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CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley
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March 13, 2022 2:37 pm

CBS Sunday Morning,

CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley

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March 13, 2022 2:37 pm

CBS Sunday Morning hosted by Jane Pauley. Lee Cowan looks at how Russia's state-run media is painting a false picture of its war with Ukraine, and David Pogue finds out the risks facing Russians protesting in the streets. Plus: Anthony Mason interviews musician Keith Richards; Gayle King talks with Oscar-nominee Will Smith; Luke Burbank sits down with Amy Poehler; Rita Braver chats with Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein, author of a new memoir; and Martha Teichner examines lessons learned by schools from the COVID pandemic.

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I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. Russian forces continue their deadly assault in Ukraine this weekend. Of course, Vietnam was our very first television war. This is what the war in Vietnam is all about. Cameras brought the horror of war into America's living rooms as never before, helping to fuel a growing anti-war movement. Russia's Vladimir Putin is well aware of that now much amplified power, which is one reason he's clamped down on the press and prevented the Russian people from learning the real truth about his invasion of Ukraine. Lee Cowan this morning takes us to the front lines of this all-important battle over information. If there's one thing Vladimir Putin fears, it's dissent.

The less people know, the better. They actually don't have access to information that would make them doubt what they hear from the government. Expressing any doubt, in fact, has been made a crime. All Russian opposition has been destroyed.

And yet in the face of all those restrictions, everyday Russians are still finding ways to let their outrage be known. Their story coming up on Sunday morning. A fresh prince and a morning television king walk into an interview.

And as you'll see, anything can happen. At the age of one, I had just begun on my journey to the T.O.P. And at the age of two, everybody knew I was a hella fat MC. But for Will Smith, reaching the T.O.P. wasn't easy. And I look back on those pain and those difficult moments and if I could change it, would I?

And you know, the answer's probably no. A very different side of Will Smith ahead on Sunday morning. The Rolling Stone's Keith Richards is a music legend with some legendary exploits to prove it. Still, Anthony Mason found Richards in a surprisingly reflective state of mind.

Less than a year after the Rolling Stone's lost drummer Charlie Watts, Keith Richards says he and Mick Jagger are writing again. What happens when you guys get in a room? A lot of music. Yeah.

Yeah. And this past week, Richards had a rare reunion with his solo band. To be able to put us all back together, let alone all be here, is like amazing. Keith Richards, later on Sunday morning.

Luke Burbank shares a few laughs with Amy Poehler, plus a story from Steve Hartman and more on this Sunday morning, March 13th, 2022. Russian state media calls the war in Ukraine a special military operation. Words like war and invasion are forbidden by law. Lee Cowan will tell us more about this information blackout, while David Pogue looks at why Russians are taking to the streets in protest all the same.

We begin with Lee Cowan. Just days after Russia began its unprovoked attack on cities all across Ukraine, 22-year-old Julia Timoshenko called her relative in Moscow. I told her about spending a night in the basement of our building in Kiev, waking up at 4 a.m. to the sounds of explosions and fighter jets. My aunt told me, well, you don't know who did that. So, yes, she said, well, we're seeing one thing on the news, you're seeing another thing on the news. My response was, like, it's not the news for me, it's my reality, and it's what I see with my own eyes.

Timoshenko went a step further. I sent her pictures of my mom being in the bomb shelter, us fleeing on the pack train, and she blocked me. She blocked you after you sent the pictures? Yes, yes, exactly. Not even, uh, are you okay? I don't know what's going on, but are you okay?

And none of that, huh? Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's shocking for me. Like, I know that everything that they receive is, like, sort of flipped. They call black white and white black, and that's how they have been living for decades. For those living in Russia, the singularity of the state-run media is impossible to escape. The Russian military is portrayed as doing God's work. Even the Russian Orthodox Church has endorsed the so-called special operation as a moral imperative. And if you're wondering just how Vladimir Putin can convince so many good people to believe in some kind of special operation, well, it's a moral imperative. And if you're wondering just how Vladimir Putin can convince so many good people to believe in such bad things, consider this. Propaganda rests on what people already believe, what people already think they feel, the things that they, uh, accept at their deepest level. Nick Kull has studied propaganda most of his life.

He's a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Southern California. By alleging that Ukraine is dominated by Nazis and that it is necessary for him to repeat the historic mission of the, uh, as it was then Soviet Union, in defeating Nazis, this is incredibly powerful stuff to invoke. What's different, he says, is just how many lies are being spread. The volume of disinformation coming out of Russia over the last four years is unprecedented. Something like two-thirds of Russians are in favor of the war because the war that they're approving of is not the actual war that's happening. Just this past week, when disturbing pictures emerged of a bloody pregnant woman stumbling out of a bombed-out maternity hospital, Russians were told she was an actor. She probably wasn't even pregnant.

