>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with the new congress convening in washington. it is the 114th congress and we talk about the challenge they face with al hunt. >> i think the conventional wisdom has been that the tea party, the movement right has peaked. they're really on the decline, they don't matter. i think that may be a mistake. those 24 members were sending a warning shout out today. they weren't going to beat john boehner. they were sending a message to to mitch mcconnell as much as they were to john boehner. don't compromise. boehner would clearly like to forge some kind of middle-of-the-road consensus on a few issues. it's not going to be easy and i don't think his party will make it easy for him. gl we conclude with eddie

redmayne. >> what i loved about the script it was almost like a scrutiny or analysis of love in all its guises. it's this young, vibrant passionate love but it was also family love or love of subject matter, and ultimately the boundaries of love. and the physics of love element of it is interesting, because steven is in search of this theory of everything this one equation that explains everything but it always seems to me the notion of love is the one thing we can't quite articulate or reason. >> rose: al hunt and eddie redmayne when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with the 114th congress. they were sworn in today. house republicans began the session with their largest majority in more than 80 years. john boehner was re-elected to his third term as house speaker, despite this opposition from some conservative republicans. in his opening remarks boehner laid out an agenda for the coming year. >> but this shared ritual is no passing formality. it's a frontier where words end and where deeds begin. now the pessimists don't see us crossing this channel. they say nothing's going to be accomplished here, that the

vision is wider than ever, and so gridlock will be even greater. frankly fair enough. the skepticism of our government is healthy, and in our time quite understandable. one problem with saying "it can't be done," is that it already has been done or at least started. in the last congress, this house passed a number of jobs bills with broad support from the majority and the minority. and we'll begin our work on this common ground taking up measures to develop north american energy, and help small businesses hire more of our veterans. ( applause ) ( applause ) then we'll invite the president to support and sign these bipartisan initiatives into law. it will be a good start and more. it will be a sign that the logjam is breaking, and it will be a foundation on which to

address the bigger challenges in the pursuit of freedom and security. now this won't be done in a tidy way. the battle of ideas never ends and, frankly, never should. as speaker all i ask-- and frankly expect-- is that we disagree without being disagreeable. >> rose: despite calls for cooperation difficult battle battles lie ahead in the senate. incoming majority leader mitch mcconnell says authorization of the keystone pipeline will be a top priority. president obama said he will veto the bill if passed. joining me is al hunt. i begin with this-- happy new year. >> happy new year to you, too charles. >> rose: put us on the story here. how do we look at this new congress, what they might accomplish what is the mindset, and what are the land mines? >> the minded set for john

boehner and mitch mcconnell, and to some extent barack obama too is to have some compromises have some battles and have some confrontations but to have some compromises to get some things done. the early posturing or keystone and health care stuff is just to lay markers down. the problem however, is whether boehner can control his caucus. there were 24 republicans who voted against him for speaker. and whether when you get to the specifics of corporate tax reform infrastructure, of trade, even of immigration, whether you can put together that kind of compromise, and whether barack obama is willing to compromise, more than his base would like him to. >> rose: okay, but let's take apart this idea of the opposition to john boehner. i mean, is it serious? does it have clout? because our impression was that coming into this congress that all the weakness that he had shown in his inability to negotiate things with the president because of his caucus

might have changed. >> well he certainly has more of a cushion now. he has 246 members. he had, what, 234 last time. that matters to him. but i think the conventional wisdom has been the tea party the move the right has peaked. they're really on the decline. they don't matter. i think that may be a mistake. those 24 members were sending a warning shot out today. they weren't going to beat john boehner. they were sending a message to mitch mcconnell as much as they were to john boehner. don't compromise. and nothing gets done charlie without compromise. boehner would clearly like to forge some kind of middle-of-the-road consensus on a few issues. it is not going to be easy and i don't think his party will make it easy for him. >> rose: those issues are tax reform infrastructure, what else? raid. >> trade. >> maybe little bits and pieces of health care. they're not going to repeal obamacare the republicans are not. but they can do some things

obama might accept conceivably a few other issues on jobs. not big stuff but they could put together a record that is reasonably impressive. look, this is not new to have a congress controlled by the opposition. both houses. the last four presidents have faced this, and some things have gotten done but it's not going to be easy. >> rose: before i leave the house, what about the house whip, steve scalise? >> i think the scars are not going away. he is an embarrassment to some in the party because of the speech he gave 12 years ago, i guess it was, to the white supremacist group. he has, in essence, apologized for ttried to move on. he was a rising star in the house, number three reasoning republican, but this has really hurt. he's going to have a great deal of difficulty raising money. when he goes to los angeles or chicago or wall street, there are not a lot of people who are going to be as receptive as they might have otherwise been. so he's got a way to go before he recovers charlie. >> rose: we all remember mitch

