Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Julia Roberts, John David Washington on Broadway

Today's CBS Sunday Morning Podcast is sponsored by Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC. For more information and important disclosures, visit Ameriprise.com slash advice. Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC.

Member FINRA and SIPC. I'm Mo Rocca and I'm back with season three of my podcast Mobituaries. I'm looking forward to introducing you to more of my favorite dead people and things. From the girl whose plea for peace made international news. She was that beam of sunshine that broke through the cold ice of Cold War. To the woman of a thousand voices. The Meryl Streep of voice actors. Listen to Mobituaries on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning.

I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. There are scores of consulting firms in the United States. Their role to work with companies on all kinds of matters, large and small. A big business with a low profile.

Aaron Moriarty this morning is looking at one of the biggest. They're going to downsize in a check. What are you talking about, Tom? How do you know that? How do I know? They're bringing in a consultant.

That's how I know. Many Americans can relate to this. You have to interview with this consultant. They call them efficiency experts, but what you're really doing is interviewing for your own job. But in fact, consultants like McKinsey and Company are about more than layoffs.

A lot of people in powerful positions feel that they can't go about their business without McKinsey at their side. The most influential company you may never have heard of coming up on Sunday morning. And then I'll be talking with Julia Roberts about her true loves, acting, family and breakfast.

I ordered pizza. She's one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, but there's more. It's just never consumed me being an actor. It is my dream come true, but it is not my only dream come true.

What are the other dreams? My conversation with Julia Roberts, later. We'll also be hearing from actor Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock. He tells Tracy Smith all about his humble beginnings, secret aspirations and about keeping it real.

Dwayne The Rock Johnson is one of the biggest movie stars on earth. Not bad for a guy who started at the bottom. How many times did you move as a kid?

Fourteen, fifteen times by the time I was 13. But could his next move be the White House? Is running for president a dream? It was never a dream.

No, running for president was never a dream. Ahead on Sunday morning, The Rock. California has two on the aisle for the Broadway debut of actor John David Washington, for whom acting is all in the family. David Pogue is checking out a half billion dollar facelift for a New York City landmark. Connor Knighton introduces us to a young Grammy winner with what may be the perfect name for a bluegrass guitarist. Martha Teichner visits a small town restaurant attracting big time attention. Plus, Mo Rocca remembers the late John Denver. A story from Steve Hartman and Jim Gaffigan on his least favorite thing about Halloween and more on Sunday morning, October 9th, 2022.

And we'll be back after this. It's one of the largest and most influential consulting firms in the world. But how much do you know about what a corporate consultant really does? Two dogged reporters made it their business to find out.

And they're talking with Erin Moriarty. At top universities like Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there's a fall tradition playing out behind the scenes. Students are back and so are company recruiters looking to hire the best and the brightest.

These are prize students. After Harvard, they want a place to work as prestigious as the university that they went to. And according to New York Times investigative reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, on top of many students' lists is a place that may surprise you, McKinsey and Company. What does McKinsey do?

It gives advice and people are willing to spend a lot of money for it. Their new book is When McKinsey Comes to Town, the Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm. They don't disclose their clients.

They don't disclose how much money they're getting from them. We're the first people to get inside the black box and actually find out who their clients are and how much they were paying them. The authors say McKinsey has worked with nearly everyone, from Walt Disney to U.S. Steel, healthcare providers to tobacco companies, the state of Mississippi to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. McKinsey has even worked for CBS's parent company in the past.

Well, it's so big and so powerful and so secret and it influences the way we live. Which makes McKinsey, they say, a major force for spreading ideas globally, both good and bad. In the 90s and 2000s, a lot of people thought globalization was the cat's meow and people were losing jobs all over America. And McKinsey was beating the drums on this. And they were even putting slides in a cigarette company's presentation on how maybe they should think about offshoring as well. It worked for company B.

Why don't you try it? Founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, the company has long been known as an efficiency expert. When you put gas in your car, McKinsey had something to do with that business.

When you go into a 7-Eleven to buy some soda, they touch that. It's a pretty safe bet that if you've heard of a company or a federal agency that McKinsey is working for them or has worked for them. Eric Edstrom is a West Point and Oxford grad. Garrison Lovely, a graduate of Cornell, both worked at McKinsey. They are among the dozens of current and former employees who talk to the authors. You've both signed NDAs. You're really not supposed to be talking about this, right? Well, I'm not talking about any specific clients.

In my going away letter, in everything we have said today, I've never mentioned a client name. Before Garrison Lovely became disillusioned, he found the work thrilling. As a 21-year-old, it's hard to imagine having more of an impact on actual outcomes in the world than working at a consulting firm. Just being in the room and having a good idea and following through on it, you can actually end up having a lot of impact. The flip side of that is that if the organizations you're supporting, the mission is not actually doing good in the world, then those new initiatives and those new ideas can have a really bad effect. McKinsey sets itself apart from other consultants with a promise that recruits can change the world.

What if we could be the largest private sector catalyst for decarbonization in the world? And touts its work with fossil fuel companies to reduce their emissions. That's why Edstrom joined the company. But he was outraged to discover how important those same companies are to McKinsey's bottom line. They serve a lot of clients with really harmful effects. They know exactly what the repercussions are going to be.

