>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight bradley cooper the actor. he's nominated for best actor at the oscars for his performance in "silver linings playbook." >> certain actors i talked to just talk board of director how they learned things from the characters they played. like in the profound way. in this movie more than any other i really did feel like i got out of the way in the morning and let him come over. and it sounds very sort of acty. i let this guy take over. that's his bottom. we're watching this guy at a bottom. >> rose: one one clude with george saunders his book is called the "tenth of december" and this is what the "new york times" said the best book you'll

read this year george saunders "tenth of december." >> at certain critical points i was sort of encouraged by my life to go for the harder effect which is often the more luminous effect or the kind of vigor effect. it's hard to explain but something about the life seep into the stories. when i got into a critical point where maybe 15 years ago i would prefer the dark sword. now i'm a point i would feel like is there a way to credit some of the positive in my life. >> rose: bradley cooper and george saunders, next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: bradley cooper is here, millions know him from his movies or people's magazine sexist man alive but if you play closer attention you've seen his

talent as a actor this season in "silver linings playbook" nominated as are for an oscar at best actor. here's a look at his performance. >> the world will break your heart ten ways to sunday that's guaranteed. and i can't begin to explain that. where the craziness inside myself and everybody else but guess what. sunday's my favorite day again. i think of everything everyone did for me and i feel like very lucky guy. this is what i learned in the hospital. you have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest and if you do if you stay positive you have a shot at the silver lining. >> rose: i am pleased to have my friend. this is a great moment, a good moment to be because the harder you work because of how you selected things to give you the chasm to do -- chance to do the thing you want and a hangover allows you to have those kind of

movies with these kind of movies. >> i couldn't have strategize it better without ever thinking in those terms but you're right. it's incredible, charlie. it's incredible, you know and it is all for the origin of the hangover it really is which allowed relativity to allow me to do limitless because that was successful and david russell and harvey weinstein, you know these when it opened up. >> rose: he's the character you played. how did they come to you and what did they say and how much of a conversation took place before you began to make the movie? >> this was an interesting one because david russell sent me the script during the summer not for any other reason we were having a dialogue in general about another movie that didn't happen. this movie is already cast but i want to know what you think of it. he's someone who is very curious. i find great directors always want everybody's opinion in general which i think is a good thing to do anyway. so i read it, we talked about it and that was it. it's shooting another movie in

new york and i got a fall from him and he said you know something happen an actor's fallen out. i want to play -- the character's name was different at the time. i just thought i wealth back and i remember thinking about that script and i thought this is what you dream of. this is what you dream of when you're a kid watching movies and you see these characters and you think that would be just. >> rose: why do you say that. why is this a character you dream of? >> so many reasons. well, how much it's different from me or how much i have to find myself and connections to him. if he was sitting here right god knows what would come out of his mao because he has no filter and had his emotions are right just under the surface. and he's also fascinating because neurologically it's a very unique pathway the way that he processes information and that's what you know causes him to have manic episodes, what we

could define as bipolar being manic depressive. >> that's talk about who he is now. he's come out of inside after 18 months or so and he's manic depressive, bipolar. so not just manic. >> yes. he's diagnosed bipolar but you never know. this is a guy who is 35 years old and he did a me bark -- bargain to go to the institution so he wouldn't serve time. while he was in there the doctors diagnose him as being bipolar and they want him to start medication and he's got a strategy and he wants none of it he wants no help. so we're meeting this guy who is in denial about the fact he needs help. he's living at home. he's got no car he's got no cell phone. they won't allow him to visit he's got no of course he's not allowed to get his job back and his wife who he thinks is going to have a savior has a 500 yard restraining order. >> rose: he wants no part of it. >> no. the beautiful part about it is he couldn't be happier. he's in this manic delusion

that's going to fall. >> rose: his father is robert deniro who is an amazing ego. >> like my family and many philadelphia family. we grew up how much eagles fans and this is a typical reflection of that. actually in fact what i say wasn't his name because we couldn't get the rights to the name that was in the script for about a week we troid to get -- tried to get my mother's maden name as his name and we thought we were going to visit but that didn't work so solatano sounded like it so we went with that. >> rose: working with deniro is always a joy for you. >> it's ... what can i say. i liken it to i mean the

relation shoop you've had over the years where you sit back and think how did this happen. >> rose: i can imagine being friends with somebody like that. >> yes. but you are, i mean someone you were a fan of in collect or -- college and you start interviewing him and now he's a friend of yours. >> rose: i want to take a look at some scenes. this is a movie getting a lot of attention, a lot of buzz preos ter including best actor and david russell as best director. here is a scene in pat has a break down in the attic. >> i'm not calming down. i don't give a [bleep] i'm not calming down. >> stop it. >> let the whole neighborhood wake up, i don't care. >> what's going on.

