Mccreary, the producer of morgans latest film 5 flights up. Its about a couple married 40 years. My parents were married 50 years and i love to see that relationship. There are very few films that i see that delve into the latter part of relationships. We see a lot of fill ments about new love. This is the crossroads of a relationship thats been 40 years long and theyre deciding whether to keep going strong or settle back into life. Rose Morgan Freeman and Lori Mccreary for the hour, next. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Morgan Freeman is here. He is an Academy Awardwinning actor. Hes starred in milldollar baby, shaw shank redemption and victors. Here is the trailer for 5 flights up. When ruth and i first moved to brooklyn, it was out of fashion but we liked it. It was good. It was all we could afford. Its cool now. Full of hipsters. But as much as its changing, im going to miss this place. I dont know how you and alex do it. When youre trying to sell the shades all have to be up. Light is money, remember that. This is a young peoples building, you know. The stairs. Hi, alex. Whats that . Cinnamon. Gives the place a homey feel. Smells like a who whore house. What does that smile smell like . This. Im writing a book about this. What is this . Ould you turn up the lights . Please dont do that sweetie. Sorry. Youre going to break it. Looking to buy . Have a dog . Eah. Shes not out here right now. What happened . Shes old. Youre older than her in dog years. Does your bedroom have bunk beds . All we need is a place for you to stay and an elevator. Could be better. Could be worse. Dont even bother. Im going to miss all this. Look at it. Why are they moving . Havent we built a good life in we can do whatever the hell we want. Why are you still staying with this old laidy. Good old lady. Answer. Two bedrooms, lots of space old world charm. Sounds great doesnt it . I think we should be able to get it cheap right . You think . Eah, why not . We were watching diane keaton. Shes like nobody i know. Nobody. Shes lovely. Shes just lovely. Yeah. And shes actually kind of into housing. You know, she has this sort of shes a person that buys a house, lives in it, fixes it up and sells it. And then has magazines like architectural digest come and photograph it. She knows a little bit about it, yeah. Rose shes into that kind of thing. But her personality, her sense of self deprication, everything makes her so intriguing. The first time i saw her, i was so floored by her. Shes so beautiful shes so good. So rose and so many interesting men have fallen in love with her. Easy to see. Rose yeah. Easy to see why. Rose when you selected this, knowing a you dont need to work b you love to work, c you have lots of options on radio, television, movies, why did you choose this . Partly because of her, perhaps . Partly because of a script, perhaps . Because of the script, primarily. But then i said to who lori or the producer whom we meet later. Yeah. Because when we were doing country girl, she came to the show one night and i said to her, as i am want to do with ladies i like a lot rose yes. Id love to work with you. She said oh, id love to do that. When this script came along, i said, diane keaton. Rose was your name attached to the script when you came along. Yeah. Rose you said diane keaton. Yeah. Rose she said yes. Rose i thought you would never call right . Tell me about alex and ruth in the film. Well, you know, as a young couple, probably in their 20s they fell in love. He was an artist and she was working her way through school modeling. Rose yeah. And they just hit it off and got married. She broke up with her family over it because it was not the time that interracial marriages were accepted. Now we come to a point in their life where her niece is saying, you guys need to get out of this walkup, you know. You can do better. Rose five flights up. And so this whole weekend is when it takes place. This whole weekend we decided well, if we move out of here where do we go . So we go looking. Rose and you end up at home. Rose at home. Yeah. Rose so when you think about how do you prepare for this kind of movie . Read the script thats all. Unless youre playing someone real rose someone historical. Yeah. Rose like mandela. Rose mandela. Yeah. All of the people that i know of who have played live persons Seymour Hoffman played truman capote, ray charles. Rose jamie fox. Jamie fox and anything meryl streep has done. Rose margaret thatcher. Margaret thatcher, julia child, it requires a lot of research. Rose but do you just look at text and say i bring 50 years of experience and when i see a text, it says something to me and that union of my own Life Experience and what i see in the text, lets just go to the races then . Not necessarily, i mean the Life Experience part because youre only going to play your age for the most part. Rose right. If youre really, really, really good, like Walter Brennan was, at playing older people then you can do that. But most of the time, youre going to get roles that fall within your age bracket. Now you may not get a role that is within your lifes experience. I did a movie called street smart laughter but its all on the page. So you dont really have to do much more than say the words you know, make them your own. Rose i mentioned shawshank. Is that high up on your list . Yeah. Well, its classified now as one of the greatest movies ever made, one of the ten best ever. Rose and did you think that at the time . No no i didnt laughter you dont ever think anything youre going to do will be that great. The script was fabulous. Rose a nice cast. Really interesting. Almost an ensemble cast. Yes, it was an ensemble cast. Even bob who played the warden. Rose yeah. But everybody, it was one of those times when everybody dives in head first to the role. Rose yeah. And then all of a sudden was there a moment when i mean did you goes know on the movie that this was really good . Were looking at really good performances, we have a good script, the narrative is here, theres even a different kind of chemistry between the performances . Or do you see it in the editing. I dont go to editing. Rose dont you at all . No i dont see dailies. Rose you give