60 Minutes - 02/25/2018: War Crime, JR, Jennifer Lawrence

Episode Date: February 26, 2018

What a chemical attack in Syria looks like; then, larger than life displays by Frenchphotographer JR; and, Jennifer Lawrence's surprising trip to the top of Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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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Over seven years of civil war, the Syrian government has repeatedly bombed its own civilians, as we saw this past week outside Damascus. Incredibly, it has also continued to use chemical weapons on civilians, not just a few times, but nearly 200 times. And tonight in our story, you will see the awful proof. We have the big crater. Siren was released. Around 100 people were killed. More than 200 people were affected, mainly children and women. Who's using the siren? Only the Syrian government.

That word dignity to you is important. You know, the people made me realize it's important in every single place. Dignity is something that all of us want. All of us. No matter what. No matter the background. That's the leader girl. Why? Because the issues people are facing are life and death. Of course. Dignity goes through the way we're being seen by the others, the way we portray ourselves. I think some people hearing that are going to say, look, you're telling me

that people, you know, who don't know where their next meal is coming from or struggling to survive, care about art? You know what? Yes. How did you get from Kentucky to the top of Hollywood? Desperation. At just 27, Jennifer Lawrence has already been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one. You are not a stand-up guy right now. She has starred in a range of movies, but in her latest, she does something she had always avoided, nudity. It's my body, and it's my art, and it's my choice, and if you don't like boobs,

you should not go see Red Sparrow. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue

that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. This past week, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad unleashed one of his heaviest bombardments on civilians in a struggle to end the civil war that threatened his family's dynastic dictatorship. Assad has committed just about every war crime under international law. His worst atrocities involve banned chemical weapons. This is the story of one of those massacres. It is hard to watch, and it is not for small children. But it is important

to see, because chemical assaults have now become routine in Syria with nearly 200 over seven years. This past November, Syria's ally, Russia, shut down the United Nations investigation into who is responsible. But our investigation continues. We have found a number of witnesses to a nerve gas attack that happened on April 4, 2017. We'll begin with video that has not been seen until tonight. The images were shot by a Syrian civil defense volunteer. So many victims fell at once. First responders used fire hoses to wash them. There was a chance, a small one, that stripping contaminated clothes and dousing the skin might save a life. These are the people of a small

farming town called Khan Sheikhoun. They fell after a warplane dropped a bomb nearby. They're civilians. There's no military target here. But the village does lie in territory held by rebels fighting against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. What is striking is the number of children. Inhaling just a hint of the gas overwhelmed their nervous systems. All of their nerves fired at the same time. Muscles seized and paralyzed lungs left their last breath stuck

in their throats. The civil defense worker with the camera is repeating the name of the village, Khan Sheikhoun, Khan Sheikhoun, as though he feared the atrocity itself might be washed away and forgotten. Very early in the morning, between 6.30 and 7 o'clock in the morning, on the 4th of April, airplanes were flying around and over Khan Sheikhoun. Edmund Millett led the investigation of chemical attacks in Syria for the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We have these airplanes flying, these bombs launched. More than 100 people were killed, more than 200 people were affected, mainly children and women.

The emergency response was coordinated by the famed White Helmets, civil defense volunteers supervised by Mustafa Alhaj Yusuf. Some people were fainting, he told us, completely unconscious. There were cases of trembling and convulsions, foam coming out of the respiratory tract and mouth. Some people appeared to be already dead. He counted the bodies of more than 30 children. There were young children, he told us. I was treating them, but it was already over. The doctor who was with us there said, leave them, they're dead. Young children, three months, four months, five months, some two years old. The day before the attack, warplanes bombed local hospitals,

ensuring a longer trip to medical care. White Helmet volunteers loaded those still gasping onto a truck with 30 miles to go to reach one of the nearest surviving hospitals where Dr. Abdulhai Tanari was working. There were patients who had lost consciousness, he told us. Patients suffering from shortness of breath. People were doing CPR. There were many children, women, the elderly, every age. From the very first minute, we were positive that the gas that was used was sarin.

