>> rose: additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: jessica chastain has been everywhere and is everywhere, in 2011 she appeared in six movies, including the help, which she was no, ma'am made for an oscar. >> i can cook corn pone, boil potatoes, i can do grits. >> rose: she also appeared in the debt. >> where have you come from? >> argentina. >> really? wants. >> cordoba. >> >> rose: the tree of light and texas killing fields. >> by the way, are you the one selling tickets here because i sure as hell would like to buy one, detective stall, do you think you can do me a favor and get this. >> rose: now she stars in captain bigelow's upcoming film, zero dark 30 about the hunt for and killing of osama bin laden. >> we are spending billions of dollars, we are still no closer to defeating our enemy. >> >> no birth certificate, no cellphone. the guy is a ghost. >> he is right in the inner circle. >> the whole world is going to want to know why was he targeted? >> when was the last time you saw bin laden? >> oh, my god. is that what i think it is? >> when was the last time you saw bin laden? >> rose: three is also performing on broadway today in the heiress. >> father, don't you think she the most beautiful man you have ever seen? >> he is very good looking, my dear, of course you wouldn't let that sway you unduly. >> oh, no, no. but that is what is so wonderful to me, that he should have everything, everything that a woman could want. >> rose: in january she stars in a horror film called momma. >> >> rose: joining me now the actress called hollywood's most fashionable chameleon she is clearly the actor of the moment i am pleased to have jessica chastain back at this table. >> thank you so much. >> rose: let's talk about captain bigelow. >> yes. >> rose: what was the call from her and what did they say. >> that was the exciting thing, i was shooting momma in toronto and i got a text from mehegan from an purr naah pictures and says if i ever ask you anything it is to call me for five minutes, it was very dramatic and deserved a call back. >> so i called her and she said there is a big movie she is making, the part is amazing, it reminded her of jodie foster in silence of the lambs, it had been told i was unavailable because of my schedule but wouldn't take no for an answer. >> rose: bigelow or mehegan. >> mehegan. >> look i am a huge fan of bigelow, she is a big hero of mine, of course i am interested let me know if we can make the schedules work, and then within the week i got cold called from kathryn bigelow, super exciting i was coming home from work and turned my cellphone on and had a message from kathryn, asking me to call her back, i never met her before, kind of freaked out in the car and had to compose myself and called her back, hello kathryn, it is very nice to talk to you, of course i would love to read your script and i read the script and i mean i knew page 2 it was something i had to do. >> rose: what was it about that made you know you had to do it? >> well, first of all, i was really shocked that there was a woman at the center of -- >> rose: in the search for bin laden. >> yes the greatest manhunt in history and there was a young woman involved and. >> rose: sort of a team. >> yes. >> a small team from the cia. >> yes, but she just really made me laugh with her sass and her -- >> rose: from the text. >> from the text, absolutely. >> rose: the script. >> and her strength and, you know, even when she comes up against brick walls, whether it be interrogations that don't go the way she wants or colleagues that don't believe in her lead she does not take no for an answer and i was so inspired by her, and of course working with kathryn bigelow so immediately i sent kathryn the e-mail that says if you want me, i am there. if we can make the schedule work i am there. >> rose: when you look at her tell me what you nought about her, you felt this arc she had gone on. >> well, you know, from the very first scene she then, there are so many clues in the text about the character, and from the very first thing i read she shows up and in an interrogation that is not what she expected it to be, you know, she is wearing a nice suit, she is in islamabad but never asked to be stationed there and in the. >> the interpreter: gation they are using extreme measures, you know, water boarding, and even within that scene without a lot of dialogue i found to be really compelling, to think of playing that, you know, as an actor and to start from there to see where, as the journey goes on she descends the rabbit hole and becomes a stranger to herself, this life that she knew, like a shadow. >> rose: she loses herself in her mission. >> yeah, until the very end when the pilot asks her where do you want to go there is this moment of not knowing where she can go or even who she is, and it is such a big question for maya at the end. >> rose: who is she? >> well, i don't think she knows who she is, you know, because -- >> rose: or where she goes from there. >> exactly, she lived her whole life with this one goal, what happens, and what means did she use to achieve that goal, and what does that make her now that is over? >> rose:. >> where do we go now? the movie ends with a question, and it is unanswer unanswered which i think is really commendable. >> rose: what was the hardest part about filming? >> being in ah man and walking into a place of what they call extreme interrogation was taking place? >> yeah. i mean, everything, we filmed that scene in an active jordanian prison so even going to work wasn't a fun experience, going in and you can't have a cellphone, you can have all of these things, it is an open-air prison and certain times of the day you are not allowed to be outside, the way people would look at me because i was fair skinned with red hair, you know, was strange, it wasn't the most comfortable place, also playing a character who she has been trained to be unemotional and analytically precise and my whole life i have been trained