And then they say, we're going to do it anyway. And that tells you all you need to know about the firm. Until recently, McKinsey largely avoided public scrutiny of its clients. But last year it paid a nearly $600 million settlement related to its work with opioid makers, including Purdue Pharma. McKinsey was accused of helping Purdue turbocharge its sales of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, after hundreds of thousands died of opioid overdoses across the country. McKinsey apologized and said it stopped working for opioid manufacturers in 2019.

It admitted no wrongdoing. The disclosure of McKinsey's work for Purdue set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill. At the same time McKinsey was providing secret advice to Purdue to boost opioid sales, the firm was also consulting for the Food and Drug Administration. A House Oversight Committee majority interim report found that McKinsey had nearly two dozen consultants who had worked at both Purdue and the FDA.

But at a hearing earlier this year, the company's global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, denied any conflict of interest. McKinsey did not, did not serve both the FDA and Purdue on opioid related matters. Our work for the FDA focused on administrative and operational topics, including improvements to organization structure, business processes and technology.

But California Congresswoman Katie Porter is not persuaded. Streamlined technology solutions, find efficiencies, operationalize, these are all mumbo jumbo to hide the fact that McKinsey was making money off opioids at the same time they were helping the government figure out how to regulate them. If your work for FDA was so important, didn't it have some influence on what they actually did in the world with regard to drug manufacturers?

No, it didn't, Congresswoman. McKinsey declined our request for an on-camera interview. But in a statement to CVS News, says there are strict policies in place to prevent the sharing of sensitive client information.

The firm isn't currently working with the FDA. And I think most Americans, when they hear that a consulting company is working for a drug company, at the same time it's working for their regulator, I think it's just common sense that there's a problem here. In their book, the authors also focus on McKinsey's past work with Enron, immigration and customs enforcement, as well as Chinese state-run companies. Could McKinsey take a look at this book and say, you're just cherry-picking the clients where things didn't go quite as well, and that they've done so much good? It's more than just the bad apples.

I think it's structural. And when you have such smart, hard-working people working their hearts out for a client that's a bad actor, that's a real force for bad in the world. McKinsey and its statement says the book fundamentally misrepresents our firm and our work, and that last year the firm instituted a new client selection policy more rigorous than any other in our industry. It no longer represents tobacco companies.

The negative attention, though, doesn't seem to have had an impact on business. More than a million people applied for jobs at McKinsey last year, and the firm has collected almost a billion dollars from the federal government alone since 2006. Their reputation is such that a lot of people in powerful positions feel that they can't go about their business without McKinsey at their side, and that's why they hire them, and that's why they keep hiring them, in spite of a lot of the negative news that's come out about them.

After all, they're McKinsey. I'm Mo Rocca, and it's been a while. But I've been busy digging up even more stories about the people and things of the past that are fascinating me now. What did your father think of the label of the whole idea of the Latin lover? From the screen idols who redefined Hollywood's leading man. I think it was a love-hate relationship. My dad hated the word macho.

That's what I call the Latin lover type of a role, which is one-dimensional. To the dog who introduced millions of kids to classic literature. I remember like on my 10th birthday, I think it was, we were going to go mini golfing and I insisted, but we had to stay home for wishbone first. Listen to Mobituaries, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, podcast peeps. It's me, Drew Barrymore.

Oh, my goodness. I want to tell you about our new show. It's the Drew's News podcast. And in each episode, me and a weekly guest are going to cover all the quirky, fun, inspiring, and informative stories that exist out in the world because, well, I need it.

And maybe you do too. From the newest interior design trend, Barbie Corps, to the right and wrong way to wash your armpits. Also, we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television.

So watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts. It's your good news on the go. He was one of the most beloved entertainers of our time. Hard to believe that John Denver died 25 years ago this week.

Mo Rocca is back on the Mobituaries beat, launching a new run of his popular podcast. He looks back at the country boy who took the music world by storm. Do you still get people saying, you're the Annie of Annie's song? Yes. Yes.

Often. You fill up my senses. Yes, Annie Denver was the inspiration for Annie's song. The 1974 ballad by her former husband, singer-songwriter John Denver. Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.

The lyrics are now engraved on a boulder here at the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen, Colorado. Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. You fill up my senses.

Come fill me again. That's beautiful. It's about love and it's about nature and how that stirs those profound feelings up. While their marriage ended in divorce, Annie has continued to honor John's legacy. Helping to design this park, which is equal parts nature preserve and career retrospective.

But it's a place he never got to see. Diving crews searched the waters of Monterey Bay for clues to the crash. 25 years ago this week, John Denver died when the plane he was piloting plunged into the waters off the California coast. He was 53 years old. He went out fast, kind of went out like a shooting star. Sometimes I wonder, I hope that he wasn't scared. That it all happened pretty quickly for him. Life is older, older than the trees. Global superstardom wasn't inevitable for the entertainer, humanitarian and environmentalist.

Country roads take me home. John Denver's own road began in Roswell, New Mexico, where he was born Henry John Dutchendorf Jr. In the 1960s he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his music career before joining the Chad Mitchell Trio and meeting Annie. You don't get to be as big a star as John was by accident. He was ambitious, yeah? Very. John had this gift really.

