60 Minutes - 02/16/2025: 28 Days, Policing the Internet, Timothée Chalamet

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Correspondent Scott Pelley reports from Washington, D.C., on whether President Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) without Congress’ approval is legal. In the United States, most of what anyone says, sends or streams online, even if it’s hate-filled or toxic, is protected by the First Amendment as free speech. But as correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports, Germany is trying to bring order to the unruly World Wide Web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine. When Timothée Chalamet was offered the chance to play Bob Dylan in a film based on the legendary musician, a lot of people told him not to take it. Chalamet didn’t know much about playing the guitar or harmonica, or about Dylan himself. 60 MINUTES spends a couple of days with the 29-year-old actor to find out how he prepared for over five years to play one of the most enigmatic and revered musicians of our time for his film “A Complete Unknown,” which earned him his second Oscar nomination for best actor. Correspondent Anderson Cooper visits Chalamet’s childhood home and Dylan’s old haunts in New York City and discovers some of the parallels between the two artists. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. It's too soon to tell how serious President Trump is in defiance of the Constitution, but in just 28 days, he's reinterpreted the 14th Amendment and closed agencies that Congress mandated by law. The president says he has the authority to shut down an independent agency like USAID. He most definitely does not. While America is relaxing policies around social media and the Internet, Germany is cracking down. We were with the German police as they conducted early morning raids on citizens

who'd been accused of hate speech, threats and inciting violence online. In the United States, a lot of people look at this and say, this is restricting free speech. It's a threat to democracy. Free speech needs boundaries. Once upon a time, you're just so fine. Do the bumps a dime in your prime. Timothy Chalamet prerecorded

all the Dylan songs he'd sing in the movie. They were supposed to be played back on set during filming. It always sounded too clean. The recording equipment's too clean now. The guitars are too good. Bob Dylan was drinking two bottles of red wine a day, sometimes smoking 30 packs of cigarettes. Did you drink two bottles of wine and smoke 30 packs of cigarettes?

The smoking I did, the wine I held back on more. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. It's too soon to tell how serious President Trump is in defiance of the Constitution. In his first 28 days, he signed an order to nullify birthright citizenship for some, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, and he has closed agencies and frozen spending that Congress mandated by law. Lower courts are holding up many of the president's priorities, but nothing has

risen to the Supreme Court where these battles over presidential power could rewrite history. Presidents often push limits, FDR's New Deal, for example, and voters in this last election wanted change. But the scope and speed of Trump's reach for power may be unprecedented. One example is a 63-year-old agency created by Congress, codified in law, and eviscerated by Trump in a matter of days. People are really scared. I think that, you know, 12 days ago, people knew where their next paycheck was coming from.

They knew how they were going to pay for their kids' daycare, their medical bills, and then all gone overnight. All gone overnight for Christina Dry and Adam Dubard, fired this month in the chaotic shutdown of foreign aid distributed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. More than 8,000 USAID employees were sent home by the administration. They're not looking for competency. They're not looking for if you're good at your job. They're looking for pure loyalty tests. And if you don't give it, you will be punished. And they had to leave the building. And these are folks who had decades and decades

of public service serving USAID across administrations, from, you know, George Bush to Obama to the first Trump administration. And they were never able to walk back in the building again. There was no process? No one explained to them why they were being relieved? To my knowledge they received an email and then if they didn't leave the building they were escorted out of the building. USAID was dismantled on Trump's order even though it was mandated by Congress and its funding was required by law. The president says he has the authority to shut down an independent agency like

USAID. He most definitely does not. Andrew Natsios is a former member of the Republican National Committee. He's a professor of government at Texas A&M University, and in the Bush White House, he was administrator of USAID. He cannot rescind federal law by executive order, and AID is a statutory agency. The Foreign Assistance Act, I believe, is 300 or 400 pages long. You can't rescind that without an act of the Congress, and the Congress has not acted. Acting on his own, the president started by destroying USAID's image.

In online posts, the administration smeared USAID as, quote, a criminal organization and called employees worms. USAID, it's a disaster what the people, radical left lunatics. About USAID, President Trump has said, quote, billions of dollars have been stolen. The whole thing is a fraud. It's utter nonsense.