mcconnell said when he was in the minority leader in the senate was their goal to see that president obama was not re-elected. he said that in 2009, i guess. and now we have him saying something similar but not quite the same, that their goal is to do something, to create something, but at the same time to make sure that a republican is elected president in 2016. >> that's a really good question. what he says now is that he wants to prove that the republican party is a responsible right of center governing party. i think that is a laudable goal. that would certainly help any republican candidate in 2016. when you get to the details it's-- it's-- it's considerably harder. there are members of his caucus, too who don't want to be right of center. they want too take out the "of center." and there are democrats who say hey, i'm not going to help you a lot on that. that's not to be a total pessimist. there are possibilities here, and i think mitch mcconnell is a consummate deal maker.

he is very skillful as is boehner. there are possibles but it's going to be tough and keystone and those things of the past couple of days pale over what will happen in the next few months. in february, the funding for homeland security expires, and that's something the right care about. >> rose:q-keystone what will happen there? >> i think the senate-- i think the congress will pass it. they'll send it to obama, and he'll veto it, and they won't be able to override the veto. >> rose: so so keystone pipeline. >> no keystone pipeline, and i think if you look at most studies, most studies would indicate that both sides exaggerate. it's not going to be the job creator. it's not going to be the environmental destroyer that either side claims but it's become a symbolic issue now. i think probably it resonates less than it would have a year ago because it's pretty hard to make a case now that we need a lot more energy. we seem to be doing okay with

energy right now. >> rose: how do we read the mindset of the president at this moment? >> well, he's a lot higher than he thought he would be two months ago after that disastrous election. he had a pretty going month. his executive actions put the republicans on the defensive. but a critical question i think about barack obama-- and i wish i was confident of the answer-- is how does he view getting something done? if it's finding common ground if that's his only really guide here there just aren't very many opportunities. trade may be one of the very, very few. if he's willing to give the republicans something that he hates to give them in order to get something back in return-- which bill clinton did masterfully, and ronald reagan did, too, then he's got some possibilities but i'm not quite sure of his mindset. >> rose: with respect to the economy which has been improving and he's looking better and better on that. how effective will that be in an argument for him and in increasing his approval rating? >> well, it should.

it hasn't-- we haven't seen that in the polls yet. but the economy is doing, i think, remarkably well particularly compared torg places. part of the problem, i think, charlie is obama himself. he really hasn't made the case. the economy is doing better than the case obama has made. and he's on the road this week talking about the economy. it certainly strengthens his hand. i mean, if you take the reverse. suppose the economy was doing poorly. he would really be weak. and i think it makes it a little easier to get a few things done on jobs and the like, some of which boehner talked about in that clip you showed. >> rose: but there's also, with respect to the president, he's gone on the road to make the case, i guess, that he will present in the state of the union, all of this is leading up to the state of the union, correct? >> yes, it is. and the state of the union is predictable on the one hand but on the other hand it set a marker that sometimes we'll tell you where we're going to go.

and the tone that he strikes, some of the specifics, the priorities that he emphasizes, will be terribly important and he's going to give that state of the union in less than-- what, two weeks from today, i guess. >> rose: and is there any early notion of what he wants to do in that state of the union? the whole mindset about the state of the union and how he uses it? >> well i think he wants to draw some lines. i'm certain that he's going to say that we need to get things done and "i'm willing to compromise. i'm willing to accommodate." all presidents say that. but, again, how much he goes and how much red meat he throws to his base, how much he avoids things that really offend republicans will be-- will be very instructive. and we don't know the answers. i think, as a matter of fact, the white house is still working on that right now. and i think it's not so much the specifics. >> rose: exactly. >> it's not the laundry list. it's what the tone is. >> rose: and then we have the 100-day test which you recently wrote about. we looked at the 100-day marker

