. >> kroft: coburn's report, which was released last fall, showed that conn collected more than $13 million in legal fees from the federal government over the past seven years, and that he paid five doctors roughly $2 million to regularly sign off on bogus medical forms that had been manufactured and filled out ahead of time by conn's staff. you think what you found there is just an isolated case? >> coburn: no. i mean, it's... it may be one of the worst cases. it just shows you how broken it is. you take a good concept that's well meaning, and then you don't manage it, you don't monitor it, you don't over... congress doesn't oversight it. and pretty soon, you end up with places like, in west virginia, certain counties, where, you

know, you're born to be on disability. >> kroft: it should be pointed out that no one is getting rich off disability payments of $1,100 a month. it's a minimum wage income with medicare benefits after two years. but each new case will eventually cost taxpayers, on average, $300,000 in lifetime benefits. for marilyn zahm, the disability judge from buffalo, the high demand for it is a measure of the low prospects that still exist for millions of americans. >> zahm: people run out of unemployment insurance. they are not going to die silently. they are going to look for another source of income. it is not unusual for people, especially people over 40, to have some sort an ailment or impairment. so they will file for disability benefits based upon that. for many of these people, the plant closed. there are no jobs in their communities. what are people supposed to do? >> kroft: some of these people are desperate people. >> coburn: absolutely desperate.

i agree. but what you're really describing is our economy and the consequences of it. and we're using a system that wasn't meant for that, because we don't have a system over here to help them. which means we're not addressing the other concerns in our society, and that's a debate congress ought to have. >> if a disability fund goes dry, what happens? go to 60minutesovertime.com sponsored by pfizer. [ female announcer ] hands were made for playing. legs, for crossing. feet...splashing. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections,

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>> pelley: imagine paying six figures for a car and being told you had to stand in line a year to get it. oh, and by the way, it has only two seats, no trunk to speak of, and gets 14 miles to the gallon. you might think a company like that wouldn't last. but lamborghini of italy celebrates its 50th anniversary

last year-- 50 years of creating the world's most exotic super- cars, and 50 years of dodging bankruptcy. no, a car company like that wouldn't last. ready to go. but then, lamborghini never was a car company; it's a builder of fantasies. whoa! wow! you don't realize how overused the word "breathtaking" is until something actually takes your breath away. >> mario fasanetto: if you open aggressive the throttle, you have 570 horsepower. >> pelley: oh, magnificent. >> fasanetto: ( laughs ) >> pelley: lamborghini test driver mario fasanetto finds the limits in the cars... >> fasanetto: more, more, more, more, more... >> pelley: ...though, this time on bologna's imola race track, the limits belonged to the driver... >> fasanetto: go close, close, close to the curb, to the curb, the curb, the curb, then let run out. >> pelley: ...not to the 200 mile an hour, $200,000

lamborghini gallardo. >> fasanetto: brake, brake, brake, brake, more, brake, brake more, more, more. >> pelley: i'm not making you nervous, am i? >> fasanetto: no. >> pelley: maybe he's calm because this is the least expensive lamborghini. there's a $400,000 car and a $4 million car, but before we see those, have a look at how much road lamborghini has put between its cars of today and their humble beginnings. the creator, the late ferruccio lamborghini, was a wealthy builder of tractors, the john deere of italy. morley safer met him in our first story on lamborghini in 1987. mr. lamborghini collected ferraris, but he found the clutches weak. the story goes he complained to enzo ferrari, who said, "stick to tractors, i'll build the cars." in italy, insult is the mother of invention.

lamborghini sought to teach ferrari a lesson with lavish interiors, brawling v-12 engines, and style like nothing else. the namesake loved spain's traditional sport, so each model is named for famous bulls. the latest beast to bolt into the ring is the aventador. the transmission has three settings-- it has "road," "sport," and "race." >> fasanetto: "race," you have to set "race"! >> pelley: i'm not sure everybody should select "race" on this car. we didn't race through northern italy because of traffic, and because our jet helicopter with our camera can fly only 170 miles an hour. the aventador will do 217, zero to 60 in under three seconds. while 700 horsepower propels you forward, the aventador will set

