>> rose: welcome to our program. tonight the oscars. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: its 84th annual ago add me award license held in hollywood on sunday night february 26th. we bring tonight many nominees that have come to our table, this year's selection explore themes that remind us why we love movies. they are about us and our culture. they reflect our past and protect and project our future. they're stories about places and moments that we want to return to, and never forget. from an ode to silent fill tomorrow tributes to animals

whose lives were ago sacrificed in times of wars, movies that almost didn't get made, gripping portrayals from real life and captivating characters from literature. from high-tech to golden silences. here is our collection beginning with "my week with marilyn", two eye cons of entertainment, marilyn monroe an sir laurence olivier, their lives intersected the theatres and movies, drama and comedy, shakespeare and sensuality. michelle williams nominated for best actress continues to immerse herself in her work. kennest branagh nominated for best supporting actor also a director of shakespeare's dramas. here they are in conversation on what it meant to take on two giants. ♪ ♪ that's the way to start ♪ nothing to lose ♪. >> my decision-making process has always been,

it's just between me and the piece of material. and it's sort of this awful feeling when you realize that you are going to say yes and are you going to do something. because it means that it's sort of bigger than you. it means it sort of mystifies you and challenges you in some kind of new and terrifying way. which is why you have to go do it. and so i knew that the answer was yes. and then i sort of spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if i could back out of it. or change my plan or something. >> rose: but there's so much about her in terms of all the multiple parts of her, shy and vulnerable, to the biggest movie star. >> that was the thing that i think drove me mad and kept me up at night shooting, am i getting all of it. so many dynamics at play. and i think it's what makes interesting characters and interesting people, are opposites. and she had so many of them. she just had multitudes. and i would pull my hair out how many of them am i capturing. how many of them. because also your research is endless when you play a part like this. the material available on her was constantly taking in new information, reading new

books, watching new movies. stumbling across some new documentaries so constantly taking in new information, meaning i had to fold that into my interpretation so, it was just, that was the question. how much, how much of her am i able to contain at one time. >> rose: so here you are playing somebody that you have even been compared to. initially it seemed as though maybe that wasn't smartest thing to do. and that perhaps a bit like you know monroe, that there is lots and lots to find out about, and lots to absorb and you have lots of materials. but there are lots of ways to get it wrong. and the notion of whether this sort of blurred notion of do you do an impression or impersonation, what is the way in which you capture the essence of something that's already being seen through this sort of fairy tale lens of a young man seeing it in a way rather innocently. so he paints them perhaps not in an absolutely naturallistic way. but all of that, of course, actually just becomes something very exciting to do. >> he was going through a kind of midlife crisis and

he lacked to marilyn to rescue him and in a strange way she might well have done, but not on this movie. and the resultant tension is what in the end became just so irresistable to play in addition to what michelle was playing about just the treasure trove of material that, as an actor, makes you nervous, and really, really makes you excited. >> please, please, tell me how i can help you. i mean he wanted her magic. and she wanted his what? >> approval. and also i would imagine input, direction but not in the way that it was being offered. >> rose: as an actress, as an entertainer, what was her magic? >> oddly enough she said that she really didn't like sing and dancing. she said that she wasn't trained. she didn't feel like she was very good at it. and to me, it's when she's at her most incandescent. more than anything she wanted to be great. she wanted to be a serious actress. as a performer, she didn't know what her gifts were or where they were.

and i think she felt always insecure, never really a great sense of accomplishment ♪ ♪ by letting my ♪ ♪. >> rose: and then there's the question, how do you get that wiggle. >> i just sort of watching her movies over and over and over again and trying to basically, she does it so well it seems like t seems like it's natural t seems like oh, maybe that is how she really walks and really speaks because it's so seamless. but then things start to sort of become clear. and you realize, you know, she was really quit, from all my research she was really quite average, i hate to say it. but with a normal voice and an ode walk. and it was a part that she played. marilyn monroe was a part that she honed and developed. and is so things became clear about the wiggle that maybe there was something that always seems to kind of bind her knees a little bit. and there's a kind of figure eight to her wiggle, i used