and say, okay, what has the president done in the first 100 days of his second term? not of his second term, of the map to the midterm elections? >> really the oans, i guess to some extent, is what has the new republican congress done. >> rose: exactly. >> in those first 100 days. by april 15, which curiously is tax day-- that's always a magical day for republicans-- i think we will have a better sense. we will go through the hoafng fight in february and how that's resolved will be important. it could be that we even have something on the iranian nuclear deal by then. some of the economic issues you were talking about a moment ago were start to evolve. and i think by april 15 we should have a pretty good idea of at least a direction and the-- you be, the ambiance, if you will the political ambiance this year. >> rose: i mean, two of the people that people say we should take a look at in the senate,

one is senator bob corker, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, a man who seems to me by temperament moderate, yes? >> he is. he absolutely is. and he works well with a number of democrats, too. >> rose: and then on the other hand is senator ted cruz from texas who say president asperant. what do we expect from him? >> oh, i think ted cruz is going to try to create mischief. he's going to try to toe the line. he's going to try to make mitch mcconnell toe the line. look, again, i keep talking about this homeland security fight in february. but the backdrop of all that is the president's executive order on immigration. and what the ted cruz wing of the party wants to do is make that a huge issue to try to repeal it-- they can't-- but to make sure really fellow republicans walk the plank on that one. so i think that's full of peril for mitch mcconnell and for john boehner and ted cruz is one smart, tough customer. he's not going to give in

easily. >> rose: al hunt, thank you so much. >> thank you charlie. and again happy new year. >> rose: you, too. back in a moment, stay with us. >> rose: stephen hawking is the world's most famous living physicist. he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 1963 and was told he had two years to live. he married had kids, and continues his work unraveling the mysteries of the universe. his book "a brief history of time" has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. i spoke with stephen hawking in cakein 2008. you have said that your illness has been a blessing because it allows you to focus more resolutely on what you can do with your life. what did you mean? ( beeping )

>> i don't have much positive to say about motor neuron disease but it taught me not to pity myself because others are worse off, and to get on with what i still could do. i am happier now than before i developed the condition. >> rose: in order to appreciate stephen hawking's place in science, i spoke with astrophysicist lord martin reese former president of the proil society. when did you meet stephen hawking? >> i met him when i started as a graduate student in cambridge and he'd been here already in that role for two years and i've known him there for more than 40 years. and at that time, it was not expected he would finish his ph.d., because his disease had started and the prognosis was bad. as an astronomer i'm used to very large numbers but fewer than the odds i would have given against him 40 years later, him not only still being arrived but

the physicist he is. i never expected it. >> rose: stephen hawking is the subject of a new film. it stars the tony award-winning actor eddie redmayne. it is called "theory of everything." here is the trailer. >> come on, get up stephen are you aware that you voluntarily bumped a ph.d. in physics. >> hello. >> hello. >> science. >> arts. >> cosmologist. >> what's that? >> i study the marriage of space and time. >> the perfect couple. >> one never knows from where the next great leap forward is going to come or from whom. >> what if i reverse time to see what happened at the beginning of time itself? >> wind back the clock. >> wind back the clock. >> keep going. >> i don't know how.

>> yet. >> it's called motor neuron disease. life expectancy is two years. >> i want us to be together for as long as we've got. >> it will affect everything. >> you can't realize what lies ahead. this is going to be a very heavy defeat. >> but i love him. and he loves me. we're going to fight this illness together. good luck. >> i'm okay. >> so tis black hole at the beginning of time. brilliant. brilliant, stephen. well done doctor. >> he has pneumonia. the only way he will survive

will be to give him a tracheotomy. he will never speak again. >> yes he will. >> my name is stephen hawking. >> it's american. >> is that a problem? >> it has been a great joy to watch this man defy every expectation. both scientific and personal. >> there should be no boundaries that human endeavor. however bad life may seem while there is life, there is hope. thank you. >> sorry, did you say something? >> i said thank you. >> rose: joining me now is eddie redmayne who plays stephen hawking. i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: and by the way, happy birthday. >> thank you, thank you, yes! it's a big day. >> rose: and by the way yesterday was my birthday,

january 5,. the anniversary of some famous scientist, galileo. >> i told stephen that when i met him the first time. it was a very embarrassing scenario. i met stephen for the first months and spent months researching him and i finally got to meet him and as you can see from your bit of tape before when you interviewed him. now he's just using this muscle. >> rose: he was using this. >> was he using his lip? when i met him it was just the muscle under his eye. when he moves that muscle is stops on one specific letter. when you speak with him live there's a very, very sort of unique rhythm-- long, long pauses. and i was so nervous when i met him they just started basically spewing forth information about him to him for about 45 minutes, one of which was the fact that i was born on january 6, and he was born on january 8 and that we were both cap ricornz.