you back between $400,000 and $500,000. are we still on the right road for lamborghini? >> fasanetto: yes, next roundabou on the left. >> pelley: we're coming into the town of sant'agata in what italians call "motor valley." this is the original factory? >> fasanetto: yes, there is just one lamborghini, the original. >> pelley: the original factory floor is thoroughly modern now. it's spotless-- seems to be a point of pride in that. even the floors are squeaky clean. but it's also an old-fashioned place where hands know the feel of a bolt properly torqued and eyes judge each pane perfectly placed. ranieri niccoli is the industrial director. you know what i didn't see on your assembly line that i see on every automotive assembly line? >> ranieri niccoli: tell me. >> pelley: robots. >> niccoli: no way. clear, no way. no, all the lamborghini are done by people, italian people from

sant'agata. this is... this is our value. no way for robots. >> pelley: ford builds about 23,000 vehicles a day; lamborghini builds 11, each purchased a year in advance, each unique. how many colors do you offer? >> niccoli: whatever you want. >> pelley: any color i want? >> niccoli: yeah, basically, we try to fulfill all the requests of our customers. >> pelley: i can walk in with my favorite tie. >> niccoli: or with the... or your... or with the bag of your wife, yes. >> pelley: has any woman ever matched the car to her handbag? >> niccoli: yes. ( laughter ) it happens. >> pelley: no, really. >> niccoli: yeah, really, it's funny. we see here pink cars or strange colors, really. >> pelley: the customer is king? >> niccoli: yes, of course. >> pelley: as we walked the plant with niccoli, we were struck by a sharp division of labor. nearly everyone on this assembly line is a man. but if you go over to where the interior is done, nearly everyone is a woman. why is that?

>> niccoli: i can tell you this. we really need women on the interior. because the precision that the women has, unfortunately, we as men, we don't have that. >> pelley: we don't have the precision? >> niccoli: not the precision and the manuality to really... to create a masterpiece like our interior. >> pelley: the car is male on the outside and female on the inside? >> niccoli: ( laughs ) let's say it like this. yeah, it could be. >> pelley: these don't look like any other car on the road. something that makes you smile. ( laughter ) the guy with the proud father look is filippo perini, the chief designer in charge of the look of lamborghini. when we were driving the aventador today on the road, there was a truck, and the passenger in the truck turned around to take a picture of the car. they want to take our picture. why does that happen? >> filippo perini: because we are in italy; people love beautiful cars. >> pelley: perini runs this shop, where designers who love beautiful cars take their

inspiration, we're told, from the contours of insects and fighter planes. do you ever design something and show it to the engineers, and the enginers say, "we can't build that"? >> perini: yeah, yeah, it's all... it happened always like this. >> the driver, steering wheel... >> pelley: when we asked perini for lamborghini's dna, he drew a single arc. that is a lamborghini line. >> perini: this is a... really a lamborghini line, this is our own way to produce cars. >> pelley: an uninterrupted line from front to rear. it's very beautiful and it is completely impractical. there is no trunk. >> perini: no, we have a good trunk in front. >> pelley: all right. yeah. but if you want your golf clubs, you're going to have to have another car. >> perini: i think, with a car like this, you won't have time to do golf. >> pelley: you won't want to play golf because you'll be driving your car. >> perini: yes, yes. >> pelley: one thing that could fit in there are lamborghini's profits.

in the $400,000 car business, any recession slams on the brakes. mr. lamborghini and a series of owners have lost fortunes. that began to change in 1998, when volkswagen bought the company under its audi brand. at a race in england, lamborghini president and c.e.o. stephan winkelmann told us the company has been making money now since 2006. one of the selling points, in addition to style and speed, is the sound. engineers labor over the growl. you can tell that a lamborghini's coming before you ever see it. in new york, we asked then-chief operating officer of lamborghint important question a buyer can ask: "what's wrong with it?" >> michael lock: what's wrong with it? i think... if i were to be

