life back into it. the play is so transimpressive. >> rose: what does that word mean, "transgressive?" i'm serious, i don't know. >> for me, what it means is that there's a certain-- a certain understood moral code of the way people function. >> rose: ah. >> and there are certain boundaries through which people-- even in a check-off, there's a framework for which you have to bounce back off of, and you bounce back into the world. i find when you actually look at jenae i feel so absolutely bougoise, and closeted in my existence. he said his greatest fantasy was to be on a train to siberia being the lover of his mistress'-- of-- the rent boy, basically, of the mistress' lover. ( laughter ) you think -- >> rose: how do you get your

mind around that? >> it's very-- it's very elliptical. the whole thing about stockholm syndrome, loving your oppressor. it's just a fear of the desire and the hatred of the oppression but the actual willfully enablinabling it to continue. it's a very sort -- >> rose: how did you approach the character? >> from the beginning. i mean, because it's a series of games within games within games. it wasn't really until we became the maids-- of course i play claire, and she impersonates the mistress. we didn't know what that was until the mistress had come in and we were the maids. so we had to sort of start from the concrete and blow it up. it ended up being intensely physical. it's a very dangerous play. i mean, it's all about my character ends up because of her sisters' intense fantasy to be the criminal, and the criminal being akin to being the saint.

un, the ultimate glory is to commit murder mis a very transgressive idea still now. >> rose: it's a political idea. >> it is a very political idea. and the only way because the more dominant sister is perhaps the more cowardly and weak one. the only way to give her that fantasy and reality is to allow her to murder my character. >> rose: it's fascinating to hear you talk about it because in a fundamental way, that's what some people in terrorism have to come to grips with. >> yes. >> rose: that very thing, the crime is a political act. >> yes. i mean, it's-- it's out-- that's what i mean by transgressive. it's almost like we need to grapple with what that actually means or how someone can get to that place and until we understand that, how can you dismantle it. it's almost like it's too transgressive so we just look at

it. we label it as being-- i'm not condoning it, but you have to understand these things. you have to unravel it. >> rose: unless you can't. >> and that's great -- >> rose: you can't kill them all. >> no, no. >> rose: whatever it is. >> no. i mean, it's-- we're all indock rinnated -- >> rose: there's no finite number. >> no. >> rose: do you have any interest in somehow creating film, theater in which you-- the whole process in terms of using what you have to write and create a theater piece that speaks to your own view of the world and-- or some passion for-- >> you mean for me to actually -- >> rose: i mean for you what jenae does d. >> i'm married to a writer but i'm not-- i'm summer not a writer. i have a great respect for great write glg not a writer meaning

you can't or you have other things that have a higher calling for you? >> i just don't have the skill. >> rose: just the skill. >> yeah, you know like i can go to a life drawing class for the rest of my life but i don't think i'll particularly improve. >> rose: have you been to a life drawing class? >> i have. >> rose: you tried? >> i keep saying i'm going to go back and do it. there's a medication in it. >> rose: and what? it didn't come easy, so, therefore, you abandoned? >> i understand space by being in it. un, the-- i understand what it means if you're standing downstage left, the vibration are different from when you're standing center stage. and the whole balancing of the space. like-- i mean, if i had my time over, talking about woody allen's regrets, i would have loved to have -- >> rose: choice. >> yes. i would have loved to have been a botu dancer or-- it's

intensely physical. it's almost like performance art in a way but at the same time you're emotionally engagemented and physically engaged. but that's, obviously, not going to happen at this point. but to actually understand space in the sense that, that's over there, and i'm going to render it on a two-dimentional surface but i'm going to make it three-dimensional, i can can appreciate it, but i can't do it. like, believe it or not, i'm never going to be a neuroscientist. >> rose: no. ( laughter ) well, but that takes-- >> not now, anyway. >> rose: there's always grandma moses. it's never too late. >> it's never too late. >> rose: i also think there's something attractive-- bart jof giamatti, president of yale, died, sadly, and went on to be commissioner of the national league, rather than the american league. but he famously said that, you know, you shouldn't stay in one job more than eight or 10 years

because in a job that had-- like the theater. they might say you guys shouldn't do that more than eight years because in eight years, you will, in a sense, have a chance to experiment with all your ideas, and then you're in a sense responding to what you have done-- do you understand what i'm saying jew never want to be in dialogue with yourself. >> rose: exactly! >> you always want to be reaching for something else. >> rose: that's what i mean about command of language. you're summing up what i'm struggling to say. you don't want to be in dialogue with yourself. >> it's boring. and i think creatively you end up cannibalizing yourself. and i think you're right. for

and if it's virtually created, then can't anyone do that? and is the artist actually-- you can't see the handprints on it anymore. and so, therefore, "to talk about the craft of acting somehow seems sort of worthy or old fashioned. but for me, in answer to your question, i think that acting has to be-- and this is why the theater is-- you know, it's such a great place to be and when it's great, it's great for an