to call it, it looks like she is sort of moving in a vat of-ee somehow. there is, there is a rhythm to it, an up temp po, and down tempo, an undualation to it. a sense of, she is sort of wa, did somebody say to me, hate to see you leave but love to watch you go. it takes a tremendous amount of energy to be somebody who is slightly different than yourself. and i discovered what she was, to transmit that kind of energy openness, availability, to be what everybody wants you to be isn't human. it's a kind of superpower. and it takes a lot of energy to source that. and to put it out into the world. and some days, you know, she says herself, you know, what's it like to be an icon. she says on the days when you feel lonely, tired and unlovable, it is very difficult. it's a reason to not get out of bedment because it's so hard to exist for other people.

>> rose: this year's contenders also include films based on bookses. tinker tailor, soldier spies based on the classic spy novel. one of the finest actors of our time gary oldman does a remarkable performance at george smiley, his first oscar nomination in 33 years of acting. >> i'm retired, oliver, you fired me. >> the thing is, some time ago before controlled he came to me with a similar situation. that there is a -- >> he never mentioned his suspensions to you? >> no. >> oh, i just thought it was just you were his man, so to speak. >> what did you say to him? >> well, i'm afraid i thought his paranoia got the better of him and he was going to put his whole house down. that bloody mess in budapest. >> well, i was out of work but i think actors refer to it as resting.

i was resting between engagements. and the phone rang and they said would you like to play george smiley in tinker tailor soldier spy. >> rose: and you said. >> i obviously knew the teeferment i knew the book. i had seen the original series in 679-- '79. and it gave me pause for thought. they're enormous shoes to step into. with smiley, you can't futs too much-- fuss too much and mess with the molecules. there's a dna at work here. and you, i am, i think, inevitably going to arrive at the same destinations, not all of them, but the

same, the same destination that guinness arrived at. >> rose: what dow mean by destination. >> well, there are just certain character traits that smiley has, that you-- that you can't mess with. just for the sake of making it modern or different. >> rose: george smiley was a classic character in the same way that hamlet is a classic character. >> yeah, but there's a motor. there's-- it's like a little wheel. it's his running condition. there's a melancholly. there's a-- he's a disillusioned romantic. >> genuine-- but its topicality makes it suspect. >> smiley is a -- >> where did it come from?

what's the accent? >> a new secret source of mine. >> but how copossibly have access. >> he had access to the most sensitive levels of policymaking. >> the operation. >> percenty and his piles by pass our smiley, gone straight to the minister. percenty has been allowed to keep the identity of his new friend top secret. >> wonderful thing about smiley is there is no sort of self-aggrandizement. there's no-- there is no ego. it, he operates with moral certainty. >> he's oak and strong. >> he's oak and strong and reliable and he is complex because he's-- there's, it's like the afterburners. you know. he knows when to, when to shift and there's this sort

of, when i met la care and i did, like magazine pies, like we are, actors, i was looking for a voice for him. and i found it in john. >> rose: you found the voice. >> i found the voice in things but he sort of sits as i do in the film, he sits sort of slightly back. and slightly off the right angle. >> yeah. >> and people open up. and that's one of th the-- that's-- s this's a great skill. that's the great skim of smiley. he can get people to-- can can get people to talk. and when he needs to, that side of him that's a little crueler, he does what i used to call the tickle.

he just tickles people. it's like if you are with someone who is passive-aggressive. they put you on the book foot. they discombobulate you because you can't put your finger on it. you think, you think i have just been insulted but i'm not sure. and that is the, that's the sort of great ability that smiley has. >> rose: what were you looking for? the kind of glasses he would wear? >> yes. and also i imagined our, smiley as a sort of wise old owl that had these sort of, these big, these big eyes. and he can sort of, can see everything. and he hears everything. i mean the great thing is he doesn't have to rush. there's a focus that you have that i, that, it's a similar sort of focus that you can be on a movie set and you can have, you can be,

