Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20140630

Ford builds 23,000 vehicles a day; lamborghini builds 11, each purchased a year in advance, each unique. It is very beautiful and it is completely impractical. Yes. Pelley tonight, 60 minutes celebrates 50 years of italys super car, the lamborghini. Stahl Cate Blanchett is a won the Academy Award for best actress for her role in blue jasmine, about a park avenue socialite married to a con man. You know, someday, when you come into great wealth, you must remember to be generous. Stahl she has played a queen, an elf, an albino, and a man. I guess ive got one of those faces thats not particularly beautiful, not too ugly, you know. I can look. Stahl come on. A bit masculine, i can look a bit feminine, depending on how youre lit, how youre shot. Im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im morley safer. Im bob simon. Im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. Cbs money watch update sponsored by lincoln financial. Calling all chief life officers. Glor king. 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It could be the first government benefits program to run out of cash. Its been called a secret welfare system with its own disability industrial complex, and a system ravaged by waste and fraud. A lot of people want to know whats going on, especially senator tom coburn of oklahoma, who we talked to last fall when this story first aired. Tom coburn go read the statute. If theres any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. Thats pretty clear. So, whered all those disabled people come from . Kroft the Social Security administration, which runs the disability program, says the surge in claims is due to aging baby boomers and the lingering effects of a bad economy. But senator tom coburn of oklahoma, the ranking republican on the Senate Subcommittee for investigations whos also a physician says its more complicated than that. In 2012, his staff randomly selected hundreds of disability files, and found that 25 of them should never have been approved; another 20 , he said, were highly questionable. Coburn if all these people are disabled that apply, i want them all to get it. And then we need to figure out how were going to fund it. But my investigation tells me and my common sense tells me that we got a system thats being gamed pretty big right now. Kroft and by a lot of different people exploiting a vulnerable system. Coburn says you need look no further than the commercials of disability lawyers trolling for new clients. Namely, the two thirds of the people who have already applied for disability and been rejected. Theres not much to lose, really. It doesnt cost you anything unless you win the appeal, and the lawyers collect from the federal government. Marilyn zahm if the American Public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits. Kroft marilyn zahm and randy frye are two of the countrys 1,500 disability judges. They are also the president and vicepresident of the association of Administrative Law judges. They are each expected to read, hear, and decide up to 700 appeals a year to clear a backlog of nearly a million cases. They say disability lawyers have flooded the system with cases that shouldnt be there. Zahm in 1971, fewer than 20 of claimants were represented. Now, over 80 of claimants are represented by attorneys or representatives. Kroft why do you think theres so many more lawyers involved in this than there used to be . Zahm its lucrative. Randy frye follow the money. Kroft in 2012, the Social Security administration paid a billion dollars to claimants lawyers out of its cashstrapped Disability Trust fund. The biggest chunk, 70 million, went to binder and binder, the largest Disability Firm in the country. Lawyer Jenna Fliszar and Jessica White worked for binder and binder, representing clients in front of disability judges from New Hampshire to West Virginia. Jenna fliszar i call it a legal factory, because thats all it is. I mean, they have figured out the system and theyve made it into a Huge National firm that makes millions of dollars a year on Social Security disability. Jessica white i was hired at the end of 2008, and business was booming because the economy was so bad. We had a lot of people who their unemployment ran out and this was the next step. Fliszar if youre unable to find a job, and you have any type of physical issue, then it really becomes a last ditch effort because the job market is so bad. Kroft many of the cases they handled involved ailments with subjective symptoms like backache, depression, and fibromyalgia, which is joint and muscle pain, along with chronic fatigue. Hard to prove youve got it . Fliszar yes. And theres really no diagnostic testing for it. Kroft hard to deny you dont have it. Fliszar correct. Kroft out of the hundreds of people that you represented, how many of these cases involved strong cases for disability . Fliszar strong cases, i would say maybe 30 to 40 . And then i would say half of my cases were not deserving of disability. Kroft how many of them ultimately ended up getting benefits . Fliszar half. Kroft we tried repeatedly to reach binder and binder for comment, but our phone calls were not returned. Coburn we ought to err on the side of. Somebody being potentially disabled. And we have a ton of people in our country that