>> rose: welcome to the program, tonight, "the merchant of venice" with al pacino, tonight we have lily rabe and director dan sullivan. >> though justice consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. we do pray for mercy. >> rose: also this evening, a new movie, "true grit," directed by the coen brothers, one of the stars is matt damon. >> i can hit that size in 90 yards.

stop selling those cheap shells on me again. >> i thought you was going to say the sun was in your eyes. that is to say your eye. >> rose: we go to broadway for "the merchant of venice" and hollywood for "true grit," next. vote, volunteer, or donate for the causes you believe in at membersproject.com. take charge of making a difference.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: "the merchant of venice" is one of the most thrilling and controversial plays. first scene in central park last summer is now on broadway at until january 9. here is al pacino as shylock. >> if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? if we are like you and the rest, we will resemble you in death. if a jew wrong a christian? what is his humility.

revenge. in f a christian wrong a jew, what should his suffer being? by christian example. why resfleng thevilleny you teach me i will execute and it shall go hard but i will better instruction! >> rose: alongside ma p.a. chino lily rabb bay has what may be a brilliant breakout performance. >> i may neither choose nor refuse. so is the will of a living daughter curved by the will of a dead father. is it not hard that i cannot choose one nor refuse none. >> your father was ever virtuous and have good inspiration.

will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. >> rose: lily rain joins with us the play's director daniel sullivan. i am pleased to have them at this table to talk about an extraordinary level of performance as well as direction which has been receiving extraordinary press: nice to see you. >> thank you. >> rose: tell me how you thought about mess. >> well, actually, that came about through conversations sand we read a bunch of plays and thought, you know, this is time. it hadn't been done at the de la court for 50 years. it was the first production with george c. scott and then they stayed away from that play for a long time. >> rose: why? >> well, i think the difficulty

of the subject matter had something to do with it. there was a huge outcry 50 years ago when pap decided to do it. the rabbis of new york came out very strongly against it, that it was an anti-semitic work and shouldn't be done. so that was one of the reasons that people tiptoe somewhat around the play. but we thought time to do it. >> rose: and you immediately thought of pacino? >> actually, al called me. once we announced it he called me... >> rose: you announced it without casting? >> without casting, yes. there were people on our list we thought might be able to do it. i was away teaching and al called me and said "i'd like to keep working on this." he'd done the movie and he thought that he would like to continue... he told me he'd like to continue to explore the relationship with portia. he sort of felt that that was

not quite explored in the movie. >> rose: so did you say to al "i'll think about it" or what? >> i said how could i refuse? >> rose: (laughs) what do you think he meant by exploring the relationship with portia? >> i think that the... you know, these... the two extraordinaryly strong people in this play and this clash between the two of them in the court scene is sort of where the whole play leads. >> rose: oh, it's great. >> and i think that's what he wanted to spend some time working on. plus the fact that al really likes to just keep working on it. >> rose: so when you get the call. >> rose: >> yeah, parking my car on a very steep hill in los angeles in laurel canyon. i had a sublet. i was out there for a couple months and i had missed the announcement or i would have tried to call too. (laughs) >> rose: so you thought about portia before?

>> yes. i didn't know they had decided what they were doing that summer but i had definitely thought about portia before and my management maybe e-mailed me and said that they were checking my availability and that they were thinking of doing mess and i wrote back something with a lot of exclamation points and then i got a phone call with a lot of people and sat in my car for a little while after that. it was a great moment because to know... you know, it had really just... it's funny, you get so focused on going after certain jobs and this job i didn't know it existed and it was a job better than any of the jobs that were sort of in my consciousness at that moment and it was the thing. it was very thrilling. at that point i think they said

to me that... there was a shylock but i didn't find out that it was al until maybe a few weeks later. >> rose: what is it about portia that makes it, i assume, one of the better roles for you? >> she's funny and she she falls in love, she falls out of love, she... and then dresses up as a boy. >> rose: she's tough. >> she's you have to. she's tougher than i think she is. and then there's portia and then there's playing portia in the production. which is even... that may be experienced because of the way that dan directed the play and directed me and al and that relationship. >> rose: so tell us how you did that. >> i cast lily rabe.

