60 Minutes - 12/1/2024: Notre Dame, Smith Island, Kate Winslet, Welcome to the Wedding

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Next Sunday, December 8, the arched doors of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris will open to the public for the first time since April 2019, when a devastating fire nearly destroyed the great Gothic church. What will they see? Correspondent Bill Whitaker has a first look inside a modern miracle of repair and restoration by workers and artisans who made possible French President Emmanuel Macron’s impossible-sounding pledge to complete the rebirth in five years. As Macron tells Whitaker, “The decision to rebuild Notre Dame was…about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from.” Located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and only accessible by boat, Smith Island, Maryland is a place where time stands still, and its residents speak a unique dialect. Rising sea levels and erosion are changing the landscape and placing residents at risk of becoming some of the country's first climate refugees. Correspondent Jon Wertheim meets these locals to hear how climate change threatens their way of life - and the island itself - but where their perseverance and pride are inspiring a new generation of islanders. Correspondent Cecilia Vega travels to the UK for an intimate portrait of actor Kate Winslet, Hollywood's most non-Hollywood A-Lister, and discusses her transformative journey to starring in and producing her latest film, “Lee.” Winslet, who has been a vocal advocate against the insults and inequalities facing women in the film industry, relies on this experience for her current role, portraying American photographer Lee Miller, who worked for Vogue as one of the few female war correspondents on the frontline of WWII. As Vega discovers, Winslet and Miller share a resilience and see the world through a similar lens, making her connection more than just a role. After the dramatic exit of the United States military from Afghanistan in 2021 left the country under Taliban control, U.S. allies found themselves in danger. Correspondent Jon Wertheim reports on the unimaginable story of nearly 400 Afghans who were evacuated under the guise of a wedding party. Wertheim reveals the treacherous, high stakes rescue operation organized by American citizens and led by former Army intelligence officer Jason Kander that concealed men, women, and children in an Afghan wedding palace. This is a double-length segment. 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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so many battles and campaigns. The decision to rebuild Notre Dame, it was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from. This is a message of achievement. Smith Island is a tapestry of marshland, winding creeks, and mudflats. Waterfowl outnumber people here.

Then again, the population, having dwindled by more than half since the 1990s, hovers around 200. With no airport or bridge, everything— groceries, utility workers, doctors, even the pastor, comes by boat. Life on the island must abide by Mother Nature's fickle nature. If the weather is bad, you're stuck. When we met Kate Winslet last month outside London, we found the actress to be remarkably un-Hollywood and capable of sounding remarkably, well, un-British. She's probably lying at the bottom of the Delaware River right now.

And why is the filly so hard? It's actually the I sound in the Philadelphia and the Delco dialect that is really difficult. They don't say, that's nice. They say, that's nice. I like your bike. 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 Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on this special 90-minute edition of 60 Minutes. Canada Life savings, retirement and benefits plans. Whether you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage, or build a workplace people want to be a part of, Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes,

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Next Sunday, the doors of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris will open to the public for the first time since April 2019, when a devastating fire nearly destroyed the great Gothic church. Two formal masses will be celebrated, and then as many as 40,000 visitors a day will begin streaming through. What they will see is something of a modern miracle. Notre Dame has been rebuilt and restored five years after the world watched it burn. Two weeks ago, we were given unique access inside the cathedral as workers and artists applied the final touches.

Many people deserve credit for the resurrection of Notre Dame, but none more than French President Emmanuel Macron. You made a promise the day after Notre Dame burned in 2019 and you said quote, we will rebuild Notre Dame more beautiful than before and I want it done in the next five years. Did you have any doubts when you said that, that that might be possible? If you have a doubt, it's already over. Someone we spoke to called it a moonshot moment. This five years was a sort of new frontier. Yeah.

This is perfectly true. When I announced the five years, all the experts, a lot of people just made comments to say he's crazy. So what gave you the confidence while Notre Dame was still smoking it? I saw these guys, these firemen. I mean, just going beyond their own capacities with such energy and commitment. And I think this is exactly, this is sort of a metaphor of what our societies, and especially our democracies need. Make possible the unthinkable.

We are all very proud of what we have done together. Last year, President Macron appointed Philippe Jost to lead the team restoring Notre Dame. Two weeks ago, we met him just inside what was still an active construction zone. What words come to mind when you first walk in? The light. The light is very breathtaking, and the space.

In this monument, there is a soul. A soul. A soul. And we feel that when we enter now, we feel that. To walk into Notre Dame today is to see no sign of 2019. Then, the cathedral's nave was littered with burnt wood and stone rubble, a gaping hole in the ceiling where the flaming spire crashed through. Even when we visited in 2023, a dense forest of scaffolding remained. Now it is open and airy. Every stone shines. Every stained glass window is polished.

Every masterpiece glows. All topped by a new spire and a new roof, replacing the utter destruction of five years ago. We had the big vault there, too, we built. So there was a gaping hole. A big hole there. When President Macron said five years, we knew that this point here

was the most challenging space of the restoration. If Philippe Jost is now commander-in-chief of the restoration, Philippe Villeneuve remains its artistic director. Chief architect of the cathedral since well before the fire, we saw him in 2023 supervising every detail and every artisan. You also told us that rebuilding Notre Dame was in a way rebuilding yourself after the fire. Do you feel rebuilt now?

Oui. Yes, Villeneuve told us. Today, I can watch images of the fire. See the spire falling into the flames. That's something I couldn't watch before. Last year, Villeneuve supervised the construction of a new wooden spire and its lead covering, and designed a new rooster,

a symbol of the French people, for its very peak. It was put in place last December. When I saw the spire and the lead roof appear, Villeneuve said, when we put the rooster and the cross in place, I felt that a wound had been closed. Since more than eight centuries, this cathedral was here. It resisted to two world wars, so many battles and campaigns. The decision to rebuild Notre Dame, it was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from. This is a message of achievement.

