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 Russell Crowe has had a remarkable career as an actor. Won an Academy Award for his performance in Ridley Scotts gladiator, also nominated for roles in hon row wards a Beautiful Mind and michael mans the insider. He now tries his hand at directing. The water diviner follows an Australian Farmer played by crowe who travels to gallipoli in search for his three missing sons. Here is the trailer for film. You have been in five wars but you cant even find your own children my boys. shouting arthur, henry and edward conner. Were not leaving your brothers behind i left them together. And they died together. They shall be buried at home beside their mother. Ill find them and ill bring them home. Im going to gallipoli. Theres nothing there for us. You walk off your farm, turn off your newspaper for what . Theyre all killed in a day. Maybe you could help him. You know what the chance of finding his boys are. If you havent found out yet this is your son. This is not mine. How did you know . Its a necessity where i come from. You cant stay. Go home, mr. Connor theyre my boys. nr the water diviner rose i spoke to Russell Crowe earlier this week in new york and here is that conversation. You said the movie chose you rather than you choosing it. Yes. Rose what did it mean . It was the truth because i was in the middle of a busy period of time. I had taken quite a break after robin hood. I read a bunch of stuff and hadnt worried about it too much. In 2011 i got a run of i read a script and yeah, im into that and that. So i said im interested in five things. Normally, they would cannibalize each other and you would end up doing one or maybe two. But for some miraculous reason the juices of all five movies got together and worked out the number of weeks they needed. I did man of steel broken city and the others. I also got separated then. I have kids, run a Football Team. It was an extremely overwhelming year and then this script arrived and i wasnt really looking for it. I was developing other things. Id had the intellectual concept of being a director for a long time and ive probably directed about 30 video clips three full lengths. I have been educating myself, you know. Rose looking . No, like i said, i had things i was developing. But when i agree to act its basically because i have such a visceral connection with the piece that i cant say no. I dont base my decision on pedigree or money. Its always the individual character. I call it the goosebump factor. Thats what im always looking for. I found myself reading this script and having that visceral actor, making notes and crossreferencing pages where he would say things and you get the goosebumps, a little sweat on the forehead. The other thing was happening when i go to meet directors to work with them, im never going to be attracted to the guy who doesnt really know what he wants to do. He just wants to have a casual chat. Im attracted the guys who go im gonna do it this way rose and i need you. Yes. And they have part of the tone of what theyre talking about is theyre the only person in the universe who could tell the story the way it needs to be told. So im reading this script, and this voice said, i had never heard come out of myself, it was present and was saying you must take responsibility for this story. Only you can read between the lines, only you can see into the shadows, only you can make this culturally important for both australians and turkish and other people around the world. Id never had that before. Basically, i finished reading once, made a phone call and said i want to do this movie but only if its my responsibility. Rose so what was it about this script and this story that made you feel that way . Well, its such a big answer because its culturally really significant. The battle of gallipoli is huge. Its the first time theyve engaged in war fair under their own flag. Prior to that they were an extension of the british empire. They fought in crimea and the world war but now they are under their own flag and its a group of volunteers, an Expeditionary Group of volunteers. Britain puts out the call says we need help in our defense and the defense of our european friends. Hundreds of thousands of men and industriallies are going to put up their hands. Its a story about a man and his three children who go to war and dont come back. Im a dad of two boys so thats going to get me at a very essential level. But the other thing was there too, and this may be the most important thing it felt to me as if there was an opportunity to make a war film or a film that talks about war with a level of honesty that other people havent really taken it to, you know . I mean, i know theres sort of a cliche that some people say that every war film is an antiwar film but thats not true because we quite often couch these actions in terms of brave riand courage and we bravery and courage and leave it at that. We dont talk about grief. We dont talk about that moment between engagements when thenrco wounded men are lying in the field calling for water, their mothers, calling for god. We dont see it in that way. So it comes with a huge responsibility, a movie like this, a responsibility to a contemporary audience to not speak down to them to actually take them to a place where, you know the geopolitics and history of the time, theyre not necessarily completely on top of or they dont really know anything about. It has a responsibility to the men and women who actually are in service for our countries and what theyre really facing because this is the thing that we often dont talk about its a life and death situation and a responsible for future generations. I have two little boys. I want them to know if this comes up in their life what the truth of this situation is. War is not about bravery and courage. War is most often about grief. Rose and dying. Whats interesting about this in addition to what you say and what you want to say about war is how the story was discovered. A letter. Yeah. Rose mentioning the old chap. Theres this incredible guy called Lieutenant Colonel hughes. He was actively a soldier, part