langella made a habit of playing both in 1979 he appeared as a seductive count dracula opposite lawrence olivier30 years later he portrayed an aging richard nixon in frost nixon and now takes on the play that has been called too huge for the stage. "king lear." he appeared in the title role of shakespeare's epic tragedy at the brooklyn school of music through february 9th. i am pleased to call him a friend and pleased to have him back at this table. >> good to be here. >> good to see you and having seen the performance i agree with all of those critics who are raving about what you brought to it. so i want to know, what have you brought to this role and what has this role brought to you? >> well, i think one of the first things i brought to it is fear of death which i never had before in any, in any of the decades of my life and at 76 if you don't begin to think about think about it you are nuts. so when i read the play, i thought, okay, i am closer to the end than to the beginning, what is it about this man i most want to investigate? and it was the quality in me that i don't particularly like,

>> yes, it is a famous story as you know about lawrence olivier. entered a performance and went backstage and roddy mcdowell went backstage and said, you know, larry this was fantastic. >> yes. >> never seen anything like it, and he said, you know, i know but i don't know how i did it. >> well, i have had this conversation most -- more with british actors than americans. because, because to me, there is a tremendous importance to knowing every word you say. doing the basic work and the digging and digging and digging and then there is an even greater importance which is when you walk to the wings, just before you go on, you forget all that. and you leap empty, leap empty handed into the void and you just jump. and sometimes british actors and i have a difference of opinion, not sometimes a lot of times we have a difference of opinion. what is wonderful about the company that i am in is that most of them have sort of come around and said you know just because he was reading it differently doesn't mean anything more than he wants to excite me in a di

i mean, i was sitting opposite sir lawrence olivier, sir gregory peck, betty davis was in front of me>> jimmy: funny, probably now -- >> now i'm the old lady. >> jimmy: you spend the whole night with young actors coming up to you telling you how much you mean to them. but did you do that to these people? >> i was just completely in awe. i mean, it wasn't -- it wasn't like now where everybody's always everywhere, you know? publicly. those people lived in this rarified hollywood. you only saw them on screen or the most controlled ways, in magazines or something. so they were like gods. >> jimmy: and now everyone has cell phone, everybody is taking picture, video. >> everybody is making a movie of their own, and it's sort of great. >> jimmy: in the bathroom they're making movies of you do people do that to you? i would be far too intimidated to ask you for a photograph, but, you know, somebody maybe that was on tv, i might. >> yeah. people -- oh, yeah. >> jimmy: all the time? >> the cell phone camera has sort of ended the quiet dinner with your husband. >> jimmy: it's also eliminated the