So I don't think I looked at it as ambition until things started happening. He was born in the summer of his 27th year. After John went solo, he and Annie moved to Aspen, where the Rockies inspired some of his most memorable music. His life was far away on the road. Last month, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and John's former bandmates commemorated 50 years of Rocky Mountain High, Denver's 1972 tribute to the first place he called home. It was after that album that Denver shot into the stratosphere, sharing stages with Olivia Newton-John, Frank Sinatra and the Muppets.

I've been fishing with my uncle, I wrestled with my cousin, I even kissed Aunt Lou. As John's star rose, he needed someone to help keep him centered. He was on a rocket ship is the way he sort of described it. And that rocket ship, you know, that's a scary thing. A rocket ship can crash.

It can go very high and come down very fast. He sought the counsel of Tom Crum, a meditation and martial arts instructor who would become a loyal friend. He just had this bond that was very powerful. So I started working with him privately in some of the principles of Aikido. And it just was great for his spirit, for his soul.

It was grounding for him. Crum accompanied him across the country and around the world. When he went to these foreign countries, he always tried to sing something in the language.

And he would usually butcher it because, come on. But the view through John Denver's signature granny glasses wasn't always rosy. There's an up and down in him. A lot of artists are that way. And I think that part of his creativity came in those down moments.

What was the hardest conversation you had with him? In the times when he was so dark and deep, he was really sort of lost. John Denver entertained millions, but there was also a melancholy about him and his music. Music that made him one of the most beloved stars of his era. As you'll hear on my podcast, Mobituaries. Music that made him one of the most beloved stars of his era. Mobituaries, Mo Rocker's celebration of our dearly departed.

Now available wherever you get your podcasts. Something old is something new at New York's Lincoln Center. David Pogue takes us to David Geffen Hall.

Lincoln Center is the home of New York City's most famous performing arts institutions. Ballet. Opera. Your broke protocol.

There is no protocol in war. Theater. And music. But from the day it opened in 1962, its reputation was haunted by two aspects of its creation.

First, as the 2021 remake of West Side Story reminded us, building Lincoln Center involved demolishing a vibrant black and Puerto Rican neighborhood. Second, something was wrong with the acoustics of Philharmonic Hall. The orchestra couldn't hear each other on the stage. That was a little problem. The audience couldn't hear the orchestra. That could be considered a drawback in a concert hall. It was.

It was. Deborah Borda is the CEO of the New York Philharmonic and Henry Timms is Lincoln Center's CEO. This is a project with a long and windy history and there's no question of that. Over the years, Lincoln Center has spent millions on renovations trying to fix the sound.

Nothing worked completely. Finally, in 2015, media mogul David Geffen contributed $100 million to lift the acoustic curse. So, so far, as a critic, I would say the first thing it's going to need is more chairs.

On the way. When we visited in May, the auditorium was already gently rounded instead of sharp and boxy and 500 seats smaller. There's a sweet spot and that is anything at about 2,200 seats or less and that's proven acoustical science. The stage has moved 25 feet closer to the audience and some of the audience can sit behind the stage facing the conductor. Those seats will give you some of the most dynamic views in the house. The formerly flat floor is now sloped for better sight lines. Sections of the stage can now rise or fall to accommodate different ensemble sizes. We can actually take out half the stage, drop it into the ground and bring up an additional 100 seats that are right at the edge of the stage. The hall's shape, size and materials are all intended to address the acoustics problem. Over 20,000 poor people were removed from their homes in order to make way for Lincoln Center.

But what about the historical problem? Part of our job at Lincoln Center is to recognize the injustice that was a part of our foundation story. The new hall is designed to open up the building to the neighborhoods it once shut out. You can stop to enjoy a performance from the new sidewalk studio or visit the new restaurant and bar or drop into the new lobby cafe. That's also where you can watch the Philharmonic's concerts live on this 50 foot video wall. Every Philharmonic concert for free.

Music David Geffen Hall opened yesterday within its $550 million dollar budget and two years ahead of schedule. Music So, how are the acoustics? Sounds good in here. Music But the ultimate judge is Jaap van Zweden, the Philharmonic's music director. You've rehearsed now with the orchestra here. Yeah. Honestly, truthfully, what do they think of the sound? Oh, they are completely excited. Absolutely.

One by one. There's nobody really, nobody who is not happy. And this hall is going to be world famous. I know it.

You guys stuck your fists into a problem that decades of people have tried to solve and it seems like you did it. Everyone should take so much pride in the fact that this really was a job done against all the odds at a time the city really needed it. Music Hey, did you bring the cavalry? Woman, I am the cavalry.

Of course you are. It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Pauley. That's Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, in the popular film series Fast and Furious. He's made quite a name for himself in the world of movies, but he tells Tracy Smith that his favorite role is Dad. In show business, or really any business, they don't come much bigger than Dwayne Johnson.

He's the highest paid actor in the world, according to Forbes, and his worldwide movie totals are counted in the billions. We're here to negotiate your peaceful surrender. I'm not peaceful. And now, in a new film opening this month, Johnson wants to be the next big superhero. These powers are not a gift, but a curse. In the DC Comics universe, Black Adam is a prisoner turned violent demigod out for revenge. Do you consider him a villain? At times I do. Well, I consider him an anti-hero, but it's like reading the Bible.