>> hey. >> it's my wedding, it's my wedding. >> rose: as you're watching that you said that's sad. >> yes, it's so sad, yes. you know certain actors i talked to just talked about how they learn things from the characters they played and like kind of in a profound way. in this movie more than any other i really did feel like i kind of got out of the way in the morning, and let him come over. let him, and it sounds very sort of actory but it's sort of how i experienced it charlie, i kind of walked away and let this guy take over, this guy pat. and every time i see him i just feel so much empathy. that's his bottom. we're watching this guy at a bottom. >> rose: but you believe that he got inside of you and that's the reason he was able to do this. >> i don't know what happened, you know. but i know that when i see that

i'm lucky and this guy that i care a lot about this guy pat all the time. >> rose: you care about it because? >> because maybe i learned about him. he's i mean he's a guy that's just struggling to endure, to maintain and he just has no help. i know my life where i haven't asked for help or i try to control everything. it's just not going to work out. this is him realizing not realizing but us watching him not being able to work it out. >> rose: there was a time in your life where you talked to me and others which you were rebellious. >> growing pains or becoming an adult. i made a decision which was terrifying i'm not going to fulfill my potential as a human being. my parents i had such a luxury

because of the way it's brought up. my dad worked so hard to give me so many opportunities and i'm sitting there 29 years old and i thought i'm such a jack [bleep] i'm going to squander and change this thing. >> rose: wealth to georgetown and them new york. >> yes and then i went to grad school. >> rose: there's a story that jane lipton told your mother or father he's going to do big thing. >> i think he may have said that to my mom. for me my father was always nervous about it. just think about it, he grew up in north philly and his son wants took an actor. i took a loan out of the government because i was proud and i said dad you can't pay for grad school which he would have done but i would have fell more guilty with that. when he saw the elephant man and

i did it for my thesis i remember so clearly at that he looked at me and i saw him excited at the prospect that maybe his son could make a living as an actor. >> rose: because he saw you doing that. >> yes. and he's a huge -- he introduced film to me so he was the lover of acting, the storytelling through acting. so i guess he saw in that moment, i know what he said he said i did not see my son there. i saw the story. and i think he got excited that do you know what, maybe, maybe there's a shot. >> rose: what is it about the elephant man that's so grabbed your attention so early? >> it was the emotion that evoked in me that's what it was from seeing david lynch's film. my father would sort of, i wanted to emulate my father as a kid always wanted to wear a trench coat because he wore one. it was ridiculous i wore three piece suits in elementary school and my sister had to beat up the guys that wanted to beat me up because i insisted in dressing like this because of my father. you can imagine of course how

it's going to soak anything up. tom waits when i was eight years old. one thing i did feel was an emotion from him and the elephant man when i saw it when i was 12 just wrecked me. and i lived next door to the movie theatre and i started to really become you know i was addicted. the idea of watching this thing and what it did to me was very satisfying and i just thought do you know what i want to do that. >> rose: and you did it last summer again. >> i did, why he is. >> rose: and you're bringing it to broadway maybe. >> we're working on it. we really hope to, finger crossed but we're going to try to do it next spring at the booth theatre which we'll see. but that's where they did the original. >> rose: when you do that you have to make a limited run because you can't just have an open ended run. >> that's right. but i want to do it in a small theatre because that's the only place for a play it's an intimate play so because of that just financially you have to do more runs because there's less tickets in order to break evener whatever for that.

so we'll probably do a six you know, 16 week run which is a little bit longer than a normal limited run. >> rose: where do you learn where do you lean for wisdom. part of it's your own experience but what else. where do you figure out how do i make sure that i do this in a smart way. >> i'm lucky that i'm 38 years old when this happened because i do ask questions. and a lot of them go to robert deniro. i've gone to him for advice in the past two years many times. and the other asset i have is that it is simple for me. i have one objective pretty much and that is to grow as an actor. i've said this before. so how do you do that. you work with the best people. and i just want to work with the best film makers and the best actors. now the sort of caveat to that is i really want to direct film but all of a sudden because of this movie i have an opportunity maybe for the next who knows how long to work with some pretty sick directors hopefully. so i'm going to soak that up as

