Inside The Actors’ Studio

One of the fringe benefits of hosting our Oscar Roundtable—other than, you know, hanging out with movie stars—is you get to watch them bond. Like how when Brad Pitt ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") happened to mention that he and Angelina were selling their house in Malibu, Robert Downey Jr. ("Tropic Thunder") said he'd buy it—at any price. "I've had a pretty good year," Downey joked. Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married") told Frank Langella ("Frost/Nixon") she wanted to take notes on everything he said. And when Hollywood newbie Sally Hawkins ("Happy-Go-Lucky") talked about maybe moving to L.A., Mickey Rourke ("The Wrestler") suddenly became her big brother, warning, "Get out as quick as you can." Fortunately, she stayed to finish our chat. Excerpts below:

NEWSWEEK: If you had to think of the greatest performance you've ever seen—onstage, in a movie, on TV—what comes to mind?
LANGELLA: Kim Stanley in a play called "Natural Affection." The play started and she was sleeping in bed with an actor. She woke up, threw her legs over the side of the bed, took a cigarette, lit it, took a puff and I knew who she was in 30 seconds. [Looks at Pitt] You can say it was me, Brad. I don't mind.

PITT: I go to David Thewlis in "Naked." Gene Wilder pops in my head in "Willy Wonka"—I've watched a lot of kids' movies. There's that opening moment where he comes out of the factory and he's limping, you don't know what his affliction is, and then he trips and rolls out of it. From that moment on, you never know what he's up to.

HAWKINS: He added that in, didn't he? I think he improvised that.

Anything pop in your head, Mickey?
ROURKE: About what? What was the question? I think something Monty Clift did, the movie where Shelley Winters was screeching at him, "A Place in the Sun." I also think of Rita Hayworth, "Gilda," she was f–––ing great in that. Watching it, I thought, God, I wish she was still around. I'd try to get her phone number.

PITT: Robert in "Weird Science."

DOWNEY: Don't get me started, dude. You want to start coloring outside the lines?

PITT: Game on!

DOWNEY: I thought that was kind of a bulls––– first question to ask, because I don't have anything coming out in the next couple months that you can review poorly.

HATHAWAY: When I saw Mary-Louise Parker in "Proof," she had the best line reading of the phrase "f––– you" ever. She's sitting there and thinking about it, and goes "f–––" and she pauses, and the other actor was so thrown they started in with the next line, and in the middle of the line she goes "you." I've never been able to get it out of my head.

LANGELLA: Would you like to hear my most favorite line I have said onstage, after 75 plays?

HATHAWAY: Yes.

LANGELLA: "Suck my d––k." I said it to Christine Baranski every night for four months, and I couldn't wait to say it. It was such a great line to say.

HATHAWAY: I just had a blank, and it's a really embarrassing one.

You mean, you forgot an actor's name?
DOWNEY: What do you got?

HATHAWAY: You're going to tell everyone. You're dangerous.

DOWNEY: Trust issues! I've been trustworthy for almost 1,500 days now. [Hathaway whispers in his ear]

OK, Anne, what are you whispering?
HATHAWAY: I was thinking of a moment that involved a d––k. It was Julie Christie in "Shampoo," when she's having that conversation with a guy, and she's like, I'll give you anything you want. And she's so deliciously drunk, and she goes, "And I want to suck his c––k." It's the greatest line reading. And Warren Beatty does this fantastic spit take. Frank, I have a really lame question. Is there anything that you remember thinking, I wish I knew this when I started acting?

LANGELLA: I wish I'd known sooner in my career how getting out of one's own way is the best advice you can give an actor. I could do anything on the stage; I had no fear. But I was like an old Italian lady in my first couple of movies. I thought my soul was being taken by the camera. So I had to find my way to be utterly open and free in front of the camera. Did everybody know since 5 or 6 or 7 that they wanted to be an actor?

PITT: No, not a clue. Where I grew up, it wasn't an option.

LANGELLA: Where did you grow up?

PITT: Oklahoma and then Missouri. Two weeks before college graduation, I saw everyone signing up to go away and do their jobs. I was not even close to being ready. I realized I had a love for film. It hit me one night. I'm 22, I had no money, so I did two weeks of work, made a couple hundred bucks, loaded up the car and moved to Beverly—actually, Burbank. I was doing extra work in about a week. I was thrilled just to be on a movie set. In fact, I was an extra on your movie "Less Than Zero."

DOWNEY: Dude, somebody told me that and I said it can't be true. That party scene was 22 years ago. If I knew you were there, I'd make you be part of the movie. He's over there! Look at him!

PITT: I was an extra for a year and a half. I even got a job on "Dallas," and went back and did extra work on that because I hadn't been on a movie.

HATHAWAY: You just made every single actor in Los Angeles very happy with that story. I was an extra in a Burger King commercial when I was 15. I had bronchitis, but I wanted to act so badly.

HAWKINS: I was an extra in "The Phantom Menace." I'm repeated in a crowd scene about 10 times with Jar Jar Binks.

LANGELLA: My first movie, I was very lucky. It was called "The 12 Chairs." And watching Mel Brooks direct 300 Yugoslavians who didn't speak any English, it was hilarious.