Many of the achievements, like the new spire and roof, are massive. Notre Dame's huge bells were removed after the fire for cleaning and repair, then returned and tested a few weeks ago. Its organ, with 8,000 pipes, the largest in France, was also removed, repaired, and reinstalled. The day we were there, an organist filled the cathedral with thunderous, soaring sound. Somehow, small achievements feel just as noteworthy. Outside, workmen dangling on ropes to hammer wood into place. And carefully cementing paving stones.

Inside, delicately applying wax to ancient wood, ensuring that every light bulb is lit and every floor polished. Our job is mostly to bring back all the value of mural painting. Painting restorer Diana Castillo has been working in the many small chapels of Notre Dame, where centuries ago murals were painted onto stone walls and ceilings. We had a lot of work to clean them. Diana shared photos and video of what the chapels and paintings looked like when she and other restorers began their work after the fire, cloudy and dim, and their appearance now, after cleaning.

So we did one chapel after another, after another, and after we finished the cleaning process, it was really almost one year, we were like, okay, now we can see the paint, now we can appreciate it and start the restoration. So you were not just removing the soot from the fire, but you were removing the grime from centuries. Exactly, exactly, exactly, from 1850, actually. Many of them had never been touched since 1850, so you imagine 170 years.

Today, the murals are gleaming. Ceilings show starry nights of deep blue and gold. And stone columns that had been gray are now kaleidoscopes of color. And you have brought those colors back to life. Absolutely, yes. And I'm sure many people will be shocked. And the results like this are very satisfying for us, of course. Similar transformations are everywhere in the new Notre Dame.

Stone walls and ceilings that had been dark and gloomy seem to shine. And so do the many marble statues and decorative metalworks. The workers and craftspeople who have pulled all this off are known as companions. And their work is celebrated on huge banners overlooking the River Seine. The workers and craftspeople who have pulled all this off are known as companions, and their work is celebrated on huge banners overlooking the River Seine. We've heard of something called the Notre-Dame effect, which is young people being drawn to traditional crafts and trades because of the work they're doing and seeing being done here at the cathedral. Have you witnessed that?

It's true, Philippe Villeneuve told us, that Notre-Dame was a formidable school for all the different crafts. Carpenters, metal workers, stone carvers, painters. All these kinds of jobs were boosted by the restoration. I visited the site a few times, and each time, what struck me the most was the commitment and the joy and the responsibility of the companions that I met. Anne D.S. Griffin was born in France and educated in the U.S.,

where she runs an investment firm. She has helped mobilize financial support in America to revitalize Notre Dame. Why do you think this symbol of Paris and of France inspires such strong feelings, not just here, but in the U.S. and around the world? Notre Dame symbolizes something universal, and that's something to be cherished. Anne's contribution to the restoration effort was one of the largest from anyone in the U.S.

The support from Americans was just tremendous. There were over 45,000 donors who contributed funds to the cathedral for a sum of over $57 million. So we should be incredibly proud of that. Every penny of that has been needed. The total cost of restoring Notre Dame is nearing a billion dollars, including, Philippe Joost told us, for measures to prevent another tragedy.

So you have new fire detection, new fire suppression systems that have all been installed? Installed in the roof. So that would prevent another catastrophe like this from ever happening again? We are very confident in that. It will not happen again. Joost also expressed confidence that rebuilding the new Notre Dame using the old materials of wood and stone and lead will help it to last. The cathedral is 860 years old, and we will restore it for 860 years.

That it will last another 860 years. Another 860 years, and perhaps more. Architect Philippe Villeneuve championed the use of traditional materials, especially to build the towering new spire just as the old one had been constructed. But he let us in on a secret. There is one new touch up there. I left a small mark of myself, he told us. In one of the hooks of the new spire is my face, with an admiring and affectionate look to represent all the companions who rebuilt the cathedral. President Macron visited Notre Dame while we were there, when it was still buzzing with preparations for opening day.

It's impressive and very moving to see that we still have dozens of people working hard to finish the job. And as Notre Dame's great doors reopen, might that spirit be even a little bit contagious? There's a lot of political division here in France, as important is it to have a project like this that unifies rather than divides? We speak about moments of unity and pride. And this is exactly what our nations projects, and think, if we're already unable to do so, why don't we try to fix other, perhaps more abstract,

but very important big issues of our countries? So the impossible is not impossible, huh? Definitely, it's French motto. Impossible is not French. Smith Island doesn't sit in the middle of Chesapeake Bay so much as it bobs there. Time marches on while the land recedes, turning to marsh as sea levels rise, storms come fierce, and erosion unleashes its ground gate. We talk often about what climate change does to faraway continents, countries, and cities. But its impact in the U.S. might be felt most sharply in a small coastal community, a Maryland island struggling to survive, where crabs are plentiful, crime is non-existent,

and the residents who trace their lineage and dialect back to the 1600s might be among this country's first climate refugees. Not even a hundred miles from D.C. and Baltimore, Smith Island is a tapestry of marshland, winding creeks, and mudflats. Waterfowl outnumber people here. Then again, the population, having dwindled by more than half since the 1990s, hovers around 200. With no airport or bridge, everything, groceries, utility workers, doctors, even the pastor, comes by boat 40 minutes from the mainland. Life on the island must abide by Mother Nature's fickle nature. Tides, winds. If the weather is bad, you're stuck. Love people, love doing what I do, make cakes, crab cakes.