and filling hot air. and he then took a while, and then reminded me that he was an astronomer and not an astrologist. >> rose: you felt about this high. >> genuinely. i still have sleepless nights about it. i wake up with hot swets. >> rose: tell me about your feeling when i met him. having done all the preparation that you had done to understand-- as i did. i was petrified because-- first of all, i was a little late. and secondly, you know, i was a little late in getting the questions in to him, which you have to do because he can take time to transtran scribe them, because he selects them a letter at a time. >> when i met stephen-- he's obviously an incredibly busy man, and also he was promoting his documentary at the time. and so we could only meet him a few days before we started filming. i had spent four months preparing. because you weren't shooting the

film chronologically, it's difficult to shoot a film chronologically now. i had to chart out a sense of what the character's progression would be. but you do all the research watching documentaries, reading about him, meeting people that knew him. but ultimately you're making an educated guess. and the fear is what if i meet him and i realize all of those choices i made are completely wrong. >> rose: yes. >> so there was a great drumroll of anticipation. when i met him actually i didn't send the questions in. i had awe live conversation with him which was interesting because people want to know about that specific meeting. but in the three or four hours we spent together he said maybe eight or nine sentences. >> rose: that's why they wanted me to send them in. we had a long conversation that was to fill an hour of television. >> exactly. what was difficult was that-- he gave me some very specific things that were important to

him, but also what i really took away from that meeting was just this-- was the strength of his character. i mean, he has-- even though he can move very few muscles -- i don't know what you thought-- but it's like all of the facilities we have of gesture, of tone of voice, all of those energies go into those few muscles that he can move, and he has the most charismatic of faces. and so it was the sort of wit and the humor and the-- i describe it as a kind of lord of rule quality that he has they took away from that meeting. >> rose: this is a movie not just about the love of physics. it's about the physics of love-- i'm quoting someone else in saying that. but it's true. this is a great love story. >> yeah. >> rose: between jane his wife, then his nurse. >> yeah. i mean, i always-- when i read the script, i thought it was going to be a biopic of stephen's life. and what i read is this incredibly passionate and

extraordinary love story about two formidable people. >> rose: the people we saw meeting each other at cambridge. >> exactly. jane and stephen. and they-- what i loved about the script is it was almost like a scrutiny or an analysis of love in all its guises. it was this young, vibrant, passionate love, but it was also family love, or love of subject matter. and then ultimately the boundaries of love. and the physics of love element of it is interesting, you know because stephen is in search of this theory of everything, this one-- this one equation that explains everything but it always seem to me the notion of love is the one thing we can't quite articulate or reason, perhaps. >> rose: the interesting thing, too, about him too for me is how he's defied the odds of survival. and i do not know how he has done it medically. >> yup. well, in the preparation the day after i was cast in this film, i went to an a.s. clinic

in london a neurology clinic, and i spent four months going there with a specialtyist and her clinical nurse, jaip clark. people suffering from a.l.s. would meet them for the appointment. and mr. jones who plays jane and i, these actors playing steven and jane, would you meet them? and across the board people were just stag erlg generous with us and some invited us into their homes. this is a disease that has been around for over 100 years. they're struggling to find a reason and certainly a cure. the diagnosis normally is two to five, 10 years, and that's what stephen was given. and how he has managed to-- no one knows if it's the specific strain of the disease or-- he's also had extraordinary care and help. but no one knows how he's

managed to -- >> and he said a very interesting thing to me about-- he has always been able to put it aside in his mind. he has to put it aside to focus on what his life's work is which is inside of his mind. in some ways it's given him a freedom he never would have had otherwise. >> that's what i found so amazing is his optimism. that extraordinary humor. what i find amazing researching stephen is he was lazy. when he was at oxford he did his undergraduate degree at oxford, and he got called in for a-- to get the top degree he had to sort of persuade the examiners and he ended up saying "look, if you give me a 2-1, i'll stay and do my research at oxford." if you give me the 1, i'll go to cambridge and you'll never have to see me again. even when he arrived at cambridge he was lazy and i loved that knowing one of the great minds of our lifetime was a bit complacent.