to be emotional. >> rose: just the opposite. >> so it is like acting in many cases with a straitjacket on when i want to react, in an emotional way, i have to think, okay i can have this impulse like maya would but now i have to be professional and hide it until those moments where maya lets the lid off and goes a little crazy in the film. >> rose: it is said this movie sort of puts the human face on the war against terrorism. i think kathryn may have said that. >> yes, i think it definitely signs a light on many, many workers who worked behind the scene, who we never really hear about, maya, it is based on a true story of this woman, he is an undercover agent and i don't know that we would have learned this story had not mark bowl and his investigative journalism discovered it. >> did you see or talk to her. >> no, no, no. >> no, no, it is very dangerous it is too dangerous because they is an undercover agent you wouldn't want to do anything of putting her at risk to losing her job or being discovered. >> it leads to the notion of whether there is somebody played this role and they really define her by what she did instead of who she was. >> yes. >> rose: whatever the emotion and whatever the intensity, whatever the sense of character that you know how to inhabit. or was it simply from the text and they described how she was and you had the lines that reflected in the movie from, from mark who did the research what she was like? >> well i had three months before we started shooting to basically go to school for this film, and, you know, a lot of that consisted of meeting with mark, in the meantime asking questions about the cia, asking questions about maya, asking questions about, and each scene, everything's job, who has seniority over her, that helps her the way i am speaking to them, i read a lot, i found particularly very helpful the book the moving towers, on osama bin laden, i thought that was a great book, michael shore's book. and then i had to use my imagination to answer questions that could not be answered in the research because she is undercover, so things like who who is at home waiting for her? what is her favorite american candy? >> rose: what kind of movies does she like? >> exactly. what is her favorite stopping, when she feels lonely what does she think about? all of these things i had to create. i do this for every character i play, even a fictional character and like a little book, and then kathryn being who she is the director who she is can then incorporate it into the film so you will see like in maya's apartment in pakistan you will see a drawing made by a child. you will see there is a scene where i am eating american candy in a robe after i have gone to the market and what i found great is kathryn took me to the set and said what do you think the apartment should look like and i asked for certain pictures and postcards and child drawings, candies and then when we were filming the scenes, kathryn says, well why don't you have in that robe eating candy and i think it is so incredible because it is this contradiction of like where she came from and where he is now, and that is all kathryn. >> rose: kathryn bigelow said on discovering that maya played a central role and was a woman was like a royal flush for her. >> yeah. >> rose: she wanted to make the movie but to find a woman was at the center of it -- >> yeah. >> i think she would have made the movie no matter what. >> rose: of course she would but she loved the idea. >> yes, it is incredible when i read the script i was so blown away on page 2, you know, even the way we meet maya, were introduced to this character and i thought wait a minute will is a woman at the center of this? i was really upset at myself i was so shocked there would be a woman at the center of this. why wouldn't there be? >> rose: the second scene are the film, from the film. >> you are in luck. i got you on. >> seriously? >> wait until you hear what i want for it. i want to take care of all of this before your favorite subject. >> deal. >> rose: what is that scene? >> that is him, that is bradley telling her he is going to get a one-on-one which is an interrogation with abu faraz. >> she wants to lesson about abu ahkmed is that is an important thing to do, and she hopes to get information about ahkmed. >> rose: let me go back to san francisco. >> all right. >> rose: your dad is a fireman. >> yes. >> rose: your mother is a cook. >> well, yes, he is a vegan cook and used to have a restaurant, he is a cook/stay at home. >> rose: and then there is your grandmother. >> yes. >> who when you were seven took you to the theatre. >> she took me to the theatre, i think she must -- i think i said this the last time, she must have sensed something in me that needed to be expressed. i didn't quite get along with others very well, i was kind of a loner. i had a very active imagination, but had difficulty expressing my emotions and always used to tell me as a child, why don't you smile? you have a beautiful smile. >> now i smile all the time, but so she was constantly trying to find out outlets for me and bought me ballet lessons and took me to a play when i was seven years old and on the way there she said, you know, there is a professional thing, this is what they do for a living. an then as soon as it started there as little girl i think the narrator on stage and immediately, that is. >> rose: that is what i want to do es that's who i am. >> yes, it is not i want to be that when i grow up, it is like that is what i am. and then my whole life made sense. this thing about -- >> rose: you know how lucky it is to find that when you are seven? >> it is incredibly lucky but also it is a great test in patience. >> rose: what is the patience? because you have to wait to do it? >> yeah, i was a kid like, you know, as soon as i knew what i wanted to do and it was something that could be done i was constantly asking my mom will you take me to la to audition me for commercials. >> rose: she didn't want to be