It's interpretive. And it's a role that seems to fit him like, well, a skin tight superhero suit. I kneel before no one. But it seems that Dwayne Johnson's real superpower just might be his humility. An only child, Johnson had the humblest of beginnings.

His dad, Rocky Johnson, was a pro wrestler back in the days when road trips were long and money was tight. So you guys were nomads, basically. We were nomads. We had that life up until I was 16 years old. We lived on the road.

And I had spent a lot of my time growing up in the backseat of a car. He went to college on a football scholarship, but injuries and bad luck eventually sent him back home, defeated, with only seven bucks to his name. Years later, he'd name his production company Seven Bucks Productions as a reminder of where he started. But in the mid-'90s, he turned to wrestling as a way to pull himself out of poverty.

If Flex Kavana loses, he's out of the USWA. Oh, hey. Announcers need your wrestling name.

You got one yet? On his autobiographical sitcom, Young Rock, Johnson recounts how he started wrestling at WMCTV in Memphis under the name Flex Kavana. I'm working in Memphis, and man, it was a grind. Eight shows in seven days, week after week. I got some Miller High Lives. Let's celebrate.

Nice. And how a friend named Downtown Bruno gave the broke future superstar a place to stay in his rundown trailer. It turns out the trailer park in Walls, Mississippi, is still there. Bruno, come here, man. And so is his old friend, Bruno Lauer. Finally, The Rock has came back to Walls, Mississippi.

Their old home was pretty much as they'd left it, too. Just watch your step, everybody. Yeah, be careful.

No worries. I didn't wear my heels for this portion. And I haven't been here since then. You've not been back? No, this is the first time back, so it's bringing back a lot of memories.

What are you thinking? Tracy, I'm so grateful. Grateful to have a friend like Bruno. Grateful to have the opportunity that I had. And, you know, life is just so amazing. It can be, you know? Just truly. Talk about amazing. Dwayne Johnson went on to be a huge success in the wrestling world as The Rock.

In 2001, he made the jump to film, and after some early success, Hollywood tried to mold him into a typical leading man. They said, okay, great, but now here's what you have to do. You have to stop working out as much. You have to lose weight. You can't call yourself The Rock. You can't talk about wrestling. Let's stay away from all that. These are all the things they told you. Don't be this anymore.

No, that's right. So I tried that. Tracy, I tried getting smaller, losing weight. It all felt wrong. And once you started being yourself?

That was it. When that happened, a funny thing happened. Hollywood conformed around me, and years later, I'm sitting here with you. So while he can bust up the big screen bad guys, he can also sing in an animated Disney feature. I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod, when you're staring at a demigod. And he can be funny, or at least try to be. You know, before this, I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned.

Couldn't concentrate. He also owns a wide array of businesses, among them Terramana Tequila, and it's no secret he likes to drink it as well as sell it. Enjoy your mom. But Dwayne Johnson says his favorite role is dad to his three daughters. His two younger girls are often seen on his Instagram page. So you really enjoy those tea parties?

Tracy, I love them. And that's the kind of thing that seems to make the public love him all the more. In fact, he's been talked about seriously as a presidential candidate. A 2021 poll showed nearly half of voters would pick him for the White House.

It's even something he and Tom Hanks joked about a few years back when Johnson hosted Saturday Night Live. That kind of sounds like you and me. I guess we got to do it. Come on, Joe. Let's go.

We're doing it. But when we asked, Dwayne Johnson told us that a run for the White House was not going to happen. Is running for president off the table now? It's off the table, yes. It is off the table.

I will say this, because it requires the B side to this. I love our country and everyone in it. I also love being a daddy. And that's the most important thing to me, is being a daddy. Number one, especially during this time, this critical time in my daughter's lives, because I know what it was like to be on the road and be so busy that I was absent for a lot of years in my first daughters growing up in this critical age at this critical time in her life. And that's what the presidency will do. So my number one priority is my daughters.

Sure, CEO sounds great, but the number one thing I want to be is daddy. That's it. Heroes don't kill people. Well, I do.

So sure, he can play a hulking superhero no problem. But in real life, the only thing bigger than Dwayne Johnson's muscles, other than his ambition, just might be his heart. If Black Adam is fueled by rage today, what are you fueled by? Oh, that's a good question. You've been saving that one. That's good. If Black Adam is fueled by rage, I am fueled by passion. I'm fueled by passion.

I run to everything I do, especially my daughters. So I would say that. I'm fueled by passion and tequila.

This is The Takeout with Major Garrett. This week, Dr. Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This has been a tough weather year. These patterns are not political, correct? That's right. Mother Nature doesn't care, doesn't get driven by political agendas.

There are things we can do by policy, by action, so we have to adapt now. For more from this week's conversation, follow The Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A new docuseries now streaming on Paramount Plus. He's been called the future of bluegrass. Connor Knighton introduces us to guitarist Billy Strings.

The speed with which Billy Strings flies his fingers across the strings of his guitar is stupefying. He's been playing bluegrass music ever since his hands looked like this. Way back in kindergarten, he'd already picked out his dream gig. When I grow up, I want to be a bluegrass player.