much as i can charlie and learn as much as i can from the david o russals of the world until they stop hiring me and then i will start making movies. >> rose: absorb everything you can from them and make i don't remember own movie. >> yes. >> rose: back to pat and several movie in silver linings this is where he's talking to his therapist. here it is. >> something you did about or after. >> about a week before the incident i called the cops and i told hill that my wife and the guy were plotting against memoranda by embezzle ling money from the local high school which ... wasn't true it was a delusion. we later found out from the hospital that's because i'm re. >> undiagnosed bipolar. >> yes brought on by severe tress which rarely happens by god. >> rose: so people with bipolar understand they visit they just don't know when it's

coming and what they're going to do. >> certainly pat didn't. he happened no idea. the next moment of that is he talks about how he's been white knuckling it this whole time and not knowing and now the whole thing is he's got a strategy now. i think that we live in an age where you know because of social media and because of awareness you know first of all when i was in grammar school i remember there was a kid in my school and they just said he was special. there was no semantic connection to autism or bipolar. and there's two schools of thought with that. we never had so many autistic people were jaws it not diagnosed. there's a dialogue now but these a lot to be done. to defigure ma ties mental illness -- mental illness you start to treat mental illness if you liken it to cancer as a stage four cancer. these when the treatment starts as opposed to when cancer's detected stage one they can start treating it but normally a

mental iness is starting to be treated but it's already almost two late and hen you have incidence that have been occurring, shootings. >> rose: but people don't ask themselves how am i different why am i different. >> i'm sure they do. i mean, i did as a kid i'm sure you did. you observe your brain's working away. i mean the thing about, the brain is an organ and sometimes you know like it could be likened to other organs. and we sometimes don't under what's happening and when that happens to your heart, if it feels something you get it treated. you ask questions. and i think it's just learning about verbalizing when we have those feelings so that it can be detected and treated you know. and i think we don't do that because it's stigmatized if i tell you i have mental problem you'll treat me differently i don't want you to treat me differently so i'm going to pretend not to. we destigmatize it then i'm more willing to talk to you.

that's the thing happening here you gone around with q&a's and i tell you charlie how many people come up with thank you i suffer from this i don't think i ever told it anybody i don't think i've said it publicly to q&a. that's the power of cinema. >> rose: what did happen in a particular case depression and bipolar are not was people like mike wallace. >> yes. that was a huge moment. >> rose: it was a bit like when gerald ford's wife talked about some of the awe deckion she had. it can happen -- >> harry bradshaw came and talked about it. >> rose: for them to talk about it makes people who feel the same thing say i'm not alone. >> that's right. but now the question is what do we do. these are certain people that have come out. now let's get legislation, let's talk about politically what we can do in terms of funding and really start to make it easier. >> rose: jennifer lawrence. >> whew. >> rose: tell me bit.

>> there's a silver lining in that movie. she's incredible. being on this awards is a very unique thing right now. and being with her, she's just, man, she's just something special. i how far her so much. at 22 year old. >> rose: a long way from hunger games, isn't it. >> yes for sure. this is the closest for her. >> rose: did you know beforehand. >> no, not at all. first time i met her charlie. >> rose: explain it. it was like you too -- >> that's how it work and the director was very happy that it was there, it just flows and then you start to play music together. >> rose: that make the ma'amic together. the relationship between the two of you that make the movie. >> it certainly makes the darker parts of movie or the thing people don't want to talk about much more palatable. we're talking about mental illness but it's packaged in a love story in this movie which is very smart. it's like a modest proposal you know. >> rose: has no chance. >> that's right.

you don't see that. they're not going to end on the street and say no way. >> rose: we're not going to have hollywood, are we. maybe. >> and you don't really. the message of the movie is not you will fix it with love it's back people understanding you that's the key and she understands. the first time he sees her in that dinner, you see he's floored by the fact that he sees, she says him. the one thing i experience and i've done this. when someone's a little off even in the street in new york wherever, the energy changes and when pat walks in the room ... >> rose: step back. >> she didn't step back she came right at him. >> rose: and he responded to that. >> yes and the fact she's gorgeous. >> rose: there's also this. dancing. you had to learn to dance the way -- >> pat would. >> rose: so it was like two weeks of intensive lessons. >> that's right and then every

moment not shooting in the third floor walk up studio with jennifer going over this very bipolar choreographed dance. we shot that dance in two days and everybody's watching the dance and robert deniro stood there for 12 hours two days in a row watching us do this dance didn't go back to his trailer just stood there like pat senior. >> rose: he seems like a mentor, something special come out on this. there's this famous scene that took place and we talked about this. this is when you were at the actor's studio asking a question about acting. here it is. >> hello mr. deniro. my name is brandly cooper. my question is about awakingsennings. you talked about i don't remember research. there was one manner sum had during the interview process and

