>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. jude law is on broadway playing hamlet. tonight through his ideas and his vision, a conversation about the role and the play. >> for now i'll do it, and

so he goes to heaven. i will be scan, a villain killed my father and for that i his sole son with the same villain sent to heaven. >> all that summoned up in this exquisite poetry, of which is there only as a map, really, to emotionally allow yourself to follow has to be em buyed with a real heart. a so i've gone through extraordinary journeys in my dressing room nightly with music and photographs and all sorts of things to keep that refresh, and alive. and it's painful stuff but it's also stuff that as we all know, you know, when you experience heightened emotions they make you feel alive and they reaffirm a sense of self whether it's a love of a parent or a love of a child or whatever it is, all those things are very

alive in you. >> who knows, save heaven. but in our circumstance and cause of fort, his heavy with him. am i then revenge to take him in the purging of his soul when he's fit and seasoned for his passage? no. >> rose: jude law as hamlet for the hour. funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following: >> additional funding for charlie rose has also provided by these funders. : captioning sponsored by rose communications

from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. shakespeare's's hamlet is a role that has challengend and rewarded actors over the ages. the late great sir john gill gud whose betrayals were considered among the finest described the part as a summing of process of living. there are said to be as many hamlets as there are actors to interpret him. here are some talking about the role at this table. >> i played hamlet very young and we went to crohnbook castle to play it at the castle where we more or less a certain shakespeare's troop also went. i was, i mean, like i remember when that date was concerned i thought, i had sort of died and gone to heaven. if it had all stopped then i would have been absolutely bloody delighted. >> we didn't rehearse it and

when you shoot it you shoot it in pieces out of order. and you do the last part of a soliloquy the month before the first two-thirds. >> so it is harder doing on film because it has such a natural progression. >> or it doesn't. maybe that is the best way to do it, who knows. >> but you said you wished you had done it on stage rather than on film. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> he would put the post important word at the end of the line. to be on nor to the be that is the question. so the most important thought of hamlet at that time is not life or death, it's the question. it's the quest. >> and i walked up, it was a thing from -- on to the stage to do the to be or not to be soliloquy. and i said to be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the things and of outrageous fortune or to take on, i had -- what is that? to die to sleep -- i thought

what is going on. chuckles. >> i got somehow through it and towards the middle of the soliloquy, i did that at one point. i was wearing my horn-rimmed spectacles. and they had lenss in them which turned black when the light shown. and i had been wearing them and had forgotten. and i played the to be or not to be in front of knowel coward in horn-rimmed glasses. >> and he was chuckling. >> you regret most in your life not having played hamlet. >> yeah. >> why did it -- you future off and all of a sudden you were too drunk. >> well, because you know, in our lifetime, in my lifetime i think that acting was an avocation. living life was a vocation to me. and so i never had the time.

i was -- i said yeah i'll do it next year. >> what do you think of that? >> what a wonderful collection. an amazing collection of interviews. i think part of, being a part of that legacy is something i have somewhat avoided thinking about while playing the part. >> it thrilling to remind me. i have done about 135 of them now so i'm confident i i can get on it with it and do it. yeah, it's been very interesting adding to the -- ken grammar was the reason i got involved in this production. he -- he was a part of the season at the don mar and suggested that i play the part. and i think had it come from just about anyone else, maybe any one of those, but because it was him, i really took it seriously. and suddenly thought maybe now is the time to do it. >> you will recognize jude law, he is the latest to try his hand at portraying the danish prince, though more

known for his film work he is no stranger to theatre. he was nominated for a tony in the broadway production of in discretions in 1995. after a successful run in london's west end his hamlet is now in previews on broadway. and here is a look at that production .