are, but whats coming about now with where we are is the very people who are truly disabled, because we have so many scallywags in the system, are going to get hurt severely when this trust fund runs out of money. Kroft senator coburn says disability payments are now propping up the economy in some of the poorest regions in the country, which is why he sent his investigators to the border area of kentucky and West Virginia. More than a quarter of a Million People in this area are on disability 10 to 15 of the population, about three times the national average. Jennifer griffith and sarah carver processed disability claims at the Social Security Regional Office in huntington, West Virginia. How important are disability checks to people in this part of the country . Jennifer griffith theyre a vital part of our economy. A lot of people depend on them to. To survive. Kroft to see it firsthand, they suggested we come back right after the disability checks went out. And we did, to find crowds and traffic jams. Griffith you avoid the pharmacy, you avoid walmart. You avoid, you know, restaurants because its just. Sarah carver any grocery stores. Griffith its just extremely crowded. Everybodys received their benefits. Lets go shopping. Kroft not everyone in the throngs we saw is on disability, but Jennifer Griffith and sarah carver say theres no question that a lot of them are and probably shouldnt be. Carver we have a lot of people who have exhausted their unemployment checks and have moved onto Social Security disability. Kroft this is, sort of, a bridge between unemployment and collecting Social Security. Carver generally, yes. Kroft are they disabled . Carver not always, no. Griffith more often than not, no. Kroft around here, people call it getting on the draw or getting on the check, but they have other names for it. Carver i think you could call it a scheme. You could call it a scam. You could call it fraud. I mean, theres different definitions for it. Kroft large scale . Griffith very large scale. Kroft they began complaining to their bosses at the Social Security Administration Six years ago after discovering that an outsized number of claims and some questionable medical evidence was being submitted by eric conn, a flamboyant attorney whose face is plastered on billboards throughout the area and on local tv. He runs one of the largest disability practices in the country out of the eric c. Conn law center, which is just off route 23 in stanville, kentucky. Its a complex of several doublewides welded together with an imposing replica of the Lincoln Memorial in the parking lot. Surprisingly, it has only one space for the disabled. I mean, its kind of hard to miss eric conn around here, isnt it . Griffith youd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesnt know who he is in this area. Kroft he calls himself mr. Social security. And some of his ads say guaranteed success. How can he make that claim . Carver he backs that up. Kroft a slam dunk . Carver mmhmm. Pretty much. Kroft thats a remarkable record. Carver yes, it is. Kroft is he that good a lawyer . Carver you know. Griffith no. Kroft a lot of conns success, they say, had to do with a particularly friendly disability judge, david daugherty, who sought out conns cases and approved virtually all 1,823 of them, awarding a half a billion dollars worth of lifetime benefits to conns clients. The decisions were based on the recommendations of a loyal group of doctors who often examined conns clients right in his law offices and always endorsed them for the disability rolls. Were most of the medical reports submitted by the same doctors . Griffith yes. Carver yes. Sometimes, up to 13 to 20 reports a day. Griffith i know on one, we counted 16 exams by the same doctor all in one day at his office. Kroft and they were all approved . Griffith they were all approved. Kroft were all those valid claims . Carver theres no way that youre going to have 100 of clients walk through your door and be disabled. 100 of claimants, theres no way. Kroft we were hoping that, given eric conns outgoing personality and love of publicity, he would be eager to talk to us, but that turned out not to be the case. At first, we were told he wasnt in the office. We said wed wait. Hey, take some pens, too, all right . Kroft okay. Great. About an hour later, we got a call from his lawyer in washington. You know, we dont want to make it seem like hes hiding from us. The lawyer said hed try to coax conn out of the office, and eventually, he emerged. Eric conn im very much familiar with you. How we doing today . Kroft im doing good. Look, theres a lot of allegations out there. Conn there are. Kroft . About you that we wanted to talk to you about. Conn i understand. Well, im not normally a shy person, but i think its probably best i speak in the legal realm rather than here. I know you all have come a long way, and i dont mean to be in. Inhospitable, but i just think its probably best right now. Kroft you cant talk about your relationship with judge daugherty or your incredible success in. In Disability Court . Conn boy, thats tempting. laughter oh, i would love to comment on some of that. But not. Im really sorry, i dont think i should right now. Kroft conn didnt want to go into it with senator coburns investigators, either. They worked on the case for two years, interviewing