they were asking you wanted to go out side the building go for a walk and you went like this with your finger and you made up for it into rubbing your eyebrow. i was wondering is that something you saw people do to sort of try to make up for their ticks or was that something that happened in the moment. >> that's a good question. >> what time. [laughter] >> rose: let me go back to these other movies. there's also the hangover part three. how many of these can there be&how many can you enjoy doing. >> the hangover, it's over. >> rose: why. >> i don't know if the other guys would do any more. i can speak for myself. i would probably do more but i think it does feel like it's you know. >> rose: did you see it when you first read it. >> i saw it was very funny and i thought that i never seen a

structure like that. i love the idea of forgotten night and the whole movie has been the next day. >> rose: there's also the place beyond the pines. >> yes. incredible experience and i really do think and i was talking to my friend the other day who did a movie back to back and about how sometimes that's l the best preparation. i did had movie right before "silver linings playbook" and it's like a support you're all oiled up. i learned a lot in that movie. >> rose: how much preparation we often ask this about how you prepare, people prepare differently. do you simply want to deeply immerse yourself in as much as you can find? >> yes. that's accurate. yes. absolutely. and it means different things for different projects but it's whatever you can do to get to where james cagney say what you mean and mean what you say. >> rose: say what you mean and mean what you stay. >> it basically means don't act be here talk to you. let me tell you something if you

haven't done the work and you're onset opposite robert deniro and you're in a place where you can do that, oh brother. that's a very scary scary place. >> rose: when did you start talking about that. >> for limitless i worked so hard to make sure it was like overstudying. here's the trick though. the trick is you can do all that but if you don't let it all go and relax it's going to be worthless so that's the sort of odd, it's such a hard thing to talk about. you have to not act but i'm a actor so what am i saying what does that mean. you try not to act and then the idea of throwing everything away. but it's very much like sports. michael jordan, he's not practicing during a game. >> rose: i'll tell you about michael jordan and anybody i ever interviewed here they are always the guys that work the hardest. >> that's tremendous true for acting as well. >> rose: silver lining is

receiving a lot of attention and he's created a wonderful character and i'm always arneed when he comes and takes a few minutes to sit at this table so thank you. >> thank you charlie. >> rose: thank you. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: he's considered a master of the short story form takes on big subjects like class, morality, love and it offers a glimpse of how we live today. he's long been admired as a writer's writer with fans including jonathan -- and the late david foster wallace. his new collection "tenth of december" is winning him a new legion of readers and "new york times magazine" calls it the best book you will read this year. i'm pleased to have george saunders at this table. welcome. >> very nice. >> rose: it's a pleasure. this the best book you'll read this year. this has to make you feel what. >> nervous. in we can have a mass agreement

no one will read this year more video games more television. >> rose: there's so much to talk about, but told me why is it short stories that have come for the time being at least your form. >> you know, the honest answer is i kind of love them and i think neurologically it's what i'm supposed to do. there was this thing a writer can choose what he writes but he can't choose where he live and somehow when i started working short form it clicked for me. when you start taking 300 i had an early experience when i was first married i went down to mexico and had this great adventure at a wedding and there was kind of a radical priest and a guy that's out of prison and i came back to my wife and i said i've got a novel idea. i spent about two years writing this thing that its title says it all it was call la boda of

edwardo which i think mean he had's wedding and gave it to my wife and she read it. early on i got the sense you have to have a feeling for beauty and eight pages i know when a beautiful eight pages look like. it gets up to 80 or a hundred i lose the focus. >> rose: do you sometimes start out as a novel believing it's a novel and realizing es not. >> usually what happens it starts off to be a story and it's kind of a week of i'm there it's a novel. then another three months until it finally happened for me and at the three month period where you grow it and grow it and a moment of truth where you think if it is a novel it's a nine page novel and you shrink it down. >> rose: how is a short story both limiting as well as expanding. >> i think actually -- >> rose: what's magical about it. >> i think it's actually the limit that mock it magical. it's that sense of time passing. you look at a nine-page story and you know something magically is supposed to happen by page

eight and-a-half. it's sort of the like jetally related to a joke. if i say a duck walked into a bar you say all right i'll give you three minutes and you better have me laughing. at the end if you're not laughing. there's something about it's sort of a throw down effect you say give me eight pages i'll do something big and at the end of the apages it hasn't happened then everybody knows it. >> rose: this is different from the other books. >> i think, well i think it's bigger hearted actually. that might be a strange thing to say but i'm getting older and have been married 25 years have some great kids and somehow the general richness of my life started getting into the story. at certain critical points i was sort of encouraged by my life to go for the harder effect which is often the more luminous effect or the kind of vigor effect. it's something about life seeps into the stories. i got to a critical point maybe