>> jude law one of my favorite actors back at this table, welcome. >> thank you for having me back. >> how does one decide it's time for me to do hamlet? >> well, i think somewhere in the back of my mind was always a sense that it was inevitable only because it was a challenge that everyone who had played it and thoses even who haven't played it, even richard harris so eloquently put there, said that you know it's the greatest of challenges. but also the most fulfilling of roles. but getting the timing right and the alignment right was always very important to me. and being in the right hands

and being in the right frame of mind and at the right time in my own life. and ken browner asked me to be a part of the season in the don mar in the west end. and that involved michael grand itch who i think is a fantastic director. and the don mar is the wonderful company known for gathering terrific ensembles. and it just felt that time was right. and it was nothing more than that really t wasn't a great urging, suddenly, it just felt that the group of people around me were the right group. >> rose: why is it the most challenging of roles? >> well, now that i'm playing it i would say it is the most challenging of roles because it requires just about every theatrical element available to you in one performance. comedy, drama, tragedy, wit, physicality, passion,

romance. it challenges you in dialogue, in the size of its soliloquy, seven soliloquys in all to the audience. and then it's also incredibly demanding because i'm stealing a quote here from another great hamlet roger reese who said to me you don't play hamlet, hamlet plays you. there is a part of you in him. there is -- it has to be your feelings of life. because indeed the questions he raises, the experience he is going through is in a way a map through live that we all lead. and the questions he asks are questions that none of us have answers for. and again the reason why the play is so vibrant, so alive today as it was 400 years ago. but they are questions that we all have to summon in ourselves if you like. there is not a caricature like a richard iii to hide behind. or a fighting king like henry 5th. he is very much an open spirit.

and so on a nightly basis it very, very demanding to emotionally put yourself through that roller coaster. >> rose: and that is part of why it viewed as the favorite shakespeareian role. >> i think the favorite because -- because on the whole, i would stick my neck out and say that actors like hard, like hard work. you know, funny enough i was out for dinner last night with two of the gentlemen who are in the play. one has a nonspeaking role and one plays horatio. and we were talking about the difference in the experience of playing the role, playing the piece here in new york. and of course what the young guy who doesn't speak said is that he would find it even harder here because what he doesn't get is the opportunity to just go at it. instead he's experiencing it from a back row watching us. and i think actors always feel pushing yourself, doing it is where you want to be. >> do you start off with this by saying you want to

go see an lesh and reread and reread, not only the play but everything else written about the play or do you say in order to be refresh and original i got to take a different path? >> i had about a year because i was the last in a season of four. i had about a year before i even started rehearsing which is a wonderful amount of time. and i wanted to do it properly, you know. i really wanted to know that i had given it my best and embraced it and eaten up absolutely everything available to me. and i started by reading, i felt the best place to start was in the 1600s, 1599, around the time when shakespeare wrote this play. and to find out what was -- to gather as much as i could what was going on in england, in london at that time. what was inspiring this man to write such a revolutionary piece of work. and that took me to several books, one 1599 by james shapiro which looks at

this -- at england monarchy, at the church, at the wars in ireland, what was going on on the streets. and indeed what was being read by those who could read. there was also another wonderful book by robert mcgee called the elizabethan hamlet which looked at the affects that this play would have on the elizabethan audience, the affect of a ghost on stage, for example, would have meant certified dam nation for the man talking to him and possible dam nation for those in the audience so little keys that just planted interesting seateds in my mind. and that then lead me on to certain texts where they believe shakespeare could have been reading the essays of mitchell due montagne. if you hold next to the soliloquies are incredibly similar. and the idea that this was refresh in william shakespeare's mind, the idea of mining your own feelings in a almost a linear thought as a way of expressing someone in a life.

to an audience was -- was obviously so sumpuous. and you can see that in the soliloquies. and then yes, i did, because hi so long, i did about go back and see a few of the films i hadn't seen. i hadn't seen the mel gibson film. >> rose: the burton you can get on dvd. >> hi seen that before and i went and watched that and the wonderful interviews around that production with guilgud because he directed it. i found a recording of guilguid which i listened to. i watched the olivier film. so i submerged myself but having said that, there was a period of time then when i actually did another job shortly before i started rehearsals. and looking back although it wasn't planned, i'm really glad because it meant that i let it all just filter but at the same time removed it from the forefront of my mind. and was able then to start he had remembers -- rehearsing with the text, very much afresh. >> rose: it stretches you as

an actor, it does what do you as an actor, either in life or in acting. >> i think in both. i'm not to over -- on a very personal level. on a personal level but as an actor and on a personal level as me, as a person. >> rose: how has it changed you as a person. >> i think the day daley demand to summon up a sense of pain, a sense of longing, a sense of hope, a sense of belief in the world and its beauty and also in its tragedy and demise, all that is summoned up in this exquisite poetry, of which is there only as a map really to emotionally allow yourself to follow, has to be imbued with a real heart and so i have gone through