that kind of mom. >> i am glad she didn't do that because i had a very normal childhood but constantly like when will i get to do this? and even when i was in elementary school i went to public school, i wasn't in art school at all, and the kids who did really well in school got to be in a play, i did very badly in school, because i just -- i mean, i did great once guy to the juilliard but in the public school system i never really found my place. >> rose: and were you acting at that time? >> not really. the only time i would be acting is with the school plays but usually i was in the back because i never got good grades. it wasn't until junior high that there was a drama club and that is when i started to excel in that. >> rose: how did you get to juilliard? >> i mean, i did romeo and juliet. it was a professional production and equity production of it. >> rose: in san francisco. >> in san francisco, and the guy was playing romeo had gotten to juilliard, the had gone to juilliard and going there and i thought, you know, we were there, and he was very talented, i thought, wow, maybe if he got in i could get in and i auditioned and the office only school i awe additioned for at the time and i was very lucky. >> rose: a famous audition, what did you do. >> i did seascapes with sharks and damageser, and my pace was -- it was probably unlike any version they had ever seen before because when i look at it i see the words as very sensual, the way she speaks, give me my romeo, i mean she shall die, take him and cut him into little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine and all the world will be love with night and never pay any attention to the garish sun, it is building to this almost climax, and also it is about this girl who has just been married, and always been a girl and now she is a woman, she is married and when the sun goes away, the night will be here and so will romeo and she will be a woman. so for me it was about a girl's passage to womanhood through sex, you know, and i did the monologue, you know, i started, i was like running around the room and at the end i was like on the floor and i was calling up to the sky, and i sat up, and i kind of like looked at my teachers, and it was like, you know, that scene in flash dance where they are like sitting there, like what just happened? and michael kohn he used to run the program kind of looked at me and smiled and said, did you have fun, jessica? >> i said, yes. and thank you very much. and then that's all they asked for. >> rose: and your thought at that moment was i am not going to make it. >> i thought oh that was way too bold, and but then i got called back and when i got called back that's when i started to think okay then when i went to the call back all they did is ask me questions, they didn't ask me to do any other monologues which i had been told from my friend who went to juilliard he had done eight monologues in order to get in, and once i went and they interviewed me that's when i thought, i have a good shot at this because they are not asking to see anything else. >> rose: and they gave you the robin williams scholarship. >> yes, which made it possible for me to go to school, robin williams is an alumni at juilliard, never met him and he very generously gave me a scholarship. >> rose: so you fraud in 2003, you headed to new york or what do you do? >> i stayed in new york, i got right before, two weeks before graduation, i got offered a holding deal with john wells, which was incredible, i remember the very first group, at juilliard to have a long as showcase and john levy went to the showcases, working with john wells and i went in and did a scene for john wells and like 18 people who wrote for west wing, and then i got a call that they were offering me a holding teal which was fantastic because i could still live in new york and do theatre and do a play and fly back and forth to appear on the tv shows and that was the very first time i had ever been in front of a camera. >> rose: what brought you to al pacino? >> i was, i guess martha keller had seen me in the play that i did with david and she told al pacino about me and they were great friends. >> and i think they appeared in, about a race car driver. >> yes. and i was in -- i was actually in australia and got a call frm my agent that said al pacino asked you to audition for a production and i hadn't really been familiar with the play, so i said okay, that is really by star, i never met al pacino, and i was just playing like little day players on tv, and i read the play and i thought, are you kidding me? it is salame and i auditioned for parsons. many times when i audition it is for things, i feel like a lot of the times it is someone daring me, like with this one, my first meeting was with the person before al pacino ever showed up and we sat down and we talked for a bit, and then she said, why should i know you? and i was like, well, i don't know, why you should know me but i went to juilliard and all of these things and i was expecting to read and then estelle goes, okay, let me see you dance. i said, what? you want to see me dance? i am shy. >> rose: but you studied ballet. >> yes, i studied ballet but that dance and salame is a different kind of dancing. >> and i looked at her and i was so embarrassed. >> i knew she was like, show me what you have got, let's see if you have the guts to play this part so i just stood up. >> rose: and let it go. >> and just started dancing, no music, nothing, parsons sitting in the room and she mild at me afterwards, probably the same way michael kohn smiled at me like, did you have fun, jessica, you put yourself out there and i got called back and met al in the change back. >> rose: changed you meeting him. >> completely, completely, he is such a -- i am a shy person and i used to be really self conscious and insecure and had difficulty like really standing up and speaking for myself, and he is a great cheerleader my very first edition, callback at i started reading