Sarin nerve gas was invented in a Nazi program. In 1997, sarin and other chemical weapons were banned by international law. Tell me about some of the patients from that day that are still in your mind. The case that affected me the most was one where there were two girls who were five and six years old, Dr. Tanari said. They seemed to be sisters. They were brought to the hospital, and I started doing CPR right away, but it was clear that the two girls had died hours ago.

Dr. Mamoun Murad told us, a boy arrived gasping for breath with foam coming out of his mouth and with pinpoint pupils. We washed the boy. We washed and we washed and we washed. We gave him what treatment we could and tried to resuscitate him, but he didn't make it. Weren't you concerned about being exposed yourself? The situation is more desperate than I can describe, he said. There are no words. It was like Judgment Day, the apocalypse.

You just can't even describe the scene, can't even begin to scratch the surface of explaining what happened. We didn't have any protective equipment for gas. You're feeling the effects of this even now? Yes, my voice, he said. Do you hear my voice? The Khan Sheikhoun attack drew immediate retaliation from the Trump administration, which fired 59 cruise missiles into a Syrian air base.

But only hours later, according to doctors and witnesses, the Syrian dictatorship dropped another banned chemical weapon, a chlorine bomb. The worst of the chemical attacks came in 2013, when 1,400 civilians were killed by sarin near Damascus. In response, the U.S. and Russia pressed Syria to hand over its chemical weapons. 1,400 tons of poisons were destroyed. So the attack on Khan Sheikhoun should not have been possible. The head of the UN investigation, Edmund Millett, told us the Syrians had an explanation.

The Syrians have been claiming since the very beginning that this incident in Khan Sheikhoun was staged. It was something that was created by the opposition, by the rebels, by the terrorists, in order to blame the Syrian government. They claimed that the bomb that created the crater was an IED, an improvised explosive device that was placed on the surface of the road, of the asphalt, that morning. The IED contained sarin, and that's how it was released, but it did not come from an aerial bomb.

Evidence at Khan Sheikhoun was gathered by the White Helmets. Chemical attacks have become so common that advanced equipment and training are being provided by an international charity called Mayday Rescue. We collected samples from the body of the missile and a soil sample, Mohamed Keal told us. We also took a sample from the clothes of the affected, as well as animal samples, a cat, a pigeon. We took hair as well. And the samples were all positive for sarin.

Why was it so important to you to document what happened in the village? Our job is to be humanitarians, he said. The goal of the strike was to target civilians. It didn't target fighters on the front. We must document a chemical strike such as this one so we can show the entire world. We spoke to the UN's Edmund Millett about three hours before he lost his job. This meeting of the Syrian Council is called to order. Russia, the Syrian dictatorship's chief ally, ended Millet's investigation with a veto in the Security Council.

Those against? Russia called his investigation's results very disappointing. Who's using the sarin? Only the Syrian government. How do you know that? Well, the investigations we have conducted have proven that the sarin that has been used in Syria has come from the original stockpile that was produced and created and distilled by the Syrian government some years ago. Are these the samples here? We have been able to determine and compare what has been used in the field recently in Syria with the original stockpile, and they match completely.

Does anyone else in that theater of war possess sarin gas, to your knowledge? No, no, nobody else, because it's so difficult to produce. You need very sophisticated and big laboratories to do that. The manipulation of the sarin is extremely complicated. It's extremely volatile. One single drop here right now would be killing everybody in the studio immediately. So it's not anybody that can do that. One question not answered by the U.N. investigation was, why? Why resort to a war crime? To find out, we traveled into the province where Khan Sheikhoun is located,

Idlib province, largely controlled by an Islamic extremist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Here, we found the dictatorship had used conventional bombs against hospitals and schools, in addition to the nerve gas in the neighborhoods. So what's the point of using the world's most grotesque weapon on civilians, on children? This is a refugee camp in rebel-occupied territory inside Syria, and there are hundreds of them. They dot the landscape. Millions of Syrians have been forced from their homes. The Assad dictatorship is

essentially clearing out any part of the country that it cannot control. Bombing the hospitals kills the here and now. Bombing the schools kills the future. and dropping sarin suffocates whatever might have been left of hope. We found Abu Hassan in a refugee camp with his family, at least what remained of his family. He lost two adult sons and a grandson in the gas at Khan Sheikhoun. My son, he told us, they brought him to a hospital in Turkey and he died. His brother, who came to rescue us, well, he got dizzy, collapsed, and he died. My grandson also died. His wife, Umm Hassan, told us, my sons were young and these are their children. What was the fault of these children to live without a father?

