Actors on Actors: Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen - Full Video

I was born in the north of England and I've got a very broad northern accent can you hear that yes I can I can so when I became an actor a long time ago it was thought you couldn't play Hamlet or Romeo unless you had a sort of standard British accent what I tried to have now and then maybe because of that that I am no good at doing other accents because it would be putting an accent on top of an accent but you have the facility that seems so easy for you to to be American or English or Australian and I don't know how you do that but I'm a terrible terrible mimic I mean being Australian there's very few characters I mean it's changing slightly there's a lot of actors Australian actors in America now and maybe speaking much more in their own voices but there's not a lot of call for Australian accents and the international so you see you're obliged to do an accent but but I grew up I grew up on a lot of American and British television I see so in the home and I don't know yeah and my father was American and so maybe I always had that sense of of difference but do you find that you can then slip back one clearly because you just did it but you can slip back into that surely I mean you've done quite a lot of regional yeah I think I've been very like I've sort of got away with it I can do northern and I can do Scottish and British Isles sort of access but beyond that I useless but you have such an incredible range like I remember one night because I hadn't seen you for a while and I was watching mr. Holmes and I thought Oh Ian's really he's really aged I thought it's all right maybe he's been very ill course then the film goes back into flashback yes but what you were doing with your voice was utterly it was it was really subtle it was history you love doing that playing old okay regularly but nobody you did it seamlessly and so what you have is you have this texture and kind of emotional range in a voice so it might be an accent but it feels exactly how the well the Hannah that's in you thank you but I'm just going up back to accents Oh people can do a perfect American accent and pinpointed exactly reasoning and sometimes they go on they don't seem to be American and because to be American you have to be American from your feet through to your head don't you feel yes but now you can do that well I ought to be able to do that but it's just the bloody voice gets him but don't think of what a career I could have and if I think what yes about past your career has been so terrible in disappointing and limiting but you've played in so many different genres I mean I remember that it might be the first time I saw you on on film as I saw bent did you mmm it was amazing and the new had originated that with Sean Mathias on that's true on stage yeah and I wonder I think it's I thought about this a lot when I was playing blue jasmine maybe having played Blanche DuBois even though Woody Allen didn't want to talk about straight I don't know did he not know but there was such kind of parallels between that so here's what I was better such fun did you find it easier having because that were you Saints so utterly free in that in that film having originated the role on stage but no no that the part I was playing in the film I was not the part had played originally I was playing my character's uncle but a good example of that is when I did Richard the third which I do not treat incredible toured all over the place uh I remember crossing America I decided I thought it might make a good film so I did the editing and put together a screenplay and when we got to do it it was bliss because I knew I knew the character backwards Norma had to think about was how can I do it for the camera hmm that was all I had to think about so that was was really just wish we could rehearse films don't you I know I just step into it I bet sometimes I'm I remember Soderbergh saying because I had to I did a film with him the good German which about two and a half people saw but they had been filming for two weeks and I literally arrived the day before and walked onto set and sort of had to play this German woman and I was completely intimidating another accent and um we just did one take and I said can I do it again and I said don't you ever rehearsing he said no no I just have dinner so that people can get to know one another because oftentimes you know you walk on set and suddenly you're in bed with someone who you've never met before and you know but wasn't interesting last night at the governors awards when Jenna Rowland's was saying all around it did her husband say that she studied the coat on her own locked herself into a room and had been through every emotional extreme that the cat could possible to be so that when she came to arrived on set it was all very very familiar terra-tory yes and so she could just be can put you put everyone completely how did the project of mr. Holmes actually come to you was it through beekeeping alergic about bees or had you been a long obsessed with him or was it was it I mean I've always known about sure comes everybody has a I'm always obsessed on the moon I didn't know else obsessed with you but but and then Bill Condon who had worked with gods monsters and you know he called up and said I've got a film and I said oh well when do we start really and nobody turned out be Sherlock Holmes that was an added thrill yes I said I'm thrilling but lorilynn it turned up in the cast and some wonderful friends from home and I said but I won't work with the B's bill is that understood although Sherlock I'm just keeping bees I said I can't concede you I them and put them in later hey you allergic or you just tear well I was terrified so it's an independent movie some I had to work with bees but they were absolutely charming and they're not the bees which they're not interested in as busy get their busy up there bees they get like actors like you yes kept getting on with that job and mmm so I'm at there we are and I didn't I didn't have any hopes for it really as a popular film I just thought it was a little niche a fun thing for us to do in it and this might appeal to people who like the Conan Doyle stories and then because it's about old Asian because it's about deaths and because it's about not giving in to old age and because it's about that there's a woman in the middle of it Lois Carter's a war Widow and sad and then there's a little boy in it actually appeals to a big range of people it's uh it's been a surprise to me and delight mmm-hmm but now tell me about Carol I love Christmas wrapping presents and all that and then somehow you wind up over cooking the turkey anyway damn where'd you learn so much about trainsets oh I read too much probably that's her fashion thank you