I mean, that is amazing. First to just even know what that was at that age. I mean, I was already like a sort of musician already. Billy Strings, born William Apostol, earned his nickname while growing up in central Michigan, playing guitars almost as big as he was, playing with musicians decades older than he was. His stepfather, Terry Barber, taught him how to play. You know, playing bluegrass all night, and my dad was the life of the party.

And I was like, man, that's what I want to do. But as Strings got older, he noticed that the parties at the trailer park where he lived never seemed to stop. It was amazing, and then, you know, somewhere those parties kind of started to get a little darker, and people started going to jail, and, you know, as a little kid, I'm going, oh, man, what's going on, you know? Strings says his parents had fallen deep into methamphetamine addiction in a song, Taking Water, from his Grammy Award-winning album Home. He sings about his memories of home.

It just felt like if I was there, I was going to become an addict or go to prison or end up dead somehow. Strings moved out of the house at 13, then to Traverse City, Michigan, after high school. Following a brief stint playing heavy metal, he started crafting his own brand of bluegrass. I learned how to play music by playing bluegrass, a round of fire with my dad and stuff, but I learned how to perform in a metal band. When Strings is on stage, it's always a high-energy affair.

A departure from traditional bluegrass legends who seemed to pride themselves on their stoicism. It's better if you just have no expression, if you just look like a statue. That's the best. And even better yet, if you look like you're just not even stoked to be there. You look very stoked to be there. I am. I am very stoked to be there.

His fans are just as passionate. Strings has attracted a group of admirers who travel from show to show, a Deadhead-esque following typically associated with jam bands. I don't really think of us as a jam band that much. I mean, we kind of jam.

Maybe it's just like, maybe I'd like a more sophisticated word. How about the future of bluegrass? That's how American Songwriter magazine describes Strings.

Last month, he won Artist of the Year at the Americana Awards. When he's not out on the road, he's relaxing on the lake. I mean, come on.

I mean, you're supposed to at least leave the dock, right, before that happens? Wow. Fishing near the home he recently purchased in Nashville with his fiancé, Allie Dale. I spend a lot of time out here for solitude, you know, and I just needed to find a place near this lake because this is where I fish the most, you know. Strings' next album, Me and Dad, comes out next month. It's a collection of bluegrass covers recorded with a man who taught him how to play. He says his parents have been sober for the last decade. So, like, you know, I talk about this stuff sometimes and I worry that it will make my parents look bad or something, but, like, it's really a success story.

What would you give me in exchange? Strings, who turned 30 last week, says he's ready to stop focusing on the past and start thinking about the future, or, at the very least, the present. My whole sort of adult life I've been looking in the rearview mirror, dwelling on the past, dwelling on the years I lost with my folks, or dwelling on the poverty that I endured, or whatever.

And I'm finally getting to a point now where I'm starting to gaze through the windshield instead, not worried about what's behind me or ahead, really, just going for a cruise. In exchange for your soul From Steve Hartman this morning, a simple act of kindness from the streets. After a Richmond, Indiana, police officer was shot in the line of duty, days before her wedding, the whole community grieved.

Deeply. 28-year-old officer Sierra Burton was beloved. So the idea that anything good could ever come from her passing was unimaginable until one day a stranger walked into the department. He held in his hand a white envelope and inside a sliver of hope. To information clerk Charlotte Jones, the man appeared to be homeless. And I told him, I said, this is like the most amazing gift that we have gotten. Inside the envelope, eight crumpled up one dollar bills and a note that read, people from the street.

He accepted a hug, but insisted on no other recognition. The man didn't give his name, but he said Officer Burton was kind and would often check in on the homeless. So he took up a collection and got donations from people on the street, people with virtually nothing to give. They gave that knowing they don't know if they're going to have another dollar tomorrow. Richmond Police Lieutenant Donnie Benedict. That is as genuine as you're going to get.

I mean, that eight dollars was like eight million dollars. We'll never know exactly who all gave or why. Those answers are hiding beneath the brush and underpasses of Richmond. But by all accounts, Sierra Burton was generous and fair, with a face that always defaulted to a smile. Does it surprise you at all that people on the street?

Not at all. Not with her, no. Officer Amy Miller was Sierra's stepmom.

What do you hope comes from all this? People don't forget who she was. And this is part of who she was. In Sierra's honor, donations for the homeless are already pouring in. But for the department, the greatest gift will always be that simple white envelope. There's hope out there. There are people out there who will give everything.

Both those in the line of duty and those they serve. She's one of Hollywood's biggest stars, with any number of memorable film credits to her name. But did you know that Julia Roberts also knits?

And she almost never drops a stitch. Julia Roberts, at 54, is a beautiful woman. She was People magazine's most beautiful woman in the world a record five times. But at Smyrna George's Campbell High School, not even a runner-up.

I have to say, the pinnacle of my looks was that one moment. After graduation in 1985, she followed her sister Lisa, an aspiring actor, to New York City. Their older brother, Eric Roberts, was already established. But acting wasn't her plan. She sold running shoes. I was a quick lacer.

I was really good at lacing. And yet, what happened? Well, I was walking down the street.