What was their fault? How do you explain this to these children? What can we tell them, she said. This one was injured with us. I told one, your father is dead. He said, don't tell me dad is dead. Don't say that dad is dead. But what can we tell them?

How can they understand? We have a neighbor, poor woman. Her children, her grandchildren, all 12 in the house died. Not a single one lived. Not a single one live, not a single one. This is a crime against humanity using chemical weapons. If we allow this to happen in Syria, this might happen somewhere else. And if impunity prevails and people can carry out doing these things without any consequences. This might give ideas to others, and I've said this to the Russians.

This will happen in many of your own republics in the future if you don't help to put an end to this right now. But impunity does prevail. Bashar al-Assad will soon win the war. He may remain president or step down in the course of negotiations, but either way, victors never face judgment. Still, even without a war crimes trial, the evidence will remain indelible. 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. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck, available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. When a giant photograph of a child appeared looming over the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego this fall, art aficionados knew right away it was the work of an artist who calls

himself J.R. You may have never heard of J.R., but his giant photographs have appeared in some 140 countries, sometimes in fancy art galleries, but more often than not pasted illegally on sidewalks and subways, buildings, and rooftops. Plenty of famous artists like Basquiat and Keith Haring started out scrawling their work on the streets, often in the dead of night. But few have continually displayed their art in public spaces on the scale of JR. This is the photograph that popped up in September along the U.S.-Mexico border, a 64-foot-tall picture of a Mexican child named Kikito who lives just on the other side of

the fence. Built on scaffolding on Mexican soil, there was nothing U.S. Border Patrol agents could do about it. It was classic J.R., a person's picture pasted in a public place that made everyone stop and stare. J.R. has been doing this kind of thing all over the world for the past 14 years. He put the faces of Kenyans on rooftops in a Nairobi slum. In Cuba, where oversized images of Castro and Che are the norm, J.R. put up enormous pictures of everyday people. On New York's sidewalks and Istanbul buildings, in Tunisia during the Arab Spring,

an eluded police station, JR has pasted his pictures, often without permission and at risk of being arrested. We met up with JR in a suburb of Paris in front of a giant mural he'd made out of photographs of more than 700 local residents. We that's why I put them in the center. We don't know his real name, and that's just how JR wants it. In public, he never takes off his glasses or hat. There's a practical reason for it, but a little mystery also builds mystique in the world of art. What we do know is that JR is 35 years old

and was born in France, the child of Tunisian immigrants. I don't think I've ever done an interview for 60 Minutes when I didn't actually know the name of the person I'm interviewing. You're not going to tell me your name. Would it help, you know? I mean, in a lot of countries... It would help me. In countries where I got arrested...

It's important for you to be an anonymous. Yeah, because, unfortunately, when I travel in a lot of other countries where what I do, just paper and glue, is not considered as art, I get arrested, deported, put in jail. What's art in one country is a jailable offense in another. Exactly. JR has been committing jailable offenses since he was a teenager. He says he was repeatedly kicked out of high school. He would sneak out at night night with friends spray painting graffiti in hard-to-reach areas. Graffiti or tagging, what was the appeal of that?

We all have that sense of I want to exist. I want to show that I'm here, that I'm present. Graffiti was saying I am here. I am a person. Exactly. I'm here. I exist. His foray into photography began, he says, by accident. I found a camera in the subway. A tiny camera. You really just found it? Yeah, no.

And it's funny because a lot of friends tease me. Yeah, right. You started your career stealing a camera. I'm not sure the police would believe that story, but... I know, but, you know, I... Some things are true. Exactly. And at some point I realized I was not the best in graffiti.

You know, I had the balls to climb any building you want, but I would not do the craziest piece. But I was with friends who were amazing. Then I realized, wait, let me document the journey. The journey of it. Yeah. And so I went from I exist to they exist. And I realized the power of that.