audience, and when it's awful, it's awful, because it's live, and because it's human. and it's-- and they're the two things that have to claim if it's going to survive. it's a generous act-- and this is where woody is amazing. he innately understands his audience. he does it for people it see. he wants to entertain them. he wants to move them, and he wants to make them laugh. and that's what you do on stage. and i think that you can get quarantined or very separated from, you know, in various different forms of a moving image, from the people that you're actually making it for. and a lot of times i think people end up doing it for themselves, which, you know, of course there's a selfish component. i wouldn't be doing it if i didn't get pleasure out of it. but it has to be generous, and if it's not working on stage, the audience-- you can feel it. you can-- they may not even make a noise, but the energy retreats

so you have to change up what you're doing. it's a dynamic relationship. >> rose: is this what it seems to me like-- it's almost like breathing. if you're connecting, they're breathing with you. there is a sense that-- >> exactly. >> rose: they're exactly where you are. >> yeah. >> rose: almost of it's almost they can laugh before the words get out of your mouth or feel the emotion as you feel it. >> i agree. and you can-- you can-- you can feel the intake of breath. it's a very dynamic relationship you have with the audience. and it's something that-- that you don't really want to concraitize and label. it's a transference of energy. and that's why-- i'm not interested in katowski, locking yourself away in a room. it's not theater as a laboratory. although development, and development away from audiences, a vital part of preaching the stage where you can actually perform the thing for people.

no, i relish that audience connection. so maybe that's why i do it. and it's also although a wonderful australian playwright who unfortunately passed away, nick enwright, when i encountered him at drama school, a very, very dear and personnel man, said to us-- he was went around the table in our first year and said, "why are you here? what do you want-- why are you an actor?" and no one said it, but he said, "well, i actually--" we all came up with selfish reasons. and he said, "i think acting is revealing to people what it means to be human. and ihuman." and it is a human thing. and that's why maybe i keep doing it, because it's-- it humanizes me. >> may i ask you something? >> sure. >> you ever think you could see yourself married to me? >> married? >> i-- i have it all planned. obviously, you can say no if it

sounds terrible, all right. but will you come with me next month to vienna, we live there for a few years, and i can teach you how to wattle and you can have all the chocolate cake and wine we want and i come back and i get serious about my political dream. and we adopt kids, and we live in the house that-- >> adopt kids? >> a fan tosk job making beautiful. what do you think? look, the downside for you is you have to stand next to me and smile at photo ops, when i throw my hat in the ring. >> you're saying you love me? >> i hope i didn't cause you to become ill over the prospect of becoming my wife. >> rose: a lot of these things, it is biological. it has to do with neuroscience thas to do with nurons and cells and it has to do with pathways and it has to do with a whole range of things, how the act--

the act of perceiving. >> it would be interesting to do a study on someone while they were perform glg exactly! exactly right! that would be stunning. >> speak of martha graham again, but she talks about the-- keeping the channel open. and, you know, there's no point in judging-- there's no point in judging what it is you're doing. you've just got to do it. you have to be open and available to what happens in the moment. and i think as an actor-- and this is why i think so many of us go a little bit potty. loo-loo! as you get older, if you have to-- in order to keep performing, you have to keep some of the synapses open. you have to disconnect them because it's in that space. that's where the imagination is born. >> rose: that's exactly right. and the interesting thing-- if you could do this in actor's head, it would be wonderful, and there are certain ways to do this, i would assume, you would

see differences and it would be telling in terms of opening up presidency that's part of what they can do with diseased brains is monday the differences and see what kind of physical manifestation-- >> i should give my body to science. >> rose: you should do what your body does exactly now. while i have you here, i want to do this-- theater and film. hutrepidation about going into film because punlike theater where you began, they shot it out of order and all that stuff. did you get over that? did you figure out a way to do that in your mind that made it-- >> you are to think like a child. i think that's where having children helped. i remember being on set and he was reading a whole lot of russian novels between takes, and i thought how can he do that? because i have to be so focused on what it is i'm doing. because it's all out of

sequence. somehow you have to have the ability in film to switch on absolutely and switch off absolutely. >> rose: so you have to remember sort of the narrative of the work if it's a film, the beginning, the middle, the end, and where-- but you values to keep in context where are you supposed to be at that moment in that narrative? >> yes, i mean, that's where-- say, for example, working on something like "blue jasmine" because the script was so impeccally structured even though there's not a lot of on-set dialogue with woody about it. i had to do a lot of preplank-- obviously she was on a cocktail of xanax and alcohol. when she was on it and when she was off it. and a lot of that charting for me comes in your costumes and wardrobe fittings because you have to work out-- it sounds very shallow-- where you're wearing what where and that sort of anchors thee mee. >> rose: i think olivier said until he put on the costume, he