critical, i would say that we need to do a very good job of managing the perception of our brand. we want to make sure that lamborghini is seen as a friendly brand. >> pelley: after the great recession, especially this soon after the great recession, you want to make sure your driver's not scorned. >> lock: no, indeed. i think that's very important. >> pelley: lock told us that even though the company is profitable, thanks to german discipline, the car still has to be sold the italian way. you're trying to seduce people... >> lock: indeed. >> pelley: ...with this car, because that's the only way you can get somebody to write a $400,000 check. >> lock: ( laughs ) seduction is certainly an important part of that process, yes. >> pelley: they have to be just a little bit irrational about this purchase. >> lock: they have to be a little bit romantic, certainly. >> pelley: what's the difference? you'd have to be hopelessly romantic and maybe embarrassingly rich to join lamborghini's 50th anniversary party in the spring of 2013. 350 owners shipped their raging

bulls from all around the world for a ten-city, five-day sprint through italy. it looks like we sped these pictures up but, of course, we didn't. an italian road can really look like this when the steering is as precise as leonardo da vinci and the brakes have the stopping power of sophia loren. how do you get all this past the highway patrol? build them a lamborghini. nearly every model from every era filled the piazzas to be blessed, fussed over, photographed and admired as part of the national heritage. no two alike, each crafted as a matter of taste. even this was an offer lamborghini couldn't refuse. ( horn playing theme to "the godfather" )

the rally ended with a coming out party for a new car named for a bull that murdered a matador. lamborghini built only four venenos, one for itself and three that sold for $4 million each. who buys that?! >> lock: very few people. and the most difficult thing to manage in the process of selling those cars was having a palatable story for the six or seven who we couldn't get a car for. >> pelley: you had to tell them why they couldn't buy a $4 million car. >> lock: i had to explain that we had a very limited production available on these cars. >> pelley: how many of the three veneno buyers bought the car sight unseen? >> lock: all three of them. ♪ ♪ >> pelley: the golden anniversary party ended with opera and fireworks, as all italian celebrations must. with five decades in the rearview mirror, lamborghini is

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>> stahl: to the surprise of virtually no one, this year's oscar for best actress went to cate blanchett for her leading role in woody allen's "blue jasmine." blanchett grew up in australia, where, as we first reported in february, she started her career in the theater. she's a movie star who does shakespeare. she's first and foremost a theater actor, winning wild praise for her hedda gabler and blanche dubois on the stage. this doesn't mean she can't take

a joke, or a fun role in blockbusters like indiana jones. it seems she can do it all, playing americans, russians, germans, skinheads, albinos, and men! "vanity fair" called her "a character actress in a leading woman's body." so, you've played the queen of england, you've played an elf, you played an italian immigrant... >> cate blanchett: albino. >> stahl: albino. >> blanchett: and that's just before breakfast this morning. ( laughs ) i have pink eyes. like a putano, huh? like the devil, eh? >> stahl: the range is extraordinary. >> blanchett: i guess i've got one of those faces that's not particularly beautiful, not too ugly, you know. i can look... >> stahl: come on. >> blanchett: ...a bit masculine, i can look a bit feminine, depending on how you're lit, how you're shot. i don't mind not looking conventionally, you know,

attractive, if that's what the part requires. >> stahl: so she can be gorgeous and regal as the elf queen in "lord of the rings"; not so much when she played bob dylan. >> blanchett: you just want me to say what you want me to say. i don't feel like, "now, i'm a great actress." i never feel that. you always think, "okay, i've learned that. well, now what if i did that?" golly! >> stahl: they call her a chameleon, the way she almost molts into her characters, as when she played katharine hepburn in "the aviator," for which she won an oscar for best supporting actress. >> blanchett: you're not extending enough on your follow- through. follow-through is everything in golf, just like life... ( laughs ) don't you find? >> stahl: she spent weeks with a voice coach perfecting hepburn's distinctive accent. can you speak katharine hepburn? >> blanchett: no, i can't do anything. i'm terrible. i'm the worst dinner party guest in the world. people say, "oh, do... do your scottish," and i'll go, "okee,

i'll do me..." i sound like i'm a cross between sort of from new delhi and boston. ( laughs ) it's terrible. >> stahl: in "blue jasmine," she plays a desperate park avenue socialite who loses her life of status and luxury when her husband turns out to be a swindler like bernie madoff. >> blanchett: uh, i was forced to take a job selling shoes on madison avenue. oh, so humiliating. friends i'd had at dinner parties at our apartment came in and i waited on them. i mean, do you have any idea what that's like? she was monumentally deluded. and like a lot of us, i mean, we... our lives are built on a fictionalized sense of self, who we would... who we aspire to be, rather than perhaps who we actually are. >> stahl: you do a lot of research. you're known for reading, watching videos, getting... >> blanchett: it's enjoyable. it's enjoyable. >> stahl: is it true that you watched the "60 minutes" morley safer interview of ruth madoff?