The most accountable aid agency in the world is USAID. I've written actually widely on this subject. 40% of the staff are accountants and lawyers and people trying to make sure no money is stolen. We've created systems to monitor that. What they did was they went back 20 years to try to find things. If you have to go back 20 years to find abuse, that means there isn't that much abuse. USAID's spending in 2023 was $38 billion.

That's less than 1% of the federal budget. Natsios told us there is waste and occasional fraud like any big agency. Think of the Pentagon. But the money, he says, is watched by officials including those in the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. The question is, why did the Congress approve all these contracts and grants and programs all these years? Why did OMB approve them? Why did the State Department, F Office, the F Office controls all foreign aid spending.

Every line item in the USAID budget is approved by three different bodies. them. Why did the State Department, F office, the F office controls all foreign aid spending. Every line item in the USAID budget is approved by three different bodies, the F office, OMB, and the Congressional Oversight Committees, of which there are four, four. No one caught all these horrible abuses. That's just not believable. Instead of asking Congress to change the law, Trump handed the budget axe to billionaire Elon Musk. Musk is racing through the government, cutting jobs and budgets with his own newly created organization he calls DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency. The people voted for major government reform. There should be no doubt about that. Doge was authorized by Trump and beginning in January, Doge

engineers rapidly gained wide access to the computer networks of the US Treasury. A longtime Treasury official who tried to stop them was put on leave. Now, Doge has accessed at least 19 other agencies. You're principally reporting on what's happened to USAID. It's a dress rehearsal. Chris Coons is a Democratic senator from Delaware, a member of the Committees on Appropriations and Foreign Relations. Next up is the Department of Education. They're going to take it down next.

They're already talking about getting into and going after the Department of Labor, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration. Why? Do you believe you have a sense of what DOGE is doing? No. I think DOGE is an unelected, unofficial, small group of young tech bros who are charging into different federal agencies, getting into their core computer systems, doing things with them that at least I don't know the full details of, copying and downloading reams of data. What does it matter that Doge has access to U.S. government computer systems? What matters is that the U.S. government has information about you, about me, our Social Security information, our Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefit payments, things that matter to us.

Obviously, our tax filings. And if they have access to it and control it, they can change it. Doge demanded and received total control of USAID's unclassified computer network, including all financial and personnel files. One USAID employee told us that a Doge engineer used the computer to give himself access to classified spaces in the building. That USAID employee told us they didn't know if the Doge engineer entered those spaces, but the employee said that is the problem with all of this. We don't know what's been compromised.

What are they going to do with the information? We don't know who these people are. We don't know what controls have been placed on the information. Randy Chester has worked for USAID 21 years under four presidents, two Democrats, two Republicans. He represents the agency workforce for the American Foreign Service Association. Doge arrived at USAID January 27th, and that same day, USAID's top 58 managers were given 45 minutes to get out. The 58 senior managers? Mm-hmm.

How would you describe them? They're the best professionals I've had the privilege to work with or work under. Their integrity is without question. I think to a person, they believe in the mission of USAID, and they believe in the ideals of public service. USAID's signage was hastily covered in what employees saw as a gleeful put-down. But this past week, there was a partial reprieve. A judge temporarily restored funds to USAID's partners working overseas. Already, at least 67 lawsuits have been filed against the new administration. In the Oval Office with Musk, Trump said, quote,

I always abide by the courts. But he also said this. We want to weed out the corruption, and it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don't want you to do that. Well, so maybe we have to look at the judges, because that's a very serious, I think it's a very serious violation. We've seen flashpoints in these fights before.

We've never seen this fight unfold across such a broad front and at such a basic level, where a president is claiming so much of Congress's constitutional powers. Steven Vladeck is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center. Fraud doesn't negate statutes that Congress has enacted. Fraud just provides an excuse for revisiting them. And so the problem is that you see these claims of fraud by President Trump, by Elon Musk, that really feel like they're fig leaves. If it's a fig leaf, what are they covering up?