witnesses and poring over disability documents. Thats why they asked us to protect their identities. What did you find out in West Virginia and kentucky . Coburn significant fraud. Kroft does the name eric conn ring a bell . Coburn mmhmm. I would tell you, i wouldnt want him for a brotherinlaw. And hes got a lot of money, and the american taxpayer paid him that money. Kroft is he breaking the law . Coburn thats probably going to be determined by the department of justice. Kroft coburns report, which was released last fall, showed that conn collected more than 13 million in legal fees from the federal government over the past seven years, and that he paid five doctors roughly 2 million to regularly sign off on bogus medical forms that had been manufactured and filled out ahead of time by conns staff. You think what you found there is just an isolated case . Coburn no. I mean, its. It may be one of the worst cases. It just shows you how broken it is. You take a good concept thats well meaning, and then you dont manage it, you dont monitor it, you dont over. Congress doesnt oversight it. And pretty soon, you end up with places like, in West Virginia, certain counties, where, you know, youre born to be on disability. Kroft it should be pointed out that no one is getting rich off disability payments of 1,100 a month. Its a minimum wage income with medicare benefits after two years. But each new case will eventually cost taxpayers, on average, 300,000 in lifetime benefits. For marilyn zahm, the disability judge from buffalo, the high demand for it is a measure of the low prospects that still exist for millions of americans. Zahm people run out of unemployment insurance. They are not going to die silently. They are going to look for another source of income. It is not unusual for people, especially people over 40, to have some sort an ailment or impairment. So they will file for disability benefits based upon that. For many of these people, the plant closed. There are no jobs in their communities. What are people supposed to do . Kroft some of these people are desperate people. Coburn absolutely desperate. I agree. But what youre really describing is our economy and the consequences of it. And were using a system that wasnt meant for that, because we dont have a system over here to help them. Which means were not addressing the other concerns in our society, and thats a debate congress ought to have. If a Disability Fund goes dry, what happens . Go to 60minutesovertime. Com sponsored by pfizer. [ female announcer ] hands were made for playing. Legs, for crossing. Feet. Splashing. Better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. If youre trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. Xeljanz tofacitinib is a small pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. Dont start xeljanz if you have any infection, unless ok with your doctor. Tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. 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And why if youre part of the other 5 , allstate offers claim rateguard. So your rates wont go up just because of a claim. No matter what comes your way, your home protects you. Protect it back allstate Home Insurance from an allstate agent. Pelley imagine paying six figures for a car and being told you had to stand in line a year to get it. Oh, and by the way, it has only two seats, no trunk to speak of, and gets 14 miles to the gallon. You might think a company like that wouldnt last. But lamborghini of italy celebrates its 50th anniversary last year 50 years of creating the worlds most exotic super cars, and 50 years of dodging bankruptcy. No, a car company like that wouldnt last. Ready to go. But then, lamborghini never was a car company; its a builder of fantasies. Whoa wow you dont realize how overused the word breathtaking is until something actually takes your breath away. Mario fasanetto if you open aggressive the throttle, you have 570 horsepower. Pelley oh, magnificent. Fasanetto laughs pelley lamborghini test driver Mario Fasanetto finds the limits in the cars. Fasanetto more, more, more, more, more. Pelley . Though, this time on bolognas imola race track, the limits belonged to the driver. Fasanetto go close, close, close to the curb, to the curb, the curb, the curb, then let run out. Pelley . Not to the 200 mile an hour, 200,000 lamborghini gallardo. Fasanetto brake, brake, brake, brake, more, brake, brake more, more, more. Pelley im not making you nervous, am i . Fasanetto no. Pelley maybe hes calm because this is the least expensive lamborghini. Theres a 400,000 car and a 4 million car, but before we see those, have a look at how much road lamborghini has put between its cars of today and their humble beginnings. The creator, the late ferruccio lamborghini, was a wealthy builder of tractors, the john deere of italy. Morley safer met him in our first story on lamborghini in 1987. Mr. Lamborghini collected ferraris, but he found the clutches weak. The story goes he complained to enzo ferrari, who said, stick to tractors, ill build the cars. In italy, insult is the mother of invention. Lamborghini sought to teach ferrari a lesson with lavish interiors, brawling v12 engines, and style like nothing else. The namesake loved spains traditional sport, so each model is named for famous bulls. The latest beast to bolt into the ring is the