Once photography got into the picture, it was about these other people exist. Exactly. They exist. They exist. Many of JR's friends in this Paris suburb, whom he began taking pictures of, felt they didn't exist in the eyes of French society. Most of those who live in this neighborhood are of African or Arab descent, first or second generation immigrants, and few wealthy Parisians ever venture here. In 2005, riots broke out in this neighborhood

after two kids died while being chased by police. The violence spread across France. JR saw how the young people in the suburb were being portrayed on television and decided to use his camera to tell a different story. You would see the riots, everyone had hoodies, and then, so any kids coming from the server would look like a monster to you. So that's when I started photographing them from really close,

and I said, I'm going to put your name, your age, your building number on the poster, and I'm going to paste it in Paris, where they see you as a monster, and actually you're going to play your own caricature. Why play your own caricature? Isn't that feeding a stereotype? It's actually,

by feeding it, it breaks it. And I wanted them to be in control of their own image. And you wanted people in Paris who maybe had never been to this neighborhood to understand what? The humanity. When you look at this face, it makes you want to smile. By playing the monster, they don't look like monster anymore. JR enlarged the pictures and printed them out, and with friends, began pasting them up illegally at night around Paris. Most were immediately taken down, but the mayor of one Parisian district gave J.R. permission to paste them on a wall outside a museum. It was J.R.'s first official public art exhibit. He was 23 years old. The people from Paris would go in front of those pictures and take a photo of themselves with them. And people were trying to find who is who and

get a photo with them where they're supposed to be the monsters that are about to invade Paris. So it kind of break the tension that there was. The idea of breaking tension through photography was a revelation to JR. In 2007, with money saved from odd jobs, he decided to head to Israel. It was after the second Intifada, and his plan was to paste photographs on the wall separating Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. So I started making a list of people

doing the same job on each side, hairdresser, taxi driver, security guard, teacher, student. And then I would go and I would say, look, I want to paste you playing your own caricature of how the other sees you. But I would paste you with the other taxi driver. Oh, yeah, sure. Take my photo. But the other guy, he's never going to accept. They're really close minded.

They're never going to accept. When I go there, same thing. Each person on each side said, I'll do it. but the person on the other side won't do it. Before he could begin pasting the photographs, JR and his team were arrested by Israeli authorities for not having a permit. They were loaded into the back of a wagon and hauled off to jail. After some questioning, they were released and given 15 days to leave the country. Instead, JR went to the Palestinian side of the wall

and began to paste. I pasted a giant photo of the taxi driver and a second photo of the other taxi driver and, you know, a crowd of people, very quickly, big crowds. And then the first guy asked a question. But, my friend, who are this people? I said, oh, one is Israeli and one is Palestinian. And then you have a big silence in the crowd. And I said, so who is who? And they couldn't even recognize the enemy or their brother.

On the Israeli side, to ensure he wouldn't be arrested again, JR announced the day and time he was going to put up his photographs. He says so many reporters and onlookers showed up to watch, the authorities decided to just let him go ahead with his project. The attention he got from his work in the Middle East and France led to some sales of his photographs, which then allowed him to begin to travel further afield. Over the next few years in Kenya, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, he focused his lens on women, heroes, he says, who are often treated as second-class citizens. He photographed women's faces and placed them where they could no

longer be ignored. A Kenyan woman named Elizabeth Kamanga asked J.R. to paste her picture for all the world to see. The woman asked me, make my story travel. Have my eyes, have my story travel around the world. There was someone that they never heard of to hear, like sending a bottle in the water. Her story did travel thousands of miles around the world. J.R. pasted her eyes onto a container ship called the Magellan that spent months at sea. In 2008, he ventured into Providencia, the oldest favela in Rio, a slum perched on a hillside controlled by a well-armed gang of drug dealers. J.R. photographed an elderly woman whose grandson

was murdered by a rival gang. She agreed to let him paste her image on the stairs leading into the neighborhood. Did you have permission from any of the gangs? From nobody. We start pasting the stairs like that. Great vibe, kids playing, you know, we're just pasting on the stairs. After 10 stairs, huge like fights of guns. And like it started going from all over. J.R. and his team were caught in crossfire between police and gang members. We run and we hide like it's the last day of my life. And the next day, we came back and we kept on doing the stairs.