She gave birth this past Friday. So they're buying it, right? For the most part. It's hard not to buy it, but they've now blocked Facebook, blocked Twitter, they're slowing down YouTube. Basically all of Russian independent media has been rooted out, or what was left of it was rooted out in the last week. Now that's all gone completely and it's just state media.

Julia Yaffe has covered the Kremlin for more than a decade and is currently Washington correspondent and founding partner of the news site POC. Russians can be very good at suffering for a cause they believe is just and I think that's what the Kremlin is counting on. If they keep telling the Russian people that this is a just war and a war of liberation, people won't rise up and demand change when their economic circumstances get worse and worse, which they will. If there is any good news, experts say, it's that propaganda usually backfires.

Any time you introduce a distortion into the media environment, somebody has to pick up the tab down the road when it turns out that the world is not as described. And in Ukraine, the first Russians to recognize that may eventually be the invading army itself. And they're seeing when they roll into Ukraine, they're seeing the resistance. They're seeing how much people hate them. They're seeing tens of thousands of Ukrainians telling them to go home and cursing at them.

And it's one of the reasons the advance isn't going very well because everybody was lied to and they can see it. As Russian troops continue their assault, Julia Tymoshenko hopes that the lies that launched Vladimir Putin's war will one day prove to be the spark that ignites a revolution. What's the one thing you'd want the average person in Russia to know about what's going on? We fully support those who find courage to speak up and to resist their government, knowing that most likely they will go to jail. And I just want to hug those people and tell them thank you. We just need more of those kinds of people in Russia to speak up and to stand up against their own dictator.

This is David Pogue. From the beginning of Russia's war on Ukraine, protesters have filled the streets around the world. But nowhere is protesting a more significant act than it is here in Russia. According to a Russian human rights group, the government arrested more than 13,000 protesters in the first two weeks of the war. Sometimes police officers take your phone, take your stuff, and you have nothing. Sometimes they beat people. Two weeks ago, 18-year-old Eva Ivanova was among 1,500 protesters in St. Petersburg.

That's Eva in the yellow jacket. Eva says that she was held at a police station for 28 hours and ordered to sign a statement of guilt. And I said, I'm not signing it because I don't think I'm guilty. They got just crazy. And they tried to scare me with, yeah, 20 years of jail. But that wasn't the worst part. You know, they can change your mind. They say something and you start to doubt maybe they're right.

And I saw how people get broken. It's very risky to take to the street. If you participate in the protest for the first time, you can be sent to prison up to 15 days. The second time, 30 days. The third time, it will be a criminal case.

So it's five years of prison. Dmitry Gudkov was a Russian parliament member from 2011 to 2016. He openly opposed Vladimir Putin's regime. After receiving threats, he and his family fled the country last June.

Putin decided to get rid of all opponents, of all politicians in the parliament, because I think that he was planning this invasion in Ukraine. Can a protest do anything under these conditions? You can achieve nothing by the protest. It's impossible.

It is very risky. And it's not sufficient at all. Eva Ivanova knows that protesting won't stop the war.

But that's not why she does it. I don't think that the protest can stop a special military operation. But I believe that that's how we can show our protest and our respect to Ukrainian people. Furthermore, we want people from other countries to see that our government is not us. Russian people is not Russian government.

Are you more afraid now to do another protest? Yes. And I understand that I can get in a huge trouble. But it doesn't stop me. You still have to go and go and go because you know that it's correct. You must support people.

You must show your position. Are you at all worried about showing your face on television? You know, a little bit. But I want people to see that I am a real person. That I have faith. I have voice.

So really, I want my face to be here. Are you a very unusual, brave, courageous person? Or are there lots of people like you? I don't think I'm an extraordinary girl. No, I'm just I'm just a girl.

I'm sure that there are a lot of people like me in Russia. In protest, I can see that. Time for a pep talk. Compliments of Steve Hartman.

Here at Westside Union Grade School in Healdsburg, California, we found all the inspiration you'll ever need. Okay, one, two, three. Just hit record.