it took the sentence of those two years that made him value time. >> rose: how much of the physics did you learn? >> charlie! i gave up -- >> i would like to talk a few minutes about quantum physics. >> please do, please do, i'll leave glu had to understand some of twhy this was so important and what he was looking for and why what he hopes to prove has not yet been proven and einstein tried to do the sape same thing. >> one of the things i love about my job is you get cast in parts or different periods of history and you get to immerse yourself in it. i am not going to lie. i gave up science when i was 14, 15. i started reading-- day one after being cast, i started reading "a brief history time," and he goes on this extraordinarily fascinating thing about the history of astronomy and i was really getting it. and i was like wow, i'm about to

understand how the universe works. and somewhere between about page 17 and 20 i realized i wasn't quite so. and there were specialists and brilliant people who helped educate me. and this idea, as you say, of this one big theory. but what i also loved was that whole world of academia was the fact that stephen would present a paper in cambridge, and it would then be responded to in russia and then responded to-- and this idea of this huge chess game and wages being played internationally. i found that kind of-- for someone that struggles to understand the intricacies that notion of the complexities of the chess i found rivetting. >> rose: i want to talk about the performance but take a look at this. our first clip is when he is receive ago we saw this in the earlier clip-- receiving the assessment of his doctoral thesis. here it is. >> and then, of course we have

chapter 4, this black hole at the beginning of time. >> space time singularity. >> indeed. it's brilliant. brilliant, stephen. superb. therefore, all there is to say is well done. or perhaps i should say, to be more precise, well done doctor. >> bravo, stephen. >> an extraordinary theory. >> thank you. >> so what next? >> prove it. prove with a single equation that time had a beginning. wouldn't that be nice professor? a one, simple, eloquent equation

which would explain everything. >> yes, it would. it would indeed. >> thank you. >> rose: one thing is noticeable in the performance-- it's the smile, the occasional smile that you see from him. it's almost a recognition thing. tell me about, you know entering stephen hawking's presence-- i.e., who he is-- and what you had to get. what did you see in terms of the way he was as a human being, in the way he communicated. >> well the thing about the smile, when i met him that first time and i was so nervous i'll never forget the moment that he first smiled, and this kind of-- it's just overwhelming sense of warmth and it's a very specific smile. i-- i had an-- inule that i had read about him, in all the documentary tirl had seen, and when i finally met him, this

mischief this, humor. the fact that he's been on "the simpsons," he's been on "big bang theory." his capacity to play with his own image in some ways is wonderful, and that humor was something that was-- that has driven him-- one of the a.l.s.-- an incredibly sort of complicated circumstances-- there was one a.l.s. patient i met who the night before i met him, he had almost choked to death, and i met him the following morning with his wife, and his wife described how he'd literally been on death's door and he'd come down the following morning and the first thing he'd done is turned to his family and said, "i wonder what death-defying act i can do today." the idea of finding humor when the stakes are so extreme to me is something stephen has done continuously. and he's a funny man. like i don't know-- how did you find him? >> he's amazing. i had to overcome the fact i

hadn't gotten my questions in early so i had to win him over. but i knew i'd won him over when he began to smile, and he began to be more interested and you could see it-- it was more the way he looked at you, the smile. the other thing you had to do was the eyes. that was the way he-- the face but really the eyes. you had to tell a story. >> well, the great one-- one of the great things about film as a medium is that it sees everything. and i thought that this specific story being told in film-- if it was a play it would be on the stage, it would be a very different thing. but the idea that will the camera could see the minutia of the muscles was intariqing to me. what was difficult to overcome for me quite often you think about film acting as reducing things. you go to less is more. and what was the sort of complications was as stephen was

unable to move is moving fewer muscles, in theory that would be more relaxing, but when you're playing you're extorting your body in cheem ways. so there were things going on in your brain, having educated yourself about the disease, wanting to be authentic but not go too far, to be true to it. the most jenner jiezed moments because you're using -- >> extreme concentration. >> yeah. >> rose: and at the same time you're shooting this out of sequence. >> yes. >> rose: so you must have some numbering system in your mind to remember where was i at this stage in terms of matching what he is like physically at this scene. >> the -- >> to return to it each time being different. >> the exploration in that-- the great gift that james marsh, our director gave us is four months. you never get that in film.