This is the truth. This story begins with, I was walking down the street. I was walking down the street with my brother and his then girlfriend and past someone that they knew. And that person was a talent agent. Daisy!

No more selling shoes. Think we might get that pizza served while it's still hot? I think maybe. Julia Roberts was waiting tables in Mystic Pizza, a low-budget film that's become a cult classic.

We are hateful, awful people. Here, all we've been talking about is weddings and psychotic animals. The newcomer in the stellar cast of Steel Magnolias.

But 1990 was a different story. An unlikely story made Julia Roberts, who's never had an acting class, a star. You got the part of the drug-addicted prostitute who has a relationship with a very rich man. And the end of the movie was him stopping the car, opening the passenger door, basically pushing her out into the street and driving away. Good on you for getting that part.

Thank you. Pretty grim stuff. And then the studio went bust.

I think over the course of a weekend, I didn't have a job. And then about a week later, they said, oh, the script was sold to Disney. Disney? Yeah. Right?

With Garry Marshall, known for Family Fair, the odd couple in Happy Days, directing. He didn't see Roberts in the part, but as a courtesy, he did see her. And he goes, what's the story with you? Some people say you can't dress her up. Some people say you can't dress her down. I don't know what it is.

I said, I don't know what it is. It was a perfect fit is what it was. And that dress is one of the most iconic in film. Did you enjoy the opera, dear? Oh, it was so good, I almost peed my pants. Julia Roberts. In 2001, Julia Roberts won Best Actress for Erin Brockovich and might have won for Best Dress, too.

I love it up here. You turned up in a vintage Valentino. It was a beautiful dress that I tried on the Saturday before the Sunday of the Oscars for the first time.

We didn't do anything to it. It fit perfectly. And she put it away. My daughter was digging through the closet looking for possible prom dresses last spring. I was like, what's this dress on?

I said, well, try it on. It was too big for her, but she looked so lovely. Your daughter didn't know that that was her mother's Oscar.

I don't think she did. She has three children with her husband of 20 years, Daniel Moder. I always think that they all look like me and then Danny comes home from work and I go, oh, you. That's who they look like.

Moder is a cinematographer whose film was premiering at Cannes. He took their daughter. She is a one of a kind, that girl. I mean, we were FaceTiming actually right before they went out and she was laying on the bed. And I said, what time is there? What are you guys doing? He goes, oh, Dad's just putting his tie on. We're getting ready to go. And I said, oh, are you ready?

Yeah. She didn't really look ready. Ponytail and a little eyeliner. She was like, bring eyeliner, Mom. What are you talking about? I was like, OK, yeah, eyeliner.

Who needs eyeliner? Just can. I mean, you know, it's just sweet. Just the innocence. She's just with her dad. It's not about anything else.

What are you doing? You said this was your last job, Jerry. The couple first met on the set of The Mexican. Brad Pitt was her co-star. I was watching knowing that you might at that time been crushing on one of the guys behind the camera. Yeah, I think he and Brad were crushing on each other. I felt like I was constantly interrupting their conversations because they would sit there and they would be talking about music.

And I'd be like, oh, I like that song. Today, she says her career and family are both important, but not equally so. It's just never consumed me being an actor. It is my dream come true. But it is not my only dream come true. What are the other dreams? The life that I've built with my husband, the life that we've built with our children.

And that's the best stuff to come home at the end of the day triumphantly to them. Excuse me, ma'am. I need to sit somewhere else.

I'm sorry it's a full flight. We used to be married. It's the worst 19 years of my life. We were only married for five. For the first time in 20 years, she's starring in a romantic comedy out next week.

Reunited with longtime friend George Clooney, Ticket to Paradise was shot on location in Australia. It was the longest she'd ever been away from her family. Sixty-two days. I wrote a lot of letters. You could probably have sent emails pretty quickly.

Yeah, but that's kind of boring and you don't get the cool stamps. And it's something Danny and I have always done. The first letter he ever wrote me, which was seven pages long, I still have it tucked away.

One day I'll show it to Hazel and say, that's what you're looking for. An avid knitter on the set during downtime, as you can see here. Adept in domestic arts, Roberts learned how to knit on a movie set 30 years ago. We call it our lonely meters. How lonely were you last night? I was like, pull out this much knitting.

Look how lonely I was. And yeah, I've been knitting ever since. I brought my knitting.

I cannot wait to see this. To call it my knitting is a stretch. Oh, you've got a little tight stitch here. Wow, Jane Pauley, tight knitter.

That's how people are going to talk about you now. Do you know what a tight knitter Jane Pauley is? You describe yourself as a homemaker. When I'm not working, that is my full-time job. And it isn't rainbows and kittens every day.

But it does bring me a lot of joy. And you do breakfast before school? I love breakfast. It's my favorite meal. My younger boy, Henry, he's my breakfast partner. Am I right in thinking that Jane Pauley might be standing in the way of you getting home to your family? Yeah. Because you've got to get home, I presume, for breakfast in the morning for Henry. Yeah, yes.

We love our breakfast. This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell. This week, a career CIA operations officer joins us to talk about a critical moment in the war on Ukraine. If you were to plunge the world into this darkness, Russia also descends into this darkness along with everybody. And it's a legacy that I think Putin and his successors will have to struggle for generations to overcome. Follow Intelligence Matters wherever you get your podcasts.