Three. If you're feeling deflated, do what you like best. It reinflates you. Pearls like that. Fabulous. Little unscripted motivational gems are being collected and catalogued for this free telephone hotline. Hi, welcome to Pep Talk, a public art project by Westside School. If you're feeling mad, frustrated or nervous, press one. Go get your wallet and spend it on ice cream and shoes. Whatever your worry, they've got a solution. If you need words of encouragement, press two. Be grateful for yourself. Whatever your insecurity, they'll restore confidence. If you need a pep talk from kindergartners, press three.

You can do it! The hotline is the brainchild of teachers Ashera Weiss and Jessica Martin. They thought family and friends might enjoy calling the number. But there's no way you could have imagined what happened.

No, it was very shocking. Pep Talk is now getting up to 9,000 calls per hour. Roughly half a million total and counting. It turned into a big thing.

It spread all around the world. I was not expecting it to go this viral. Miss Jessica is really good at making a hotline. I don't think it's her. I think it's you guys.

Okay. People at school did a great job. They sure did. You guys gave a gift to the world. And the teachers say it's more than those messages. Adults support children, but we don't really celebrate how much they support us. And to be able to be comforted by them gives us great hope that maybe we're all going to be okay. And if you ever doubt that, you know who to call.

Be happy! It's Sunday morning on CBS News Radio. And here again is Jane Pauley. At an age when many are well into retirement, guitarist Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is writing new music and getting back on stage. Anthony Mason caught up with a man who's as legendary for his lifestyle as he is for his music. In a rehearsal room this past week, Keith Richards had a rare reunion with his solo band.

The expensive winos. Waddy Wachtel on guitar, Ivan Neville on keys, and Steve Jordan on drums. To be able to put us all back together, let alone all be here, is like amazing. We made it.

First off we got here. Keith and the winos reunited to perform at Love Rocks NYC, a benefit concert at New York's Beacon Theater Thursday night. It's been 30 years since they last toured in support of Keith's solo album, Main Offender. And a lot's changed. We noticed that Keith, notorious for his vices, has finally kicked his most persistent addiction. The cigarettes are gone. Yes, uh, you know it's funny I don't think about it much anymore. Two years ago he quietly quit smoking after 55 years. You stopped cold turkey? Yeah, I got a few patches for a few weeks, you know, but um, yeah, I don't know, sometimes, you know, a bell rings and something inside says, hey pal, enough, so yeah, just put the hammer on it. Why do you think the bell rang?

Hey, probably getting on a bit. Luckily I just don't miss it and that makes me feel good. Until I started rehearsing for the tour last August.

And then I realized that I had 10 times more wind. Have you noticed any difference in his vocals? Uh, he's singing more than the original keys. Steve Jordan noticed when he took over the drums on the Rolling Stones tour last summer. After Charlie Watts fell ill. Watts, who'd never missed a Stones gig, died just two weeks later. He was 80. That came as a surprise to you.

It did to me, yes, absolutely. Um, I think he'd been trying to keep it under the wraps for a while last year. So that it came, yeah, it was quite a shock. He had had a round with cancer a year or two before and, well, he beat that one. He just got hit with the double whammy, bless his soul. Did you all talk about whether the tour should go on?

Uh, for a brief moment. I think Charlie wanted us to go on the road. He wanted the tour to happen. That's my feeling the last time I spoke to him. Was it weird to look back and not see Charlie there?

Yeah, that is strange, yes. To turn suddenly and, you know, after all these years, you just expect that face. Ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones! With Jordan on drums, the Stones persevered.

They've toured steadily for 60 years now, except for a seven-year stretch in the 80s, when Mick Jagger launched a solo career. Mick wanted to do separate things and I didn't. So you went reluctantly?

Yeah, to start with, yeah, yeah. Did you know who you were outside of the band? No, maybe that's why one of the attractions of doing the winos was to find out if there was anything else.

Anyway, just to look over the fence. Richards has released three albums with the winos who quickly developed their own sound. Playing with the winos was always sheer joy because it didn't matter. We were on the man kind of thing, you know. Let's see how long we can get away with this. The new 30th anniversary box set of Main Offender includes some of Keith's songwriting notes. This is a facsimile of one of the envelopes apparently you wrote some stuff on. Oh. Can you interpret that for me?

Oh my god. Is that how you write songs? Yeah, basically back of envelopes and just phrases that strike. Richards, now 78, says he's been writing again with the Stones. It'll be interesting to find out the dynamics now that Steve's in the band is sort of metamorphosing into something else still.

I was working with Mick last week and Steve and we came up with some eight or nine new pieces of material which is overwhelming by our standards. Funny how that happens. Why does that happen? Yeah, exactly. Other times like a desert.