aventador. The transmission has three settings it has road, sport, and race. Fasanetto race, you have to set race pelley im not sure everybody should select race on this car. We didnt race through northern italy because of traffic, and because our jet helicopter with our camera can fly only 170 miles an hour. The aventador will do 217, zero to 60 in under three seconds. While 700 horsepower propels you forward, the aventador will set you back between 400,000 and 500,000. Are we still on the right road for lamborghini . Fasanetto yes, next roundabou on the left. Pelley were coming into the town of santagata in what italians call motor valley. This is the original factory . Fasanetto yes, there is just one lamborghini, the original. Pelley the original factory floor is thoroughly modern now. Its spotless seems to be a point of pride in that. Even the floors are squeaky clean. But its also an oldfashioned place where hands know the feel of a bolt properly torqued and eyes judge each pane perfectly placed. Ranieri niccoli is the industrial director. You know what i didnt see on your Assembly Line that i see on every automotive Assembly Line . Ranieri niccoli tell me. Pelley robots. Niccoli no way. Clear, no way. No, all the lamborghini are done by people, italian people from santagata. This is. This is our value. No way for robots. Pelley ford builds about 23,000 vehicles a day; lamborghini builds 11, each purchased a year in advance, each unique. How many colors do you offer . Niccoli whatever you want. Pelley any color i want . Niccoli yeah, basically, we try to fulfill all the requests of our customers. Pelley i can walk in with my favorite tie. Niccoli or with the. Or your. Or with the bag of your wife, yes. Pelley has any woman ever matched the car to her handbag . Niccoli yes. laughter it happens. Pelley no, really. Niccoli yeah, really, its funny. We see here pink cars or strange colors, really. Pelley the customer is king . Niccoli yes, of course. Pelley as we walked the plant with niccoli, we were struck by a Sharp Division of labor. Nearly everyone on this Assembly Line is a man. But if you go over to where the interior is done, nearly everyone is a woman. Why is that . Niccoli i can tell you this. We really need women on the interior. Because the precision that the women has, unfortunately, we as men, we dont have that. Pelley we dont have the precision . Niccoli not the precision and the manuality to really. To create a masterpiece like our interior. Pelley the car is male on the outside and female on the inside . Niccoli laughs lets say it like this. Yeah, it could be. Pelley these dont look like any other car on the road. Something that makes you smile. laughter the guy with the proud father look is filippo perini, the chief designer in charge of the look of lamborghini. When we were driving the aventador today on the road, there was a truck, and the passenger in the truck turned around to take a picture of the car. They want to take our picture. Why does that happen . Filippo perini because we are in italy; people love beautiful cars. Pelley perini runs this shop, where designers who love beautiful cars take their inspiration, were told, from the contours of insects and fighter planes. Do you ever design something and show it to the engineers, and the enginers say, we cant build that . Perini yeah, yeah, its all. It happened always like this. The driver, steering wheel. Pelley when we asked perini for lamborghinis dna, he drew a single arc. That is a lamborghini line. Perini this is a. Really a lamborghini line, this is our own way to produce cars. Pelley an uninterrupted line from front to rear. Its very beautiful and it is completely impractical. There is no trunk. Perini no, we have a good trunk in front. Pelley all right. Yeah. But if you want your golf clubs, youre going to have to have another car. Perini i think, with a car like this, you wont have time to do golf. Pelley you wont want to play golf because youll be driving your car. Perini yes, yes. Pelley one thing that could fit in there are lamborghinis profits. In the 400,000 car business, any recession slams on the brakes. Mr. Lamborghini and a series of owners have lost fortunes. That began to change in 1998, when volkswagen bought the company under its audi brand. At a race in england, lamborghini president and c. E. O. Stephan winkelmann told us the company has been making money now since 2006. One of the selling points, in addition to style and speed, is the sound. Engineers labor over the growl. You can tell that a lamborghinis coming before you ever see it. In new york, we asked thenchief operating officer of lamborghint important question a buyer can ask whats wrong with it . Michael lock whats wrong with it . I think. If i were to be critical, i would say that we need to do a very good job of managing the perception of our brand. We want to make sure that lamborghini is seen as a friendly brand. Pelley after the great recession, especially this soon after the great recession, you want to make sure your drivers not scorned. Lock no, indeed. I think thats very important. Pelley lock told us that even though the company is profitable, thanks to german discipline, the car still has to be sold the italian way. Youre trying to seduce people. Lock indeed. Pelley . With this car, because thats the only way you can get somebody to write a 400,000 check. Lock laughs seduction is certainly an important part of that process, yes. Pelley they have to be just a little bit irrational about this purchase. Lock they have to be a little bit romantic, certainly. Pelley whats the difference . Youd have to be hopelessly romantic and maybe embarrassingly rich to join lamborghinis 50th Anniversary Party in the spring of 2013. 