from the play and as i was acting i could hear, oh, wow. oh, my god. like i could hear him in the audience. saying all of these things, that made me feel like, yes! i am doing great! and working with him on that play and making -- it was my first movie, still has not come out, making that movie he has been such a great teacher for me for film -- >> rose: wild salame. >> rose: which has never come out. >> it hasn't come out yet, we are waiting and hoping. >> rose: but how did it change you as an actress? >> well, he thought me a couple of things, i used to be afraid of the camera, and think like okay i have to pretend it is not there. and he said, completely open-minded he said most people are afraid of the camera but in film, you have to be by matt with the camera. because more than your scene partner the camera sees into your eyes, it sees into your soul, it is part of you, and like your arm is part of you, once you accept it, you forget the arm is there. but with the camera, once you accept that it has a direct line to your soul, you can forget it, but you have to be more open to it than anything else. >> rose: can you do that or just learn to do that because you know that is where you have to go. >> i think it gave me permission to be open to it. by saying that to me, then i didn't feel like there are all of these different schools schools of acting and some of it is like we have to really think you are in the environment, you know and you have to not see the camera and not see the audience and really try to pretend you are in the room, and i think maybe i thought that is what i was supposed to do and by him giving me permission to say, no, no, no your camera is your partner just as much as the other actor once he said that to me it just changed me and for tree of life so much of that. >> rose:. >> i think terrence mali called al pacino because i was additioning for it, and i had four auditions and i never really worked much, and it was, you know, a big film and i think he just wanted to make sure i wasn't a crazy person. and i was okay with to work with. >> and what was the audition? >> the very first audition for tree of life was just doing -- wasn't there. it was things like showing up and putting the baby to sheep, shipping. >> singing it a lullaby, looking at someone with love and respect all of these things of just being, because in this movie you are not really allowed to act, you are just supposed to be, and then there was a piece of dialogue, and because i am such a theatre nerd, i recognized it from a medieval play, and we were just to speak that dialogue, so they could hear our voice. after that tape got sent in, i got a call that said, we would love to meet you, and this is before the movie had financing so i flew myself to texas, i had no, hardly any money and had an audition there. >> rose: you have described him as like a silent film director. >> yeah. i think he is the last living silent film director, i read a great book on clara bell, and it was talking about, you know, when the actress is working on silent films, the sets were so loud, the directors were always talking, they were talking to the actors, people were banging into things, it was kind of chaotic. >> rose: lots of movement. >> yes lots of movement and the camera moved constantly and then once that came to be, everything had to be so quiet the camera became stationary and everyone had to work around that. i was actually on tree of life when i was reading about claire bow and i thought that is exactly what our set is, it is a very loud set, terry is constantly talking with us, the camera is always moving, we are always finding each other, and i realized that i think he is the last silent film director, when you watch his movies, it is very rare that the characters speak dialogue, and the voiceovers to me are like the cards, the cards you see in silent films. >> rose: did he send yo you to the metropolitan museum to see raphael's madonna? >> yes,. >> rose: looking for what? >> you know, he didn't specify, but i found that when, when you start staring at the madonna, something really interesting with their fingers and their eyes. it was very rare to see the madonna staring straight into the viewer, like kind of a direct gays, always had something that was indirect, where usually the eyes were downcast, and the fingers were always like there was like reaching upward, almost as if the heart opening and the eyes downcast. and one of the very first shots of me in his film is shocking, because he, you know there is a painting of madonna looking like this. and one of the very first shots in the film an i had no idea when he was shooting it, it looks to me just like that painting, and i am sitting at the table and kind of going like this smiling down and i felt like it was the same energy. i think that is what he was having me do, also he asked me to watch a lot of lauren bacall films for her voice. >> yes nowadays we speak very fast because we are afraid someone is going to cut us off and lauren bacall, like she just took her time and there was this even tone to the way she spoke and i have learned, you know, she had a great vocal coach that taught her that. but there was a very direct very easy way of speaking. >> rose: are you a student of film? >> oh, yes. i love movies so much. i have always been, you know, so fascinated by film makers and actors and stories. i knew i wanted to do this when i was seven years old and i had to wait before i became an adult to really be able to do it. that's a lot of time to read and watch movies. and i remember we changed schools when i was in fifth grade and they asked me like what is the last book you read and i said like a carol burnett's biography, and the counselor looked at me like that is very strange, i read carol burnett, i read barbra streisand, you know. >> rose: but was there ever an instinct after you got out of high school, not to go to juilliard, but to head to los angeles and say, i am 18 years old and going