Do you know why it happens? You can't make it happen. No, it's the muse thing, you know.

I could find her address. The Stones are planning to be back on tour this summer. You look forward to it?

Oh yeah, yeah. To celebrate 60 years of making music. There are a lot of artists who are selling their catalogs right now.

When you see that going on, what do you think? Mick and I have not spoken about it on a serious level. I don't know if we're ready to sell our catalog.

We might drag it out a bit, put some more stuff in it. You only think about selling your catalog. That's a sign of getting old. Have you ever asked yourself, how much longer can I do this? If I did that, I wouldn't be coming up with an answer, and then I'd be always thinking about it. You know, I mean, tomorrow, July the first, two thousand and twenty-five. No, you can't know.

I'll find out the hard way. Sunday Morning on the Radio continues after this. This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell. Bridge Colby is co-founder and principal of the Marathon Initiative, a project focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. The United States put our mind to something we can usually figure it out. What people are saying and what we kind of know analytically and empirically is our strategic situation, our military situation, is not being matched up with what we're doing. Follow Intelligence Matters wherever you get your podcasts.

This is The Takeout with Major Garrett. This week, Stephen Law, ally of Mitch McConnell and one of Washington's biggest midterm money men. List for me the two Senate races where you think Republicans have the best chance of taking a Democratic seat away. Nevada, New Hampshire. Not Georgia. Well, Georgia's right up there, but New Hampshire is a surprise. In New Hampshire, people really just kind of don't like Maggie Hassan. For more from this week's conversation, follow The Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

You're listening to Sunday Morning on the Radio. As a comedian, an actor, a writer, producer and now director, Amy Poehler is a woman of many talents. She's in conversation with our Luke Burbank. Ladies and gentlemen, Amy Poehler. Amy Poehler has been on some of comedy's biggest stages.

Wow, thank you so much. And has delivered some truly memorable lines. I haven't really been following the controversy over Zero Dark Thirty, but when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron. But before all that, of course, she was just a kid, the child of two public school teachers in Burlington, Massachusetts, who couldn't quite put her finger on it, but knew there was something she liked about making people laugh. How big of a deal was being funny to you when you were a kid? Like, was that part of your personality?

That's a deep question, Luke. Yeah, I did like the feeling of knowing I could make people laugh or if I tried to be funny, it would work. Sometimes I didn't try and I got laughs and that was sad.

Those were sad days. Mostly, though, the laughs Poehler got were intentional, especially as she honed her comedic chops. First, in Boston, where she attended college. Not Harvard.

People should know that. You know that it was Harvard when the people don't clarify. People from people say I went to school in Boston. It's probably Harvard, but it wasn't Harvard. It was Harvard Plus.

It was the more fancier Harvard. And then in Chicago, where she joined the legendary Second City Improv Troop and later were desperate for help this summer, co-founded Upright Citizens Brigade. Okay, says here you were a dancer. Were these national tours? No, they were strip clubs. I put down dancing because I thought it sounded better. I see.

And it was in Chicago where Poehler met a young Tina Fey whom she connected with instantly and then reconnected with a few years later at Saturday Night Live. What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick. Lipstick.

There you go. I loved the people, most importantly, but I also loved the skills I learned in terms of letting things go, fighting for things. One time I drank a ton of Mountain Dew and I stayed up all night and then I was like, oh, what a beautiful morning.

Oh, what a beautiful day. It's like an emergency room. You feel really excited that you survived it. My ears are ringing.

And you also might die if you're there too long. This is my last show. Not wanting to die, Poehler left SNL after eight seasons to play the role that may very well end up defining her career. Leslie Knope. As a private citizen, I have personally patronized each and every one of your establishments. I've never seen you buy a salad at Sue's Salad. It's because I don't hate myself, Tanya. I'm sorry. I know I should be chasing your vote, but I stand behind my decision to avoid salad and other disgusting things. Knope could have been just another two-dimensional sitcom character.

Oh, ice cream sandwich taste test. But Poehler and the show's writers managed to do something pretty remarkable with Leslie Knope. They created an entire approach to life. This is a whole thing that a lot of people, particularly women, see as a way of viewing their world and their existence. Yeah, I think what she represented was this person in a job that felt like it had a low ceiling, but she had a lot of big hopes and dreams and she was trying to figure out how to work the system or have the system work for her without losing her sense of joy, spirit, without it crushing her. While Hollywood can have a crushing effect on many people, particularly women, Poehler has found a way to thrive and grow into an influential producer in her own right. You ever watch like nature documentaries and magpies grab shiny things to build a nest?