them your performance and they do what they want to with it . Yeah, because thats whats going to happen anyway. Rose when they get on the set. Yes. It was pretty much precisely like that. A few tense moments when we argue with the director. Its sometimes not a good mix of writerdirectors because they wrote all the lines, they played all the parts, and you have to tell them youre wrong. Rose do you tell them softly like that or however loud however loud it demands. laughter rose and this film for you . This film was just a work of pure pleasure because im just dancing with a lady who loves to dance. Rose see thats the great thing. What you do and i do as well. You get to hang out with some people, i mean, at a table on a set and occasionally meals and things like that that you really want to meet and admire and have something to say. Yeah. And diane is just, as we said before, theres nothing i dont think theres any other anywhere like her. Shes one of a kind kind, and i have been in love with her since the first time i saw her in the movies. Rose yeah burks you yeah, but you didnt tell her until i didnt tell her until we were intimate. laughter rose and was everything working with her what you imagined . And more. Rose whats more . You can imagine what its going to be like when you say okay, boy, i would really like to do charlie rose, i would like to sit down and have a conversation with that man. Rose okay. And in your imagination it wont ever come up to what it really is when once you get here. Rose its much better when you get here. Yeah, its much better when you get here because it flows your conversation flows. It just keeps flowing, you know, and you may ask a question, pose a question, but you commentary. Rose yeah, thats true. I dont really know what im going to ask. Which is perfect for me. Rose because you dont know what youre going to say. Exactly. I certainly dont want to say it twice. Rose i actually talked about this before, bill nye talked about this, he said the greatest thing about acting is even know you know the script and the line the skill of acting is to say it as if im sorry im going to just butt in there. Rose no, i want you to. The skill of acting is listening. Rose listening. No matter how well you know the script listening, i think, is primary. Rose listening to what comes right before you or you and i have a prepared script rose right. And youre talking to me from your lines, i dont want to look and see when youre finished. I want to hear what youve got to say, and then ill shape my answer. Sometimes you ask a question of me and my answer would be yes. Another time you will ask the very same question, and my answer will be well. Yeah. Rose those are different answers. Yeah. Yeah. Rose youve got to be able to hear those answers. Its not just i will say to people when they talk about the conversations, the dynamic of conversations, you not only have to listen, you have to hear. You have to hear what theyre saying, and sometimes you have to hear what theyre not saying, because what theyre not saying says more than what they are saying. Takes a good actor to do that. laughter i mean to say what theyre not saying or not say what theyre saying. Rose what bill said was you have to say those lines as if you have just thought them as they just occurred to you. Because whatever i say to you what youre going to respond to is what occurs to you, not what youve written down. Right. I think were on the exact same page. Rose yeah. If you dont listen, you cant answer as if its your answer. Rose yeah as if its the first time you ever thought of that idea. Yeah. Rose would you if you had the freedom now and perhaps you do to make any movie you wanted to make i do not. I wish i did. Rose you dont. But if you did mmhmm. Rose would it be something many people dont think would be box office or what . I dont know what it would be. Rose in other words, youre saying you dont have that, but lets assume you do. Lets put on the table what you would do. Lets test this idea. I would make at least a couple of war movies. Rose really . Yeah. Rose and the narrative is, the character is . The character is a tank battalion that actually fought in world war ii. The problem rose brad pitt just did Something Like that, as you know. I like brad. I like what he does. Rose i thought, so too. The characters were really interesting. But go ahead. So i would do that, and having seen brads movie i dont know how well it did at the box office. Rose i dont know. But it gives me hope that i can get this movie made. Rose so you have a script . No, thats the biggest problem, is if i have a script, ill sell it. I will sell a script. Im pretty sure. But getting a script is probably the most difficult. Rose the hottest commodity you need is a writer. Is a writer. Rose is writing sometimes so difficult its so hard to find a writer that can do justice to the idea . Yeah. Rose and for those who can write are in high demand . Very high demand. Rose heres the interesting thing to me it is that you see a lot of movies that a lot of writers have dipped their pen into, and i assume thats because they write different things. Somebody can write dialogue, somebody can bring yeah, a lot. Rose somebody can get turn and twist and plot, create surprise, all those things. Yeah, yeah. But coming up with just the basics rose you dont have any urgency in your life. No. Rose you dont. I mean, if you dont work for the next six months, its not going to drive you crazy. No. Rose because youve got a lot of things yeah. Rose so that means you dont have an urgency to do things. None whatsoever. The most urnlingsent thing i have to urgent thing you have to do is try to lower my golf score. Rose good luck on that. Yeah. Rose well, no, lets have a plan on that. You spend most of your time where . In mississippi. Yeah. Rose there are a lot of good courses down there. There are three i can play. Rose all right. Heres what i recommend you do. All right. Rose heres the plan. All right. Rose i want you to go home to mississippi and say to myself, i am going to have a ritual every day, and the goal is to improve my game and therefore, improve my score and if necessary i will fly in the best instructors there are who work best with me. Im going to make sure that i i think i already know who that is, and hes not far away. Rose and youve got to do two things youve got to hit a lot of balls mmhmm rose this is crazy for me to give this advice because ive thought a lot about this a lot. Roy mcilroy thinks about this. Rose how about jordan at the masters . 