to go down there and i am going to find my way. >> yes. >> -- into movies? >> i spent one year in los angeles. >> rose: so you did do that. >> yeah. >> rose: before juilliard. >> before juilliard and i was living in los angeles when i auditioned for juilliard, and i had many people after i got in tell me in la, you shouldn't go to juilliard because you will be too old when you get out of school to be an actor, to be an actress and i remember hearing that and i thought that is really upsetting, and then i thought, but i don't want to spend my life acting in, you know, nothing wrong with, because i do love a lot -- there are a lot of great tv shows but at the time, people were talking to in la were trying to get me on these tv shows is like, you know, like young people hanging out and all of these -- but nothing really -- i just had a love for something else that was not modern, that was -- >> rose: so if someone came out of high school today, who had talent and admired you -- >> go to school. >> go to juilliard, yale, somewhere. >> two somewhere, even if it is not acting. >> rose: liberal arts. >> yes you have to learn about life, you can't be an actor not having an experienced life, every part i get to me it is like a course i am taking, when i did the debt, i learned so much about the medical -- not fun but i learned so much about the medical experiments during the holocaust and men gehl and the survivors and every part i play, i have to .. immerse myself and study that world in order to understand those women and when you go to school, when you have, you know, this capacity to learn and, you know, this thirst to learn, i think it makes you a better actor. >> rose: are you surprised by what has happened to you or do you think it is simply if i work really hard at this and i have had an opportunity and the opportunity paid off? >> i am surprised the way it happened and also, i didn't expect so much attention, especially so fast. i think, though i have always been a person that i do the work when no one is watching and always been like that, even when i was playing a dead body in, will, a on a. >> la on a tv show i was at my house doing play readings of ms. julie and ask my friends to come over and read the play aloud. >> i was constantly, at one time i was adapting hamlet which i will never make but i was constantly trying to remind myself every day, i am an actor, i am this kind of actor, i need to challenge myself in these stories, even -- >> rose: and do you love every part of it, the editing, the directing? all of the things that go together to make the movies? >> yes. >> rose: and to create performing on stage, whether it is a playwright or director or whoever it might be? >> yes, i love every bit of it, i don't think i will ever be a director unless it is -- >> rose: you don't want to be captain bigelow? >> i could never be kathryn big flow, she is too wonderful to even think of being her but one day i would love to be a teacher, i would love to work at juilliard some day, you know when i have a family and after i have settled down a bit and do some theatre. >> rose: if you were teaching a master class about acting what would you want the students to know that you have learned? >> the most important thing i think is to prep before you arrive. >> rose: really? >> absolutely. if it is someone who doesn't want to play themselves as the character, like in zero dark 30 i am not playing her as a cia agent because then i would be crying throughout the whole movie. >> rose: no, i can't watch this. >> please stop. it is so mean. yeah, no. it is always to me the prep is about understanding the world that you are in and really understanding the character, understanding your similarities and your differences, it is a lot of homework. that is absolutely what i would stress to people. >> rose: and the idea of being able to execute it once you understand it, but can you explain that or is that simply doing it that you learn the things that are necessary to be good? >> yeah. i think, you know, it is about -- i said this once and it is about, i guess not having a sense of vanity as an actor, or even a sense of van at this/narcissism. >> when i was working with sean penn on tree of life once we were talking about acting and he didn't know how shy i was but at that point i was still painfully shy, but i was trying to hide it, and he said, that a person who is self-conscious .. is just aznar cystic as someone who who talks about themselves all the time, because you are so self an stociald, and there is something about being an actor where this is -- i mean this is me, you know, defining what he said, something for me about being an actor that was nudity or, you know, doing scenes, i can't be concerned about how i looked when i am playing a character, i have to completely give myself over to the woman or the man or whatever it is i am playing, and, yes, have, you know, emotional through lines myself but there has to be an absence of self at the same time. >> rose: whe when they say he is like a cha meal i don't know do you take that as a compliment? >> i think, you know what i think ..? except for meryl streep, people are used to allowing themselves to be different faces. tom hardy, you know, these great actors coming forward, but with women, and i started to even see it now, where i will get a part and the director in the very beginning when i sign on, okay with the look we are going for and talk about it but once we are there and we are rehearsing it they get really nervous about me looking different than i look now because there is something, they feel like, okay, i want to buy what i see, you know, and you are going to sell the film, you are go to go out and do the interviews and magazine covers i want you to look like the character, so i find that with women i get more of a pushback to do that, so i don't know, i take it as a great compliment that they, some people may call me a chameleon but i think more actresses are, if they were given, would