That's what I've done here. Inside her production office, she showed us some of the mementos she's accumulated over the years. This was the Pawnee seal that was on set and behind Leslie's desk and I stole it and now I put it behind my desk. And this is your real desk where you actually produce things for your production company, Paper Kite?

Yeah. Along with producing a variety of projects, Poehler also directs, including most recently, Lucy and Desi, a documentary about the famous couple. And the only reason I love Lucy exists is because they wanted to be together so they could have a family and make the marriage work.

So they made this show and now the rest of the universe has it and they never got what they wanted. Lucy strongly believed that she shouldn't be labeled a genius because she works really hard and worked really hard at her craft. I think that not enough women are called geniuses.

I think that that word is thrown around a lot but it's often not given to women as much. So I like to call Lucy a genius even though I know she would hate it. Do you feel like there are some parallels between your career and her career?

I feel very connected to what I believe she was feeling or going through. How do I balance work and family? How do I take advantage of my currency and my opportunity? How do I amplify voices? How do I take up space in the room? All that kind of stuff that Lucy had to deal with 50 years before I did or women like me.

Media profiles of Poehler often focus on her role as a woman in the comedy world. And as our interview drew to a close, there was just one more question I had to get answered. But they asked me to not ask about this but I can't let this go. So you're okay, but just pausing. I'm going to wait here. So they asked you not to ask.

Yes, and I'm going to wait. That's interesting. This is telling me more about you, Lou. Can our men funny? Yeah, they're getting there. And I'm proud of them.

That's what I want to say to all the men right now. I'm really, really proud of you. Good job, buddy.

It happened last week. The discovery of a long-lost treasure of the deep. Nearly two miles below the surface of the icy Weddell Sea, archaeologists unearthed the wreck of Endurance, the vessel from Ernest Shackleton's fabled expedition more than a century ago. In 1914, Shackleton and his crew set sail for Antarctica. But their ship soon encountered ice drifts, which eventually encircled and crushed it. Endurance sank and the men floated on sheets of ice for five months before reaching a remote island. From there, Shackleton and five men set out for help. They sailed 800 miles in a lifeboat to the nearest known whaling station, and then sailed back to rescue the remaining men. Of the 28-man crew of Endurance, not one perished. And as the ship reappeared on the seabed some 107 years later, its name was still emblazoned on its stern.

A monument to a remarkable band of explorers, whose epic tale of survival endures to this day. You are a former agent of a top-secret organization that monitors extraterrestrials on Earth. We're the men in black.

We have a situation and we need your help. From undercover agent to fighter pilot to fresh prince, Will Smith has played his charming self in countless roles over the past 30 years. Now he's up for an Oscar for his work in the film King Richard. Gail King has our Sunday profile. Just so you know, I'm not a tennis player.

No, but Will Smith is a pretty good instructor. There you go. Okay, okay. Serving up tips.

No more flexing your knees. Okay. All right, it's all fun and games, so someone loses an eye.

And quips. Are you distracted by my beauty? Yeah, yeah, I'm, you know, it's like the sunshine. I'm just like, you're just bringing the sunshine to the cot. Beautiful, beautiful.

Smith picked up a racket for his latest film, King Richard, in the Oscar-nominated performance. The most powerful, the most dangerous creature on this whole Earth. He plays a father of Venus and Serena Williams. It's a woman who know how to thank. Ain't nothing she can't do. Y'all know how to thank?

Yes, daddy. Determined to turn his daughters into champions on and off the court. For many people, it didn't seem that Richard Williams knew what he was doing. He wasn't doing what people thought he was doing. He didn't give a damn about tennis. No, he didn't. He was, he was trying to build his family, right?

He was using tennis to cultivate his family, to cultivate values. You're not going to just be representing you. You're going to be representing every little black girl on Earth. At 53, Will Smith knows a lot about value. He is a global superstar, selling millions of albums, billions at the box office, conquering the big screen. I make this look good. Small screen, and now is a best-selling author. Make no mistake, this memoir is not sugar-coated. My suffering helped me to become who I am.

It's a candid confessional of a boy from West Philadelphia. You said that about yourself. I was a weird kid with big ears.

Yes. What do you think made you a weird kid? I kind of lived in my imagination.

I couldn't help but see things and why they were funny. But there was nothing funny about his life at home. Smith had a very complicated relationship with his father, a veteran who ruled over the family with discipline, fear, and fists.

At nine, Smith saw his father beat his mother. And I didn't do anything. But as a little boy, well, what are you supposed to do? You know, the child mind doesn't work like that.