in really in the moment on your game, and they call wrap. and you can turn to the director or the crew and you can say wow, guys, you know, that was just terrific. and you know, i was, good work today. good work today. and you're walking to your trailer and then suddenly you remember oh, god, i'm getting divorced. you've-- you forget. that's one of the-- that's one of the things about acting is the focus that it requires. you forget everything else. how do you remember all those lines. by forgetting everything else. >> you're going to do something for me, peter. i need the duty officers logbook for last november. i'm going to have to send you up a floor into the lion's

den den. if you are's called, you can't mention me. >> i'm sorry, you're alone. >> that's yes i connect i think with george. you have got to get to a place where you can feel worthy. and it's my time. it's-- i can, i can be loved and it's all, it's okay. and i think that you, i, i just turned it around and i was open to it. it's just a-- it's a shift of perception. it is the old thing, isn't it. is 9 glass half empty or half full. it depends how you look at it. and so things are, things are good right now.

and then of course this nomination is sort of a cheree on the cake. and i'm enjoying it, charlie. i think you could, again, it's a choice. i bring 33 years of experience to smiley. my, my life, my experience you know, am i the only acker that could play it? no. but it is-- so i bring, i hope, i bring an interesting, an interesting life to it. >> and you can do stillness and at the same time it has expression. >> i hope. >> katherine stock ard's book the hell is an em nant story about racism in the deep south of the dawn of the civil rights movement. viola davis shines as cooper,

a maid working in a white household it is a very personal role for davis whose's own life mirrors the experience in some ways. >> they killed my son. he fell carrying 2 x 4s at the mill. truck ran over him, crushed his lung. >> that that you his body on the back of a truck, drove him to the coloured hospital. dumped him there and honked a horn. >> an lean clark is a maid in 1962, mississippi. when are you introduced to her in the story she has lost her son, 24 years old. she lost him in an industrial accident and she is basically dead inside. she has decided to stop working. she's depressed and then decides to go back and work for a young girl and then

through the course of the story she's introduced to this idea, to write this book about how it feels to be a black domestic working in mississippi and working for white women. she's very simple and quiet. and 95% of her life happens in internal dialogue. you know, i think that sometimes we make judgements on characters because we have not, we've not observed them. that they're not humanized to us. that they're not palpable human beings. and because i know those people, i know that it is much deeper than that. and so it's through those observations and through those experiences, that's what i bring to my character. >> what did you learn about acting that has made you as good as you are? >> what i learned is that acting is very much for me like life. that, you know, i think that you are always on a path in

life of illumination, constantly. and i think that you're fed by inspiration. and of course, you know, when you are on that path you always discover things about you that are absolutely frightening. things that you are not willing to admit, maybe. you know. obstacles are in your path, you know, you are driven by a need. you know, my need is always, you know, my childhood. i always dream of the house we lived in on 128 washington street. and i always wanted to be, i always wanted to live a purposeful life. and i feel like when an audience sees you on screen or in a theatre, they want to feel less alone. that they want to recognize a part of themselves. >> rose: and your dream was to be what? >> my dream was to be somebody, was to make a mark in the world. for somebody to really know

who i was, you know. that's everything, you know. it's why i would tease kids, know, in the playground and challenge them to, you know, a race even. and i would take my shoes off because my shoes always had holes in them. and which would run in the dead of winter and just challenge them to a race because i just, i wanted to be somebody, you know. everyone does. don't we? we all want to be s&p. >> rose: money ball say movie based on michael lewis a book about the oaklandate threat-- athletic, an inspirational story about a manager on a journey to find out the true meaning of worth. nominated for best actor brad pitt, also one of the producers for money ball nominated for best picture, he and jonah hill talk about their roles with director bennett-- bennett miller and what it takes to make a winning team. >> hey, billy. i wanted you to see these player evaluations that you asked me to do.