And I think that's what made the people in the community realize that, okay, we're not just here for a minute. And that first time, when that woman was pasted on the stairs, everybody in the community understood what the project was about. It was her, she was standing there, straight and looking strong. Her photo covered 80 steps, and after that, other residents allowed JR to post their faces and eyes on the sides of their homes. A display of strength and dignity, he says, that could be seen from the wealthier neighborhood below. That word dignity to you is important.

You know, the people made me realize it's important in every single pasting. Dignity is something that all of us want. All of us. No matter what. Anywhere. No matter the background. Why? Because the issues people are facing are life and death. Yeah, of course.

Dignity goes through the way we're being seen by the others, the way we portray ourselves. I think some people hearing that are going to say, look, you're telling me that people, you know, who don't know where their next meal is coming from are struggling to survive, care about art? You know what? Yes. If you're wondering how JR pays for all these projects, so were we.

He now has a team of about 16 people working for him out of studios in Paris and New York. He doesn't like to give details of how much his projects cost, but some of the money comes from the sale of limited edition prints of his work. He doesn't accept any sponsorship from corporations, but he does have wealthy art patrons who help him out. There's amazing people out there. There's people that support me. There's someone that gave me a building to put my studio that I don't pay rent, so I don't have to look for sponsors. There are amazing people that I call the shadow philanthropists,

the people who really want to change. Shadow philanthropists. Yeah, and that don't look for return. They don't get into philanthropy to get more credit. JR's work may focus on other people, but it's also made him a celebrity in his own right. He has more than a million followers on Instagram and routinely is seen in the company of rock stars and other artists.

Last month, a documentary J.R. directed called Faces, Places was nominated for an Oscar. Fame has its benefits. J.R. doesn't always have to sneak around now. He's often allowed to display his work. So when were you doing the work inside? A few months ago on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, the National Park Service let him paste old photographs of immigrants at this abandoned hospital. That's the little girl. And what does it mean? You know,

I just try to do art in places that it would raise questions rather to give answers. JR is now encouraging others to raise questions by pasting their own photographs. He has a website where groups of people with an idea or a cause can send in their pictures. He says he'll enlarge and print them and ship them back. JR-inspired images have so far been pasted on walls in dozens of countries around the world. Are you still an artist if you're not taking the photo and you're just printing stuff up and sending it out to people and they're putting it up? I don't know. I mean, I am. As much as a printer, I'm a photographer, and I'm a wallpaper man.

You're a wallpaper man. At the end of the day, I have wallpaper buildings, you know. That's what I do. So that's why I think the title artist is the most prestigious title I'll ever get. Because, you know, the truth is I paste buildings. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink.

And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. nominated for four Academy Awards. She won once for Best Actress. She can give dramatic performances or romp through madcap comedies, a range that gets her compared to Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep. She took an unconventional path to Hollywood, a risky and surprising part of her story. We found a young woman with a fiercely independent spirit living a life she

could only have dreamed of growing up in Louisville, Kentucky. How did you get from Kentucky to the top of Hollywood? Desperation, an appetite, confidence, and ambition. You really wanted this. I knew if I just was given the chance that it would work. I just knew. But not even she knew it would work so well. For a decade in Hollywood, she has been defying odds and breaking barriers. At 21, she shattered the myth that women can't carry an action franchise.

Her four Hunger Games movies earned almost $3 billion. She made three comedy dramas in as many years, playing unforgettable, flawed, resilient women. Hey! Tiffany, a young widow in Silver Linings Playbook.

You are not a stand-up guy right now. If it's me reading the signs, if it's me reading the signs... You're reading the signs? Oh, okay. In American Hustle, she played Rosalyn, a loony Long Island housewife. You fell in love.

Don't you dare forget that part. We fell madly in love. And in Joy, she was a desperate mother turned entrepreneur. It's the only mop that you're ever going to buy, the best mop you're ever going to use. She earned Academy Award nominations for all three movies. I'm just a crazy slut with a dead husband. And took home the Best Actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.