in that time it was about exploring. now, there is a lot of documentaries when he is in the wheelchair, but before that there are only photographs. you have upper neurons and lower neurons and if the upper neurons stop working there's a rigid quality and if the lower stop working there's a softening. a.l.s. is a combination of those two things but how it manifests itself in people is different. the early stages were the pictures, and showing it to the the photos. there's a wedding photo of stephen holding jane's hans. and it looks like they're just holding hands. but if you look closely, his hand is on top of hers. there's a softness to it and he's leaving all of his weight into hers. and the special would say, by that year, he has lower neuron in his hand. i would chart each muscle and when it stopped working. and then i worked with a dancer

an amazing woman called alexandra reynolds, who kind of taught me to find that physicality in my own body so that when we came to shooting the physicality-- because as you know with stephen the illness couldn't be less important to him. he's someone that lives passionately and fully, and this is not a story about a disease or an illness or a physicality it's a love story. and we wanted to make sure when we started filming that we could just be free to play the truth. >> rose: what does she mean to him? >> what does jane mean to? >> rose: yes. they meet in college and they're very different people. he's a scientist, and she's very religious. >> they are. i mean,un i've got to be careful answering questions-- i found one of the complications of making this film has been promoting it, and talking on behalf of stephen. i would never want to do that. >> rose: absolutely. >> but on the same point -- >> but it is central to the film. >> it is. and it's the idea of people with completely different ways of

living but complementing each other. and jane has a ph.d. herself, albeit be it in the arts subjects, and she has a rigor and a wonderful joy and personality that-- and she also doesn't suffer fools, and she's a strong, brilliant woman. and i feel like it was a great meeting of minds. >> rose: they're friends today? >> they are friends today. >> rose: did she accompany him when he visited the set? >> so they both live in cambridge. they live on the outskirts of cambridge. jane is marriy to jonathan hellier jones. >> rose: a choir master. >> exactly. and they live in cambridge, as does stephen with his careers. >> rose: he's no longer married to his nurse. >> no longer married to elaine but they are friends. and also the other amazing part of this for us has been the children, particularly lucy and tim. i remember when i was trying to be all authentic to the illness

and making sure i didn't get it wrong, i remember tim their youngest, jane and stephen's younger son saying, "but we did get in dad's wheelchair and use it as a go-cart." or "we did put swear words in his voice machine and press 'play'." that was so important to hear. >> rose: are you interested in his reactioning? >> oh yeah, i was-- i'm not going to lie. from the second that i was cast you knew that these people-- i believe in the power of film and i believe what i see on a screen. and so it was important for felicity, james, and i, that we got their approval and we basically had many a sleepless night before they saw it. >> rose: are we getting it right? >> yeah, because you do-- you do care. it felt like-- this whole film felt like the most sensational sort of privilege but also great responsibility. >> rose: this is a young

hawking jane played by felicity jones. they were at a party. this was all before the diagnosis. here it is. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you see how the men's shirt fronts and boties, how they glow more than the women's dresses? >> yes. >> do you know why? >> why? >> tide. the the fluorescent in the wash powder is caused by the u.v. light. >> why do you know that? >> when stars are born and when they die they emit u.v. radiation. so if we could see the night sky under ultraviolet light almost all the stars would disappear and all that we would see are these spectacular births and deaths. i reckon it would look a little-- >> like that.

>> rose: this is the night they came to the set. >> yes. so we shot in cambridge for the first week all the exeer yors. and that night, just after that scene, it's a may ball sequence, and it's a beautiful, romantic thing may balls, and there is a huge fireworks display that happens. and we had three sets of fireworks budgeted. so we had three takes to get all the shots with the fireworks so we were nervous as it was. and on cue stephen arrived, flanked by his nurses, the famous silloet, spotlit, literally by his computer screen and on cue the first set of fireworks went off. and it was the most formidable rock star entrance i had ever witnessed. and jane was there. it was early in the shoot and our relationship was so important. we became bonded that night because we were here doing these scenes but out of this eye line or this eye line you would see

jane or jonathan or stephen. >> rose: let me talk a bit about you. educated at eden. >> and then went to oxford. >> cambridge. >> rose: went to cambridge? >> yeah. >> rose: wanting to be an actor or not having thought much about what you wanted to be. >> i always loved it. loved acting. >> rose: but before-- even before-- >> yeah, when i was about 11 i think, i was in a production of "oliver" in london. i was work house boy number 38. ( laughter ) and i used to leave school to go to the london palladium a great old theater in london, and it was actually iefs watching "birdman" recently and the romance of all that behind-the-scenes stuff. i was a complete stucker. i study the history of art at university and then tried acting. >> rose: and you got a job early. >> yeah, it was-- while i was at cambridge, it was the 400th