>> rose: you're not stupid. that's what wendy said. he's handsome and smart. >> (laughs) but lily was my first and only idea for the role. >> rose: because? >> because she has that combination of sensitivity, girlishness, as you can see but extraordinary maturity on top of that. vocally perfect. i had... you know, i would generally cast an actor in shakespeare after i've seen them do shakespeare. i had never seen lily do shakespeare. >> rose: how much shakespeare had you done is. >> in college. >> rose: yeah, sure. >> college and... yeah. >> rose: and how much stage stuff had you done? >> at that point, that's sort of what i had mostly been doing since i had graduated. >> rose: because you're just coming off a film... or at least... or not? >> i had done... i'm not sure the timing of everything but i had done a film that is now just

out. on broadway i had done "steel magnolias" was my first job right out of school and then i did "heart break house" and i had done a richard greenberg play called "the american plan" and then something.... >> rose: >> i think it was "heartbreak house that i saw you in that convinced me this was your role. >> rose: what convinced you about the performance? >> it was a sort of... well, shaw sometimes can be more difficult than shakespeare in terms of the extraordinarily long endless paragraphs of speeches. and a kind of maturity with the language that even though i had never seen her do shakespeare i thought these things actually compute. >> rose: this is another scene with portia delivering her quality of mercy speech.

>> quality of mercy is not strained. it droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath its twist blessed. it blessth him that gives him that takes. the attribute to awe and majesty wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. but mercy is above this acceptered sway. >> rose: al comes out at the end of this and what occurs after the speech very disturbed by what she said because he know there is's truth in it and he can't let it in. shylock can't let it in. he must go forward and if he

lets that affect him, he won't be able to do what he feels he's taken an oath to do. >> rose: does it make you a better player if you're playing off al pacino? >> al is such a... as dan was saying he's just always working and investigating and it's... to be with that... you know... >> i think certainly both al and lily share an ability i think in both of the clips you saw there if you would see them the next night it wouldn't be the same. it will always, always be in the state of flux. it will always change. >> rose: and that is because? >> that is because there's a center to what they do that they never really go off of but they know that they can emotionally improvise around that. >> rose: but why is that? >> because of the things that are happening. you know, it's... one of the

great things about doing a play like this, one thing you never have to do is question the types. or you know you have this... you're just sort of held by this incredible language. and then to have... the way dan directed it, to have this... he's saying the center of our performances but i believe it's the center of the play in the way it's been... every piece is connected. and so within that it is this living, breathing thing and i... i think never before have i quite experienced where i do believe that if you saw it on a tuesday it would be quite a different thing. >> rose: you mean i could go back and see a different play? >> well, you wouldn't see a different play, thank goodness, but you would see new things occurring at all times because the subtext is always alive in performance. and all the actors feel that.

>> rose: so you say at the heart of this play it's dark. >> yes, it's extremely dark, this play, and it's one of the only plays that shakespeare, i think, sort of jumped its category. that is it's supposed to be a comedy. it's listed as a comedy. >> rose: by shakespeare? >> by... well, would not have been shakespeare but it would have been the people who followed and started to categorize these things. but it is also constructed like a comedy. >> rose: it's called a tragic comedy. >> yes. but it is... you know, the last scene of the play in belmont is supposed to be everyone going off to celebrate the destruction of the jew. or the conversion of the jew to christianity. and the sort of role that is played by portia, all those things are things that formed the shaspearean comedy. so we have to deal with that in

a contemporary world and it's impossible, really, to play that last scene of the play as comedy. there's comic stuff in it but what has happened to shylock infects all of the relationships in the play and those relationships all come apart at the seams. >> rose: was there any controversy at all this time? >> not really. i haven't experienced... i don't know, have you experienced any at all? >> i haven't. >> i know i have many jewish friends who go to see it and say "it's hard." it's hard for them. but i think they very much sympathize with shylock and his plight in the play. and, you know, it's wonderful about what al does is that he cuts no corners in giving you the sort of savagery of this man who is so backed into a corner. >> rose: where is the dramatic moment in this?