Hey, Tiffany. But Jennifer Lawrence is not one to rest on her laurels. I am hard on myself. Why? I get paid a huge amount of money to be able to do what I love. So you're the one putting this pressure on you? Yes. Too many people sacrificed so that I could be here. My parents, you know, changed their entire lives to support me. And I worked too hard to get here to be stupid about it. Lawrence's father owned a construction company. Her mother ran a summer camp. She told us her two older brothers pretty much ignored their annoying little sister. Did you used to

play act when you were growing up? Oh, yes. I was constantly performing, but we just didn't know that that meant I was an actor. I just thought, you know, I was a weirdo. But I understand that you pretended to have a problem with your leg at school. Who told you that? Oh, we've got our sources. In school, I told everybody I had a wooden leg. And I, like, walked in a very consistent lap. Like, incredibly consistent. And when my mom came to get me from school, my teachers were like, it's awful. What happened to Jennifer's leg? And my mom was like, she does not, her leg has not been amputated. I used to just invent stories just to invent them.

She used zany antics to hide the fact she was a poor student, hyperactive, didn't fit in. She could drive her parents crazy. My parents were just, you know, they would go through periods of time where they just wanted me out of the house and it was called a lockout. And so I'd go to the door and it was locked and I'd be like, all right, I got to find something else to do until my parents are ready to deal with me again. You were a handful. I was a handful. And I got it. We never fought about it. I've always been very self-aware about my annoying goodness. She told us she felt lost in school and dreamed of becoming an actor. At 14, she badgered her parents to visit New York, where, improbably, she was discovered by a modeling scout,

then given some scripts to read. I've struggled through school. I never felt very smart. And when I'm reading this script, and I feel like I know exactly what it would look like if somebody felt that way, that was a whole part of my brain that I didn't even know existed,

something that I could be confident in, and I didn't want to let it go. What was it you wanted so much? It's so hard to explain. It was just an overwhelming feeling of, I get this, this is what I was meant to do, and to get people to try to understand that when you're 14 years old, wanting to drop out of school I get this. This is what I was meant to do. And to get people to try to understand that when you're 14 years old, wanting to drop out of school and do this, and your parents are just like,

you're out of your mind. Did you finish up high school? I dropped out of middle school. I don't technically have a GED or a diploma. I am self-educated. Do you regret that? No, I really don't. I wanted to forge my own path. I found what I wanted to do, and I don't want anything getting in the way of it. And even friends for many years were not as important to me as my career, I mean, from the age of 14. That stubborn determination landed her a role in a sitcom. When her parents saw her happy and focused for the first time, they agreed to accompany her to Hollywood. She never went back to school. Spell house. At 18, she wrangled the lead in a small, bleak, independent film called Winter's Bone. I don't know what to do.

It was a breakout performance that earned her first Oscar nomination. There's not a lot of dialogue, but yet your presence fills the screen. It was really just feeling, believing, you know, in this situation, look at it through her eyes. And then that's always going to come across in your eyes, in your face, in your body language. That empathy, you can channel that into acting. Yeah, I mean, that's how I act. That's really my only tool, I think.

No acting training? No. It's just empathy? Yes. Is that difficult or easy for you to do? It's easy. To just let go of Jennifer Lawrence? Yeah, because that's when you get the high.

That's what I crave, that really getting lost into something, being almost possessed by another emotion. That's the adrenaline rush. That's the high that I can't live without. In her new movie, Red Sparrow, Lawrence stars as a Russian ballerina coerced into being a spy. It calls for nudity, something she thought she'd never do after she was traumatized when her most private pictures were hacked in 2014 and spread across the Internet. Well, you told us you didn't like doing movies with a lot of sex in them. But Red Sparrow is all about sex.

Why'd you change your mind? I read this script that I'm dying to do, and the one thing that's getting in my way is nudity. And I realized there's a difference between consent and not. And I showed up for the first day, and I did it, and I felt empowered. I feel like something that was taken from me, I got back, and I'm using in my art. And that hacking incident, did it just vaporize?