350 owners shipped their raging bulls from all around the world for a tencity, fiveday sprint through italy. It looks like we sped these pictures up but, of course, we didnt. An italian road can really look like this when the steering is as precise as Leonardo Da Vinci and the brakes have the stopping power of sophia loren. How do you get all this past the Highway Patrol . Build them a lamborghini. Nearly every model from every era filled the piazzas to be blessed, fussed over, photographed and admired as part of the national heritage. No two alike, each crafted as a matter of taste. Even this was an offer lamborghini couldnt refuse. horn playing theme to the godfather the rally ended with a coming out party for a new car named for a bull that murdered a matador. Lamborghini built only four venenos, one for itself and three that sold for 4 million each. Who buys that . lock very few people. And the most difficult thing to manage in the process of selling those cars was having a palatable story for the six or seven who we couldnt get a car for. Pelley you had to tell them why they couldnt buy a 4 million car. Lock i had to explain that we had a very limited production available on these cars. Pelley how many of the three veneno buyers bought the car sight unseen . Lock all three of them. Pelley the golden Anniversary Party ended with opera and fireworks, as all italian celebrations must. With five decades in the rearview mirror, lamborghini is still exploring the limits of the science of engineering and the art of irrational romance. Nice. Wrench . What . Aflac so this is who you brought to help us out . Oh yeah, hes the best. Hmm. He doesnt look like hes seen a tool in his life. Oh, he doesnt know anything about tools. Aflacacacacacacac but when i broke my arm, he lent a hand. He paid my claim in just four days. Four days . Wow its no accident aflac pays fast. Find out how fast at aflac. Com and remember,accidents dont hurt as much when you have aflac. Better. [ female announcer ] we eased your back pain, you turned up the fun. Tylenol® provides strong pain relief while being gentle on your stomach. But for everything we do, we know you do so much more. Tylenol®. Dad hes our broker. He helps . Look after all our money. We know you do so much more. Kid do you pay him . Dad of course. Kid how much . Dad i dont know exactly. Kid what if youre not happy . Does he have to pay you back . Dad nope. Kid why not . Dad it doesnt work that way. Kid why not . Vo are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed . Wealth management at charles schwab. We wake up thinking about it. And bake it fresh instore, every day. Its a pretty good job. With some nice fringe benefits. But we know youve been thinking about it, too. cause its the very foundation of your sandwich. We dont take that lightly. So were always trying to make it even better. Thats why we added some ingredients and took others out. We think its our best bread yet. But come in and see for yourself. Bread is on the rise at subway. But come in and see for yourself. Stahl to the surprise of virtually no one, this years oscar for best actress went to Cate Blanchett for her leading role in woody allens blue jasmine. Blanchett grew up in australia, where, as we first reported in february, she started her career in the theater. Shes a movie star who does shakespeare. Shes first and foremost a theater actor, winning wild praise for her hedda gabler and blanche dubois on the stage. This doesnt mean she cant take a joke, or a fun role in blockbusters like indiana jones. It seems she can do it all, playing americans, russians, germans, skinheads, albinos, and men vanity fair called her a character actress in a leading womans body. So, youve played the queen of england, youve played an elf, you played an italian immigrant. Cate blanchett albino. Stahl albino. Blanchett and thats just before breakfast this morning. laughs i have pink eyes. Like a putano, huh . Like the devil, eh . Stahl the range is extraordinary. Blanchett i guess ive got one of those faces thats not particularly beautiful, not too ugly, you know. I can look. Stahl come on. Blanchett . A bit masculine, i can look a bit feminine, depending on how youre lit, how youre shot. I dont mind not looking conventionally, you know, attractive, if thats what the part requires. Stahl so she can be gorgeous and regal as the elf queen in lord of the rings; not so much when she played bob dylan. Blanchett you just want me to say what you want me to say. I dont feel like, now, im a great actress. I never feel that. You always think, okay, ive learned that. Well, now what if i did that . Golly stahl they call her a chameleon, the way she almost molts into her characters, as when she played Katharine Hepburn in the aviator, for which she won an oscar for best supporting actress. Blanchett youre not extending enough on your follow through. Followthrough is everything in golf, just like life. laughs dont you find . Stahl