So it is that native Smith Islanders like Mary Ada Marshall persist on a combination of spine, heart, and guts. How do you characterize this place to people who've never been here. All right. Well, I've been here my entire life. I don't feel isolated, but people that come here sometimes, they feel like, I can't get off. I can't get to my car. We learn we're survivors. We learn how to adapt with the weather. It's like a big family. But let me tell you something, if you do wrong, everybody knows it too. Here, the school bus floats. The ambulance flies.

Incomes are modest. This is part of the poorest county in Maryland. The citizens live by an unwritten code based on personal morality. I'm wondering what role faith plays on Smith Island. Big part. That's the government of our island. It really is. We don't really have government much.

I mean, we don't have any law. We don't need it. You don't have any crime. No crime. The speed limit's a golf cart. I mean, how fast can you go in a golf cart? And here, I feel so safe. I do. I mean, I just feel like if I need anything, that I can pick

up my phone, and I don't care what anybody's doing, they'll come say, what's the matter? What do you need? That's golden. And you've got to have a lot of faith to live right here in the middle of this bay. The island was first chartered by Captain John Smith in 1608. Today, most residents can draw a direct line to the first Smith Islanders to brave a life here. Tyler, Evans, Marshall. The same last names adorning the weathered gravestones adorn the mailboxes now. Among those born and raised here, Eddie Summers and Mark Kitching. How far do your families go back? So my grandmother, the grandmother Kitching. How far do your families go back? My grandmother,

the grandmother of Kitching was originally in Evans, and she goes back to the Tyler and Evans' way back. Man. 1785. The Tyler and Evans part of, man. Summers came in 1870.

Around 1870. Here, the past courses through the blood and also the brogue. Linguists come to study the singular accent, part Elizabethan English, part Southern. Can we talk about the accent? You know what I tell people about our accent? I'll say, we were here first.

You all screwed it up. The accent is original, and so is the signature Smith Island backwards talk, saying the opposite of what you mean. It's about timing, tone, and it's best left to the locals. I walk off the boat and I say, Smith Island isn't anything special. How's that get received? I hope Terry to get back on the boat.

Also learning the lingo, Shannon Abbott, a newcomer from New Jersey. I made our neighbor's casserole, I don't know, a few weeks ago. And they said, that ain't fair. And I'm like, okay, that means it's good. How do you explain this place to people from South Jersey? It's like that feeling when you were a kid, like that first day of summer vacation. And you're like, hmm, what am I going to do today? I'm going to go find bugs, make mud pies,

whatever it is, stay out till, you know, the fireflies are out at night. That's what this place is to me. Transports you back to being a girl. Exactly. Time has largely been frozen here for centuries. The economy and everything else on Smith Island, was and is based in, on, and around the water. The skipjack sailors of Chesapeake Bay, who propelled only by sail, hunt the oyster.

Walter Cronkite saw romance in Smith Island and its watermen. That was 1965. Not much about this culture has changed since. Same methods, same rhythms, crabs in the summer, oysters in the winter. Modern-day watermen like Mark Kitching see the job, yes, as a means of income, but also as an inheritance. What do watermen mean to this community? Well, you know, going back, you know, you go back 75 years ago, that's all it was. There was no other, you know, no other thing but

watermen. How many watermen now? We're down to about 20. By the turn of this century, fear surfaced that Smith Island might not last another century. Better job opportunities on the mainland caused an exodus. There are now so few children, the island's only school recently closed. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, erosion eats away up to 12 feet of shoreline a year, and the bay is trespassing on homes. Rising tides that don't lift boats.

In 2013, concerned about the island's bleak and vulnerable future, the state of Maryland earmarked $1 million, encouraging residents to relocate to the mainland. The deal? We'll buy your property and tear down the buildings. The homes on them had to be demolished and nothing could ever be built on them. And I said, that's the death of Smith Island. Surprisingly, or maybe not, community has always outweighed money here. Not one resident took the easy payout, and the state abandoned the plan. What was your reaction the first time you heard about the buyout offers

that were coming from the government? You really want to know? I said, I ain't going nowhere. Just like everybody else. Still, the moment was the equivalent of a foghorn blowing. A warning. Smith Island needed saving. Suddenly, Waterman and retirees were learning how to apply for grants and lobby state legislators. And they've been strikingly successful, receiving more than $43 million for elevating roads, building jetties, restoring buildings, and drawing in tourists. But the environmentalists and climate scientists we consulted

worry that even Smith Island grit is no match for a rapidly changing environment. Here we are, you know, getting to see a major thoroughfare on Smith Island grit is no match for a rapidly changing environment. Here we are, you know, getting to see a major thoroughfare on Smith Island. Hilary Harp Falk is the CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She lives in Annapolis and travels all around the Mid-Atlantic, fighting to preserve the bay. But her work around Smith Island is personal. This is where she spent her childhood summers.

These pelicans we see, you're saying these weren't here when you were a girl? No, so these nesting pelicans have been moving north. They're summering now in more northern places. As a result of a changing climate. Correct. How does the rising sea level here in Chesapeake Bay compare to other bodies of water? Right now, we're expecting in Maryland to see an increase in sea level rise by one to two feet by 2050 and more than four feet by 2100. For the record, that means the bay has the highest

rate of sea level rise on the east coast. The water that has sustained places like Smith Island has now become a threat. Explain why we have this high rate of sea level here. Mostly because it's really low-lying. I mean, we have that. We also are seeing issues of erosion, as well as issues of subsidence. So we're actually, some of the land is actually sinking. Some environmental scientists will say that Smith Islandese could be some of the first climate refugees in the country.