18 under Something Like that comes along once in a life time. He may never do that again in his life, but hes done that. Rose you cant write life. He comes to the final hole. He has a putt thats less than 4 feet, and if he hits that in, he breaks tigers record he has the lowest fourhole score ever in the u. S. Masters and he doesnt do it. He doesnt do it. Rose but he ends up tying tiger woods with the fabulous hes the second youngest person to ever win the masters and hes now looked at the future of golf, right there Jordan Spieth and others, rory, and what we might have if we get lucky every time we watch him, it will be like nicholas and palmer for several years there like tiger and mickelson. Wouldnt it be great . Oh, yeah it would be great. Arnie. Rose arnie was there which is great. My joy is to see the first time they bring gary player, Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer and get the game started by hitting off the first tee and watch these three men. And players in fabulous shape. I met player in china. Rose oh we were at the premiere, the opening of their golf course there, they had a pro am, flew us all in, and i was playing with justin rose and gary player. Rose who just won last week. Yes, bless hit heart. Very sweet man. Ive known him a number of years. Rose can jump on the floor and do 25 pushups without thinking. Yeah. He really believes in it. Hes not a huge guy. Rose he used to always wear black remember . Still does. On the golf course if hes playing hes the black knight. Rose how hard do you want to do this . Im interested in whether you have the discipline. I do not. laughter rose youd like for it to happen burks youre not driven, obsessed. Im just not driven enough. Rose really . Yeah. Ill go out to the golf course and put down 25 balls. Rose right. And chip from 50 yards 75 yards and 100 yards. If i have enough stamina to do the first 25 at 50 and the second 25 at 75 and the next 25 at 100, i get very, very discouraged because out of 25 balls, i may get three on the green. Rose oh, no. Confidence is important. Very, very, very, very important. I find when i know im going to hit the ball i hit the ball. Rose visualization and confidence. How about acting. Can you translate that to confidence, sort of knowing that you own this line . You own this part . You have to have that to take it to the level i think i was born with that. Rose confidence. Confidence on stage. Only one time do i remember going on stage knowing that i was in the wrong place. Rose what role was that . Fellow phonetic . Rose really . Whats the feeling . I have no business being here. I didnt get along with the director. Rose this role and my skill dont match. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the costume i had on, when i walked out on stage, a guy in the back of the theater it was open air in dallas, texas a guy in the back said sing purple haze i looked exactly like jimi hendrix, all i was missing was a guitar. Rose oh, wow. And that along with my beginning feeling of incompetence just settled it. Rose okay. But have you been a hard worker . Depends on what you mean by hard worker. Rose what i mean is steady. Rose let me put that another way. You obviously have superb talent and skills and you knew that early. Early. Rose so did brando, for example. And marlin was often criticized because they believed he didnt use those talents as often and didnt respect them as much. He and i have had a long conversation with him about this. But you continued to work and get good roles and all that but my sense is, you know, that there is youre not driven by anything now because you have all these other interests. Today, i am not. Rose so you take a role, you will give them a hell of a performance, you know, but youre not a guy who says, you know who you are you know what youve done you know where you stand you know you know 50 years ago, i was a desperate soul. Rose right. Desperate and driven. Rose i want to show them. What else am i going to do . How else am i going to manage life . You know, i dont want to do this, i dont want to do that. I would be embarrassed to do anything other than this. Rose so did you ever want to go back to any other shakespearean role . No. Rose that killed it for you . No, no. I did well, wait a minute. Hold on a second. No, i did the taming of the shrew years later with tracy allman and pulled it off. Rose where was that . Here in new york. Rose Public Theater . Yeah. Well, we were actually working in the del acourt. Rose oh yeah. Yeah, that was lovely. I had done Julius Caesar rose all those . Yes. Rose if someone comes to you and says yes but lear is the big one. Would you be willing to work hard and do because you could play that role, dont you think . If itit was in the cards for me years ago and i was trying to i was busy wrapping my mind around the idea of doing lear and my agent at the time said, we could do lear, you should, but lets wait a while longer. I said, fine, well do it. Rose so youre still waiting . Not going to do it. Rose because you dont have the energy . I dont have the energy. Rose its not what you want to do with your life . No. Rose you mentioned flying and sailing which you learned to do both well. Youre now into bee keeping. Yes. Rose you enjoy it. Yes, i do. Rose why is it that you enjoy bee keeping . I have a farm in mississippi its really not a farm, its just an estate. Rose thats where youre happiest . Thats where im happiest, happiest in the world. And i remember when the bees disappeared. In the spring bees should be you could hear them working. Then they were gone. There were no more bees. And, so, friends of mine started raising bees and said, do you want some . I said, absolutely, yes, i do. So they brought me about 25 hives. I bought them, actually, you know. And they come from i cant remember. Arkansas. Rose i dont know where bees come from