is there one or many? the pound of flesh speech, the quality of mercy speech. speeches or sill questions or what do you say? >> they're speeches, i think. soliloquys are really alone on stage so with the exception of two speeches in the play, everything else are basically speeches. but the entire trial scene was simply filled with those moments. but it's probably where portia begins to turn that you feel portia as you did in quality of mercy speech try to convince shylock not to go through with what he's going to go through. and as shylock shows himself more and more intent on doing this and does not pass all the tests that portia puts in front of him, plus the fact that

portia is becoming angrier and angrier with bassano as she sees be san owe's great love for antonio, which seems to supersede the love that he has for her, that anger... well, that was at least our choice, that anger begins to turn on shylock. so it's... there are two different things going on there. there's the... there's the sort of subtex wall anger at bassano and what seems to be an almost betrayal on his part and i don't know that she would... i don't know if you would agree, but i don't think she would have gone as far as she goes with shylock if she... if that moment between bassano and antonio hadn't taken place. >> that's right. i think coming into the... that

was certainly scene going into the first day of rehearsal this past summer that it was just like the big... you know, and i was nervous and i had a lot of thoughts about it and i... dan and i talked about it very early on just sort of the key because something i felt very strongly about was that when she walks into the room she is not planning to do any of the things that happen. she has this information in her back pocket but this is not thought through. because she just... there's just no part of her walking into that room that think this is man will go through with it. and then there is sort of a perfect storm. being confronted with shylock who is a person unlike any she's ever met. and his rage and then her rage

that is happening at bassano and i think at her father and then at shylock. it all comes together. >> rose: here is al on the show. we invited al and at one point he was going to come on the program, we were thrilled about that but he's got a very busy schedule. so we welcome him at any time, obviously. here it is. tell me who he is and where he's coming from. is it revenge, is it rage? is it all that? >> i see it's a combination of everything because when you take his life, at least the life that i tried to... the before life i tried to give to the character i saw someone who was put upon. i was interested in that message of how far can you drive somebody before they... you know and the background-- it's obvious to me in reading michael's script that you see a

man alone, sad, depressed, almost. you see a man confined to a ghetto, you see a man who loves his daughter, his only daughter and the loneliness of that. and in a way you see this gradation of abuse and that was what i related to. a kind of persecution that ultimately explodes because to me he's just... he's reached his limit when they take his daughter. and how that's how he feels about it. and that's how i saw him. >> rose: there's no limits for him, right? >> well, that i don't know. jury's out on that one. that's something we could always talk about is to whether the pound of flesh and what what that means. but i did feel that he was able to maintain a lot of dignity in terms of his work. he was quite good at it and he was proud of it. >> rose: this is what makes theater great, isn't it?

how he seize the character. and then he comes to you and he's been thinking about it. >> exactly. >> rose: i've done other things since i did this... whatever. >> yeah, yeah. and i think that, you know, it is a different performance in the play. it's more playful, he's not a victim from the beginning of the play. he's someone who is very self-possessed who can have a good time and enjoys the merry bond of the pound of flesh idea because he knows he's getting it back in a public way and he doesn't think that he's going to extract the pound of flesh. he's thinking the fact that antonio would go so far as to sign such a bond is going to get out thereto in public and he's going to get back at antonio that way. but it... as you said the death of his daughter tips him over the edge. >> rose: what does this play say about love? >> nothing very good. (laughter)

>> rose: i was going to say! (laughs) >> i think... i feel this has been in a lot of shakespeare's plays but certainly in this relationship so much and i think that this can be very true certainly life is so much of the love that portia experiences is production and what she... what she wants so desperately and what she's trying to escape and what she needs in that moment and it's put into this person who fits the bill and i believe that it's that kind of love can be incredibly powerful and it is for her. but then the fallout is very quick and very terrible. >> rose: is she a more interesting person at the end of this than she was... >> more interesting? yes. >> rose: even sexier in a sense.