be, if they were given a chance. >> rose: and do the people who are with you think about your career, view that as a positive thing? >> i view it as a positive thing. i mean yes, it doesn't make me super famous but i don't want to be super famous. i never wanted to be an actor for money or game, there was just something in me i wasn't able to express, emotion, i don't know what it is, when i was a child that this is the way i learn about myself and this is the way i learn about other people. >> rose: what is amazing about this, you have never imagined doing anything else? >> never. >> rose: if i said to you it is not, if not acting what would it be because you have no idea because you have thought nothing about acting. >> my nightmare is something would happen and i couldn't do thithis anymore. >> rose: something physically. >> >> or i guess i could teach, i would love that but my whole life i have wanted to be, to express myself, that is what makes me feel part of something bigger than myself. is when i am acting. >> rose: let me talk about these characters you played and what you became in them, the debt for example. you were a massad agent along with two men. >> yes. >> rose: what will you have to become? what was the thing that you had to transform yourself into so that people saw and felt they were watching a massad agent at work? >> right, well i had, where i trained. >> rose: a physical thing. >> sean penn told me about that, that's what he does. >> well, yes, it is really intense form of fighting and i am a pacifist in real life so it is very intense. i trained in and i never spoke ken in german before and there was a lot of german to be said so i took a beginner's course in berlitz language and had a coach who taught me the lines, i read so much about the holocaust, the survivors of the holocaust, i found a story that i created for my character, and then i also got to work with helen mirren and worked on different mannerisms we would share and the accent but for me also i think a lot about energy when i am acting. i really think in terms of that, i don't know, maybe it is because i grew up in northern california, think think where does the energy live in a person? and for me rachel singer has survivor skills, her whole family has been killed, why does she deserve to be alive? and so for her i thought a lot about scar tissue, that she is just this walking scar tissue and that helped me a lot. >> rose: and there is a scene, though, where he is in a chair. >> uh-huh. >> rose: i mean that has to be a tough scene for you to film. >> oh, yes. >> rose: where is your head? >> well, during all of those scenes, the doctors becomes a fertility doctor so she has to be a patient and shot all of that stuff for a week in chronological order and even though you know, we are acting he is not performing an examination on me, it is still really embarrassing and humiliating and you put yourself there. >> rose: so you have to identify with the humiliation. >> exactly, so much so that when we finally filmed the attack when rachel comes, you know, he is finally able to attack him, i think i was a little too excited about that scene, and the very first take when i jammed the needle at him, he is so sweet, he stopped and goes, that really hurt! >> because i was like so pent up and ready to fight. >> rose: because your head had been through the whole experience. here is a clip from take shelter. take a look at this. >> don't you think you you me that? don't you think you may respect me must have at least to consider what i have to say? >> i didn't want you worrying about it. >> well i am worried, cur us the curtis, how are you paying for all of that? >> i got a home improvement loan from the bank. >> and you did that without talking to me? you know that -- do you want us to run out of movie for a tornado shelter? >> i am doing it for us. i know you don't understand. >> you are right, i don't understand. i don't understand half the stuff you have been doing lately. i don't understand you putting red outback. i don't understand you staying up all night that in that stupid tornado shelter. you don't come to bed half the time, you don't tell me when you leave and where you are going, explain that to me. please. tell me something. that helps me understand way you are being like this. >> the great michael shannon. >> rose: yeah. amazing actor. >> oh, my gosh. we did -- we made that movie for no known, worked four six day weeks and we would get sometimes three takes per scene and working with mike, that is a master class right there, because you just -- you can never take your eye off the ball. he is constantly doing something, and if you are not present -- >> rose: and why did you take that role? >> to work with mike shannon. >> rose: that's what i thought, yeah. >> most of the films i do it is always about working, who i am working with and also is the character something i have never done before. >> rose: so i can taking? away, a new experience and with i will learn something are the person i am working with. >> yeah. >> like we talked about it being a master class for me, i have no control over what the final product is. i don't know what they are going to do in the editing room or whether they will like the film the only thing i have control over is if i leave this experience, i am walking away with something and that is how i want every filming experience to be, every play, everything i do. >> rose: based on what you said earlier, are you happiest getting inside the character or the actual filming of the material? >> you mean like the recourse or the film something. >> rose: the preparation -- >> no, i am always happiest in filming because there is a freedom in that. you do all of the work before, which sometimes it is really difficult because you have to go to dark places and learn things about humanity that you didn't know or these horrible things, create secrets for your character, once i do that, i have this kind of book, this is who i am, and i