And I think we're seeing with the projections, they could be right. What does that tell you about the people who did stay? If you ask them, it would be because this is home. And it would be asking someone to leave their home or their hometown, to leave whole histories. And I think when you spend time here, there's a saying that you get mud between your toes. What does that mean? It means that Smith Island never leaves you, that you will always be connected to this place. And for those of us that have mud between our toes, I think we can understand what it means to not have Smith Island anymore.

And it's not just an abstract concern. Holland Island, just 10 miles north, was once bustling. But erosion came, people left, and now names on gravestones are the only indication of what once was. Nevertheless, the Smith Island locals say grim projections have always been part of life here. When I was a little girl, they used to say, the islands are sinking. Now, this weren't yesterday. This has been a long time ago. Well, fast forward 60, 70 years, we're still here, you know.

Besides, they pride themselves on adapting to meet challenges. Mark Kitching isn't driving an Uber to supplement his income. He's using his boat to host eco-tours around the Pelican Rookery. Mary Ada Marshall runs her business out of her kitchen, making Smith Island cakes. Once baked by the island's women to sustain their husbands during the oyster harvest, these eight-layer confections are now celebrated as the Maryland state dessert. Marietta takes orders by phone and then ships her creations off-island to just about anywhere. Well, I did one for Okinawa and one for Iran, and they got there. And I don't take a cent until they get their cake, then they made me a check.

They don't have to pay in advance. I don't have no credit card machine or nothing, no. And it's not just that the natives won't give up. Despite the specter of sea level rise, there's been a real estate boom here. 20% of the homes on the island have changed hands in the past three years. A chance at affordable island life and optimism about the government's infrastructure investment have led folks like Shannon Abbott to defy the warnings for a slice of Smith Island charm. Does the isolation worry you at all? No, it doesn't. Because back home home I'm just the street address. Here I'm Shannon. Moving here I made a

difference right away just by moving here because we were having dinner with our neighbors. She said it's so great just seeing the lights on you know because for years it would just you know they would see people move away and the house go dark. She and her husband paid $80,000 for this waterfront home they are now rebuilding, not just as a place to live out their days, but as a legacy. Did you elevate this? We did. Let's be clear, this is no weekend house.

This is no weekend house. This is it. We have four kids, a grandson, and we're hoping that they will be able to bring their grandchildren and their grandchildren here. How do you reconcile hearing these pretty grim reports with your desire to make this a generational house? Five years ago, we never thought we would have a pandemic and live through COVID. I mean, things can change tomorrow.

So why worry about it? We can live in New Jersey where it's safe, or we can say, forget it. Let's really live. Let's be passionate about what time we have left. And who cares if we only have 100 years left or 75 years left? It doesn't matter,

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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. Kate Winslet was just 20 years old when she was plucked from relative obscurity to star in Titanic. She's had her pick of lead roles ever since. Film critics we spoke to compare her to greats like Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep. Winslet has a propensity for playing tough, angst-ridden women, and that's exactly who she becomes in her latest film, Lee, which she also produced about American photographer Lee Miller, one of the few female journalists on the

front lines of World War II. We met Winslet last month at the theater where she performed as a teenager and found her to be remarkably un-Hollywood. She drove herself to the interview, showed up alone, and dropped a few F-bombs. Well, the idea of going back on this stage still terrifies me. So how do you get over the nerves? What do you tell yourself? Oh, honestly, it's a whole bunch of mind f***ing. I mean, it is even to this day. Like anything, going for a job interview,

it's absolutely terrifying if it's a job you really want. Doubly terrifying. You've said on the first day you walk in and think, everyone is in here thinking, why did they cast her? Yeah, oh my God. You are an Oscar-winning actress. So what? When I was doing Lee, I would sit there and I would say, this is ridiculous. I can truly think of at least five other brilliant actresses who would have played this part much better than me, like a lot better.

And often I will turn to another crew member and I'll say, they just read the wrong name off the list. I'm telling you, they didn't mean for me to be here. And I will have days where... Meryl's coming out of the back door now to take your role. Welcome. Come on in. Delighted to have you. You must be Lee Miller. Well, it's a war zone, Colonel. Just Lee is fine.

That role that caused Kate Winslet so much angst was for the movie Lee. She didn't just star in it, she made it, her first as a producer. How much time did you spend at this house? Oh my God, I mean, a lot of time across seven years, yeah. Those years were spent at Lee Miller's estate in the English countryside, where she lived with her husband, a British painter. It's where, with the help of Miller's son, Winslet scoured the archives and decided to focus Miller's life story not on her history as

a model who had many lovers. We don't hire older models. Don't blow a gasket. I'm not a model anymore. But as a troubled woman who in her late 30s left her glamorous life to become a war photographer, capturing some of the most haunting images from World War II, including some of the first uses of napalm and Nazi concentration camps, Winslet says she knew it wouldn't be an easy sell. Tell me a little bit about what some of those phone calls were like.

There was one potential investor who said to me, why should I like this woman? I mean, she's drunk. She's, you know, she's like loud. She's like, I mean, he just probably stopped short of saying she has wrinkles on her face. You had a director say something like, I'll get your little Lee funded? Oh, yeah. You want to share names now? No, never, never, no.

That's not my vibe. No, but so this director did say, yeah, tell you what, if you be in my film, I'll help you get your little Lee Miller film made. And he actually went like that. And I was like, might just have lost signal. Oop. She didn't make the movie with those men. Instead, she insisted on bringing in a female director, co-producer and writers.