anniverse of "12th night." and it was commissioned by the lawyers in london for shakespeare to write. and 400 years on the middle temple hall still stands, commissioned the globe theater in london to put on a commemorative production and they were looking for a young guy to-- they just did it on broadway recently that production. >> rose: you go on stage in a shakespearean play with mark rilands, you have big balls. >> i think it was about being ignorant not to quite know how brilliant mark was at that point but that was my education, really, learning from him. >> rose: is there something about british actors? there is, many people right a british invasion. there's you and benedict and others. and there are people who-- they have enormous appeal to young women, as you know. now you just got married on-- what, a month ago? >> a month ago, yeah. >> rose: but i talked to

benedict about this when he was here. there is this sort of young women in american-- teenagers and, i assume about that age-- are just fascinated with young british actors. >> with young british-- i can't -- >> i'm not bringing a new idea to you. un about this. you know what they call them? don't they call them maniacs or something? you know about this come on, come on. >> ben cumberbatch is an old friend and he has this troupe of fans who are named the cumber-bitches and one day this interviewer in london said i'm going to name your friends red maniacs. i don't think they're main yaks. i think they're kind, generous people. >> rose: and nor does he think his are bitches. >> no, i have no idea. it's insane. but the-- we've been working

both ben and i for 10 years, over 10 years, and i think you do work in england, and if you're lucky enough to get a break and come over here-- certainly for me i grew up in theater and knew so little about film-- but having worked in america with -- >> and on stage as well. >> and on stage. >> rose: do you feel a sense that things are changing, that there's something about your life that is going through because of the enormous attention of this film, even though you have been working fair while and even though you've gotten recognition before, there is something in the air now. people talk about you. they write more about you. and benedict as well. >> every job-- there's something about film making that involves alchemy. with stage you can always go-- whenever i choose a play, i think as a complete pessimist worst-case scenario, if this is a nightmare if we get

horrificallily reviewed if no one comes to see it, is there enough on the page to keep me going to an empty theater for three months. in films, there is an alchemic-- i have done scripts they thought were great and becomes nothing. >> rose: who is the alchemist? is it the director? >> no, i think it's every part of. it's all these ingredients. and if there was a recipe that was always successful, then everyone would be using it. but there is -- >> there is no formula. >> no. >> rose: take a look at this. this is stephen hawking when i interviewed him again talking about black holes when he talked a lot about now. here troll tape. >> rose: you said recently that black holes aren't the eternal prisms they were once thought to be. how would you describe today the present notion of a black hole? >> it was once thought that when

something fell into a black hole that was it. nothing could get out of a black hole. that is why they were called black holes but but then i discovered that the uncertainty principle of quantum theor would allow particles to leak slowly out of a black hole. so things can get out of a black hole. they are not eternal pritzons. >> rose: or for human being as well. ( beeping ). >> maybe. >> rose: it depends on the human being. >> i wouldn't look good when you came out. going to either lofty or not so lofty ideas, you once said the work of physics after the discovery of this grand

unification theory sort of the theory of everything, would be like mountaineering climbing a mountain, or climb, everest, mountaineering after everest. what did you mean? >> i would have thought it was fairly obvious what i meant. if we ever do find a complete theory of the universe, it would be a great triumph of human reason but it wouldn't leave much for us to do. we need an intellectual challenge. >> rose: this is a yes or no. it would be the greatest achievement of science sinc einstein's theory of relativity. >> yes. >> rose: wow. see, i haven't seen that interview in a long time. i mean, i have a renewed interest in him because of you but it's just stunning to see him talk about it to compare finding the theory of everything to climbing mount everest, and

once you get there, there's no place to go. that's the highest place you can go. >> yeah, that's the thing. i mean, that's what i took away from the film was this idea of what is the theory of everything is sort of that perfect thing. but actually it's about aspiring to find that thing with the knowledge that you won't necessarily find it. and it's interesting because the other day i was read ago when we met when i was doing "red." dan rice wrote something beautiful with about art. and he said being an arndtist was aspiring for perfection with the knowledge you will never get this. and it's interesting to hear him talk about things in different terms. >> rose: it's the only kind of challenge you would think hee would enjoy, one that is overwhelming that you wonder what it is after that. >> yeah. >> rose: it it teacheses you think from being an actor, it seems to me-- from rothico to

