Oprah: Please welcome Madonna!!!

[Madonna comes out, Don't Cry For Me Argentina is playing, waves to the audience, applause]

Oprah: Thank you, I bet even when you hear it, when you hear the song does it give you shivers too?

Madonna: Don' Cry For Me?

O: Yes

M: Umm...Ummm..., I've heard it a lot

O: Yes, yes

M: Yeah, it's a great song

O: Even how when you still hear it though?

M: Yeah absolutely

O: Because most of Americas just hearing it for the first time, you doing it

M: Yeah

O: I understand you wrote a letter to the director, Alan, and you, a 4 page letter

M: Yes

O: Telling him this is a role you were born to play. What else did you say in that letter?

M: I said, umm... look I don't know if you'r heart is set on any actress, but in case you have not made your decision. I would like to uh, put a, I would like to get down on my knees and beg for the part, basically [Laughing]

M: No I just ,i-i don't really know, I mean, I was possesed while I was writting that letter. My hands-My hands were moving across the page and-and someone else was pushing it. And I basically said I would commit myself 100% to the part and that I would sing and dance and act my heart out, and I would do everything I could to bring her to life and make him proud and that absolutly no one could do the part as good as I did and umm... that's it.

O: And you know now, don't you think now when you see that film that I heard other people were considered for the part

M: yeah

O: I heard Merly Streep and Michelle Phiffer, we can't imagine anybody else playing Evita but you [applause]

O: Next we're gonna hear about the day Madonna thought she harmed her unborn baby 'cause she discovered while filming Evita that she was pregnant, but first check out Madonna beautiful new single You Must Love Me, from Evita.

O: She wrote In he diary about filming the incredible tango scene that we're about to show you. This is when you were afraid that something had happened, you had discovered that you were pregnant, of course. Tell us you knew for a long time, longer than you let us know.

M: I'll never tell [Laughing]

M: I had a, well, I had a suspicion but I was just, lets say I was in denial

O: Because it wasn't a convienent time to be pregnant.

M: Thats right

O: But you wanted to be pregnant?

M: Absolutely

O: Uh-Huh, then you get pregnant at the same time that you had this movie that you wanted to do for 7 years.

M: Right

O: And did you think not now God could you wait until the next 9 months.

M: At first I was a little bit shocked but then I thought, you know what, this is perfect because I'm getting - I'm getting two things that I wanted more tham anything at the same time. So it was meant to be and it's o.k.

O: Well the diary of umm...April 6 I think it was you said " I was winded after every take I had to lie on the couch every ten minutes so I could recover from dizzy spells, I was worried that I was shaking the baby around too much and that would injur it in some way. The second day I started getting a cramping feelings and I got worried so a comforting Indian doctor came to the set to examine me. When I could hear my babies heart beat I was instantly reassured.

M: Yup

O: Really

M: Thats when I was doing the scene in, when I'm, when I first come to Buenos Aires and Jimmy Nail brings me to umm... you know the club and I dance with all the guys.

O: Yeah, you still had brown hair

M: Yeah, when I still have brown hair [laughing]

M: umm...yeah that was then

O: Yeah, lets take a look at that scene and the tango. [show tango scene]

O: O.k. diary April 17th "Well the world knows" yup thats when it had all been announced "The worl knows and I fell like my insides had been ripped open. Some people had suggested that I done this" gotten pregnant "for shock value, these comments only a man would make. Because it's much to difficult to be pregnant and bring a child into this world to do it for provacative reasons" now I couldn't believe any one said that either.

O: I thought a lot of people stood up and applauded for you, you couldn't hear us all when you said what you said about the tabloid uh.. television shows umm.. being outside your house and the Hard Copy and that. 'Cause wasn't that the most invasion

M: That made me sick, I have to say. Yeah I mean I accept it when I walk outside, when I go outside my gate, when I go into the world, you know go shopping, go to premires, what-ever. I don't like it but I accept it. Umm... but when I'm in my house and being filmed when I'm standing at the door to get the newspaper and I'm being filmed, I feel umm.. incredibley violated because I feel like there has to be one place in the world where, I have my privacy.

O: Now when I read that, I don't know if it's true, I read that the person, the photographer had used the next door neighbors house, I thought...

M: It wasn't next door it was three doors down that you know

O: because I thought wouldn't you be ticked off at your next door neighbor?

M: I am [laughing]

M: Well, he lives up in a hill and they think he rented out his guest house and there was one tiny corner of a window where you could see right on to- my property and one of the windows and uh..and thats where they filmed. It's very far away but somehow they managed.

O: Get one of those zoom lenses

M: Yeah

O: You relied on you sister when your having the baby? Gave you all the baby books? M: Yeah, yes I worship my sister, she's the most perfect mother she really is, she taught me a lot.

O: and what was, and what has she taught you?

M: Patcience, I'm learning it as I go anyways, but I mean she's just so great with her son and he's incredible and umm... patience and surrender thats, Yeah

O: Madonna writes a lot about her dreams during the filming of Evita and the girl can dream, my God you can dream!

M: Yeah

O: O.k. the Sharon Stone dream, what was that about?

M: Umm...

O: She dreams about Sharon Stone

M: And Courtney Love, it was a dream together

O: So what was the dream? Sharon Stone invited you over and Courtney was there?

M: And Sharon Stone invited me over to her house and umm....