Winslet was intimately involved in every step of production, as we saw during a scoring session last spring. Kate? Yeah? It doesn't feel too loud to you, does it? Well, it's funny. Okay, it's too loud. Let's do it again. She also enlisted a historian to make an exact replica of Miller's camera

and really took pictures while she was acting. Why did you feel like you had to learn this craft? of Miller's camera and really took pictures while she was acting. Why did you feel like you had to learn this craft? It couldn't just be a prop. It needed to feel like an extension of my arms. I had to be confident and comfortable with it. And in order to do that, I had to know what I was doing. She spends months, even years, preparing for roles,

inventing an elaborate backstory for every character, down to what sport they played in school and how they feel about their mothers. You know me, I'm impulsive. She's learned to dig for fossils, make dresses, and free dive, holding her breath for more than seven minutes for Avatar 2. And she's not afraid of being exposed. All right, make me invisible. And she's not afraid of being exposed. All right. Make me invisible. Because to see a Kate Winslet movie often means you'll see a lot of Kate Winslet.

Let's see what happens. And then there's the accents. Yeah, Mary Sheehan down at Easttown. She won an Emmy for Mayor of Easttown, playing a vaping, beer-swigging detective, nailing the specific sound of Delaware County, a Philadelphia suburb. She's probably lying at the bottom of the Delaware River right now. And why is a filly so hard? It's actually the I sound in the Philadelphia,

in the Delco dialect, that is really difficult. They don't say, that's nice. They say, that's nice. I like your bike. And though she may seem like someone with a shelf full of Oscars, she won her first and only in 2009 for her portrayal of a Nazi prison guard in The Reader. I want to take out a book.

For years, she kept the statue in her bathroom, so guests could hold it up in the mirror and pretend to win. I used to get the bus into town a lot. We went with Winslet to Reading, the working class town just outside London where she was born and raised. This is the house? Oh my God, this is the house. The front door boarded up. Her family no longer lives here. I lived here until when I was sort of 16, and I kind of left home really when I was 16. Winslet is the second of four children. Her father was a struggling actor who often gave his daughter the advice she still lives by, you're only as good as your last gig. He would sort of hop from job to job and then he

would do, you know, part-time work to make ends meet in the meantime. But the thing that was interesting, I think, is that even though there was so little, as you can see, to go around, we were really happy. With financial help from a charity for actors, she enrolled in a local theatre school when she was 11, catching the train into London for auditions. She says the scrutiny of her appearance started young. You once had a drama teacher tell you, settle for the fat girl parts? Oh yeah. Now listen, Kate, I'm telling you, darling, if you're going to look like this, you'll have to settle for the fat girl parts.

And I was never even fat. What did that do to your spirit, your confidence? It made me think, I'll just show you. Just quietly. It was like a sort of a quiet determination, really. Yeah, I'll just go in. This grocery store was once the deli where 16-year-old Winslet was working when she got the news that she'd landed her first movie. And I was making a sandwich, and the phone rang, and I swear to God, there was something about the way the phone rang.

I was like, oh my God, that's for me. I wonder if it's about the job. And then the owner was like, hey, phone for you. I thought, oh my God. So I ran and was told that I'd gotten this part. And then I was just so unraveled. I had to leave. I was like, I have to go home and tell Mom and Dad.

After filming that first movie, Heavenly Creatures, Winslet went right back to making sandwiches. That must have been kind of what is going on in my world here. No, because that was what I knew. You know, my dad would do jobs and he'd go back to, you know, tarmacking the roads or working as a postman. So I just thought, oh, well, that's what you do as an actor. You know, if you're lucky, you get a job,

and then you go back to a day job. At 20, she got the offer for the part that would make Hollywood history. Playing Rose opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack in Titanic, the first film to break a billion dollars at the box office. Winslet was game to discuss just about anything, but... Let's talk about Titanic. Really?

I was wondering what your reaction would be if I said that to you. No, I'm happy to talk about Titanic. I guess it wouldn't be an interview with you if we didn't talk about Titanic in some way. It could be an interview without it. We tried to ask about the famous scene that has sparked decades of debates. I'll never let go. I promise. May I ask, true, Leo really could have fit on the raft? Do you know what?

I have no idea. Does it annoy you at all that 27 years later, this movie still comes up in this way and probably will for the rest of your life? No. I tell you, what I do sometimes find just curious, I suppose, is whatever I say about Titanic will often be the take-home.

So I just think, well, there were those things that I said about the film I was talking about, and yet that's the one thing. So that's the only thing that sometimes I just think, hmm. Well, that's who it is. To the stars.

While Titanic made Winslet a star, she says it came at a cost. Paparazzi aggressively pursued her and just listened to how she was ridiculed for her weight. The cake's a little melted and poured into that dress. And, you know, she just needed two sizes larger and it would probably have been okay. I gasped at how cruel some of that coverage was of you at that time.

I know. It's absolutely appalling. What kind of a person must they be to do something like that to a young actress who's just trying to figure it out? Did you ever get face-to-face with any of those people? I did get face-to-face. What did you say? I let them have it.

I said, I hope this haunts you. It was a great moment. It was a great moment because it wasn't just for me. It was for all those people who were subjected to that level of harassment. It was horrific. It was really bad. Now 49, Winslet says she developed an armor that she brings to characters like Lee Miller. People say, oh, you were so brave for this role. You didn't wear any makeup. You know, you had wrinkles.

Do we say to the men, oh, you were so brave for this role. You grew a beard. No, we don't. That still happen to you? Yes, it happens to me all the time. It's not brave. It's playing the part. Is it true that a crew member came up to you and said,

you might want to kind of sit up a little bit? You're showing a lump. Yeah. You might want to kind of just sit in, suck in, sit up. And I was like... You didn't? I don't think Lee would have done. It's about knowing that Lee's

her ease with her physical self was hard won In Hollywood, you could have a lot of great lights so that you don't see the lump that we all have the bumps that we all have You don't care about showing that No, I don't Why not?