It didn't vaporize, but I did feel like I took the power out of having my body taken from me. I felt like I took it back and I could almost own it again. Are you worried that audiences won't see it the way you see it? I was, but it doesn't matter. It's my body and it's my art and it's my choice. And if you don't like boobs, you should not go see Red Sparrow. After making two movies a year since the age of 20, Lawrence is taking some time off. Aha! My whole silver! She wanted to go fishing,

something she's always found relaxing, so we found a trout lake in Anaheim. Here, away from paparazzi and the pressures of celebrity, we found her playful and fully aware she's a 27-year-old in a high-wire act with the whole world watching. It's problematic for you to go out into the public? I just have to, like, prepare a little bit. It's always the one day that you look like crap that a paparazzi just jumps out from behind a car and you're like, oh, it looked so cute yesterday. Does the fame sort of lock you in? It does, but like my favorite activity is sitting by the fire drinking wine with my girlfriends. That's why you're coming.

It's a girl's night with Bill. It's a girly, girly night. This is good. She invited us over to meet her three closest friends, Laura, Justine, and Lauren. They've known her since long before she became a movie star, and she says they keep her sane. So you're like her rock, her foundation? We are her security guards.

We are her security. We're much more security. Yeah, emotional security guards. They tease her. No, she cannot do that. I told her the other day, I'm like, you know, your classic dance moves. She got so mad at me, she said, I don't do that. I don't dance like that.

And then she goes, wait a second. This feels like home. When Jennifer left the room, her friends conspired. Should I bring him the self-portrait? It was a masterpiece she'd painted at 16. A self-portrait? No, don't do it. It was a masterpiece she'd painted at 16. A self-portrait. Oh, my God! No!

What is it? Do it! What is it? I did not know it was going to go that far. I mean, that was... You literally jumped over me to get to this picture. God, talk about laughing therapy. That seems to be kind of central to who you are.

Laughing? The laughing and the fun. Oh, I've got to have it. You've got to have it. I've got to have it. It's her defense against the brutal, cutthroat side of show business, which has been on conspicuous display recently. With shocking allegations of sexual harassment and assault, Lawrence has added her voice to

the Time's Up movement and spoke to us about Harvey Weinstein. He produced her Oscar-winning movie, Silver Linings Playbook. Was he ever inappropriate? No, he was never inappropriate with me. But what he did was criminal and deplorable. And when it came out and I heard about it, I wanted to kill him. The way that he destroyed so many women's lives, I want to see him in jail. She was one of the first to speak out publicly about pay inequity in Hollywood. When it got out three years ago that her male co-stars in American Hustle had been paid more than she had, Lawrence wrote an essay blaming herself. Why not blame the studio? They're the ones who didn't pay you.

Because I didn't fight hard enough. It was my own mentality that led me to believe that I didn't deserve to be paid equally. Would you do that again? No. You feel you know your worth now? I feel I know my worth, and I feel like I work to keep it that way. Does that translate into money and power?

Yeah. I can work with directors who I've admired for a very long time and get a screenplay written. I have an amazing career, Bill. But you do. There's a lot of risk, too. This is right now. It's all very temporary.

Hollywood is very fickle. What, you're like the flavor of the month? It could be. If the next few movies don't do well in the box office, I won't get paid the same. That's the way it works. If you can't prove that you deserve that number, then you're not going to get it.

So it's very fickle. So I don't want to sound like I'm on a high horse because I might be on a tiny little Shetland pony in a month. 50 seasons of 60 Minutes. This week, from the last Sunday of February 1999, Bob Simon interviewed the exuberant Italian actor-director Roberto Benigni, who told Bob what happened when he met Pope John Paul. I jumped on him.

Oh, I was so full of energy, enthusiasm, and I called him dad, like Pinocchio, Babbo. You jumped on the Pope? Yeah, and I told Babbo, father, in, how do you say, slang. No, it's like really a little boy, Babbo, with me, dad. Dad, finally I found you again. I have been so bad in my life. And I kissed here and here and here.

And everywhere I kissed him. When you jumped on the Pope, was he surprised? Very surprised. But he liked me because he told me you are very Italian. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.