The Good Fight, the final season, now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Martha Teichner this morning finds herself at the Lost Kitchen. I just wanted to pause for a moment and welcome you all. By the time Erin French welcomes guests, 50 of them, twice a week, to her Lost Kitchen restaurant.

I have a raspberry shrub here for you to enjoy. They've been sipping and sampling for two hours already. And they haven't even gotten to what's on the menu yet. I hope you taste our joy tonight because that is what we are running on some good ingredients to and a lot of love. And something else, baked into every meal she serves, is the story of how at the Lost Kitchen she found freedom and now fame. In Freedom, Maine, population about 700. You make me feel like this is the center of the universe.

So it seems it is. The Lost Kitchen is one of the hardest to get reservations in the world. Erin French has a cookbook out with another one in the works. And movie rights to her best-selling memoir were sold in a major bidding war. There's a lot of people.

They're all outside. Are we ready? Season 3 of her TV series begins this month. Her success is all the more stunning because of how hard it was to come by. Here's what she says. My dad was a pretty hard guy to be around. Her father, Jeff Richardson, owned a diner.

This one, just outside Freedom. Erin started working there at 12. To have moments when I would make something on the line and he'd give me that quiet look of, you did it right.

That's where I learned to figure out this challenging relationship with my dad was to cook together. Her mother, Deanna, was a schoolteacher. She would never speak out. She wasn't allowed to.

All Erin wanted to do was get away from the diner, out of Freedom. And she did. But after two and a half years of college in Boston, at 21, she discovered she was pregnant. Dropped out and went back to Freedom to have her baby.

A boy she named James. And to work at the diner. Even coming back home and diving back into food, I still wasn't picking up on the cues that maybe I love this. Finally, it sunk in.

At the age of 30, Erin opened a restaurant, the first lost kitchen. It was a hit, but her life was a wreck. Especially her marriage. My anxiety was growing. I was working these crazy hours and I was in this miserable marriage. I started taking prescription medication and that's when the spiral started to happen. What came next?

Addiction. A drawn out, nasty divorce. Erin lost her restaurant for a time she even lost custody of her son. So she had to drag herself out of the depths.

I spent a lot of recovery time just bringing myself back to life and living here. Her lifeboat was a land yacht. It was an absolute mess. She took a sledge-shammer to the interior. I just had this one moment of just let it all go and just needed a good scream and a good cry and a fresh beginning. Jourged up, as Erin likes to say, it became the lost kitchen on wheels.

I had to come see your Airstream. Now it's part. A few yards from the 19th century mill where the restaurant has been for the last eight years. A tourist attraction even for people who can't get reservations.

And that's practically everybody. To get a reservation here, you have to send in a postcard. This year, the restaurant received over 50,000.

Postcards are drawn at random to determine who gets in. The restaurant is open from the end of May to October. Dinner costs $195.

Sounds like a lot, but it's for a good 12 courses. Erin cooks local. Her secret ingredient? Lots of butter. Salty and delicious.

The Lost Kitchen is staffed mainly by women. All Erin's friends who don't need to talk as they work. To music. A soundtrack for the happy ending to this story about second chances. There was a moment that I realized that I had to go through all of that to get exactly right here.

And that is that beautiful and terrifying thing about life. Nine years ago, Erin met media executive Michael Dutton. They got married in 2018. Erin's mother, now divorced from her dad, does whatever needs doing. I have a title now. It's Executive Jojour. And when dinner begins, Erin French presides over the lost kitchen.

Like a woman who has finally found herself. Cheers. Here's to the memories we make in this room and I hope they last a good long time. Here's to three more hours of eating, okay? Cheers, guys.

Cheers. Now appearing on Broadway, actor John David Washington. So what is it about that name?

Calafasane explains. So when you're walking down the street and you look up and you see your name on the marquee, are you shocked or are you used to it by now? It makes me nervous every time.

Like, oh my God. But I also see, like, my chain. That's my uncle's chain. My Uncle Woodson. So, like, I also feel like part of my family is with me. Actor John David Washington is making his Broadway debut as Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson.

I'm comfortable up here. Some would say the 38-year-old was born to act. His mom, Pauletta, is an actor and so is his dad, a guy named Denzel. My father, he walked me around these streets when he was getting ready for Shakespeare in the Park, you know, Richard III. And I used to love when he would recite his lines. At first, John David did not follow in his father's footsteps.

He went to Morehouse, the historically black college in Atlanta, on a football scholarship. What motivated it really was independence. It was my own name, was being able to carry my own weight in my life. Even though I was hiding what I really wanted to do, it gave me an identity. You were hiding what you really wanted to do. Because of who I'm related to. My mother is an extremely talented artist and my father is one of the greatest of all time.

He's my favorite actor. I was intimidating. When we're in the comforts of my own home and with the family, I felt comfortable. But then when I get to the outside world, it didn't seem as simple to just pursue it. And I felt football would change that narrative when they saw me play ball. It didn't quite work out that way.

That's what I thought was going to happen until I read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I think it was my freshman year, and I had a great game. And Denzel's son runs for as many yards as there's been touchdowns.