didn't really know the character. >> yeah, you get to-- because often in the hair and makeup test, the camera test. no one is looking at you. they're looking at the way the light is playing on your face. you can try things out and experiment. maybe it's coming from the theater. it's just that thing of having to make the space, whether it's when you're doing the blocking rehearsal or in the camera test or wardrobe fitting, just to rehearse, to play. >> rose: the more you know, the easier it gets, or the more you know, the more than difficult it gets? >> i think the more you know the more difficult it gets. and i think once you've arrived at a certain place, or a perceived to have arrived at a certain place, i think-- you have-- it's harder and hard tore keep taking those risks. q. because you're playingagains? >> no, because i think there's a sense that you've-- when you walk through the door, if you walk through the door playing queen elizabeth, then that's the way people expect you to keep walking. and so it's harder for you to

say, actually, i'm not interested in coul doing that. i want to do that. and to keep sort of pushing yourself into places that may not necessarily be well received, or necessarily even work. >> rose: do most directors in terms of whether it's film or theater-- let's take film-- when you come to the role, do they have in their mind a sense of what they want it to be, or do they say, "i want you to surprise me and show me what it is." >> certainly in the the theater, you know, before i was ever in a rehearsal i thought you were told where to stand and what to do. >> rose: and what is in the actor's head, the character's head. >> i always screw up right royally on the first day to make a sense that you can-- you can muck up because it's often in those apparent mistakes or moments which seem deeply inappropriate that doors open and you think that's an interesting unexpected way to go through that. but woody has a clear sense of-- he has a clear sense of what he doesn't want.

and i think he does like being surprised. he gives the actors a lot of agency. >> rose: mike nichols said that to me. he said what a great actor does is what a good architect does. you say to an architect, i want this house like this. a great architect will surprise you with what he will deliver or she will deliver after you have told them some sense of the place where you live and so will a great actor. >> i want six bedrooms but they can be configured in many different ways. >> rose: yes, yes. >> you just made monument with george clooney who wrote and directed and produced it with grant. >> yeah, and they're such a great team. >> rose: they're a good team. >> they're such a great team. there's such an elan to the way they work, it's easy and simple and unneurotic and the story of that-- i mean, it's a --

>> rose: what i find interesting about this-- robert edsel is the author. >> yes. >> rose: he saw i mentioned it in some totally unknown capacity-- not about the movie-- but just mentioned it-- john goodman, who is in the film, i said, george and robert edsel wrote me the book and he wrote a note, it's a remarkable story about this group of people who went out in search of the art that had been stolen by the nazis in italy? >> all over europe. >> rose: all over europe. >> basically they pilfered all the major jewish collections. >> rose: in vienna-- >> hitler himself was a frustrating artist. >> rose: and goring was worse. >> goring wasn't an artist at all. his paintings were serviceable. they were fine. but he wanted to build the largest fine arts musume in lintz, his home town. he wanted to level lintz, and

completely redesign it. there's a psychology there, there's a grudge. and so they were unmassing all of this in an annex off the louver, and a woman called rose venont, unbeknownst to goring, who was using it like a shopping mall for his personal collection because the nazis-- and this is stuff i discovered making the film-- the collection of art, good german art, it was a sanctioned pastime, so you could go and raid a jewish household and take what you wanted. so what rozsivalon was doing, was catalog ago unbeknownst to the nazis, was all of the works, and the monument had to enemy to get the key -- >> rose: this is an ongoing story, an ongoing story because there are still lawsuit about all of this, the art that was stolen and where it is.

in a totally different way, too, it is the sense-- we're now seeing stories-- there was a story in the "new york times" today in a very nice and an interesting way where someone with resources is going out and sort of quietly buying up some of the world's great art. a remarkable story. thank you for coming. it's a pleasure to see you. kate blanchet for the hour. thank you. "the electric company" is brought to you by...

find your voice and share it, american greetings, proud sponsor of "the electric company." agreement from the u.s. department of education's ready to learn grant, and viewers like you, thank you. here are your five words: tens -- if you count by tens, it means you count every tenth number -- 10, 20, 30, 40. hundred -- a hundred is the same as ten groups of ten.

batch -- a batch is the amount of something that is made at one time. collaborate -- when you collaborate, you work with other people to get something done. leader -- the leader is the person who's in charge. so we have tens, hundred, batch, collaborate, and leader. watch out for them in today's show. you've seen me in the movies... "the electric company" chickened out. luckily, i have a plan. you've seen me in commercials... franscent by francine. you've even seen me running for political office... i believe we should have a book club of the readers, for the readers, and by the readers. it's no secret that i can do anything. i can even sell a wool coat on a sizzling hot summer day.

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it's about working well with others to get something done, collaborating. i'm fantastic at collaborating! even with people you don't like? even with the electric company? i can collaborate with anyone, especially the electric company. give me a project and i'll prove it to you. okay, francine, you want me to believe that the ronald, the world's most famous rich guy who also hosts a reality show, wants you to work with me to make -- make 600 cookies! yes, that's what i want you to believe. (laughing) i'm sorry, that's funny. laugh it up, hector. hector, are you and the electric company willing to collaborate with francine to make my special r for ronald cookies for my party today?