>> i think she's evolved but i think it's also very tragic, her evolution, as she has had her eyes opened. >> rose: the loss of innocence. you know that this person is going to go through life much waryer than she has been. >> if she ever comes out of the tower she ends up in. (laughter) she may never make it back down. (laughter) >> rose: what do they mean when they say "the shylock problem" in theater? >> i think the... you know, the shylock problem is exactly what harold bloom was talking about. the idea that shylock is an anti-semitic character that is... what's interesting to me is that probably even the elizabethan novels would have

had sympathy for shylock. and as odd as it sounds, the fact that shakespeare decided to have him convert to christianity was i'm sure by the elizabethan audience considered a generous thing. >> rose: doing him a favor? >> well, it was... that is to make him a christian so he can go to heaven. that was the thinking and i'm sure they would have cheereded that and thought we've really grown to like this guy, you know? regardless of the... of what he's done in the play and we admire his strength. >> rose: we admire him because of... >> because of the... >> rose: his on stogs... >> because of obsession. the deck is stacked, his money is stolen, his daughter is stolen, of course he would be murderous. >> rose: and he's suffered all these indignities. ben brantley reviewing this for the "new york times" says that

portia is the moral lode star of this play. is that how you see it? >> oh, um... >> rose: lode stone of the play. >> that makes a lot of sense and i think that's a very dhash's a very articulate way to put it. i think in playing the part i didn't come in thinking about sort of, you know... it was very... it all comes out of sort of building the relationships. but i do think that in terms of... she's carrying the story in a lot of ways. >> it's also possible that portia in the trial scene could have said... could have stopped halfway through and let shylock simply leave the court, take his principle and go. she has that power. sdhokd that. but she adds the possibility of

the death sentence and the fact that all his money would be taken away from him. she adds that. >> she buries him, yeah. >> so my question there is where is the moral sender in that moment. >> rose: and why does she do that? >> why does she do it? >> well, i think that so much is the flip that happens because of all of these... she's driven in the same way that i believe shylock... the feeling of wanting revenge and justice i think it's... that's what happens to portia, too, in that way. >> rose: so they share something at some point. >> i think definitely. >> rose: your mother once said "as an rtist, there's really no choice to be made about what you do with your life once you know

who you are." >> they were very nervous about me going into the business or i think feeling in some way because that was the world i was raised in and its's what they did that i... that is what i was supposed to do. they really wanted me to feel like i could do anything and they did such a good job at making me feel like i could do anything and this was the only thing they want aed to do. >> rose: (laughs) someone once said to me... kirk douglas once said to me, you know, that his attitude about it was that with respect to children that you wanted them almost to say... to come to the conclusion there's nothing else they ever wanted to do. however they came to it. in other words rather than make it's easy for them, you almost wanted to make it be something that they really had to want. >> yeah. and i think they just really

wanted me to discover it in my own way whatever way that was and... >> rose: how do you think you discovered it? >> i did ballet for ten years and that was... i was very focused on that. i think now when i think about it what i really loved about dancing was performing. i think and the discipline and the structure and... but so many things that i still loved very much about acting and particularly acting on stage, i think. but i had quit ballet and i was terrible at sports and i just didn't have a thing and i was teaching dance at this summer program and one of the... there was an acting program as well that i sort of kept my distance from and the acting teacher approached me with a big zach of monologues and said "would you like to do a monologue in the

end of the year... my little girls were doing some dance. and he said... there were kids my age, too, teenagers, and i did a monologue from crimes of the heart, actually, which i then just did at the round about and that was a big moment for me. and then i auditioned for a school play and i got a... >> rose: but the monologue when you did that, did something say to you... click inside of you? a light went off? >> yes, it did. and i... it did. and my parents relaxed. my dad has said at that moment he thought, okay, fine. (laughs) >> rose: (laughs) there's nothing we can do. he wanted you to be a doctor but it's over now. >> i was always putting on making them sit with the video camera on for hours performing and busing my little brother

around. but it was definitely a conflict because there was something i got from them that... to stay away from it especially when i was little. but once they embraced it it was complete. >> and when you sat at the family table what was that like in terms of what you heard? how the business... not just the art but the business of acting was talked about. it must have been a constant subject. >> it was. and i... and also any time we tried to watch... we didn't watch a lot of television, i wasn't allowed to. but if we ever watched a movie it was "oh, so and so, she looks great. i have to call him." so it was... i was never having a... but it was... you know, in their hearts and their minds all the time. but we also spent a lot of time