extraordinary journeys in my dressing room nightly with music and photographs and all sorts of things to keep that fresh and alive. and it's painful stuff but it's also stuff that as we all know, when you experience heightened emotions they make you feel alive. and they reaffirm a sense of self whether it's a love of a parn or a love of a child or whatever it is, all those things are very alive in you. >> rose: which is part of the reason that a lot of people have said that when they read hamlet they feel like shakespeare was speaking to them. he somehow has gotten something about what it means to be alive. >> yeah, absolutely. through a series of questions, he somehow affirms what it is to be alive. it's a very unusual equation in a way. because hamlet questions and questions and questions. but in -- i suppose you could say that those questions are what keep us

all interested, whether keep us all interested and what keep us on the edge of our seats in life itself. and so to see it mirrored in someone else, to see it coming out of someone else, especially, you know, under such a famous mantle, as a piece of work by william shakespeare i suppose he's reaffirming. >> rose: what is the hardest part of it. everybody is familiar with it, so it has the possibility of being almost clicheish. >> i don't personally fine any of that very hard. >> rose: oh no, okay. that whole part of it, you weren't worried about this the moment i've got to -- >> sure, i had moments like that in rehearsal. there were moments in rehearsal when early early on when people say hamlet, thinking gosh, i'm hamlet this is a cliche. and indeed, the several of the lines in the famous soliloquies trip you up early on. but michael has created a wonderful production. and in that production, in

that world that exists for three out of ten minutes every night i'm hamlet in that world. and the journey i follow is very clear to me. what i have to do. and what better ways to express that journey than through these extraordinary lines. the likes of which we haven't surpassed in 400 years. there is no better way of saying to live or to die, to be or not to be. there is no better way of --. >> rose: it stood the test of time. >> it stood the test of time. what i found hard is the simple or rather not so simple physical application every night. i mean and being mentally alert, to be able to change on a line with absolute conviction is very, very --. >> rose: people who have written about it, not because it has been reviewed here but it has been reviewed in london talk about the physicality of your own performance, in a sense, how well you move across the stage. was that thought into that, i mean is that something that you and the director

sort of -- >> no, it wasn't, funny enough. people do talk and ask a lot about that and whether i took classes or whether it was something decided to imbue. >> rose: to emphasize, to give a special kind of -- >> it's not. it was just a sort of evolution out of the rehearsal process. what i knew, i knew i didn't want him to be a brooding moross introverted stagnant sort of figure. i wanted him to have great life. and i wanted these beautiful words and these thoughts and "passions", be they dark or light, to have an energy to them. i wanted you to feel his thoughts. and so i think that's what started to happen physically rses how do you get to the point where you are hamlet? >> i had this discussion with michael early on. and to go back to this idea which i really don't underestimate, that hamlet is not a character of sorts. he is a character within the story but i have to be him. i really have tried to play

it afresh every night. now there was a very strong blue print of where and what we have to do. i'm not there to frighten other acters or pull rabbits out of hats or anything. but it's got eb enough elbow room to really allow me to experiment nightly. and to allow the emotional thread to follow, to lead me. so i can literally follow my nose emotionally. and that's really allowed me to, i feel, open myself up to him. and i was always a little overwhelmed early on when you stand at the foot of the mountain and put yourself at the end of it. if you start to think of where you have to get to at the end of the evening, it's overwhelming. because it's such a long journey. what you have to do and it's interesting because this ultimately comes out in the

play and in the part. is play it by the scene by scene line by line and shakespeare helps you to each moment. every time a new character comes on his energy changesment he carries an energy from one and puts it to another in the same way that he will take lines from characters and use them against them in another scene. and it is almost like a momentum that builds up. and before you know it you are three hours in and are you at a moment where he himself then says the readiness is all. and to me what, it was the greatest discovery i had in the part because so much is made of the early part of hamlet when he is questioning and he's in this sort of gordian knot of self-analysis. and a lot isn't said about that particular speech which to me is the most beautiful where he talks about the providence of the fall of a spar owe, if it is now, to be come, if it not now, if not now it will come, ready sense all. >> rose: it really is beautiful.