I think what we're really seeing is a consolidation of power. And so fraud provides a plausible sounding reason for running over what had been historical constraints, whether they were statutes or norms, limiting the president's ability to centralize power. The endgame here seems to be controlling every single apparatus of the federal government directly out of the White House. And that's just never been how we've understood executive power. In your view, what would the founders think of where we are today? I mean, the founders were a they, not an it. Even James Madison changed his mind about 17 times between when he wrote the Constitution

and when he was president. So I think it's hard to generalize. I do think the founders would be very worried about just how much the tension that I think they thought they were creating among the branches has broken down. I mean, the idea is that we want a zealous executive. We want a zealous Congress. We want a zealous courts because if they push each other, that's how we'll find the limits. That's how we'll ensure that there's healthy checks and balances. But I think we can no longer dispute that Congress, which is supposed to be providing rigorous oversight of the executive branch, which is

supposed to be reining in abuses by the executive branch, by the courts too, has largely stopped doing any of that. Neither Elon Musk nor Doge responded to our request for an interview. It was Musk who called USAID employees worms. In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the woodchipper. The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families. Musk spent nearly $250 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected. He collects billions in taxpayer dollars for his SpaceX rockets. I think we're creating a system that violates the separation of powers and the checks and balances that are intended in the Constitution.

Republican Andrew Nazios, former head of USAID, spoke to us in Washington in part because he is not hearing public appeals to reason from fellow Republicans. I am not a moderate Republican. I am a conservative Republican and a strict constructionist. The reason they're not saying anything, I think they're afraid. Musk has said that he would spend $100 million in primaries on anybody who opposed the president on anything. So I think there's a lot of fear in the city right now. How do you view this moment in history? I don't want to be too pessimistic,

but it does appear we may be headed towards some sort of a constitutional crisis. I hope that doesn't happen. I pray it doesn't happen, but it's certainly concerning to me what's going on in the city right now. Is the constitutional order breaking down? We'll see if they refuse to enforce a court order by the Supreme Court. If it gets to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules against the administration on something and they refuse to enforce a court order by the Supreme Court. If it gets to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules against the administration on something and they refuse to enforce it, then we will have a constitutional crisis.

What happens then? I don't know. No one knows. No one knows. Sometimes historic events suck. But what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping, history-telling podcast, chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade.

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But Germany is trying to bring some civility to the World Wide Web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine. In an effort, it says, to protect discourse, German authorities have started prosecuting online trolls. And as we saw, it often begins with a pre-dawn wake-up call from the police. It's 6.01 on a Tuesday morning, and we were with state police as they raided this apartment in northwest Germany. Inside, six armed officers searched a suspect's home, then seized his laptop and cell phone. Prosecutors say those electronics may have been used to commit a crime.

The crime? Posting a racist cartoon online. At the exact same time across Germany, more than 50 similar raids played out. Part of what prosecutors say is a coordinated effort to curb online hate speech in Germany. What's the typical reaction when the police show up at somebody's door and they say, hey, we believe you wrote this on the Internet? They say, in Germany we say,

Das wird man wohl doch mal sagen dürfen. So we are here with crimes of talking, posting on the Internet, and the people are surprised that this is really illegal to post these kind of words. They don't think it was illegal? No, they don't think it was illegal. And they say, no, that's my free speech. And we say, no, you have free speech as well but it is also has its limits interpreting those limits is part of the job for dr. Mateus Fink Svenja mining house and Frank Mihail Lau a

few of the state prosecutors tasked with policing Germany's robust hate speech laws online after its darkest chapter Germany strengthened its speech laws. As prosecutors explain it, the German constitution protects free speech, but not hate speech. And here's where it gets tricky. German law prohibits any speech that could incite hatred or is deemed insulting. It's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, or deny the Holocaust. That's clear.

Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes. Yes, it is. And it's a crime to insult them online as well? Yes. The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet. Why?

Because in internet, it stays there. If we are talking face to face, you insult me, I insult you, OK, finish. But if you're in the internet, if I insult you or a politician. That sticks around forever. Yeah. The prosecutors explain German law also prohibits the spread of malicious gossip, violent

threats, and fake quotes. If somebody posts something that's not true, and then somebody else reposts it or likes it, are they committing a crime? In the case of reposting, it is a crime as well, because the reader can't distinguish whether you just invented this or just reposted it. That's the same for us. The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail time for repeat offenders. But in most cases, a judge levies a stiff fine and sometimes keeps their devices.