It's exhausting When she's not filming, Winslet lives far from the spotlight in a quiet English seaside village. She and her husband, Ned Abel Smith, have a 10-year-old son. She also has a 20-year-old son and 24-year-old daughter from previous marriages. Winslet is not on social media and told us she doesn't read reviews of her work. But this much she knows. It's hard to make films about historical female figures. You know, typically those aren't films that would necessarily do well in the box office.

Says she, sitting here proudly telling you that her film has taken over 25 million so far. Cha-ching! And we made a film about one woman. So there's not a sense of, I told you so? No, I don't feel like that, but I just hope they've seen the film. Once again, 60 Minutes expands to 90 Minutes tonight. After the break, further proof that necessity is the mother of all invention. During the Iran hostage crisis, the CIA extracted six American diplomats by staging a fake movie,

as depicted in Argo, a real movie about that fake movie. Three years ago, a group of very real Americans, led by a former army captain, attempted a comparable scheme in Afghanistan. This one involving nearly 400 people and no formal U.S. government support. And the overarching plan initially is what? Well, the overarching plan initially is, what the hell are we doing? That didn't work, let's try this.

I'm John Wertheim. When we come back, a real life plot so crazy, it actually worked. Leave no one behind. It's one of the cornerstones of the U.S. military. But when, after 20 years, American armed forces left Afghanistan, in the eyes of many, this sacred oath had been violated. Countless Afghans who helped Americans end the cause for democracy were suddenly abandoned, vulnerable to being killed by the Taliban, the fundamentalist

Islamic militia that had retaken the country. Back in the U.S., acting outside of military channels, hundreds of groups of veterans and civilians formed overnight, hatching escape plans to help Afghans find passage to safety and freedom. Tonight, the dramatic and cinematic story of one such network that outwitted the enemy and avoided a mass funeral by staging a mass wedding. This is not how America's longest war was drawn up to end. Afghans fleeing the conquering Taliban in August 2021.

So desperate to get out, they overwhelmed the Kabul airport and clung to departing U.S. military planes, a last grasp at freedom. Did it feel like defeat? I mean, it felt like defeat because technically it was a defeat. But it felt much more like leaving people behind personally. Jason Kander had served as an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan, meeting thugs, he says, to glean information about other thugs, often accompanied only by his translator, Salam Raoufi.

To know that there were people there who had put their lives on the line for us, it felt like leaving a friend behind when you had promised them you wouldn't. Home in Kansas City, Kander watched in shock as Afghanistan fell. And immediately, he reached out to his translator, Salam, who was safe and out of the country. And at some point, I did say to him, you know, do you have anybody over there who's in danger? And he told me about his nephew in Afghanistan. Salam's nephew, Rahim, was squarely in Taliban crosshairs because he possessed critical documents from his work in payroll for Afghanistan International Bank.

What list does Rahim have that makes him such a target? Rahim has access to the list of tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked directly with everybody from the UN to the U.S. embassy to any other multilateral just trying to build democracy in Afghanistan. Everything that the Taliban stood against and everything that once the Taliban took over, one of their first priorities was to find those people and make an example of them by imprisoning them or killing them. Does the Taliban ever get their hands on that list?

No, I never gave up. Never got the list? Never provide a single information. Rahim Raoufi's refusal to cooperate enraged the Taliban. How were you threatened? We just received night letters. Night letters? Yeah, night letters.

The night letters were Taliban edicts dropped under doors under the shroud of dark. One sent to the Raoufi home in Kabul read, your whole family is sentenced to death for betraying the Islamic Emirate, using the Taliban's choice term for Afghanistan. They clearly mentioned that they are going to kill me. You had to get out of there? Yeah. For Rahim and his clan of 12, his wife, their children, including triplets,

his mom, his brothers, a nephew, sisters-in-law, hope for a passage to safety rested with a Little League dad nine and a half time zones away in Kansas City, Missouri, Jason Kander. The two began exchanging encrypted text messages. He was the only one. The only person who showed up for you in your worst time. But you've never seen this guy? No. Even I don't know how he looks like. My thinking was, how in the world can I go on with the rest of my life thinking maybe there was something else I could have done for Rahim?

Yet another dynamic. After Kander had been honorably discharged as an army captain, a political career took off. He was seen as a rising Democratic Party star, and in 2016, Kander nearly won a U.S. Senate seat for Missouri. Then he stepped away from politics, citing his struggles with untreated PTSD, an unhappy legacy from Afghanistan. And this didn't give you pause. Maybe I shouldn't jump back in the fire. The very country where this PTSD took root, no less. Ultimately, I just made the decision that it didn't matter. I would deal with it afterwards. And I made the decision, which I

knew at the time was probably poor judgment, to say to Rahim, no matter how long it takes, we're going to get this done. I knew that I was biting off more than I could chew. And we're just trying to get our friends out of Afghanistan. Kander joined with other private citizens, feverishly plotting to evacuate nearly 400 endangered Afghans that included soldiers, poets, doctors, and the Raoufis. And the overarching plan initially is what? Well, the overarching plan initially is,

what the hell are we doing? That didn't work. Let's try this. Jason's wife Diana became concerned her husband's desire to rescue the Raufi family might damage his own family. Are you worried he may decide to go over there? Yeah, he asked me for his... He his, he called me from the other room. He's like, hey, where's my passport? Just by the by.