>> existential clarity. and he adds it up -- he surmises it by saying let be. that moment to me is a man who is incredibly open to anything and everything that thrown at him, including death. >> rose: mastering elizabethian, how do you do it? >> well, there are sort of several sides to it, i suppose. there are always elements and words that make absolute no sense. and you have to be in a company, i believe, or i was lucky enough to be in a company where there was so such thing as a stupid question. what does a do -- bodkin mean. >> rose: that is the rule at this table. >> has to be so. and then you can begin learning. >> rose: exactly. >> so first of all that has to be cleared up. but then you, i think it's the same with an audience. your ear attunes to it. and you have to remember that whilst there is always a specific meaning to a line there is also a hidden meaning and a poetic meaning,

there has to be a moment where you allow yourself to play with the words, that the words will out of their own shape and sound create an image. it's not -- it's not about being specific, sometimes it is but on the whole it's about creating a smell, a tone of a feeling. and so it's not like learning other lines. it's not -- you mentioned beckett earlier, it is not like playing beckett, it's not a specific to me. it's pore about painting with words. and when su have the thought, accurate, when you have the presence, as i said before there is often no other better words than the words he offers you to express them. >> somebody once said that hamlet dances with this stuff. >> yes, he does. he does dance with his thoughts. but indeed you see, i think again that's why he's so familiar to us all. because we have an opportunity of seeing inside a man's head, a person's

head. and to me it's a wonderful snapshot of how we all think. how we all feel. there is a certain punctuation which i'm sure you are aware of that some won't know which is the eye am bic pentameter when shakespeare writes in verse. what is interesting is he often puts full stops in the middle of the sentence which means the thought changes. so hamlet rare leigh finishes a thought without starting another thought, start noring thought. and that is a great indication from shakespeare of how he wants him to be played. but it's also to me an indication of the kind of man he is. and indeed the kind of man perhaps that is certainly familiar to me which is this idea as you cross a street will be thinking about buying a present for somebody and then will you see something else and think to no, i must book that holiday and then you will remember the book and the book will lead you to. >> when you do that, you say i hope i don't forget to buy the present. >> and of course you have drifted on. and sometimes that can be an

incredibly deep and emotional process that you are going through. sometimes it can be about a book and present and dog walk organize something like that. >> rose: a look at some scenes and i want to you set them up. this is act 1, scene 4, you see the ghost of your father. in hamlet. >> with the beginning of the play is very interesting. again people enjoy calling him the gloomy dain. but he is indeed mourning. he has just lost his father who he obviously adored or at least had a very, very significant role in his life. and to make matters worse, his mother has married almost immediately. his uncle, his father's brother and left him almost in this desert of mourning where he is all on his own, isolated. he is questioning his own life. he says in the first time you see him alone, you know, that he wished in a way cokill himself. the only reason he won't is because god is against him. but he's over with the

world. he's over with everything cynical and negative because to him he sees everything as a polluted garden, an unseeded garden, he calls it. suddenly out of no where he is approached and told that a spirit of his father has been dean walking the battlements of the castle. he hooks on to it immediately which is unusual because of course you would think it would be the last thing he would need. but to me it is a sign that there is a chink of hope. there is a chink of something is amiss. and also possibly something afoot. and so he believes in them and follows them. >> roll tape. here it is. act one, scene four. >> a drunkard, soil our -- and indeed it takes from our achievements so performed at height, marrow of our attributes. >> ministers of grace, defend us.

be,000 a spirit of hell or be goblin damned. brick with thee air from heaven or blasts from hell. be thy intense, wicked or charitable, thou comes in such a questionable shape that i will speak to thee, i will call thee hamlet, king. >> father! royal dain. >> oh, answer me, in ignorance but tell why thy canonized bones set in death have burst their -- why where we saw thee quietly intered, ponderous and marvel, up again, what may this mean? say why is this, wherefor. what should we do? >> rose: in all this transitions that you have to go through here. what is the actor's head

thinking? because you're doing every night. >> yeah. >> rose: you want to make sure it has a refreshness. >> there is so much to play with every night rses so it might be a different performance. >> indeed. but and there is always something to get right and get better and improve. and there is always something to re-examine. i mean first of all, i don't think shakespeare wrote a bigger part it is about 45 or 50% of one of his longest plays. >> yeah, exactly. >> so you have a huge amount of dialogue. which offers many opportunities. there are, you know, each line you want to master, perfectly and you may not do one line as well as you did the other line the night before so that night your chall seng well, there is a breath i really wanted to get on that line. >> and if you get it there, may send you to another place that is even better. >> exactly. and then underneath that is a situation, a wonderful heightened situation which builds and builds and builds and the same with that. but on a larger, in the same way you may not get that.