How do people react when you take their phones from them? They are shocked. It's a kind of punishment if you lose your smartphone. It's even worse than the fine you have to pay. Because your whole life is typically on your phone now. The application of Germany's decades-old speech laws to the online world was accelerated after an assassination, fueled by the Internet, sent shockwaves through the country. In 2015, a video of a local politician named Walter Lubka went viral after he defended then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's progressive immigration policy. People with a very right political worldview, they started hating him on the Internet.

They started insulting him. They started to incite people to kill him. And that went on for about four years. Online? Yes, until in 2019, so four years after he gave that speech, he was shot in his head and instantly dead. So that was one of the cases where we see that online hate can sometimes find a way into real life and then hurt people. After a man with links to neo-Nazis was arrested, find a way into real life and then hurt people.

After a man with links to neo-Nazis was arrested, Germany ramped up the creation of its online hate task forces. There are 16 units across the country, each with a team of investigators. Frank-Mihail Lau, a career criminal prosecutor, leads the Lower Saxon unit. How many cases are you working on at any time? In our unit, we have about 3,500 cases per year. Nine investigators work out of this office in a converted courthouse. Lau says they get hundreds of tips a month from police, watchdog groups and victims. You must see a lot of crazy stuff.

Yes. The worst of the internet is wrapped in red case folders, stuffed with printouts of online slurs, threats and hate. This is a criminal offense. What does that say? Kletterpark for Flüchtlinge. So they're suggesting that the refugee children play on the electrical wires.

OK. This case, the accused had to pay 3,750 euros. Wow. It's not a parking ticket. Yeah, not a parking ticket. To build their cases, investigators scour social media and use public and government data. Lau says sometimes social media companies will provide information to prosecutors, but not always. So the task force employs special software investigators to help unmask anonymous users. So this is suggesting you kill people

seeking asylum here. Lau says his unit has successfully prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years. But it was a 2021 case involving a local politician named Andy Grote that captured the country's attention. Grote complained about a tweet that called him a pimmel, a German word for the male anatomy. That triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government. As prosecutors explained to us in Germany, it's okay to debate politics online, but it can be a crime to call anyone a pimmel, even a politician. So it sounds like you're saying it's okay to criticize a politician's policy, but not to say, I think you're a jerk and an idiot.

Exactly. Commands like you're a son of a bitch, excuse me. But these words have nothing to do with political discussions or a contribution to a discussion. Civility is more than a commandment. For Germans, rules are gospel. Even on a quiet street, the crosswalk signal is adhered to with the devotion of a monk. But some here worry by policing the internet, Germany is backsliding.

The criticism that, you know, this feels like the surveillance that Germany conducted 80 years ago. How do you respond to that? There is no surveillance. Josephine Ballone is a CEO of HateAid, a Berlin-based human rights organization that supports victims of online violence. In the United States, a lot of people look at this and say, this is restricting free speech. It's a threat to democracy. Free speech needs boundaries. And in the case of Germany, these boundaries are part of our constitution. Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say

anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated. In your fears that if people are freely attacked online that they'll withdraw from the discussion. This is not only a fear, it's already taking place. Already half of the internet users in Germany are afraid to express their political opinion, and they rarely participate in public debates online anymore. Half of the internet users. We know hate speech is happening. Renate Kunast is a prominent German politician.

In 2015, this meme of the Green Party member appeared on Facebook, falsely implying that she said every German should learn Turkish. You never said that. I never said that. And this harms my reputation because people think she's a bit crazy. How can she say that? Kunast, a 40-year politician, says she began receiving threats and hate-filled comments from anonymous users online. You've spent your life in politics.

What was different about what took place online? The first point was it was much more personal. You are looking so ugly. You are an old woman. We know where you live. Or even, you should be raped by a group of men, so that you see what all these immigrants are doing. So this was not elevated conversation. This was very personal and very hateful. It was very personal.