talking about home work and... but they both loved... love... you know and the theater and so that was lot of talk about it. my little brother has just started taking acting classes and he said "i'm allowed at the dinner table with you guys" (laughter) he has other reasons for doing it, too, but, yeah. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> thank you. >> rose: great to have you. >> rose: in 1969, john wayne portrayed rooster cogburn in the film adaptation of charles portis's best selling novel "true grit." the duke's performance earned him the only academy award of his career. here is a look. >> sign it. here's $25. >> oh... >> i'll give you another $25 when we leave and $50 when the

job is done. >> oh, uh, i guess we can get started at first light. we'll cross the ferry. i want to talk to an informer in the indian nation. might know something. >> i'll be more than ready. (cat meows) >> rose: joel and ethan co-reason now offering their take on the book. the version starts matt damon, josh brolin and hailee steinfeld. >> in your four years as u.s. marshal, how many men have you shot? >> shot or killed? >> let us restrict it to killed so we may have a manageable figure. >> mr. cogburn? i'm looking for man that killed my father. the man's name is tom chainy and i need somebody to go after him.

>> what's your name? >> my name is matty ross. are you some kind of law? >> i'm a texas ranger. >> i know chaney, it's a two-man job taking him alive. >> can we depart this afternoon? >> we? >> i am going with you. >> congratulations, you've graduated from marauder to wet nurse. >> we're being followed. >> what do we do, marshal? >> you missed your shot, cogburn. >> best let this go. >> i thought you was gonna say the sun was in your eyes. that is to say, your eye. >> you had a lot of experience with bounty hunters, do you? >> that's a silly question. i am 14. >> time for you to go home. >> i don't like you. i will not go back. not without chaney dead or alive.

cheney's here! help me, marshal! >> now what, cogburn? >> boys, think about the wrath that's about to set down on you. >> i do not regret shooting your father. >> i will kill this girl! >> biggest mistake you ever made >> help me! >> i can do nothing for you, son. >> rose: joining me now is joel coen, his brother ethan coen and matt damon. jeff bridges was scheduled to appear but he wasn't feeling well today. we certainly want to have him on in his later date. i am pleased to have all of them

back at this table. great to see you. >> good to see you, thanks. >> rose: just tell me story of how you decided to make this movie. because your notion was not "i'm going to remake "true grit"" it was "i'm doing something else." >> that's true. he we had seen the movie, ethan and i, when it came out, when we were kids. didn't really remember the movie very well but we both read the novel and revisited the novel not too long ago, a few years ago reading it out loud to my son and that was the point at which we started talking about this might be fun to make into a movie. >> rose: because you like the novel? >> yes, responding to the novel. not really remembering the movie very well. >> rose: and what did you like about the novel? >> well, the novel is told in the first person by this very precocious 14-year-old girl. and the narrative voice is very funny. it's very compelling. it's... i mean, it grabs you right away and it's a really

good yarn and it's sort of like a... i was reading it to my kid. in many ways it's like a young adult adventure story but told in a way that's really closer to literature than it is to sort of a genre novel. >> rose: someone speculated about the fact that a coen movie is going to be on the christmas list as something new. (laughs) that "blood simple" would not have been there, or even "no country for old men." >> that's a good christmas movie. >> rose: (laughs) >> for the right family, yes. >> rose: (laughs) for the right family. but i mean there was something about this and what you did did you have to resist what your instincts might very well be to stylistic it up or something? >> we never styleistic it up. we were just trying to serve the

novel and we're always trying to serve the story whatever the story might be. the ones we come up with ourselves tend to be less christmasy. (laughter) >> rose: but you believe this is a movie for kids as well as adults? >> oh, absolutely. >> it was the ambition... we felt that it was... it's a story about a 14-year-old girl and we wanted 14-year-old girls to be able to see it. >> rose: and when you sat down with this guy, did they ask you if you'd read the novel or not? >> that was the first thing they talked about. they gave me novel and said "it will all be clear to you after you read the novel." i had the same reaction. i had somehow missed the novel. there's an essay in the back of that paper back edition that talks about how it was going to be entered into the cannon... >> an afterwards. >> exactly. in the afterward and... but there was a... i think when the