And I was like, yeah, zero chance you're even getting access to your passport. You brought it up. I mean, some other guys, yeah, we had ideas. They were all bad ideas, but we were also running out of ideas by that point. Once the last American military plane departed Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, the Taliban controlled the Kabul airport, choking off the most obvious escape route. Kander and his ad hoc group directed the imperiled Afghans to head to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Let's get everybody to Mazar-e-Sharif. Let's have them in hiding. And then let's charter a plane,

get it in there. And then we got to figure out somehow how to take all these people who the Taliban are looking for and stage them in one place and get them into the airport. The thinking at that moment, in the north of the country, the Taliban wasn't quite as entrenched. But for the Raoufi family, the city of Mazar-e-Sharif was a treacherous 11-hour drive from Kabul, dotted with Taliban checkpoints. Is there not a fear that you are potentially sending this family of 12 to their death? Yeah, it was a big fear. It was all I thought about.

How do you reckon with that? I wasn't going to their death. Yeah, it was a big fear. It was all I thought about. How do you reckon with that? I wasn't going to walk away. And it also seemed like if we weren't successful, that's what was going to happen anyway. You know, part of it was Rahim had to send me all the documents for the entire family. That included headshots of all 12 Raufis. So at this point, what's living in my phone is pictures of these little girls. documents for the entire family. That included headshots of all 12 Raoufis.

So at this point, what's living in my phone is pictures of these little girls. And for me, what I kept thinking about was, you know, my wife came here as a refugee at the age of eight from Ukraine with her family. And when I looked at these little girls, that's what I saw. I saw little Diana. And so not only was quitting not an option, failure wasn't an option. In the early morning of September 1, 2021, the Raoufis began their convoy to Mazar. A few minutes in... Suddenly the Taliban came out in front of my car

and they had a gun in their hands. Oh, my God. I said, now you are done. They started searching us. Taliban searching your car? Taliban searched me and the driver. And they have the gun and the kids are just... They thought that they are going to shoot me or the driver. And they have the gun and the kids are just, they thought that they

are going to shoot me or the driver. Only because of my kids crying and shouting, they just released. If your children are not crying in the car, which gets sympathy from the Taliban, done. Done. They finally rolled into Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan's fourth largest city. And now what? The Rufis are in Mazar-e-Sharif, and myself and the people I was now working with

are engaged in solving a few problems, or trying to. One, how do we raise the money to get an airplane chartered to fly in there to pick up close to 400 people? And also, how do we make it so that the Taliban doesn't know that we're doing this? The day after the Raoufis arrived in Mazar in September 2021, the Taliban, in a show of strength, paraded in the center of town. The Raoufis went underground for weeks, finding their own safe houses. One night, Rahim surreptitiously took this video of a Taliban roundup just across the street from where the family was hiding. As the Raoufis dodged the Taliban, half a world away,

Jason Kander and his co-conspirators were finalizing a Hail Mary plan of either genius or insanity. On September 21st, it was go time. I tell Rahim, okay, today's the day. You're moving. He said, one bag per person. This is the location I'm sending you. You have a code word, and it's Bella. I said, Bella? He said, yeah, my daughter's name.

Get ready, bring a bag, code word Bella. Is it someone that I should give this code? Whom I should give? Because Jason didn't give me a name that you should go to that person. He just told me to go to this location. Wait, wait, so you have a code, but you don't know who to say it. You say the code to the wrong person. If you say the code to the wrong person, then you're...

Kander directed the Raufis to a wedding palace in Mazar. There, Rahim spotted a man with a beard, a turban, and a look of authority. He had a laptop. That was your clue? Yeah. He asked me, do you have anything? I said, Bella. When I said Bella, he opened his laptop. And he asked me for my last name.

I said Raufi. My heart was beating very fast. Then he said, 12 people? I said, yes. Then he said, bring the men. The Raufis were led to a large hall inside the wedding palace. When they opened the door, I was shocked. I see that there are more people.

There are women, men, kids with their back. Just like you, hundreds and hundreds of people. Yes, 370 or 380 people. Do you recognize any of them? No, none of them. Didn't know any of them. No one is talking with each other, just hi, hello, salam, that's it.

Then I called Jason and said, brother, I am in, but there are more people. Then he told me, welcome to the wedding party. Welcome to the wedding party. That's what he said? Yeah. Welcome to the wedding. Is there a bride? No.

A groom? Nothing. Music? Nothing at all. I hope they fed you at least. Very good. Is there a bride? No. A groom? Nothing. Music? Nothing at all. I hope they fed you at least. Very good. It was a fake wedding, a ruse to slip past the unsuspecting Taliban and gather 383 Afghans

in one place before a high-stakes attempt to reach the airport. When we come back, the wedding party makes its great escape. The fake wedding threw the Taliban off the scent, but 383 Afghans with ties to the U.S. and the fight for democracy were marooned for three days in a wedding hall. All the while, Jason Kander, the former Army captain in Kansas City, continued concocting the evacuation plan. Through crowdfunding and private donations, Kander and other orchestrators frantically raised money to charter a commercial plane that would whisk away the entire wedding party to, of all places, Albania, a way station until the Afghans were granted clearance to enter the U.S. But inside the wedding palace, Rahim Raoufi knew none of this.

It was not clear for me what Jason is doing. It's a lot of trust. It's just trust. When did you start to realize that things might be moving in a good direction? Some people start receiving travel documents, like the boarding pass. So how did you get your boarding pass? Yeah, we just receive it through email. This is the one.

That? Yes. That's your boarding pass? Yeah, it's a boarding pass with my entire family names on it. And it says, special flight. This doesn't look particularly official. This looks like an email from a law firm with some yearbook photos photoshopped. That's what the 380 people, they had only this one.

This, too, was the handiwork of the rescue team in America, in coordination with Jason Kander. Explain these boarding passes, which look something less than official. So the boarding passes, which were quite unofficial, only matter if there is a flight manifest document from the nation of Albania. Otherwise, they're just a piece of paper you're going to present and then go to prison. So what was going to happen was the Albanian government was going to send to the Taliban a visa-cleared flight manifest, a list of people that said, these are the people who we are expecting to have land in our country.