Kunast asked Mehta to delete all the false quotes attributed to her worldwide. And they were astonished. What? We cannot do it. They said, just by software, the software is not able to deal with all this. And we have to get a lot of new employees. And I said, yes, it's my personal right. It's my reputation. Kunast sued Facebook and won. Last year, in a landmark case, a German court ruled Meta had to remove all the fake quotes attributed to her.

Meta is appealing. This court said, in case of public servants which have public offices and jobs, it's public interest that their personal rights are protected because otherwise no one would go for these jobs. It's public interest that their personal rights are protected, because otherwise no one would go for these jobs. You know, that would harm democracy. After all this, are you seeing less hateful comments now on your social media feeds? Yes, there are less hateful comments. And there was one tweet which says, don't say that to her, she will take you to court.

You might sue them. I might sue them. Last year, the European Union implemented a new law that requires social media companies to stop the spread of harmful content online in Europe or face millions of dollars in fines. But Josephine Ballon of HateAid says some social media companies are still not complying with the new law. JOSEPHINE BALLON, HateAid Content Moderator, I would love social media companies to be a safer place than they are right now. But what we see is that their content moderation is not comprehensive. Sometimes it seems to be working well in some areas,

but in many areas it's just not. The European Commission is currently investigating whether Elon Musk's social media company, X, has breached the EU digital content law. Musk, who has been criticized for using X to promote Germany's far-right party ahead of next week's elections, accused the EU of censorship and hating democracy. But in Lower Saxony, prosecutors argue they are protecting democracy and discourse

by introducing a touch of German order to the unruly World Wide Web. You're doing all this work, you're launching all these investigations, you're finding people, sometimes putting them in jail. Does it make a difference if it's a World Wide Web and there's a lot of hate out there? I would say yes, because what's the option? The option is to say we don't do anything? No. We are prosecutors.

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Value is for illustrative purposes only. Bob Dylan is not just a singing and songwriting legend. He's one of the most enigmatic and reclusive musicians of our time. Playing him in a movie based on his life would be a daunting task for any actor. But when Timothee Chalamet was offered the role, he was 23 and says he knew practically nothing about Dylan. A lot of people told him not to do it, but Chalamet likes a creative challenge. The film, called A Complete Unknown, came out in December and received eight Oscar nominations, including Timothee Chalamet's second Best Actor nod. He's never met Bob Dylan, but because of the pandemic,

strikes in Hollywood, and other film commitments, Chalamet ended up having about five years to study the man and his music, determined, like Bob Dylan was at his age, to make it great. I give 170% in everything. I'm doing no but there. I'm giving it my all. Something like the Dylan Project, these aren't watered-down experiences. I'm going Daniel Day-Lewis on all of them.

I'm not saying in process, but I'm saying in level of commitment. And I don't know, man, it sounds like I'm desperate saying that or something. No, it sounds like you're a professional and you want it to be the best it can possibly be. Yeah, and increasingly, I don't want to shy away from saying that. I stumble on the side of 12 misty mountains. Chalamet, who's 29 now, didn't just need to figure out how to sing like Dylan. He also learned how to play harmonica and guitar in about 40 Bob Dylan songs, far more than were originally called for in the script. It's a hard rain, I'm gonna fall.

The movie, set in the early 1960s, follows Bob Dylan's rapid rise from obscurity to stardom, something Timothee Chalamet could relate to. I was young when I left home. I've been out rambling around. Dylan was 19 when he arrived in New York from Minnesota. A complete unknown, he quickly became an icon in the world of folk music. How many roads must a man walk down he quickly became an icon in the world of folk music. Poetic and political, his songs spoke to the times and a young generation demanding change.

And the first one now will later be last for the times they are a-changin' Dylan got his start in New York at a nightclub called Café Roi in Greenwich Village. This was one of his, you know, jump points. This was like really a place where you could just go play folk music in the 60s, early 60s. And I went during the movie, during the production, and it ain't the same. What were they playing? Now it's Aerosmith covers and the ACDC,

and also worthy art. But different. Very different. When Chalamet started researching Dylan, he did what many millennials likely would. He looked him up on YouTube. He found this clip particularly insightful. Dylan performing on stage with Joan Baez with whom he'd had a romantic relationship.