don't have to think about it anymore i just show up and now it is in me and it is like there is the intimacy between the actors that i find so incredible, just being able to lack at someone and have it mean so much, it is very rare even in, you know, walking down street that we really look at someone, and there is something about filming that like i said it makes me feel a part of something bigger. >> rose: you also say it is a combination of twin lines, one is fear of failure and the other is extreme confidence. and especially if you have prepared and you know who you are. >> uh-huh. >> yeah. i mean, lake even if we go back to the audition for juilliard, i mean, yes, i have fear of failure, i always hike when i sign on to something, am i going to be okay with this. >> rose:. >> >> rose: you are taking a chance and you know you can nail it? >> or you have to think somewhere that i have got this, even if you don't have it, and they always wrestle with each other because if you are too confident, you end up just not being good because your ego is driving everything, but also if you are too fareful you never take chances so you always have to kind of like -- >> rose: you have said also about fear that if in fact you feel some fear about doing a role, that is good, because you know you should do it. >> yes. >> rose: if you find that fear that is a reason for me to do it. >> yes. because if it is scary that means i don't know if i can do it which means i haven't done it before, it also means if i throw myself into the lion's den, you know, i may die, i may get eaten but also i will have to rise to the challenge, and in doing so, sometimes i found actually i have always found that you learn more from failure than you do from success. so if i am going to risk failure i will have to throw myself out there and i won't be good enough, that's fine becausely learn more. >> rose: correia la miss, you said about him his performance in schindler's list made you realize acting is more about being in films, it is about playing complicated, very human characters. >> uh-huh. yeah, you look at that performance in schindler's list, and he is playing it like a love stick puppy which is so unexpected and i remember seeing the film and i have whenever seen acting like that, i think i saw schindler's list and english patient at the same time and both of those performances, they have so mus many continue addictions, english patient is a sweeping romance but i he is vey unlikeable at times and, you know, he has this tough exterior. and i found that well that is something i am really interested in, a character that has continue dick shuns and can be unlikeable but you have to find the thread of humanity and compassion within them. >> rose: someone said to me about acting that it has to look like you have just had the thought, so that what happened there, you are looking at it as a spontaneous experience, you have to feel it as a spontaneous experience even though, in your head, and in everything you thought about you have practiced it. >> yeah. the difference for me, though, is i don't know what my thoughts are going to be. so i know what the lines are, i know where my character is coming from, but not until i am in the scene with the person and i see how they are talking to me and the temperature, what exactly is going on in this room, are they rude? are they listening to me? is he shutting me off? not looking in the eye. i don't know how i am going to be within it, so for me the thought is always spontaneous, because it depends on, you know, the actor i am with. >> rose: and what about the character in help? what did you have to do there? >> well, first of all i had to fight really hard to get that part. >> rose: they didn't think of you as this sort of -- >> oh, no. >> rose: sex spot. >> blonde bombshell. >> no, no. >> rose: what is it to fight to get a part? >> well, you just go in many times, you feel like, that was -- i went in and i audition and i am hike before i audition i went and bought a dress, because i don't dress like sylvia foot, okay she has to be a little bit vulgar so i bought what i thought a vulgar dress was, i showed up, i got the boys, i did all of, the voice did all of that, audition and felt it went really well, i felt like the director really liked me octavio was there, i heard i was on the list and still auditioning and someone, it was offered so someone else and she turned it down and i kept hearing, no they really like you, then way don't they cast me if they really like me, and then i was filming texas killing fields and we were doing all night shoots. >> rose: sam worthington. >> yes. a real tough cop. and we were filling night assistance in the swamp in louisiana, and i got a call that said, okay, they love you, but they just want you to come in and test for it. >> rose: were you insulted? >> i was just like, well, i just thought well obviously they don't think i am physically right for this character. and i was so exhausted so i called my agent and i said i am not going to do it. which it is funny because al pacino told me the same thing happened to him in the godfather, you know what? they obviously don't want me, there is going to be some point where i have some shred of self respect, i have gone in and done the thing and i said i wanted to do it, but then at the last minute i thought okay you know what? i believe in this, i love the director, i understand, you know, there is a lot of people involved in this decision, i will go in and let them do me up like celia foot and see what happens and i am so glad i did that because i loved playing that character. >> rose:. >> you loved it? >> oh, i loved it, it is very rare that i -- maybe because i love such complicated women, and usually it lead to a lot of tense and dramatic situations, it is very rare i get to do something that has a lot of lightness in it, and celia foot we are talking about energy is all heart, you know, it is all hear, and, it is all here, and to get to like, you