original film came out there was kind of a pop culture patina kind of that somehow made the book fall out of favor. but i've been handing the book out to everybody just because it's a wonderful book that people may have missed. >> rose: tell me who the characters are. you have rooster, chaney played by josh brolin. you're labeouf. >> we have the two actors from california who came to new york and caught the flu so they couldn't be here. so i'm representing all three. with my strong new york... >> rose: (laughs) exactly. i can't wait to see bridges and tell him what a weakling he is. >> he's love that. well, as joel said, you have maty ross, who's the essential character, this 14-year-old girl. >> it starts out with her narration when she's old and thinking about it. >> and her father's been killed. and so she's going to avenge his death so she hires... she looks for a u.s. marshal with true grit. >> rose: she's 14. >> she's 14 played by a

13-year-old. i mean, i don't even know what to call hailee, miracle of a young actor. and hires this guy who tends to not bring them home alive and isn't afraid to pull a cork. >> rose: rooster cogburn played by john wayne and now jeff bridges. >> exactly. the famous role john wayne with the eye patch and jeff plays anymore the movie. >> rose: tell me about the casting when you thought about this. was bridges like easy? >> yeah. that was easy for us because we'd worked with jeff before and... >> rose: (laughs) as someone once said, dude meets the duke. >> yes, exactly. we called jeff right after we finished the screenplay and thought... and, you know, curiously we'd actually talked to jeff a couple of years ago. we said we really should do something again and he suggested a western. so that was just another nick

that will dropped. >> rose: was "no country for old men" a western? >> well, no, we didn't really look at it this that way. to us a west certain you get up on a horse and you've got six-guns in your holsters. >> rose: mine, too. "unforgiven" is a western. >> "unforgiven" is a western. >> i'm not even positive this is a western. there's the horses and the six-guns and the icons of the western, but it's not sain gray, it doesn't have... >> rose: not riding out in the sunset. >> exactly. it's not a genre nevil that sense. so we never even thought... >> rose: but you do have... roger deacon, is that his name? he captured that sense of space. >> yeah, he's... yeah, it's a wonderfully shot movie and, right, when you get roger into those landscapes, really magical stuff starts to happen. >> rose: mattie, a 14-year-old, goes rooster to help her do

this. the bad guy who's killed her father is played by brolin, a so who is labeouf. >> it's pronounced l.a.-beef. so he's a texas ranger who has been on the trail of the same... of the brolin character of tom chaney for a separate crime that was committed down in texas. because chaney has shot and killed a state senator in texas so this texas ranger has been in inif he can which you willly hunting him for quite some time and meets up with the young girl finds out that there's this marshal who's going out after him into the choctaw nation and sew so he says i'll team up with you guys and we'll go together and hilairety ensues. >> rose: here's a scene where labeouf meets rooster. roll tape. >> in conscience, you cannot sign our agreement. you're the one who shot me. >> mr. labeouf has a point, marshal. it is an unfair leg up in any competition to shoot your

opposite number. >> damn it, i do not accept it as a given that i did shoot labeouf. there were blenty of guns going off. >> i heard the rifle and i felt the ball! you missed your shot, cogburn. >> missed my shot! you are more handicapped without the eye than i without the arm. >> i can hit a gnat's eye at 90 yards. that i running cheap shells on me again. >> i thought you was going to say the sun was in your eyes. that is to say, your eye. >> rose: (laughs) is this a comedy? what is this? >> well, in our movies you're allowed to laugh. i don't know if i would call it a comedy. there's a lot of funny stuff in it. it's a very funny novel. >> rose: how did you find mat mattie? >> oh, man, this is... >> rose: steinfeld, she's all of 13.