What I love about the It Ain't Me performance is how playful it is and what a laugh he's having. He was the one, at least in the footnotes of history, that wasn't particularly, let's say, faithful with Joan. So I get it from his perspective that he's having such a laugh. On YouTube now you can play things at.5 speed or.75 speed, and that was when I really slowed down, because it's fascinating the way Bob observes her and how he refuses eye contact in that video. This is Chalamet's version with Monica Barbaro playing Joan Baez.

It ain't me, baby. No, no, no. It ain't me, babe. It ain't me you're looking for, baby. You weren't trying to imitate Bob Dylan. No, totally. That was the tension for me in doing a biopic on somebody so beloved and so well known was, alright, where does my heart and where does my soul fit into this? Can it fit into this? Particularly with someone who is so masked. I put myself in another place, but I'm a stranger there. To connect with what might be behind Dylan's mask, Chalamet disconnected from his own life for the two and a half months of filming.

Wouldn't use his cell phone or have visitors on set. I never approached a character so intensely as Bob because I had such respect for the material and I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I remember that I was lazy on a day where something went wrong. Now you don't talk so loud. Chalamet prerecorded all the Dylan songs he'd sing in the movie. They were supposed to be played back on set during filming. It always sounded too clean.

The recording equipment's too clean now. The guitars are too good. Bob Dylan was drinking two bottles of red wine a day, sometimes smoking 30 packs of cigarettes. Did you drink two bottles of wine and smoke 30 packs of that and like it? The smoking I did, the wine I held back on more. So Chalamet decided he wanted to try and sing and play live instead.

This scene was the first time he did it. Dylan's just arrived in New York and visits his terminally ill hero, folk music legend Woody Guthrie, played by Scoot McNary. Edward Norton is Pete Seeger. On his first take, director James Mangold knew Chalamet nailed it. Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song. There's a moment in that scene, right at the last stanza, where he holds a note.

Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men. It comes. That would never have happened if we'd used the playback track. Was that in the song originally? Because I mean, there was. No. The dust and are gun with the wind... He just did it.

What I see Timmy executing in the scene is the growth of confidence within the song. So by the end of the song, not only is he finishing it, looking right at Woody, but he's also holding it, which is like what a grand diva would do in the spotlight. You can't tell someone to do that. I'm not even sure Timmy completely plans it intellectually. That is that kind of talent.

Did you know you were gonna do that? Was that a planned thing? No, and it would be disingenuous to my, you know, the way I like to act or my approach to stuff. You don't have any clue why you did it? No, it just happened, yeah, truly. That may be true or it may not. Like Dylan, Chalamet is reluctant to talk about how he does what he does.

If there's magic in acting, Timothee Chalamet doesn't want to give it all away. What's the concern about revealing the magic? It's nobody's business how I go about these things. It's within the law. It's within the law. Yeah, and otherwise it might not be as interesting as people think, or it could be a lot more interesting than people think.

It might be more interesting than what I'm doing. She's our friend. I'm her friend. What Chalamet's done in nearly two dozen films has been plenty interesting. In the Dune series, he transformed himself from the privileged son of a duke into a menacing messiah. I am Paul Bois-Divre Atreides, Duke of Arrakis! It's no use, Joe. Joe, we've got to have it out. No, hey.

I've loved you ever since I've known you, Joe. He's played Laurie in Little Women and a lovestruck teenager in Call Me By Your Name. Ah, where'd you learn to do that? I got nothing to offer but my chocolate. He took a risk reinventing Willy Wonka. This is your home A world of your own reinventing Willy Wonka. This is your home.

A world of your own. And his shape shifted between an adult drug addict and a reluctant King Henry V. So you basically grew up in the theater district. Yes, this is... As a child, Chalamet didn't dream of becoming an actor, though he was surrounded by them. He lived in this rent-subsidized apartment complex in Manhattan full of artists.

Oh, Izzy. How you doing, man? What are you doing here? What's going on, man? Oh, man. Doing a little interview, baby. Good to see you. Growing up in this building certainly seems to have made an impression. This building truthfully made me scared of acting because it's a tough lifestyle,

and a lot of people you know aren't doing fantastically. You would think growing up here, like, it would encourage you to be an actor, but actually... No, it actually terrified me, becoming an actor. His mom, Nicole Flender, was a dancer and works with the Actors' Equity Association. His sister, Pauline Chalamet, is an actress, and Timmy, as his friends and family call him, booked occasional acting jobs as a child, though he told us he really wanted to be a professional soccer player. This is him on Law & Order when he was 12.