Now, what these people needed to do was present something that had their pictures on it, had their names, their date of birth, everything that would match up to what was on that document. In other words, everything rested on the Taliban, a group more known for executions than for following international protocol. The really terrifying and lethal game of capture the flag that was trying to get someone out of Afghanistan at that moment in time worked like this. If the Taliban finds you and you're someone they're looking for,

they can do whatever they want, they run the country. If they do not find you until you have made it inside the airport and you are on a manifest for a flight that is visa clearedcleared by another country. Well, now, if they imprison you or shoot you in the head, you are someone that was expected to land in another country, and now it's an international incident.

It was finally time to test the Taliban. Buses arrived at the Mazar-e-Sharif airport, filled with the 383 members of the wedding party. Oh, my God. there was checkpoints. In the terminal and on the tarmac, the Taliban was everywhere. They were just coming and see to your face. I was shaking, I was sweating.

Now what? Now you're in front of the Taliban. They were just looking for a single mistake. One little number or one misspelled name. One little number, misspelled name, or anything to stop you. If they stop you, then you're gone. From the gate, the Raoufis could see their aircraft, this vessel to freedom, so tantalizingly close. Are you thinking this is the big gamble?

This is either going to end terribly or I'm getting on that plane. It's a gambling that you even didn't see your cards. What do you have? What do you got? What will happen? But you just gamble your entire life. The bet paid off. Astonishingly, the Taliban honored the homemade boarding passes in the Albanian Manifest and relented.

The wedding party boarded the charter plane. Back in Kansas City, Jason Kander followed the drama on a flight tracking app. There's zero planes over Afghanistan. And then finally, they're on the plane, and the transponder turns on, and you see one little airplane turn on on the runway in Masar-e-Sharif. That's your plane. That was Bella. That was our plane.

After the plane soared safely out of Afghan airspace, the champagne came out. The rescuers celebrated. The wedding party landed in Tirana, Albania, and were bussed to a seaside resort, the Raffaello. By sheer coincidence, a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty stands outside the front lobby. That was a very beautiful hotel, one of the topmost hotels near the ocean, with the ocean view. So when we arrived there, I said, wow. Rahim Raoufi recorded this video of his kids on the beach, addressing a guy they still had met.

Thank you, Jason Uncle. Thank you, Jason Uncle. They get to Albania, obviously not the ultimate final destination. How long did you anticipate everyone being in Albania for? So what we had been told by people at the Department of Homeland Security was that it would probably be a few weeks. And what happened is, is that weeks went by. And then somewhere, I want to say two, three months after we got out, the State Department made an announcement that anybody who got out after August 31st

would not be part of Operation Allies Welcome. And basically, it was all code for, you're on your own. If you got out this way, that's a private effort. We got nothing to do with it. And that was a big shock and a huge problem. A year passed. By the fall of 2022, the honeymoon long over, the wedding party was still stuck at the Raffaello Resort in Albania. Maybe we are not going to be accepted, then they will send us back. So if they send us back, I'm sure on the airport, they will kill us.

On top of that, private donations that had been covering the resort tab were running low. You've crossed the year mark. Who's paying this hotel bill? There were some very generous donors who helped us over time, and the people who had helped me raise the money in the first place did a lot of work. And it's taken a toll on all of us. But I think now, if you talk to any of us, we'd say it's the most important thing we've ever done. Finally, nearly two years into the wedding party saga, emails arrived from the U.S. Department

of Homeland Security. The Afghans had been approved officially to resettle in America. Oh my God, that was a big party. I just called Jason and said, hey, we all got the approval. Emotional day. I was like crying inside. Yep. Emotional day. I was like crying inside. Yeah. Now you have a future.

Rahim Raoufi had never been to America, but he knew exactly where he wanted to call home. As he put it to Jason Kander... Where do you live? Because I have no idea. But wherever you live, I'll come to that state. In June of 2023, Raheem Raoufi and his family arrived in Kansas City. Jason Kander and his family were there to greet them. I said, brother, is this real life? He said, Jason, reply me, yes. And I said, we did it. You've had this intense multi-year relationship with this family,

but you've never met them when you finally see them in person. What is that like for you? It was sort of an out-of-body experience. And to see my kids and the Rufy kids sitting on the floor playing and not needing any language, it really underlined for me what I had felt all along, which is that there's really no difference between these kids and my kids, and that they all deserve the same thing. And, yeah, it was pretty special.

Today, Rahim Raoufi is back to working in accounts at a bank, this one in downtown Kansas City, where his brothers serve as security guards. The Raoufis and the Kanders regularly get together for a traditional Afghan meal, Bella of code word fame included. For all the distance that once divided them, they now live 10 minutes apart. At midnight, when I wake up, I'm taking like one or two minutes to think. Is it real? Still. think. Is it real? Still.

Still. Is it real? I'm going to my kids' room and see them and check them. They are sleeping very comfortably. And the next day they are going to school. Afghanistan doesn't go down as a great U.S. military success. Do you feel like you got a W here? There was a point during this where somebody I was doing this with and we were talking,

and one of us said, do you worry that maybe all we're trying to do is win the war we just lost? And yeah, I think there was a part of that for sure. But I want Americans to know that every Afghan that they meet did something heroic to get here. And when you first meet them, they might be in a job where you may not think about that. They might be bussing your table. They might be driving your Uber. But these are some of the most industrious and resilient and incredible people that you'll ever meet. And I just would like every American to know that. I'm Cecilia Vega.

We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.