so heartfelt one night but you get it the next and that again leads you to another. so it is an enormous three dimensional jigsaw puzzle that offers itself to you. and never stops challenging and never stops exciting the performer. i can't believe there was an actor out there who has played him. who could say i got bored playing him. he is -- i mean my fear is you know, i finish here in december and there are no plans so far to take him on or to do anything else. but quite what you do next i have no idea. i -- now he has to get me out of it. >> is it likely that you would most want to go down another shakespeare play. >> very possibly. although which would need a rest. >> rose: but you might. >> yes, very, very possibly. >> rose: and you feel good about being back on stage. >> i'm very please to be back on stage, yeah. it was where i started. >> rose: yeah. >> that is why i asked. and you also have created enough of a body of work on

film that you can go back any time you want. you can go back an forth. >> yeah. >> rose: and this will make it even the choices even better. >> i hope so. i hope so. i had forgotten the exhilaration of theatre on many levels. the exhilaration of having a live audience, of playing it there and then, experiencing this wonderful alchemy that happens over the edge of the stage and the beginning of the auditorium. and indeed the potenceee of an ensemble and what you build up, the rapport you build with a group of actors. and of course there is that wonderful scene in hamlet where the only people ultimately he recognizes himself in are the actors. and there are all these references to the players are coming and put on the play. and he adores the idea of performance and through performance, of course, he is also able to capture real life in tripping up his uncle. so taking this on the road,

had this fantastic mirror of that, suddenly packing up the stage and taking it to the castle. and denmark. >> was the prince of denmark there. >> yes. the prince of denmark came to the first performance. >> set this up for me. act four, scene 2, hamlet won't tell rosenkranz and guilderstern where the dead body is. >> there are all these things of madness throughout hamlet. and many questions posed is. is he mad. what is madness? how mad is he. does he become mad. to me the path is quite straightforward, actually. i am not going to explain it now because i think it's more exciting to come and see it but what i will say is this, that he gets as close to madness as possible after he is killed paloneus and at this stage his recognition of what life is and the worth of life is very potent in his tongue and in his mind, and i deed

his also in this moment, battling with his new found enemies, rosenkranz and guildenstern who were indeed his oldest friends. >> roll tape, here it is. >> what is it you've done, my lord, with the dead body. >> compounded with dust. >> tell us where it is. >> that we may take it and bury. >> do not believe. >> believe what. >> that i may keep your counsel and not mine own. besides, be demanded of a sponge. what replication should be made by the son of a king. >> take you me for a sponge, my lord. >> i, sir, one that soaks up the king's count nance, his reward, his authorities. but such officers do the king's best service in the end. he keeping them like an airport in the corn ef -- corner of his jaw, first mouth to be last swallowed. when he leaves what you have gleaned it is but squeezing

you and sponge, you shall be dry again. >> i understand you not, my lord. >> i'm grad of it. sleeps. >> my lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the king. >> of all the years with the king. >> but the king is not with the body. >> the king is a thing. >> a thing, my lord. >> of nothing. >> every night, does the audience react different? to the different moments in terms of the line one night versus another night? or do they seem to respond the same way in terms of applause. >> there are certain reacts every night to key moments. >> they're waiting for. >> which they're waiting for which is already brilliantly written and brilliantly performed i have to say by the company. the roll of paloneus which rowan cook plays is is filled with the most fantastic word play and he

is a brilliant comic actor. so there are certain key moments and key physical moments that we devised that we know we get positive response from. some we don't and that is part of live theatre too when there nothing there. >> rose: did you not get it. >> you have to carry on and motor on. maybe the next one but there is --. >> rose: i will get them tomorrow night. >> will you get them tomorrow night and also tomorrow night they may get something that you've never gotten before. and what i have noticed here is the audience is -- the audience here really meets you halfway. they want, they want to get it. they want to enjoy it. and there are certain moments which in the london run are key moments of not human, not drama but shifts in the dynamic of the play. and here you can hear people oddably moving and feeling with you.