Merry Christmas Merry Christmas because lesbian love story yes another one for you yes you're very perceptive I couldn't work out whether yours was the leading character or the other splendid learning he's extraordinary in it I mean it's it's a Barrett they're they're very symbolically connect in the novel I don't have you read the price of salt was pretty to Highsmith's first oh no Patricia Highsmith yeah what of course is lesbian yes what of course of course which was all watching but it's number two so she's right to bed sir that really dark recesses of the human mind which is what I love about her a lot of us all these unpalatable thoughts and obsessions that we all had but we never give voice to or admit to anybody so I mean I'd read the novel years ago and but the novel is very much from Rooney's character Torres's perspective and Carole's sort of the object of her desire so she's not a she's an objective creation and what Todd has done on what Phyllis Phyllis Najma the most beautiful screenplay well it you can tell it's a Tony heads movie right from the right from the beginning I know he's incredible that statute he's such a he's got such an interesting perspective on the world I think he's been an outsider as a filmmaker for so long and that that place in the filmmaking terrain or the industry kind of means that he's constantly looking at the world from very interesting has he ever hang himself well funnily enough when I was doing the maids with Isabella pear and Sydney I was talking to Todd about stuff and he sent me a picture of him at college where he had played Solange in The Maids and it is the most beautiful picture that he he and Claire the boy playing Claire had both shaped their heads and his cradling and it was a real inspiration for me so yes he's acted and maybe that's what makes him so he because with working with he and Rooney it was very much the three of us together he's not it he's not a director who sits outside a you know objectively sort of doctoring things and making comments he's totally inside the scene with you it's he's if you you know worked you'd love chat I think I would does it does he watch what you're filming on on a TV screen or does he actually watch what you're doing both don't be both good I don't think I've ever worked with a director who actually watched the actors rather than watching the performance coming through onto a TV screen nine years and years ago when I and and when I met my very first film I made with Bruce Beresford he he watched the wealthy actors Paradise Road my first my husband said I sound like a budgerigar my first word was watching yeah but it's so interesting it's a you know there's terrible moments when they know that the we recently together in London where they show a clip reel of oh no you watch yourself aging and developing it unless hopefully getting better I know hopefully I think I was one of these dudes that this showed a clip of me when I was about 25 I was pretty gorgeous I must say you still are in oh yes Stiller but what was this in it's the room look but the acting was appalling I mean dreadful I know it's but is it it's there isn't it but your version of appalling I think is know do for the rest of us oh no dreadful until quite recently with me or have you just given up caring do you not know is it visible is a thing where no because if I'm not good at acting I'm not good at anything else I can scramble eggs when you can't keep bees what possible motive could that German woman have had to kill an that night I search for something to jog my memory of the case and that it was a picture now a few years ago I could have told you everything about the woman in that such wealth certainly I'd recall what had become of her whether she was victim or culprit but that night not in yes you apart from your fabulous shoes and socks you make you make a dressing look so easy but you make it all look effort or stop nobody you know working with in a lot of means there's a lot of kind of Gump's that you had to put on but it's just but but you are able to sort of totally shift between you know the ridiculousness of it to the kind of the you know the the emotional side of the story and I'm do you find it easy to get into what have you found most difficult to find anything difficult yes the thing I find difficult is what you seem to be able to do and many other wonderful actors can do Jenna Rowland's yes she doing is is raw emotion someone at the end of their tether who can't cope unless they explode now I can do that on stage because the audience isn't too close and won't see that perhaps I'm not actually feeling that but I'm displaying it but of course for the camera that won't do but is it also because you've got oiled up to it no I I can be very interested in it and believe in it and understand it but actually being it I'm 90% acting and only 10% being it and and that won't do for the camera so actually I avoid characters that have a big emotional I shouldn't be saying this in public big emotion that's true maybe it's just that you it's so effortless that it feels like you're not doing anything when I've seen you many times not personally but in character flying into into a rage but if it's often in defense I said when it happens in mr. Holmes as well as that that sense of panic you know when the boy gets stung stung by the wasps and I mean the no it's better it's in defense of other people it's maybe it's not personal before I die I want to see the tease with doing high emotion for the camera right maybe you just need to take to do it because it's always those asks isn't it fun getting better at the job it isn't is that a main strand of your career that you're getting getting better well it could only get better it couldn't get worse well but I find I mean and having run the cine theatre company for eight years and and really really AM knighted for five and my husband's done a phrase but I've still been involved you were acting and producing and directing in the air and produced but it's and having a film career at the same time but I think it must be you know like doing we were talking about earlier about doing a new play every two weeks it's the constantly having to get up and do it is that you you you stopped you stopped that process of self censoring because you just have to say well I'll try this I'll try that I'll try this it's constantly having to get up and try and make you know each night better and that's the hardest thing I find with film is that it's so finite and it's often it's and I've had I mean I would be last in the yesterday and she's saying a similar thing is that you get to the the final day of shooting you're filled with dread and horror same but it better can I do this again it's done oh no your job is done well then you have to trust the director that he