>> she turns 14 in two days. >> it's a needle in a haystack thing when you're looking for a young actress like that. you... obviously they're... the list of knowns that can play the part are... is very small when you're getting into 13-year-olds. and we were looking all over the country. when i say "we" i really mean the casting people. so they saw thousands of girls and the irony was not lost on us hat that at the end of the day we cast a girl from... in our backyard from los angeles. >> rose: did you have to convince jeff that she has the acting chops? >> she came in right away with jeff. i mean, the first time we met her, we saw a tape of her... audition tape. the first time we met her she came into a room with jeff and that was one of the things that convinced us she could do the part. she walked in the room with jeff having never met us or him and started doing the scenes. >> rose: that's essential to making this movie work, finding her. >> yeah. >> rose: and you never let us

forget that she's a child, she's 14. >> that's the sort of central joke, if you will, of the novel, is that this little girl is sort of fully formed at 14, you know what i mean? and the story as you mentioned before is told retrospectively. it's a long flash back to when she's an adult but essentially at the age of 14 she's already an adult but there's aspects of her which are... you know, as you say, she's a child. >> rose: roll tape. >> can we depart this afternoon? >> we? you are not going. that is no part of it. >> well, you have misjudged me if you think i'm silly enough to give you $50 and watch you simply ride off. >> i'm a bonded u.s. marshal. >> that weighs but little with me. i will see the thing done. >> you can't go after ned pepper and a band of hard men and look after a baby at the same time. >> i do not a baby. >> go to boarding houses where there's warm beds and hot grub on the table. i'll be traveling fast, eating

light, and sleeping the is going to take place on the ground. >> i have slept out at night before. papa took me and little frank. we were in the woods all night. we sat around a big fire and told ghost stories. we had a good time. >> this ain't no coon hunt. >> rose: (laughs) >> what did you say? the duck... >> the ducks. >> them ducks. >> jeff did that differently everyday. he would sort of... >> rose: do you guys do a lot of takes? >> it really dedepends. >> jeff actually likes to... not a lot, not like stanley kubrick a lot but jeff likes to do more than few. >> rose: but more than clint? >> more than clint. (laughter) >> rose: >> definitely more than clint. >> what does he do? >> jeff always feels like once you're in it you do a few more while you're there. which i don't disagree with.

there are plenty of ways to skin a cat. >> tell me about the scene which is the scene about her crossing the river. >> >> it's a scene taken directly from the novel where she swims on the... >> they're on the other side. >> she has to get across. she swims her horse across. >> they're trying to ditch her. >> rose: and she's got to get across on her own. >> she's got to get across on her own. that was one of the last things we shot out of movie and one of the most complicated because... just because we couldn't exactly put a 13-year-old into a river with a fairly strong current trying to hang on to a horse that we're not sure is going to make it across. so it was a combination of a lot of different elements stunt people, mechanical horses. >> rose: new technology. >> and siege yay. c.g.i..

>> rose: but is there something which the horse resisted and that ends up in the film? >> well, it was interesting that the horses that had no problem swimming across the river were the least interesting to watch. the ones that freaked out, essentially... >> rose: how many horses did we use? >> there were three. >> and they all made it multiple times but it's the most interesting when it looks the hardest. >> do you like westerns, cormac mccarthy is a novelist you love. >> i did all the pretty horses a dozen years ago. but, again, i'm not a genre. i just like good stories. >> in the end that's what matters, right? >> good stories. >> okay. >> rose: no, i'm asking. >> yeah, right. for us. >> rose: what about looking for actors that have some experiences on horses to make it authentic? >> well, it's interesting...

>> all actors lie. >> the curious thing about that, because it's true, is that we actually had three actors had do ride. matt is a great writer, jeff a good writer and josh, who wasn't taught to ride in the movie at all is a good rider. >> josh is the best rider of all hallie had been a writer. >> rose: did hailee have any of the personality coming in or is this just a brilliant acting performance? >> it's interesting. she's precaution and she has that aspect and she's self-confident but it would be a mistake to assume she's playing herself here because she's very different. so it's a real job of acting. >> she doesn't have the

certitude that makes this character a bill. >> rose: and this character is a bill. >> and you were making this film the sense comes away-- and i think somebody said this-- that there are no curveballs here. you go right to the novel and it's 99 miles an hour right down that you're feeling about this having read the novel and watch this movie being made. >> i thought the adaptation, the screenplay,... well, i should say... >> rose: you've been there before. >> and reading the screenplay i thought that was great adaptation, not just a good one, of a great novel. there are some things that aren't in the novel like my character is kind of a wind bag of a character, they kind of took it... had this idea that he actually severs his tongue and yet keeps talking.