it's very, very palpable. everyone said so in the cost. and they are very enthusiastic here, which is wonderful. they have a great embrace of the theatre. >> do you see hamlet or the performance different today than you did when you began oh so many months ago. >> very much so. >> do you really? >> look, i was thrilled with the london run. thrilled that we were embraced and enjoyed as much as we mr. . but i look back now and i think what was i doing. what was i doing. i mean i think -- i think it's the natural process that apart beds into you, there are qualities that you throw yourself into at the beginning of a run which slowly turn, hone down and cut, other colors come up. i would say there was a brashness to them an aggressive that i found. a fury i found in be done which i think is just leveled out somewhat. and slightly a bit more wit here. certainly more confidence and that's because we know it as a company. we know the play very well. >> and the response has been

terrific too. both in terms it of critical and in terms of audience response. >> yeah. >> let me do one more scene. act 5, scene 1 hamlet discusses the skull, the king's gesture. what can you tell us of that. >> i had this, i read one of the many books in preparation for this part, this wonderful outlet this wonderful observation that because hamlet cannot play the king, his uncle has taken over the role of the king he assumes the next most truthful role in court which is the fool. which is why he puts on this an particular disposition, why he is considered mad because he starts speaking in the giberish of a fool which isn't madness but is wit and often pointed truth. as the play unravels and he is finally accused of the murder of paloneus he is sent away but returns having vowed to have bloody thoughts only. the first thing he sees is a grave dig are and the grave digger unearthed this skull

which turns out to be the old fools skull. it is a wonderful sort of symmetry. if also happened to be to be one of his closest friends as a boy, this old man who was obviously the court jester. and it is also very much the completion of a circle of life, suddenly hamlet is aware that whatever you do, whatever are you capable of, you all end up the same, whether you are alexander the great or caesar or a grave digger or a lawyer or a politician or a courtier, you all end up in the earth. and you all end up as matter. and when he suddenly has a connection not just with that sort of scientific truth but also with the actual life that was in this skull, it's yet another moment that affects him directly to the heart. >> roll tape. here it is.

>> and rest poor yuric. i knew him, horatio. full of infinite jests, of most excellent fancy. he adore me on his back a thousand times and now how my imagine, my gourds rises at it. those lips which i kissed. whether you are jibe now, your gambles, your songs, your flushes of mer iment which were were once set the table on a roll. not one now to mock your own grinning. quite chock full. they will get to you my lady's chamber and tell her that paint an inch thick to

this favor she must come. make her laugh at that. >> when you watch it what do you think? >> don't do it like that. >> it's true, isn't it. >> it's clinical. >> very, very klein call. it's also very odd because i have been for so many months now. >> since they may have shot this. >> yes. >> but i have never really watched that bad. i just did a bit of a test and let them get on with it because it's for theatre. i didn't really want to engage in the filming too much because it's a theatre piece. so i have been seeing him through here, not like that. so when you are making a film you spend the day looking back on what you have done. and you get used to watching yourself, you are living it and are you looking out from

your own skull. >> but how does -- how does one think differently. obviously projection is one thing. of being on stage in terms of the skill and the talent and the moment of the actor. two cameras and i bunch of technicians around and a director. cinematographer versus none of that. just an audience. >> is it going to be different? >> i have always believed it's many of the same skills in different proportions. >> beyond amplification. >> amplification is -- but i also believe amplification both vocally but also just in reaction is also overstated from when people compare film and they say acting on stage is operating with a knife and acting on

film is operating with a laser. i don't know, you know. i've seen great actors on film getting away with really broad performances. and i've seen actors on stage getting away with very minimal performances which get wonderful responses from an audience. >> if they don't seem to be doing a lot but the audience love it. >> a lot of it is the sense how it's going. and that depends on the theatre you are in. and indeed the shop that you are in in film. so the bigger difference to me is that in theatre you have your two and a half hours, your two hours, your three hours, however long it is to tell your story. and once you go you ain't stopping. you are going. there are seens in this when hamlet is on stage for 45 minutes with people coming on and the scene is changing around him. i'm more lost in that part and in that world in those moments than i've ever been in moments, in whole streaks that have been rebuilt to