So I realized then it was inescapable. After college, he played football in a start-up league, the U.F.L. Then, in 2013, he ruptured his Achilles tendon. He decided to make a career change. How do you make that turn? You start taking head shots?

You know, I would recommend taking some good head shots. But it was an open call audition for a story about football players. Still injured and on pain medication, he went to his first audition for a new HBO series called Ballers. The plan was get comfortable with auditioning, get told no, and to come out here to New York and study. Again, it didn't go as he'd expected.

Welcome to the Miami Dolphins, Sean. After a series of follow-up auditions, he got the part of Ricky Jarrett. It was a life-changing moment for me. I felt good after maybe the fifth or sixth audition, like, all right, I can do this. What did you learn about yourself as you started to become a professional actor?

I learned what happiness really is. He went on to star in Black Clansman, directed by Spike Lee. I'm undercover. He's got a gun. I'm a cop. Then Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan. I realized I wasn't working for you. We've both been working for me.

I'm the protagonist. And now, Amsterdam, directed by David O. Russell. You've worked with, you know, legendary directors. Now you're working with a director who's known you since you were a baby. Right. That's LaTanya Richardson Jackson, director of The Piano Lesson, which co-stars her husband, Samuel L. Jackson. The Jacksons and the Washingtons are old friends. What's it like being on set with a partnership like that?

The attention's off me a lot of times, I gotta say that. So you sit back and you shut up and learn something, John David. So does your co-star, Samuel, take direction from your director, LaTanya? Well, define take direction. I feel like they speak another language in this subtext. At the Yale Repertory Theatre, 35 years ago, Samuel L. Jackson originated the role John David is playing on Broadway.

If you have a piece of land, you'll find everything else for a ride in place. You can stand right up next to the white man and talk to him about the price of cotton. I'm on stage, seeing Sam Jackson, and I'm delivering some lines knowing he delivered these in 1987. I'm like, I can't believe this is happening.

So, yeah, I guess God is saying, yeah, it's time. Just grow up, you know, put up or shut up, man. Have your parents come to see the play? My mother is like, the question is how many times has she seen it? I get notes from them too.

I get notes. But John David Washington says he's done trying to prove himself. Like, I have to understand that I can have the best game career. The headline is always going to be what it is. So to try to prove something to somebody is a fool's errand. Do you ever think about that day happening when people say, oh, yeah, Denzel Washington, that's John David's dad? No, I don't see it as a reality for me.

He's larger than life. So, no, I don't think of it that way. I can't.

Maybe one day you'll have a kid. Right. People will say. Yeah, you know, I hope so. I hope so. Indeed.

Yeah. Tis the season for pumpkins, but not for Jim Gaffigan. It's October, which means we are officially in pumpkin season, the strangest of all made up seasons.

Humans are a strange animal and Americans may be the oddest of the species. Pumpkin season is peak American weirdness. Over the next couple of weeks, pumpkins will suddenly become ubiquitous. You'll see pumpkins as decorations everywhere. On doorsteps, at the end of driveways, on dinner tables, at reception desks, and other places you would normally just leave food lying around.

Everywhere. Pumpkin spice will invade all coffee shops. Here's a secret. Pumpkin spice is mostly just cinnamon. But since it's October, let's call it pumpkin spice. If October were a brand, the pumpkin would be the logo. Occasionally, even the O in the word October will be replaced by a pumpkin shape.

Cute, right? I don't think so either. I wouldn't describe myself as anti-pumpkin.

I don't care that much either way. I mean, they are pumpkins after all. Having a strong opinion on pumpkins is odd, which is why pumpkin season is so baffling to me.

Trick or treat! I suppose we can blame pumpkin mania on Halloween. Pumpkins are used to make jack-o-lanterns. Carving eyes and a partially toothless smile on a pumpkin is a fun activity to do with kids. And literally the best and only use of a pumpkin. They don't carve faces into watermelons.

You know why? Because that would be a waste of watermelon. But a pumpkin? What else are you going to do with a pumpkin?

I mean, we're certainly not going to eat it. Everyone has cut open a pumpkin and thought, Well, this is gross and smells like wet cardboard. Yee-hee-hee-hee-hee! Are jack-o-lanterns scary because of their appearance?

Yeah! Or are we just reliving the trauma of removing those pumpkin guts? Pumpkins are part of the squash family. And as any non-vegetarian will tell you, Squash are zombie vegetables. Squash look like vegetables, but they have no taste. Everyone knows a zucchini is just a cucumber that tastes like a paper towel. Heck, squash is the only vegetable with the instruction in the name. Squash! Which is usually what we do with those pumpkins on November 1st. Happy pumpkin season, everyone. Thank you for listening.

Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. The Young and the Restless has been the number one daytime drama for 35 consecutive years. Now, in its 50th season, fans can enjoy their favorite soap in podcast form. Y&R revolves around the lives and the loves of residents of Genoa City. This Midwestern metropolis is filled with generations of a wide variety of characters. Every week, hear all the rivalries, romances, hopes, and fears from the Emmy Award-winning series delivered directly to your ears. Watch The Young and the Restless weekdays on CBS, streaming on P+, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.