>> so there's little things like that, but their choice to kind of use as much of the dialogue as possible and where they wrote the dialogue... >> rose: you couldn't tell the difference? >> i'd be interested to hear what charles portis said if he ever speaks on the matter. >> rose: charles portis is arrive if >> oh, yeah. >> rose: was he involved at all? >> no, we wrote back and forth... he wasn't interesting. he wrote us a gracious note when he heard we were making the movie basically giving us best wishes but he wasn't interested in being involved. >> much like cormac, actually. >> i remember talking to cormac about it and he said it's just different thing. he said the book is the book. it's in hard feelings or anything. >> when you said yes to this... people always say why do you take this role. what was it for you? was it to work with these guys? this was a company of actors and directors that can't be a bad

experience? >> yeah, i think the phone calls with joel and ethan are considering you for a role and i said yes and didn't know what it was and they said "it's true grit" and i said "that sounds familiar." i'd never seen the movie so or read the book. then i heard it was jeff and josh and i read the book. it kept getting better and better. it was really a dream job and because the adaptation was so good where they do story boards that they give you before you shoot the film so you can actually having read the script you can look at the story boards and get a sense of the movie. and i remember phil hoffman talking about "the big lebowski" and everyday when you work on a movie set you get your lines... they hand them out to the entire crew so everyone knows what you're shooting that day, what scenes you're shooting that day. you get your lines and the visuals handed out to you so you have such... you know exactly

where you are and the process is kind of laid bare for you enough that you're... >> it's almost like a master class in directing, too. >> yeah, there's no anxiety for anybody because it's... you have a sense of it completely. >> rose: so you made the movie you intended to make? >> yeah, i think so. it's hard to remember what you intended to make once you get to the end of the process. you go through this long process and at the end of it this is pretty close. >> or what the hell, i don't know. we hope mr. portis likes it. >> is that who you hope most of all approves? >> oh, yeah. >> that's the guy that you want... you want the guy who created the kharker? >> oh, yeah, >> i was never nervous at screenings because the movie is done but we screened "no country for old men" for cormac and it made me unbelievably uptight until i was sitting in the back of the theater and i heard him chuckling and i went, okay.

>> rose: did he tell you if he liked it? >> he did. but he's very much a gentlemen and would have said it anyway but he couldn't take back the laughing. >> rose: has portis communicated with you? >> he hasn't seen it. >> rose: there was a line in which you said the default mode was always classical. does that ring a bell? >> well, as you were saying, it was top do a straight ahead adaptation of the book. is but i think that's the case with cormac's book, too. we weren't trying to impose any stylistic'm bell iishment on the book that wasn't sort of natural to the material. >> rose: you said about your character that it was somewhere between tommy lee jones and bill clinton? (laughs) >> well, we came up with this

idea >> it seemed appropriate because joel and i first met when fran and i did a movie together 16 years ago in west texas that tommy lee directed and they'd worked with... >> rose: i remember at movie because tommy lee came here to talk about it. >> he did, "the good old boys." and tommy lee's somebody who's really interesting to talk to and listen to and he knows a lot about a lot and he's the kind of guy... we ended up... >> rose: knows a hell of a lot about horses. >> among other things. in fact, we would just kind of call out subjects to him on... 15th century scottish history tommy lee. (as tommy lee) "i'll tell you something about 15th century scottish history." >> rose: (laughs) "i'll tell you about 15th century..." (laughs) >> so we had this idea of clinton like a master politician

somebody who's really interesting to listen to but what if he was, like, all style and no substance. what if he had the presentation of one of those guys but had nothing to say. >> rose: there's your guy. >> so that was where we started. >> rose: congratulations. >> thank you. >> rose: this is a terrific... >> thanks. >> rose: look at the way we are all laughing at it. it's going to be in theaters on wednesday, december 22.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org