15 years where i would prefer the dark story. now i'm at a point where is there a way to credit some of the positive in my life. maybe not a rash decision but a book like that is really a companion on sort of thousands of decisions that you make. and many of those i found myself kind of moving towards kind of a vigor. >> rose: in fact what you have said is that this is a book you wish could or you would like to have written when you were younger borrow you didn't quote have the chops. >> right. i think -- said happy writes white. when you're young, i was certainly more sensitive to the idea that life was rough when i was young. it kind of came through me as a revolution. >> rose: life was rough. >> when i wrote my first book, my wife and i were just married and had our daughters pretty quickly. >> rose: didn't you meet in school. >> we met at syracuse and had this beautiful kind of head over

heels three week courtship. >> rose: three weeks after that you got married. >> we got engaged and six months after that we got married. >> rose: she's the first read. >> she's the if -- first read she's got this magical personality. i give it to her and if she responds strongly then it go ez to new york. if she doesn't she knows me really well and she can sort of say you cop on the. >> rose: if she said no you wouldn't send it to new york. >> she doesn't have to say it, i can tell in her reaction if i sort of hit the man cull thing. in not, not only -- she'll tell me she'll say i think you're copping out on page 7 or page 8 or there's a deeper thing here. >> rose: how lucky are you. >> very. it's been such a blessing to have an intellectual partner all those years. she's a person who has sort of guided me all along artistically and spiritualally. i just kind of draft behind her and wherever she goes i go there and it's always higher ground.

>> rose: she's made you better. >> in every way. >> rose: talking about this book so when you set out to do this -- subversive hilarious and emotionally piercing. has the subject matter changed for you in this book? >> you know the means has changed. the method of approach. for me the litmus test is always language. if the sentences are kind of jangly i kind of proceed. i heard ed van halen when do you think it's good and he said i don't know just the ground sound. on a level -- >> rose: do you write it and feel it. >> i can feel it during the writing but more often irtsd sort of like looking at it and going not quite and i do a rinse lab repeat, hundreds of recisions. by the end the whole thing is

kind of hopefully got a little charge to it. and then that produces plot and that produces but without that jangle, kind of getting the feel of the prose and being open to follow where it leads. even if it goes where you don't want it to go. >> rose: the this has been true from the beginning. >> there was about eight years where i was frantically denying that and trying to write from -- >> rose: you wanted to be hemingway. >> yes, wanted to be hemingway very much. i had the idea, the hardest job was to know the effect he or she was going to get and sort of dump it on the reader kind of puppeteer. it's condescending. so when i finally i guess a crises point after we were first married and i wasn't having any luck and i sort of brought forth this set of virtues that i picked up in chicago kind of

fast talking humor syndicate logical, a little pop culture. it seems like i did that with this feeling i've been in an alley getting beat up and i looked down and i had one hand behind my back. these when this whole idea of kind of looking very openly at the prose to see if it had energy or not or if not saying owe care we're going to change. >> rose: is this akin sort of what tom wolf felt when he started the new journalism. >> it might be. certainly i think it has to do with -- >> rose: just had a certain theme to it. >> that's right. when you study writing and i was an engineering major so i studied writing sort of on the side and probably incorrectly for a long time. but there's this intentional fallacy that says a writer and artist happens a set of ideas and the story is a vehicle for delivering those preconceived ideas. in fact on the production end of it my experience has been totally the opposite.

you go in trying not to have any idea of what you're going to accomplish praying that you'll accomplish something. and then respecting the energy of the piece and following it very very closely. so that's kind of exhilarating but also sometimes very scary place because you think well i'm 54 years old, i teach writing, i should no what i'm doing but so much of the job is kind of show up every day and say i really don't know. >> rose: we'll filed that on you together. >> yes, exactly. and that's where you get that beautiful feeling of kind of an intimate trio going between the reader the writer and the character where i don't know you don't know but we're kind of finding it out together. >> rose: maybe it was "the washington post" said these are all stories about separation the strategy of separation. does that ring a bell or resonate. >> it does. even if the separation is you from said, the feeling -- i've often thought that you know you're born into this world with a set of false ideas, you