>> ruth madoff: if i could change things, at least if i had tried, i would have felt a little better. >> stahl: ...bernie madoff's wife? >> blanchett: yes, absolutely. >> stahl: did that help you? did it? >> blanchett: it did. i think that what i really got from them, that madoff interview, was the sense of shame. and i found that very useful. >> stahl: one critic called it "the most complicated and demanding performance of her movie career." >> blanchett: you know, someday, when you come into great wealth, you must remember to be generous. >> stahl: but for blanchett, woody allen's notoriously minimal direction was unnerving. you really love to talk things out. and as i understand it, that's not his style. >> blanchett: ( laughs ) no. he's monosyllabic at best. i don't know how to do this thing unless it's in conversation with somebody else. i can't... monologue is... terrifies me. ( laughs ) >> stahl: but that's what you got. >> blanchett: first day, he said, "it's awful. you're awful." >> stahl: to you? >> blanchett: yeah.

>> stahl: he said "awful"? >> blanchett: "it's awful." >> stahl: but he didn't say what to do? he just said, "it's awful"? >> blanchett: no. no. >> stahl: so then, you did it again... >> blanchett: and it was still awful. but... >> stahl: it was still awful? >> blanchett: well, obviously, it got a bit better because it didn't... you know, people hae gone to see it. >> stahl: her breakthrough role came in 1998 as the queen of england in "elizabeth." >> blanchett: i am married to england. >> stahl: after that performance, she was offered other big parts, but went for characters who stretched her, rather than ones that would make her famous. even though she's often on the red carpet these days, blanchett never sought to be a movie star, nor did she think she'd ever be one. she's the middle child of a school teacher mother and transplanted texan father, who died when she was ten. she dropped out of college to study theater. what she wanted was to be a great stage actress, and got her

first major role in a play here at the sydney theater company. >> blanchett: there's a photo over here... >> stahl: in 1993, she co- starred with fellow aussie geoffrey rush in david mamet's "oleanna." look how into it you are. you are so inside. >> blanchett: it was one of those plays. you can look at yourself and you can see those things that i see. and you can find revulsion equal to my own. good day! >> stahl: you were a triumph in it. people were dazzled. >> blanchett: yeah, the director actually almost sacked me. and that was probably a big motivator for me to... to do a better job. >> stahl: are you one of those people... are you one of those people that... >> blanchett: likes to be terrified? >> stahl: ...likes to be terrified? >> blanchett: i think it's the only way to work for me. >> stahl: it motivates you? >> blanchett: yeah. i'm much better with truth. >> stahl: even if it hurts? >> blanchett: even if it hurts. >> stahl: well, i think you've talked about the whole process as the "trapeze effect." you're flying up there, and you could fall. >> blanchett: yes. >> stahl: it's fear. >> blanchett: when you're stretching yourself, as a role like "blue jasmine" did for me,

you risk falling flat on your face. >> stahl: she applies that same risk-taking to her personal life, as when she and andrew upton, a playwright and director, decided to get married on a whim. they were both part of the sydney theater crowd. how did you meet? how did the sparks start? >> andrew upton: the sparks started slowly, i think, personally. >> blanchett: we didn't like each other. >> upton: we didn't get on at all at first sight. >> stahl: really? >> blanchett: and then, all of a sudden, we played poker... poker one night, and you were telling me about how you were in love with a friend of mine, and then... ( laughter ) we kissed. >> stahl: and all of a sudden, you're asking her to marry you, real fast, as i understand it. >> upton: i think it was about 21 days. >> stahl: and you said yes right away? three weeks? >> blanchett: yeah. but you leap off at the same moment. and i think it's all about timing. >> stahl: she says their marriage is a partnership-- in the raising of their three sons, ages five, nine, and 12-- and in their careers.