of what they call the live force, and he was on the battle battlefield three times. He kept getting removed from the battlefield but not for being wounded but for disentry and influenza. So i suppose where he had this experience where he kept coming back to the battlefield and his friends were dead. Then he would make new friends. He ended up being connected to the battlefields for a long time. Then he put his hand up to being the man after the war. He would go back to the battle battlefield and basically try to identify as many sets of bones as he could. He had befriended an australian commonly called c. W. Ben but his initials are actually c. E. W. Ben. And he wrote a memoir of his experience of the soldiers in this battle and in it quoted a letter that he and colonel hughes had met and hughes wrote a letter said one old chap managed to get here from australia looking for his sons graves. We looked after him and put him on a boat to ben dee sees. Andrew anastasios said who would travel, you know, a search of a mad man to try to find a son who was long dead. So they researched it, Andrew Anastasios and he brought in a fellow to partner up on it a fellow called Andrew Knight and they looked into itnr a couple of years and hard and fast. They found a few, you know, could be him, could be him, you know, and there was still an attachment in Andrew Anastasios mind to the idea of waterni divining because his grandfather was a waterni diviner a famous one, who found water for mel gibson in the 80s when mel had property incoe1. Rose they know where water is located when nobody else can see it or hear it. Yes, but a large part is practical. He talks about the movie. He can go out into the valleys and see by the markings in the ground where the water fell last time where it ran and then just through a series of logic go to a place where it most likely pooled here. So this would be the area where its under the ground. The next bit is the bitnr thats not available to all of us, only a small percentage of people have, whether by using wood or metal or whether just purely a sensation in the hand to feel that water under the ground. Its a real thing, you know. I mean, ill tell you 98 of the people who say they can do it are probably charlatans but there are probably people who can do it. I witnessed my dad do it when i was about 14. Thats why again i had another connection. When i was talking about this in australia he called me up and said you have to stop saying that, mate, i never found a body of water in my life. I said, no in 1978, we had just gotten back from australia and were on our way to sport come out into the street, all these council guys are there looking for, you know, obviously a leak in a water pipe. My dad went inside and got one of those old metal coat hangers, formed it into a shape of a y walked up and down, stuck it in the grass and said the break is here. Three hours later we come back from sport and thats exactly where the council are digging up. My dad goes, well, yeah, i can find broken pipes. Rose whats the significance of joshua being a water diviner . Just adding to the dimension of the character . Well, giving his journey a basis as well, you know. That its not necessarily just about luck, that there is a spiritual aspect to it or more correctly an intuitive aspect to him, you know. Because you know i just went through its mainly a practical job water divining, and when he gets to that battle battlefield, he has his sons diary and a handdrawn map. The entire battlefield where nine people 9,000 people died in four days is the size of two tennis courts. You can cut it down to a very slim tunnel of where they could possibly be. So hes got all that practical information but then on top of that hes got the four years that hes spent wandering about wondering about what happened to his boys. Hes got that inside him. When i talked to people, you know, some people reject the idea that somebody might be able to do that, but, you know, we use intuition in our daily lives all the times in our social reactions. Parents have an, inkling on a given school day that something went wrong and its true. You talk to women in particular and particularly young women and say has there been an exboyfriend in your life who became an exboyfriend because of an intuitive process where you knew they were somewhere they werent supposed to be . They say, absolutely. Its a real thing. Rose did you want to star in a movie you directed or did you like this character so much that you wanted to i was perfectly happy to give up the character. Just to have the opportunity to direct. But it was given to me in a very clear its independent but i have investors. Theyre, like, were prepared to give you x and if youre going to direct and not be in it, thats x minus and as a director you want as many assets as you can. Giving up a massive chunk of potential budget didnt seem to make sense. Rose why did you want to direct . I love the art form, charlie. And i have been working in it since i was six years old in front of a camera, lead roles in films from the age of 25. You know, composition, color texture, you know the difference between music and silence, all of these things. Rose control . Well, control but not in the way that everything has to stop while you work out what you need. Its not that. Its having the ultimate say because what you want to do as a director, the privilege of being a director is that you get to bring the smartest hearts and minds that you can towards you and say, okay, i love your work, as a production designer. Im going to this place, i need you at your best, this costume designer, i love the way you did this and i need you at your best. And the d. P. , andrew who won the Academy Award for lord of the rings, we knew we worked together. I went to him and said can we expand this and make a feature . He said, i would love to. So you get the amazing opportunity to bring these incredibly smart people toward you. Rose had you been taking notes. Absolutely. I had no problem stealing from anybody. Same way they had no problem stealing with me. Rose you talked to ridley and ron howard. You didnt