or she has seen the essence of it and we'll cut rounded and presented yeah looking back um did you have a a part of a role that was especially difficult they all feel a bit difficult too young that's good because I think I'm I think it's all I'm not it I'm not some amend Isis it's notion that um you know I meet those actors you know yourself for instance I mean great wreck on tours and and just have the ability to sort of stand up and do it sort of it feels like it costs me a little bit to do that I'm I'm sort of back stepping rather than forward stepping I think if it doesn't cost you anything it's probably not much good maybe and so it's always it's always the ask you know so in Todd Haynes cause Apple Scorsese or Fincher or whoever had been and they it's the think more like ha the only reason why I wouldn't be saying yes to that is because I'm terrified you've done so much I mean across so many mediums and the fantastic television show I mean everything you've been in every medium was there anything new that you discovered in playing mister mr. Holmes it was like when but when we were I first went to middle-earth which is where we met first in fact not many people can say that middle left and on my second airplane Gandalf I was in the scene with you it was actually the last month the last scene of the third film and Galadriel and gather for sailing off - yes yes but of course you weren't there you were in Australia and I think by the time you came to do that scene I was back in the UK so we were in a scene together man right there shall Gandalf in over two days they put on the makeup Peter Jackson and everybody hair makeup big nose little nose long hair longer hair long beard longer beard eyebrows and add these verse has suit gentlemen look back at me out of the mirror you know either like a sama bin Laden the one put that do and eventually they clip to it and and suddenly and they pop the hat on I know oh I can see him Gandalf and I've little voice and fitted in logo was going on and I stood up there walking like Ganim and from then on it was simple nothing didn't have to do thing all came from the maker and it was the same with mr. Holmes I play mold and as early on they put the old makeup on very very quickly dead over and I saw him I just took my shoulders and there he was I didn't have to think about it so and it's a good performance and of that maybe I've been taught again that it must cost you but if the audience can't see its cost you then that's probably the way to do it mmm I mean no one would I think yeah but it's difficult talking about acting isn't it what's impossible the other thing is I remember you but I I don't want to become too conscious about no no I literally every night before I start that the night before I start work I poke my husband at 3:00 a.m. and say Andrew Andrew what what's my process - I mean we've got a table read tomorrow what's fine what I do and he's gonna be fine and be fine just you know open the door get a cup of tea sit down and the other people will start and you'll start and you'll find your way and then you find your way together and it's often on film with the hair and makeup people and the Wardrobe people it's it's dress ups and when you talk about that you sort of feel a bit like it's childish or shallow but it's it's because you're all playing together and in the end the audience wants to be transported but even in them in the height of tragedy there has to be a buoyancy I think there has to be a sense of fun and adventure I can reassure you that it's all right that method because it isn't is it is it yeah because Stanislavski great teacher of modern acting wrote numerous books and the end of onam he says if all else fails if the suggestions I'd be making to you don't work look in the mirror and pull faces until you see the character coming out it there we go it fails it's failsafe now I've got a back-up plan we should close back by vowing to work together again that would be good on stage let's do it on stage and you know connote illustrate you know the scene when Gladwell comes or out of I Gandalf comes to music collateral at Riven though yes it is in one of the Hobbit films on and they hold hands you're very sweet to me and your heart been loving and I thought that get to come out of the fact that we you would have for just two weeks or something I mean forever nipping around the corner to share a cigarettes to share a line of code no true and he went behind a certain had a chat about you what you were doing the theater which was cause passionate Sebastian yeah interesting man and I thought Peter Jackson had taken advantage of that intimacy to and bring it onto the screen have it as don't a gamma del Toro recently who was going to direct the whole remember okay and I was talking about that scene and he was looking rather quizzical at me and he said no he said that that was my idea he said I put it into the script and I was intended that the two of you should fall in that so there we go we did we just we must have sort of sensed from the from the script does Carole and happily without spoiling it ended possibility endless possibility it ends with possible but the possibility okay because unlike a film that does that yeah but it's it's unabashedly but I don't yes and it's unabashedly romantic like it similar to sort of them brief encounter oh we should one of my all-time favorite film by Tara Howard see Lee Johnson no Sheila jobs mmm thanks for watching actors on actors click to the left to watch our conversation with Amy Schumer and Lily Tomlin click to the right to watch our full conversation with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Seth Rogen and don't forget to subscribe to varieties Channel

Channel: Variety

Views: 1,171,473

Rating: 4.9702458 out of 5

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio

Id: ThpcJDToBow

Length: 22min 5sec (1325 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/TaikaWaitiddies]

My God, their voice are really soothing

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/weltallic]

If it were Cate talking to Patrick Stewart, it would still end up with Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen having a fascinating sit-down conversation.

[u/OB1_kenobi]

Galadriel and Gandalf together again.

[u/ScreechingEels]

Watching these two together on the LotR extras was a complete joy.

[u/BlizzardonTenth]

Is this ASMR?

[u/TreyWriter]

If we were to draw a graph of my process, of my method, it would be something like this: Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, action, wizard, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Cut. Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian. How did I know what to say? They had my lines written down on a script. How did I know where to stand? People showed me.