upton has been her collaborator and sounding board. and they share a love of their country. she's australian through and through, down-to-earth, and happy to be 18 time zones away from hollywood. >> blanchett: i adore australia. i mean, i live and work here. and i'm buoyed up by it. i'm inspired by it. >> stahl: as she took us for a walk along the sydney coast, she talked about her private life. except for her husband, the only member of the family we'd be allowed to film would be the dog, fletcher. her home and her children were off limits. in the late '90s, she and upton moved to england, and her movie career took off. but in 2006, the sydney theater company invited them to come back and take over as co- artistic directors, and they jumped at it. >> blanchett: it was one of the quickest decisions i think we made, once the offer had come

our way, apart from how quickly we got married. ( laughter ) maybe in the same spirit, strangely. >> upton: yeah, i think it was in the same spirit of adventure. >> stahl: it's a job they shared for six years. it kept cate in sydney, allowing her to spend more time with their children, and to return to her first love, theater. so this is wardrobe. while she acted in some of the productions, she also became an administrator, overseeing things like wardrobe and props. she and upton hired big name directors, and brought the company international acclaim with ambitious productions like "streetcar named desire," which they took to new york in 2009, with cate as blanche dubois. it is so intense. it was so intense. how long does it take you to come down from an experience on the stage like that? >> blanchett: at the time, you just... you do eight shows a week, my hair was falling out by the end, and i mean... >> stahl: your... is that true? >> blanchett: yeah.

it was not... >> stahl: your hair was falling out, because you put so much into it. >> blanchett: but i think i was just so exhausted by... by it. >> stahl: she's known for being low maintenance, her dramas strictly onscreen or on stage. when we met her before a performance of "uncle vanya," she was doing her own makeup. >> your life should not be to grumble and moan. >> stahl: well, what's she like after a performance? does she stay in the role? >> upton: no. >> stahl: she comes home, and she's still blanche dubois that night... >> blanchett: don't answer that, andrew. ( laughter ) >> stahl: she comes home and she's cate...? >> upton: yeah. >> stahl: after these emotional, powerful... >> upton: yeah. quite calm and chirpy. >> stahl: she says she's not a "method" actor who "mines" her inner self to unlock a character. >> blanchett: it has nothing to do with me and the fact that my dog died or my father died with my... when i was ten, and making the grief small and personal and inward. and so therefore you don't carry it home, because you're not

going through some personal, inward self-analysis every night that could eat you away. you're giving it away to the audience and hopefully, if it works, then, it's their... they have... it's their problem. >> stahl: they take it in. well, yeah. >> blanchett: they can take it home. >> stahl: in december, cate decided to leave the sydney theater company and a job she loved. what went into that decision? >> blanchett: the children. you could feel their school needs beginning to grow. they actually need that attention and, at a certain point, you have to make a decision about that, and that's not something we want to outsource. >> stahl: now, her decisions about what roles to take in movies include how long she'd have to be away from home or whether she can take the boys with her on location, as she did with "blue jasmine," her comeback to the movies, which she has done with a roar. you're 44 years old. >> blanchett: am i?

we don't need to discuss that. >> stahl: yeah, you are... >> blanchett: we don't need to rub that in. let's not... >> stahl: i'm not rubbing it in. i think it's great to be 44, frankly. but it can be a tough age for an actress. at least, that's the myth, i guess. because for you, it's been a fabulous age. >> blanchett: well, i came to the film industry, i mean, in actress years, i was pushing 80, because i was in my mid-20s when i made my first film. >> stahl: now, her movie career is so hot, she's already signed up for seven films. she's booked solid through at least 2015. what is the hardest part of your job? the thing you struggle with the most? >> blanchett: oh, look. is it hard? i don't know that it's hard. i'm an actress. i think the most complicated thing-- it's the military

maneuver of getting two careers, three children, but that's a working mother's problem, working parents' problem, that's not the challenge of work. i think, in relation to the work, the trickiest thing is beginning. i think it's quite a tricky neuro-linguistic process actually to try and make something that another... that a character has said, to make it come out through your body and make it seem like that's natural. it's kind of tricking yourself; the confidence trick. like an athlete does, you have to just say: "i'm just going to start. i'm ready. i'm open. let's go." >> stahl: she'll be returning to the stage in august, performing here in new york city in the sydney theater company's production of "the maids." her role-- a homicidal house servant in a world of haves and have nots. [ male announcer ] type 2 diabetes affects millions of us.

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