know, play on my light side and goofy side, be able to gain weight, and be that blonde, funny woman, it was great. i did learn a lot, i mean, i walk out of the trailer in that red dress with the blonde hair, and i have never seen guys lack at me like this. they would drop their food when i walked in and they were like -- >> rose: oh, my god -- >> i would go in after shooting and go back into the trailer and in my cutoff jeans and hair in a ponytail and a look of disappointment on every man's face when they realized it wasn't true. >> rose: so all of this stuff that has happened to you, all of these movies, everybody, we had a golden glove nomination. >> this morning. >> rose: this morning. >> yesterday. >> rose: exactly. so things are happening, and you have also become a favorite cover photo, look at this, tell me when you see this. >> that -- this is a really exciting shoot for me to do. it is the art issue for w magazine so i got to work with four artists, and put myself basically in their hand, which is what i feel like i do as an actress, i love to go to the film maker and basically say here i am, i trust you, do with me what you will. >> rose: that's what you say to a director? >> i don't really say that, but, you know, that is what is in my head. >> rose: see where he or she wants to take this. >> yeah. if i ever feel in is unsafe place or somebody is not respecting me but i definitely feel for me acting is a giving over of self, and so with this -- >> rose:. >> that to me though looks the most like myself, because there is this stripped down openness to that. but like this one right here, she kept telling me, thomas kept telling me, she had these pictures of michelle 5 in scarface, michelle pfeiffer in scarface. >> worked by skype. >> rose: jaffray. >> she doesn't like to fly. and then yes, so they took photos of me .. with her directing the photograph, and then she painted from there. >> rose: and this? >> this is -- that is george. which was so much fun. yeah, he is like working with -- it is like being around him is like being in a cartoon, and we just like laughed the whole time. >> rose: and this is t magazine, a newly minted star in the old hollywood mold. >> do you think that, an old hollywood mold? i mean are you a throwback to something? >> you know, i never really thought i was, but when i first started my career in la, i don't think people knew what to do with me, because i didn't look of the time, like i don't think i look incredibly modern and maybe that is why i get cast in so many period films. also that could come from the fact that i love movies. i love claire bo, you know, all of these fantastic actresses from other times. >> rose: do you worry about any of this stuff that -- there is so much exposure. >> uh-huh. >> rose: that there is a risk that i will be -- people will say, oh i have seen this. >> yeah. absolutely. i think that. but i hope that by challenging myself to not repeat myself i can kind of avoid that. also, i don't talk about my love life in the press at all. you know, i have never photographed anyone with an o investment with a boyfriend or anything and i think because of that if a tabloid decides to write a story about me, the only thing they will be able to write about is what i am wearing or my work, because i don't really play into or allow that kind of attention, so i think that also keeps me more private. when i walk outside, i will tell you right now, most people don't come up to me. it is very rare, maybe someone recognizes me but they never talk to me about it. so i am able to forget -- >> rose: that is going to change. >> maybe. >> rose: it really will. much success to you. this has been a wonderful conversation for me. >> yes. me too. i love your show so much. >> rose: and i haven't even mentioned you are still -- and you have to go right now to the theatre, you are starring every night in the heiress. >> yes. >> rose: with david stray lorne and dan stevens. >> yes. and .. judy ivy too. >> incredible. >> rose: and there is also this one philly close with this which you are doing that is intriguing to me, momma is one but the other film in which there are two stories. >> yes. the disappearance of eleanor rigby. it is basically -- i love this concept. it is a husband and wife that separate, one film follows his point of view, and one film follows her point of view, so it is james mcel invoice and myself and there are a couple of scenes that go into both films but they are written differently and shot differently so it is his perspective of what happened and her perspective of what happened which i find that really exciting, it is the first time film maker, and i got to work with the incredible isabel, who plays my mother in the film, and that for me was a huge dream. >> rose: you say she really has some capacity, i have forgotten the quote, to show so much emotion. >> yeah. but also my favorite kind of acting is when you don't spoon-feed the audience. i look at isabel's face, in the piano teacher and i feel like i know her thoughts, and i have to lean forward, because i am really interested in what he is doing. and i don't have to sit back and go, okay, entertain me, there is something more going on with her. >> rose: thank you. >> thank you! >> rose: jessica chastain for hour, thank you for joining us, we see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: gunning for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> be >> this is nbr. captioning sponsored by wpbt >> tom: good evening. i'm tom hudson. with the january 1 deadline to avoid the fiscal cliff about two weeks away, neither side appears to be giving any ground. >> susie: i'm susie gharib. the u.s. stock market is expected to be the world's best performer in 2013. that's the prediction of john rogers of the c.f.a. institute. he joins us tonight. >> tom: and new rules for health care also are around the corner. tonight, we look at how small businesses are preparing for the changes. >> susie: that and more tonight on nbr!