the 1920s and cars and people going by, with cameras hid heen because i'm more aware of hitting marks and having to be in shock and what have you. >> because you have the cameras there. you have to be make sure are you where you are supposed to be in relationship with the camera. >> it is a sort of dream almost. >> exactly. >> talk about this director adaptation in terms of clothes, in terms of set, in terms of what that was about. and where it came from. >> what was very clear from the get-go is that michael was very keen to tell this production to those who had never seen it before. i think there are -- there is a general sense in theatre that you know, if you go to the theatre you have seen hamlet, you all know shakespeare which isn't true. a lot of people haven't seen shakespeare and haven't seen hamlet. and therefore why dress it with new concepts, new

thrills. tell it as it is on the page and keep it very clean, keep it very straightforward. and the piece serves itself. and is very effective as a piece. and he applied that also i think to the dress and to the set. he didn't want it to be seen as a period setting. he didn't want you to feel oh this isn't relevant to me. and i don't think he also wanted no costume, elizabethan costumes can sometimes look funny on people. you spent half the time looking at tights and cloaks rather than chrisen -- listening to the words but neither did he want it to be modern so it was mobile phones and guns and tvs. so he created this timeless period where the clothes are very present, very specific to a character. but not obstruseive. the set was the same. chris orum has create add wonderful, simple set that in many ways is just a black

box but dresses it occasionally with a dash of red or a drop of blue. there is a buff moment in this where we use a transparent -- that is lit so we perform behind it. almost no furniture and fantastic lighting. so the lighting splits this black box sometimes in half, in diagonals which shafts of light and beams. cuts off areas that makes them seemingly in the sunlight and sometimes in the moonlight and sometimes inside and sometimes outside. so there is a real world but there never a sense of anything other than listening to this wonderful dialogue. and key to all of that is moving at a great pace, which is very, very quick. >> and uses this wall well. >> yeah, very well. >> beautifully so. >> on shakespeare is it the consensus of people who may not have done what you have done and directors that he is better at character or narrative or plot. >> specifically to hamlet, i

suppose it's more, goodness, i think i would say it's more in the story, in the telling of the story. because there are a lot of key characters in the story that you learn very little about. the one that really surprised me was ophelia, ophelia and hamlet over time become this extraordinary love story. we only two scenes together. ophelia you hear very little about other than this promise, possible love for hamlet. and if you look defect that had on the artistic sense of tragic love, it's because it's all in the imagination and all in how shakespeare tells the story. there are huge areas which he cuts and decides to go from, you know, a beat where she comes on saying i have just seen hamlet. he is in a terrible state.

he is up set, he looked me in the face and went away. the next time you see them together isn't until she's been set up to go and spy on him and talk to him. you have never seen anything between them up until then. you have never seen anything shared. it's all in what is discussed by other people. so she is in that sense used very much as a tool to frted the story. the same you could say about horatio who is there to signify the growth of loyalty and friendship in hamlet's life. but once they made this commitment early on in the play you don't see them again until the second half when because he hasn't broken that loyalty, you believe in the loyalty. you don't need to see it. exercised. >> right. >> i want to take a look at this. this is harold bloom who say shakespeareian scholar, as you know. said this about hamlet. and the contradictions in his character on a appearance on this program. here it is. >> i have never met a person

and never encountered a literary figure who is able to combine absolute contrarys, really contradictions as hamlet does. he is at once more given to theatricality than any other filling and yet also given to a kind of terrifying inwardness which keeps growing and growing. further and further into the deeps and that is an amazing combination. how you can be totally theatrical and totally inward. >> is there an answer to that? >> totally theatrical and totally inward, the contradiction. >> to me, it's the contradictions and the right to change his mind, that makes him so relatable to all of us. you see him evolve and you see him leave and question