hawking from art to science. yet, there are things that bring them together. it's some sense of excellence, some sense of pursuit of some perfection, agreed? >> totally. i was talked to a friend today who is doing a play here on broadway and we were talking about the difference between filmand theater. and the wonderful thing about theater is you never get it right. when someone says how can you do a play for six months and do the same thing every night. you can never get close to getting it right but at least you can go and try to sort it out the next night. but in limb-- limb-- you can do hundreds of takes. realistically you only get an hour or two, and the knowledge that you've built up all this time waiting for this one moment and you then have those few takes and if you wake up with a sore voice, or something is not quite right. you go home in that car the next

day knowing you have to wait eight months to see you having not nailed it. it's an interesting notion-- perfection and self-scrutiny in that way. >> rose: did you have a great singing voice when you got the role in "less serks mis racials." or did you have to learn fast? >> i had to learn fast? it had been on a backburner for a very long time. i had a brilliant singing teacher who helped me awe lot. >> rose: did they seek you out, or did you pursue that? >> i pursued that. i had seen "les miserables" when i was eight or nine, and the little kid in it, the urchin, i thought he was a rock star and wanted to be him. my mom and dad, "could i be." when i heard tom who was directing it and -- >> you're getting to work with him again. >> absolutely. i was shooting a film in north carolina. i was dressed as a cowboy.

in my trailer in a random field i filmed myself singing singing and sent it to the producers. that's how that came about. >> rose: it is said about this role-- which i think would be considered a groundbreaking role-- but it's not imitation. you became him in spirit and self. i assume you would take that as a great complement,ing and that doesn't come from me. it's from critics. you're trying to find the essence of how they move because it reflects who they are. >> i hope so, what was interesting, again, about stephen, there was a certain amount of-- one of the things he said to me when i met him, one of the very specific things he said is "are you playing me before the voice machine." and i said, "yes." he said "my voice was very slurred." there was one piece of documentary footage from the 80s where you could hear him

speak, and he was completely incomprehensible, except to his wife jane and his student. if you wanted to be a student, you had to go for a few weeks and learn how to understand him. everything i had done before that was an educated guess. but to have something that he was tangible. that i could recreate. because it would have involved subtitles, the producers were a little wary of it. stephen said "could you not have someone translate me? rather than having subtitles--" he wanted us to be authentic to what the disease it. i went back to the writer, where he wove in scenes where jane half-translates some of what heaven was sasaying. there was a lot of sitting with an ipad with all the

documentary in a mirror and waiting for my wife to leave and recreating the facial muscles but there was something about the role you saw early on, the director said you purritude it with a path. they didn't just come over and say "it's yours." >> i wish. >> rose: but you didn't audition for it, either, did you. >> no. it was a complicated thing. they sent over the script and when i read it it exceeded my expectationing. it was about these two extraordinary people. pfs also being directed by james marsh, and he directed "man on wire" which is one of my favorite films. and again, james other soof subvert things and i thought the idea of that subject matter. i hunted it down in the way you do any job interview.

you try to persuade people you're formidably confident you know exactly what you're doing. >> rose: is this true? you came in meeting him at a bar somewhere our pub is london, so you ordered a beer and he ordered coffee, any were like oh, head. >> what proceeds to happen is he about five coffees. and somewhere along the way it happened. >> it wassed, that was chemistry. >> yeah. >> rose: congratulations. >> thank you. >> rose: it's a remarkable achievement. >> thank you so much. >> rose: and whatever went into the performance, it is so clear, anyone who has been even close cud hawk, but even if you haven't, you know you're watchingwatching in some sense that it's not just walking in front of a camera and performing, that you had to have thought deeply and

long and to capture this man who is a fascinating human being. i thank you for that and i thank you for coming. >> thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> hi. i'm rick steves. today we're heading off on a very special adventure, traveling to three of the most exciting cities in europe: florence, rome, and venice. italy's my favorite country. these are my favorite italian cities and you're about to see why. i'll be with you during each intermission sharing special tips on traveling smartly as together we celebrate the value of public broadcasting right here in our communities. if you've got any friends bitten by that travel bug, give them a call or text them right now, because we've got a wonderful itinerary planned for you. in the next two hours, we'll share not only the marquee attractions of these great cities, but we'll get to know the back lanes, the edible delights, and the locals so proud of their heritage. now raise your travel dreams to their upright and locked positions, because together, we're heading for italy's cities of dreams. our first stop: florence-- birthplace of the renaissance.