When Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh fall for each other, it rarely ends well. Dynasties crumple. Lives smash. Murder can follow. Or suicide. Sometimes both.

But these actors, who have performed opposite each other for more than 20 years, seemed in rude health at a recent weekday brunch in New York. On a break from rehearsals for The Present, an adaptation of an early Anton Chekhov play now in previews at the Barrymore Theatre, they nestled in a corner booth at the Russian Samovar and listened to a waiter describe infused vodkas.