but leave behind questions and indeed, answers as quickly as he's resolved them. just as we do in life. you know i'm sure the footage of me sat here ten years ago talking about -- stuff which i would now look back on and say why am i talking about acting like that? why am i thinking like that. i've changed. in, within the story of this play, of course, shakespeare only has several hours but in that he allows you the chance to see someone pelling away layers. i mean i think i couldn't agree with you more that is part of the reason you really have to look deep inside in playing hamlet. in terms of thinking of your own flaws and your own weaknesses and your own confidence and your own sense of destiny. >> yeah, indeed. >> to make it work. >> absolutely. and never allow yourself to also leave behind something that you were filled with conviction on a moment

before. so in the moment you have to be -- you have to convince yourself that that is correct. but in the next moment you have to be ready to walk away from it and move on to the next conviction. >> all right, take a look. this is peter brook who is analyzing, this is a night for spax sheer. analyzing to be or not to be. here it is. >> to be or not to be, which is -- or if i live, what can i live for. and it ends before it leads through saying, thinking too much is what gets one into trouble. and he says that the greatest enterprises can be completely squashed by what he calls the peal cast of thought. and hamlet realizes that he had been thinking and thinking all this time of should he kill, shouldn't he kill. is life right, are people like this, are people like that. and he now realizes that there is something much

simpler, whether it's, he likes it or not, he has an action with his destiny and so he says, the speech would start to be or not to be and ends with his word action. and from then on, everything changes. >> wow. >> pretty good, huh? >> true, he's a wonderful director. great inspiration. >> rose: there are two big questions. one is this fraudian sense of an edible desire for his mother. >> i don't agree with that. i -- it is very clear that one of the thorns in his side, in his heart is that his mother has disappointed him, has created this torrent of disappointment in not just woman kind but mankind because of her, in

his opinion, distasteful swift marriage that both i believe conjures a question in his mind, the loyalties to the father when he was alive but also now in mourning his death. that naturally provokes in him a sense of -- by sexually life, an this woman as a sexually active person. which as her son is distasteful. and is something he then uses and throws at her. and there were many references both to her and also on to the innocence of ophelia, of being a whore and being, you know, using sexualityment but the notion of him actually wanting to sleep with her, to me is not evident in the text. i think it's a more modern effectation. >> rose: it does not intrude into any consciousness of

yours. >> no. >> rose: you don't think it, you don't believe it so you don't think of it, therefore it has -- >> it play those part,. >> rose: if you thought it you would play it differently. >> of course. to me it just didn't become apparent in the text. i mean there is several a sense of his distaste, the idea of her being sexually active is uncomfortable. and is in a way at the heart of what he sees as this incestuous bed of corruption within the -- within the court. but it doesn't, i don't believe, lead -- i don't believe it leads to him actually wanting to bed his mother. >> rose: why did he hesitate before killing claudio. >> he hesitates, again i can only speak of my opinion. he hesitates because he wants the death to be damned. he wants claweduous to go to hell.

and the idea of the reward -- the idea of the -- sending him almost rewarding him by sending him to heaven is not enough. he wants the damnation to be double. he wants to take his life and ensure that he sens him to a place of missery. >> rose: . >> so he wants to catch him at a time when he is doing something that will lead him to damnation. >> rose: where do you put this in terms of everything you've ever done? >> well, you know, i'm always one of those people who tries to put what i am doing in the moment at the forefront. and this has been so all-encompassing and challenging and rewarding and i can't help but put it right at the top and right at the forefront of my heart and my head. >> rose: the doing of this. in any way for you, an opportunity to remind us,

new york, who you were and what did you. >> absolutely. absolutely. i mean was i thinking that when i agreed to be a part of this season and work with michael grandage and be a part of the season that ken suggested, no, at that time i was i thising more immediately, you know this is a great man and this a great company and i want to play this great part. but you know, a week later when it dawns on you that you just agreed to play hamlet and are you going to have to get up there and do it, the fear kicks in and for me it's the fear but also the belief in one's self-that always drives you. and i think are you absolutely right to highlight that there was a part of me somewhere that wanted to get the account there and raise my own bar and raise the expectations of those who had seen me and worked before and prove my

worth, i suppose. >> thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: great to see you. >> great to see you. >> rose: jude law in hamlet currently playing in previews, open to the broader -- theatre on tuesday october 5th. directed by michael grandage. will run for 12 weeks. hamlet. jude law. thank you for joining us for this hour. see you next time.