Could you please not tell Mom and Dad about us playing Xbox? But his father, Marc Chalamet, a French journalist, wasn't exactly pushing him to act. My dad, I think he very, very, very correctly, rightfully was wary growing up. It's no place for a child. It really isn't. You know, cameras and people going, hey, do the thing where we recognize you as cute in your own head. I think my dad was more just like, be normal. These days, that's easier said than done. I appreciate it, man.

When we went to get a slice of pizza, he told us a turning point in his life was getting into LaGuardia High School, a famously competitive public school for the performing arts. It's a school that champions the arts. So there I doubled down. I was not a distracted kid as a teenager, like maybe to a fault. You know, I wasn't like partying or I don't say that to come off straight-laced, like to a fault. I was like very focused and driven. He was cast as the lead in school musicals.

I'm the bravest individual I have ever met. And developed routines for LaGuardia's talent show as a rapper named Lil Timmy Tim. Timmy Tim, Lil Timmy Tim. This is humiliating, but I'll show you guys. He took us to the practice room in his building's basement where he'd rehearse. How old were you there? Here I'm 15, but I look like I'm 7. These are two good friends of mine, Sheree and Desiree.

They're the only people in the world that did this talent show act with me. I probably asked 35 people. He did go to college, Columbia University for a year, and then some classes at New York University. But he dropped out, wanting to focus on acting full time. Listen, man, I was struggling. I was struggling. I was struggling with identity, and I was struggling with your sense of self-respect,

your sense of drive or where you want to be pales in comparison to where you are. Call Me By Your Name changed everything. He was 21 when it came out, around the same age Bob Dylan was when his career started to take off. Chalamet became the youngest person nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor

in nearly 80 years. We thought he'd relate to something Bob Dylan said about the meaning of destiny to Ed Bradley in a rare interview on 60 Minutes more than 20 years ago. It's a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your mind of what you're about will come true. That's kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self because it's a fragile feeling and you put it out there and somebody will kill it. So it's best to keep that all inside. Man, wow. You watch this interview a lot?

Yeah, probably a thousand times, yeah. I always loved what he said about self-destiny being fragile. You believe that too, that if... I believe that especially early on in life, in your career, when you're in your early 20s or late teens. And if you can find a way to keep it quiet, but also have a lot of confidence, it's the best path, you know? It's interesting to me that you still haven't met Bob Dylan.

Nope, no. Is that weird to you? I mean, it's not, you know? He doesn interesting to me that you still haven't met Bob Dylan. No. No. Is that weird to you? I mean, it's not, you know? He doesn't seem like he wants to be bothered by, not me, but by everyone the last 60, 70 years. What would you say to him? I would say thank you. I would just say thank you.

You know what? That's. I'm going to take that back. I wouldn't, you know? Honestly, I would honestly just be like, I would play it super cool, you know? Because I feel like he's probably used to so much hyperbole and praise. Maybe I would try to out... Out cool him?

Out bob him. Not cool, but out bob him. Out bob him. Yeah. Just like, strangely not bring anything up around him. Not even mention that you did the movie. Yeah. Maybe just talk about like...

The weather. The weather and you know, what his favorite sandwich is or something like that. Yeah. When I watch Timothy. Timothy Chalamet's high school drama teacher at 60minutesovertime.com. Now, the last minute of 60 Minutes. Last September, we went inside the National Archives with Colleen Shogan, the chief archivist of the United States.

She was fired by President Trump on February 7th. No cause was given for her dismissal. responsible for protecting America's heritage, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and 13 and a half billion other documents, including eventually those of the current Commander-in-Chief. All those records ultimately belong to the American people. We asked Shogun last year what made the independent federal agencies work so important.

In a democracy, we rely upon transparency. We rely upon accountability of our officials. And records are one way that we hold our elected officials and hold our government accountable. I'm Nora O'Donnell. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.