she spent weeks with a voice coach perfecting hepburns distinctive accent. Can you speak Katharine Hepburn . Blanchett no, i cant do anything. Im terrible. Im the Worst Dinner Party guest in the world. People say, oh, do. Do your scottish, and ill go, okee, ill do me. I sound like im a cross between sort of from new delhi and boston. laughs its terrible. Stahl in blue jasmine, she plays a desperate park avenue socialite who loses her life of status and luxury when her husband turns out to be a swindler like bernie madoff. Blanchett uh, i was forced to take a job selling shoes on madison avenue. Oh, so humiliating. Friends id had at dinner parties at our apartment came in and i waited on them. I mean, do you have any idea what thats like . She was monumentally deluded. And like a lot of us, i mean, we. Our lives are built on a fictionalized sense of self, who we would. Who we aspire to be, rather than perhaps who we actually are. Stahl you do a lot of research. Youre known for reading, watching videos, getting. Blanchett its enjoyable. Its enjoyable. Stahl is it true that you watched the 60 minutes morley safer interview of ruth madoff . Ruth madoff if i could change things, at least if i had tried, i would have felt a little better. Stahl . Bernie madoffs wife . Blanchett yes, absolutely. Stahl did that help you . Did it . Blanchett it did. I think that what i really got from them, that madoff interview, was the sense of shame. And i found that very useful. Stahl one critic called it the most complicated and demanding performance of her movie career. Blanchett you know, someday, when you come into great wealth, you must remember to be generous. Stahl but for blanchett, woody allens notoriously minimal direction was unnerving. You really love to talk things out. And as i understand it, thats not his style. Blanchett laughs no. Hes monosyllabic at best. I dont know how to do this thing unless its in conversation with somebody else. I cant. Monologue is. Terrifies me. laughs stahl but thats what you got. Blanchett first day, he said, its awful. Youre awful. Stahl to you . Blanchett yeah. Stahl he said awful . Blanchett its awful. Stahl but he didnt say what to do . He just said, its awful . Blanchett no. No. Stahl so then, you did it again. Blanchett and it was still awful. But. Stahl it was still awful . Blanchett well, obviously, it got a bit better because it didnt. You know, people hae gone to see it. Stahl her breakthrough role came in 1998 as the queen of england in elizabeth. Blanchett i am married to england. Stahl after that performance, she was offered other big parts, but went for characters who stretched her, rather than ones that would make her famous. Even though shes often on the red carpet these days, blanchett never sought to be a movie star, nor did she think shed ever be one. Shes the middle child of a School Teacher mother and transplanted texan father, who died when she was ten. She dropped out of college to study theater. What she wanted was to be a great stage actress, and got her first major role in a play here at the Sydney Theater Company. Blanchett theres a photo over here. Stahl in 1993, she co starred with fellow aussie Geoffrey Rush in david mamets oleanna. Look how into it you are. You are so inside. Blanchett it was one of those plays. You can look at yourself and you can see those things that i see. And you can find revulsion equal to my own. Good day stahl you were a triumph in it. People were dazzled. Blanchett yeah, the director actually almost sacked me. And that was probably a big motivator for me to. To do a better job. Stahl are you one of those people. Are you one of those people that. Blanchett likes to be terrified . Stahl . Likes to be terrified . Blanchett i think its the only way to work for me. Stahl it motivates you . Blanchett yeah. Im much better with truth. Stahl even if it hurts . Blanchett even if it hurts. Stahl well, i think youve talked about the whole process as the trapeze effect. Youre flying up there, and you could fall. Blanchett yes. Stahl its fear. Blanchett when youre stretching yourself, as a role like blue jasmine did for me, you risk falling flat on your face. Stahl she applies that same risktaking to her personal life, as when she and andrew upton, a playwright and director, decided to get married on a whim. They were both part of the sydney theater crowd. How did you meet . How did the sparks start . Andrew upton the sparks started slowly, i think, personally. Blanchett we didnt like each other. Upton we didnt get on at all at first sight. Stahl really . Blanchett and then, all of a sudden, we played poker. Poker one night, and you were telling me about how you were in love with a friend of mine, and then. laughter we kissed. Stahl and all of a sudden, youre asking her to marry you, real fast, as i understand it. Upton i think it was about 21 days. Stahl and you said yes right away . Three weeks . Blanchett yeah. But you leap off at the same moment. And i think its all about timing. Stahl she says their marriage is a partnership in the raising of their three sons, ages five, nine, and 12 and in their careers. Upton has been her collaborator and sounding board. And they share a love of their country. Shes australian through and through, downtoearth, and happy to be 18 time zones away from hollywood. Blanchett i adore australia. I