I expect it to be a superhero. At one point, when his parents separated, Smith says he thought about taking his own life. And it was the only time in my life that I consider suicide. And it just was my fault.

And I don't know how kids do that in their mind, but it was somehow my fault that my family was falling apart. As a child, Smith coped by being a class clown. His nickname started with a teacher. Miss Brown. Miss Brown gave me, she was calling me Prince Charming. Prince Charming.

So that was the prince. And then I added the fresh. And it stayed. It stuck with you.

It stuck hard. So did his love of hip hop. You said you did your first rap at 12. Do you kind of remember what it was? At the age of one, I had just begun on my journey to the T.O.P. And at the age of two, everybody knew I was a hell of five. Huh, M.C.

I actually wrote the huh. On the way to the T.O.P. To the T.O.P. Parents all the same, no matter time, no place.

He would reach the top and then some. So to you are the kids all across the land. There's no need to argue.

Parents just don't understand. First in rap. Then as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. That girl was so dumb, it took an hour to cook minute rice. New to acting, Smith would memorize the lines of the entire cast. Something he now laughs about today.

She was so ugly that Freddy Krueger used to have nightmares about her. But do you look at that and go, oh, rookie mistake? I was like, that dude's an awful actor. He's not going to amount to anything in this business.

But he did. It's always crazy. It's always crazy to walk up here. All these years later, the house is still fresh.

So are the lyrics. In West Philadelphia, born and raised. So on the playground is where I spent. Most of my days. Chilling out, maxing.

Relaxing all cool and all. Okay, okay, girl. Smith could have stopped with a hit TV show, but that wasn't part of the plan. You were asked, what do you want out of this career? And you said you want to be. The biggest movie star in the world.

Smith's dream came true with a string of blockbusters. Don't ever say I wasn't there for you. Welcome to Earth. Going to get your gun back, huh?

I like this gun. I'm just saying, Gail, you know, I mean, people make movies in a row. But if you're going to make three in a row, you know what I'm saying? I mean, what are we talking about?

What are we talking about? Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men and Black. Was it as easy as it looked? No, sir. No, sir, it wasn't. Did you ever think of your race as a deterrent for you in Hollywood, considering the success you've had?

You know, I never looked at my race as keeping me from being able to do anything. And I've been a really firm believer that first and foremost, you got to believe. And when you believe and if you believe in the level of your belief will determine your ability to bend the universe. If you don't believe, nobody's going to believe.

That's really good advice, right? For Smith, fame takes a backseat to family. He's the father of three children, Trey from his first wife, Sheree Sampino, and Jaden and Willow with his wife of the past 25 years, Jada Pinkett Smith. They are a power couple. Many believe they have an unconventional marriage. So how do you handle all the chatter then, Will, about your marriage? I have decided that chatter about my life can be of a benefit to people.

I think the chatter is a really, chatter is the first stage to having a real conversation and being able to truly explore if some of the things in your heart are loving or poisonous. You both have talked very candidly. It's a very famous story, infidelity in the marriage and how you navigated that time. There's never been infidelity in our marriage. Never been infidelity in our marriage?

Never. Jada and I talk about everything and we have never surprised one another with anything ever. What may be surprising is how Smith came to terms with the pain from his past. He made peace with his father when he was dying in 2016. In those last moments with my father, when I was able to forgive my father, I had a shocking realization that I was able to forgive myself. My father dying started a new phase of my life.

And that new phase continues with a mission to make a difference and build a legacy that is lasting and meaningful. So as we sit here today, there are many people looking saying Will Smith is at the top of his game. Will Smith seems to have it all. What do you have left to do that you want to do? Life has gotten really, really simple for me right now, right? I think I'm a better actor than I've ever been. And I think I'm going to, you know, these next 10 years of my career, I think will be the top of my acting performances. But I also feel like I can help people.

There's a teacher inside of me that's trying to get out. I've learned how to be happy here. And I've learned how to create love here.

And I want to, I want to share. You're listening to CBS Sunday Morning on the radio. By the way, today's the day, remember to spring forward and set your clocks one hour ahead as we begin Daylight Saving Time. Coming up next weekend, a visit with actor Sandra Bullock and we're headed to Venice for Carnival.

I'm Jane Pauley. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday Morning on the radio. There are bad people in the world. The best way to protect the good people is to convict the bad. So here's to us. The Good Fight, the final season, now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-01-29 14:49:04 / 2023-01-29 15:04:17 / 15

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