>> i asked you to do three. >> yeah. >> to evaluate three players. >> yeah. >> how many did you do. >> 47. >> one of our first conversations was these '70s films where the beast at the beginning of the movie is the same beast at the end of the movie. and they don't really change but the world around them changes, their perspective of the world around them. and became obsessed with that. sports never looked at it from the economic side. you think it's competition. you think it's fair playing field. and how does a small market team compete with the big market teams that buy all their talent it is an unfair game. >> michael lewis pointed out that billy bean was somebody who came to believe that his, that the life he was supposed to be living was somewhere else. that he had made a decision when he was a kid to take a turn and go down a road. and he ended up in a place

that he really didn't belong. that he could have taken a scholarship that had nothing to do with base ball and cohave been doing what he should have been doing. i think that's a question that you got to ask yourself at some point if you made different decisions, if you understood things differently when you were younger like what might have you done. and also still what might still be possible. >> like when he sells him for more money next year he's keeping the profit. >> probably the most polar opposite of my educational background as you could get. but these guys just kept letting me have a chance and we did like a table read and we would meet and talk and eventually they let me be a part of the film. >> rose: soes what watt challenge for you when you step mood this. >> it was about finding the undercurrents and a way to incarnate these ideas, brad

and i were both attracted to from the first time we met about the thing. billy bean say private character. he doesn't express a lot of these things. >> one of the many and major themes of the film is value and how we value each other and value ourselves. based on what is a success and what is a failure. these baseball players that were not getting an opportunity, i'm sure were defined as failures. i'm sure they felt that to some degree. suddenly someone comes along and says no, you have value. we can use you, we're going to use this way. >> rose: we not only can use you, we need you. >> we need you and it's going to work. >> rose: tell me what you had to bring to this character because of who you were playing against. >> it's the story about what happens where the person who blends into the wall gets the spotlight shined on them for the first time. they see what responsibility's like. and they see what life is like when they're not just the person in the background. and i think billy, i immediately read the book and said billy, when i read

the script, billy is everything that peter's not. and vice versa so together they create this really whole entity. and that to me was a beautiful story. and something that i thought i could bring along to. >> what attracted me to the film in the first place were these more personal issues. it's a baseball movie on the one hand. on the other hand he kind of puts the genre on its head. and it does tease some of the trops that you might expect. but the moment it gets close to them, they get put on their head. and this, it does v the film does have a climax and it does give you one of those moments. but that's not the resolution of the film. the triumph at the end is a very quiet, internal, not so, you know, bright burning short, you know, thing but a

quieter, i think deeper and more meaningful little epiphany, you know, a little shifting of perspective. >> it's the main thing that gets overlooked, or not understood when viewing a film, degree of difficulty and then stone. because of the tone of the film can go in a hundred different directions. and it's to bennett's credit and bennett's background, i think, that hone this fill and let it straddle an authentic feel with people with insiders, very experienced and spart people from baseball. and yet, and straddle this film, that you have to invent. and i think it's great elegance and flawlessness. i don't think, i can't say enough about it. >> give us a sense of being in this movie for you. >> the whole experience and it's bizarre saying it in

front of these guys is incredibly surreal, i would say, when i got the phone call about the movie, then when i got the phone call, i remember when i was told i was accepted to play the part, you know, it felt like i had gotten into harvard. i made so many movies about being immature, right. i mean you have to really understand. >> so have i, my friend so, have i. >> su have to understand, look at me. i mean a look totally different, you know t was a very-- maturing thing for me. it felt like hi been stamped. it felt like it's time to grow up, it's time to, you know, be bold and change. >> i means are fill ming-- films that you think you would like to make that might change -- >> i feel a ticking clock. i feel very fortunate to be in the game and while i'm here, that i want to contribute something to it.

and whatever the thing is in our time whatever shape it takes, i want to help, i want to shave a corner of it or shape into some way. i want to contribute, otherwise why am i here. i want to add something to it at the end of the day. i wanted to have had value. >> elizabeth-- created by the-- the girl with the dragon tattoo triology is one of the most damic characters to jump off the page and movie screen, the edgie computer hacker action hero is a role any woman would want to play, best actress nominee rooney mara makes it her own in david finches remake. >> who is it? >> -- >> i'm not really up yet. >> may could come in, please. >> she's kind of a hard character to describe. you kind of just have to discover her and she's

unlike anyone you've ever seen or read about before and she sort of lives by her own moral code and she's very uncompromising. >> did you have to absorb that or did you just have to find her yourself.