mean, i live and work here. And im buoyed up by it. Im inspired by it. Stahl as she took us for a walk along the sydney coast, she talked about her private life. Except for her husband, the only member of the family wed be allowed to film would be the dog, fletcher. Her home and her children were off limits. In the late 90s, she and upton moved to england, and her movie career took off. But in 2006, the Sydney Theater Company invited them to come back and take over as co artistic directors, and they jumped at it. Blanchett it was one of the quickest decisions i think we made, once the offer had come our way, apart from how quickly we got married. laughter maybe in the same spirit, strangely. Upton yeah, i think it was in the same spirit of adventure. Stahl its a job they shared for six years. It kept cate in sydney, allowing her to spend more time with their children, and to return to her first love, theater. So this is wardrobe. While she acted in some of the productions, she also became an administrator, overseeing things like wardrobe and props. She and upton hired big name directors, and brought the Company International acclaim with ambitious productions like streetcar named desire, which they took to new york in 2009, with cate as blanche dubois. It is so intense. It was so intense. How long does it take you to come down from an experience on the stage like that . Blanchett at the time, you just. You do eight shows a week, my hair was falling out by the end, and i mean. Stahl your. Is that true . Blanchett yeah. It was not. Stahl your hair was falling out, because you put so much into it. Blanchett but i think i was just so exhausted by. By it. Stahl shes known for being low maintenance, her dramas strictly onscreen or on stage. When we met her before a performance of uncle vanya, she was doing her own makeup. Your life should not be to grumble and moan. Stahl well, whats she like after a performance . Does she stay in the role . Upton no. Stahl she comes home, and shes still blanche dubois that night. Blanchett dont answer that, andrew. laughter stahl she comes home and shes cate. . Upton yeah. Stahl after these emotional, powerful. Upton yeah. Quite calm and chirpy. Stahl she says shes not a method actor who mines her inner self to unlock a character. Blanchett it has nothing to do with me and the fact that my dog died or my father died with my. When i was ten, and making the grief small and personal and inward. And so therefore you dont carry it home, because youre not going through some personal, inward selfanalysis every night that could eat you away. Youre giving it away to the audience and hopefully, if it works, then, its their. They have. Its their problem. Stahl they take it in. Well, yeah. Blanchett they can take it home. Stahl in december, cate decided to leave the Sydney Theater Company and a job she loved. What went into that decision . Blanchett the children. You could feel their school needs beginning to grow. They actually need that attention and, at a certain point, you have to make a decision about that, and thats not something we want to outsource. Stahl now, her decisions about what roles to take in movies include how long shed have to be away from home or whether she can take the boys with her on location, as she did with blue jasmine, her comeback to the movies, which she has done with a roar. Youre 44 years old. Blanchett am i . We dont need to discuss that. Stahl yeah, you are. Blanchett we dont need to rub that in. Lets not. Stahl im not rubbing it in. I think its great to be 44, frankly. But it can be a tough age for an actress. At least, thats the myth, i guess. Because for you, its been a fabulous age. Blanchett well, i came to the film industry, i mean, in actress years, i was pushing 80, because i was in my mid20s when i made my first film. Stahl now, her movie career is so hot, shes already signed up for seven films. Shes booked solid through at least 2015. What is the hardest part of your job . The thing you struggle with the most . Blanchett oh, look. Is it hard . I dont know that its hard. Im an actress. I think the most complicated thing its the military maneuver of getting two careers, three children, but thats a working mothers problem, working parents problem, thats not the challenge of work. I think, in relation to the work, the trickiest thing is beginning. I think its quite a tricky neurolinguistic process actually to try and make something that another. That a character has said, to make it come out through your body and make it seem like thats natural. Its kind of tricking yourself; the confidence trick. Like an athlete does, you have to just say im just going to start. Im ready. Im open. Lets go. Stahl shell be returning to the stage in august, performing here in new york city in the Sydney Theater Companys production of the maids. Her role a homicidal house servant in a world of haves and have nots. [ male announcer ] type 2 diabetes affects millions of us. And for many, its a struggle to keep your a1c down. So imagine what if there was a new class of medicine that works differently to lower blood sugar . Imagine. Loving your numbers. Introducing oncedaily invokana®. Its the first of a new kind of prescription medicine thats used along with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. 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