Rachel Weisz on "Disobedience" - the film, and her own

Countless performers call London their home town, among them, Rachel Weisz, who – what else? – now lives in New York, where Tony Dokoupil caught up with her:

"I've never been on Facebook. Like, never in my life. I've seen people on the subway doing 'likes' – is 'likes,' is that from Facebook?"

Rachel Weisz is not exactly what you'd call an over-sharer.

Dokoupil asked, "With your private life, there is a kind of electric fence put up, and if you get too close, you're zapped."

"Well, my private life is not mysterious to me. I know exactly what it is!" she laughed. "It's pretty ordinary."

In fact, while Dokoupil brought plenty of questions for the 48-year-old Academy Award-winning actor, he had to have answers, too.

"I think acting is a kind of escapism from who you are," Weisz said. "But it's also anthropology. Like, I would love to interview you! I would love to ask you all the questions about your childhood. I have a real curiosity."

But these days, there's no hiding for this transplanted "English rose." Dokoupil said, "My other favorite nickname for you, 'the thinking's man crumpet.'"

"Do you say crumpet in America?" she asked.

"No, could you translate?"

"Sure, she's a nice bit of crumpet means, well, a nice bit of ass. But can you say that on television?"

"I don't think you can say that on 'Sunday Morning,'" he laughed. 

She's expecting a child with husband Daniel Craig, a.k.a. James Bond.

And she's also the star of an acclaimed new film, "Disobedience," about forbidden intimacy between two women in London's Orthodox Jewish community, not far from where Weisz grew up.

"They're a very private community, so I never spoke to them, and they wouldn't have been interested in speaking to me," Weisz said. "I think there's a great mystery around their world."

"You like mystery, it seems like."

"Well, mystery is fabulous, no? Don't you like it?"

Speaking of mysteries, Weisz has one scene in particular with co-star Rachel McAdams unlike any she's ever filmed before.

Dokoupil asked, "Was it different making a scene with another woman than it would have been with a man?"

"It was much less stubbly with a woman, much softer! That would be the first thing of note," she replied. "It was incredibly emotional. It was romantic. It was spiritual. It was passionate. It wasn't just sex. It was something much more powerful."

The title "Disobedience" is from the novel that inspired the film, which Weisz also produced. But disobedience might as well be the headline over Weisz's own life, as a self-described outsider who was expelled from her private high school.

"My mother always used to say, 'You were asked to leave,'" Weisz said.

"How British! Why were you asked to leave?"

"I was very disobedient. I had authority issues, I guess you would say. I didn't understand why teachers had the right to discipline me or tell me what to do."

Still, she excelled academically. Landing at Cambridge University, Wiesz skipped the classics and launched an avante-garde performance group instead, called The Talking Tongues. It launched a career that has swung from B-movie glory ("The Mummy") to A-list dramas ("The Constant Gardener," "The Lobster"), to the occasional role as "the girl who gets the guy" ("About a Boy").

"I never sort of saw myself in that way," Weisz said. "To me, that seemed like a really alien concept."

But now, she says, marriage suits her. "It's home, wherever husband is, it's home, which is a really lovely thing."

Not that Weisz has stopped forging her own path, as when she jaywalked across the street. "Actually, jaywalking is not against the law in England," she noted. "In fact, the word doesn't even exist"

Really? "No, you just cross – as long as you feel like you're not gonna die, you cross."

And with her film own production company, LC6, she's the one in charge.

"I'm CEO of this space, it's really fancy," she said. "And I've got a blazer!" she laughed.

She plans to focus on more stories told from a clearly female point of view. "I think it's kind of different being a woman. Like, vive la différence."

While never giving up on mystery.

       
For more info:

• "Disobedience" (Official site)

      
Story produced by Amol Mhatre.