go to anybody saying, look my agent ought to be cool if he called ridley to get a message of support as i was about to start. He said, so, ridley, russells about to start shooting his movie, you know, anything you want to tell me . He goes oh, hell be fine. laughter the two people i got actual practical advice from is two people i have never been on the set with as a director. Ben stiller, who is an actor who directs and he said to me one thing to keep in mind because i get the feeling youre the sort of person who will focus on your actors, youre still the lead role. Make sure you shoot what you need and you get into post because your story wont have a spine. Rose because youre worrying about your other characters. Thats exactly because youre giving of your self. The other piece came from ely roth who i love as a person but whose movies creep me out, i cant watch them. He said,eth not the fact you have been in front of a camera since you were six years old or made future films in lead roles for 25 years that will really assist you. What you will find when you get into this, the fact youre a dad that will make it easy for you. Rose because the heart of the story is being a father in search no, because on a set you need to listen to people and communicate to them and you need to communicate with them in the voice that individual requires just like your kids. Your children have very different personalities and you will talk to one one way and another another way, you know, and thats the way you have to be on the film that you have to keep up with. I put an emphasis on creation. I let everybody know at the beginning i understand every single truck and piece of equipment is a platform for performance and thats our attitude, that is our priority on a daily basis. I create an Energy Around me that Everybody Knows theyre allowed to be at their very best. Rose but preparation was essential for you. How do we prepare to make this movie because some have described it in stories i have read about this as you went through a kind of boot camp. Part of that i assume is to make sure theyre where you are. And what else . Yeah, you see, what im doing is im taking a group of Young Australian actors and im showing them how i do it, right . How i prepare. This may be for a film or whatever. This is what i do. Physically, i prepare. Emotionally, i prepare. Intellectually. So i take them to a situation where im filling them up with the information, swilling them up with the tasks that lay ahead of them so in a tenday period every day is long walks, yoga, weight sessions, horse riding, weapons skill training, we might do archery which is about focus, a 50kilometer bike ride, an a talk from a history professor about the history of the ottoman empire. Then all i need for them is to be consistent until the day they come on my set. When they arrive, i have a young man who has a mile of depth behind his eyes because hes confident, he knows who his character, is he knows his part of the story. He knows all about the history of the time, the geopolitics and everything that would be a natural piece of knowledge, he has the skill set on board to ride a horse, to use the weapons of the time and hes confident and ready to go. Not a single minute of time is wasted on my set on actors trying to recall a line, you know, because my emphasis has been right from the beginning on setting a standard and encouraging them to rise to that standard. Rose how many takes do you do . Very low ratio. Average three or four. Rose thats it. Yes. Rose how do you get it in three or four takes. Preparation. A lot of directors will b. S. You about how prepared they will and they will set something up and make it up as they go. Theyll realize it doesnt work and will change it and try it another way. Im on a little independent film with an independent film budget. I havent got time for those kinds of shenanigans. I have to know what im looking at and trying to get. So, seriously its just a more interesting day if you move faster. Its more interesting for the crew. Rose Clint Eastwood another director whos done well and is an actor has the same philosophy because he wants his actors prepared but also wants to give them room to be all they can be because of what theyve learned. Im not going to move on if somebodys not getting somewhere or somebody feels they still have Something Else to do. Rose how do you direct yourself . A lot of the things you do on a set from my point of view is youre trying to interpret what the director wants. Thats what youre there for. Rose you know what the director wants here. Yes. So they can pose a shot, have certain camera shoots. Then with certain questions you say now i know what youre trying to get out of this particular setup. But if ive set the composition of a shot then i just cut out the middle man and i can step into my own shot and do it easier. Rose this is what the telegraph says about you crowe mounce the story in roughly moded fashion but his best achievement is wrestling with a thinskinned leading man and extracting the most soulful performance he has given in years. Of all directors to remind us, a relaxed subtlety can be Russell Crowes forte who would guess it would be Russell Crowe. If i am thin skinned how am i still here after all the things that have been said about me and the way i have been painted . If im thin skinned how to i manage to keep doing my job . Some parts are complimentary. Rose i took it as compliment. As a director yourself, you could get the kind of performance you got here. Yeah but it comes wa whole lot of pretentious double talk. Rose why would some writer write that kind of thing . Where does the idea you might be thin skinned come from . Because if youre giving me bleep i wont give you an answer immediately. Im not that guy who puts up with that. If youre thinking i can get away with this because im on camera, then youll find out you cant and i will talk to you and have a natural conversation with you as i would if we were talking about a party or on the street or whatever. A lot offies in your position this has nothing to do with you obviously, charlie, because ive always ha