O: This is a dream now so lets tabloids get it straight

M: Yes, oh God

O: So you don't have it repeated and repeated, yeah

M: She invited me over to her house and I went to visit her and she was dressed very glamourously laying in a bath tub completly made up and I said wow [laughing] M: Wow, umm.... [M laughs] and umm...and then I thought she was trying to impress me but I wasn't really sure. I was confused when I went to her house why she had invited me and then the doorbell, then we heared a knock at the door and we heared Courtney Loves voice on the other side banging and saying 'open up I know you two are in there you better' and then I opened up and umm...and she had a gun and uhh... [laughing]

O: Courtney did?

M: Yeah, but the door was shut and she said 'You two better open up or I'm gonna shot you both' and then when I opened the door she laughed and said she was just kidding. [laughing]

O: Then you had a dream about your teeth falling out

M: Yes I have a lot of dreams

O: About your teeth falling out?

M: I do dream about that a lot I'm not sure what that means

O: It means something

M: It does, umm...I have a good dentist so [laughing]

M: I know its not that. I think it has something to do with, umm....teeth falling out, with death perhaps

O: Its not good whatever it is

M: No

O: Its not good

M: No

O: Madonna's character in Evita, Eva Peron dies of cancer and whil filming those scenes Madonna thought how her own mother must have felt when she was told that she was dying. We must say, those of us who have seen the film and the rest of you who i'm sure are goning to be goingout to see the film, and let me just say this, audience we need to tell America that oridarily its not the kind of film you would want to go see because you'll say it's all singing. But it is brillantly done, brillantly done [applause] ...Thats why you should see it, its just because, I felt the same way I said, its two hours and their singing? [laughing] ...But when I said this to Madonna during a commercial break, i'll say this to you all when I saw her performance and Jonathan Price and Antonio Banderas but particularly your performance I said when you see somebody who can do something with that kind of excellence, it makes you want to do better. You look at it and you say, I'm gonna be better in my life. You know what I'm saying? I think thats what art is inspirational.

M: Absolutely

O: And that is what you did in this film, if you never do another film [applause]

M: Thank you

O: It's true. If you never do another thing [applause] ...And umm... the scene that will take you out is the scene where Eva Peron is in the bed dying and is told by umm... Jonathan Price told by her husband that she is dying and you say "Yesterday was a real cry fest, I spent the entire day horizontal in a hospital bed being told that I have cancer. I kept thinking about how my mother must have felt when my father, when he told her she was dying and how she stayed so cheerful and never gave into her sadness even in the end, this brought on floods of tears the entire day." So is that what your thinking about during that scene?

M: Yeah, yeah absolutely, and not just her but also how I would feel if someone came to me and said those very same words.

O: Was it in a dream also that you had while you were pregnant where you were at the foot of your mother and you were asking her

M: To tell me what my fate was and she died before she answered me.

O: And mothers days always hard for you

M: Very depresing, yeah

O: What happened thought this mothers day?

M: Oh, [laughs] well umm... my baby kicked me for the first time [awwww, applause]

O: But you know its a kick, you know its not indigestion or....

M: No no no it was a kick

O: you know its a kick?

M: no it was a kick, it was like a line backer kick, you know what I mean?

O: So you were feeling sad, you were depressed thinking about your own mother

M: I was, yes I was feeling melancholy, and I we were shooting a scene and in the middle of the scene I was kicked and I had to try my hardest to not register it but I was over joyed because when you feel a baby kicking inside you its the first time that you really know somethings growing in you. So it was a great moment

O: That's a gift

M: My mothers day present

O: It was a gift

M: My first mothers day present [applause]

O: Whats was umm... what was the hardest part about being pregnant? but did you have a lot of morning sickness?

M: No, not really a couple times

O: So you know there was all this speculation when Antonio Banderas and you were gonna be in the same film and I'm sure, o.k. Everyone talked about that.

M: Yup

O: Did you still have a little-teeny-tiny crush on him?

M: Little-teeny-tiny?

O: Yeah

M: Umm... Well the thing is that, is that when I was talking about him in Truth or Dare I hadn't meet him yet. Then I meet him and then I had this big crush on him.

O: When you mentioned him in Truth or Dare nobody knew who he was, really

M: Hello?

O: Yeah [laughing] ...Thank you

M: Yes, well and then I got, and then umm... what happened is the- about four years ago I was gonna do Evita. This is the second incarnation of-of Evita, umm... and I was hired and he was hired to play Che. And uh... we got to know each other there and we had dinner, we had rehearsal, we talked about the movie. And I sort of became his friend, I mean he was married and I got to know his wife, I respected the fact that he was married and umm... so when we got to working on the movie again finally it was so far beyond that. I still think he's handsome and talented and all of those things but umm... I don't have a crush on him anymore.

O: You didn't have a crush on him during the film at all

M: No

O: And so when your doing

M: Well I mean you know I mean, I think its good to, I had a crush on Jonathan Price too I mean he, I think you really have to like your co-star it helps. You don't have to, o.k. but it helps. And I was really found of Jimmy Nail, Jonathan Price and Antonio.

O: Oh, in Vanity Fair I think you used a quote you said "Everybody knows its ridiculous because I wouldn't date a man that wears cowboy boots"

M: This is true [laughing]

O: Did he wear cowboy boots a lot?

M: Did he? uh-huh

O: A lot. One of the things that struck me umm.. that I read what you said that if you had known that you were gonna be so universally misunderstood you might have done some things diffrently, I'm you know paraphrazing the quote. But what do you think has been the most misunderstood?

M: I think-I think probably the biggest misunderstanding people have of me is what people have of most celebrities and that is that we aren't human beings and that it's o.k. to say the things that people say because we won't feel them because we don't have feelings, you know. I think that sort of covers everything because if people did think of me as a human being and did think of me as a person who had feelings, I don't think people would say or assume a lot of the things that they do. umm...