♪ welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews this year. tonight my conversation with the oscar-winning actress jennifer lawrence about her latest film "red sparrow" and she tells me she has been treated in ways which today we would call abusive. plus, my conversation with the stars of the hit indy movie "call me by your name." the film has won a host of awards. they talk about their touching coming-of-age film about love and life. ♪ ♪

welcome to this special edition of the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london. they say that life imitates art. if that's true, "red sparrow" starring jennifer lawrence could hardly have been more timely. here is a clip from the film. >> i'm curious. did you want me to know you were following me or just -- >> americans always think -- are so interested in -- >> what made you want to become a translator? >> -- the government -- >> -- >> in my country, men in power it cannot matter. >> ah, russian/american intrigue. that was jennifer lawrence portraying a young woman coerced into becoming a sparrow for the soviet union, a real-life role in a once-upon-a-time soviet program that weaponized female spies. it is a movie for our era and she is an actress for our time.

as you'll hear, jennifer lawrence is outspoken on everything from abuse that she suffered to contemporary american politics. she joined me here in the studio as she was promoting the film's uk release along with director frances lawrence, no relation, who directed jennifer in the blockbuster "hunger games" franchise. jennifer lawrence, francis lawrence, welcome. >> thank you. >> what about this part of the trilogy, i think it is the first part of the trilogy in the era of putin spice, and the last one will be called "the kremlin's candidate." what about this story at this time grabbed you? >> well, what's interesting is we started making the movie three years ago, so we knew it was exciting, we knew that it was unique, it was dramatic, but was it really relevant? and then a year into making the movie russia election with the u.s., all of that blow coming. so it was relevant.

>> what did you think when it was happening? did you think, wow, we're sitting on a gold mine here? >> no, i mean i certainly didn't. i didn't set out to make a political film in any way. i was drawn in by the character that jen plays and her journey. i'm really drawn to isolated, lonely characters, very lonely -- yes, very lonely journeys. i also love survival stories, and so the character to me was a unique way into the story. so it was a strange thing. we were actually in hungary at the time and to see this news breaking and to see that the movie started to feel more relevant and topical, but we never intended to make a political statement. >> no, it is not political. the plot is fictionalized. >> tell me about your character. >> she is a fascinating character because she's an anti-hero, she is an unexpected hero. you know, she didn't ask to be put into this world and she's also not -- she's a very flawed human. she's manipulative.

she's cunning. she has moments of rage. so i thought that this was -- it is a very unique drama because it is not really talking -- we're not exposing the glamorous side of espionage. it is very brutal, and what goes behind somebody living a double life. >> and it is also very, in parts highly sexualized, right? >> yes. >> i want to play what is quite a shocking clip from the movie, which really just is so raw, and then we will talk about it. >> take off your clothes. your body belongs to the state. since your birth the state nourished it and now the state asks something in return. you must learn to sacrifice for the higher purpose.

push yourself beyond all limitations, forget the sentimental mentality with which you were raised. >> it is pretty brutal. how did you feel doing that? >> you know, the preemptive anxiety is so much worse than the actual reality. i had had a good year to prepare mentally for what i was going to do because we talked about it extensively when i read the script, because i knew there was only one way to do it. you know, we wanted to -- we really had to go all the way if we were going to make this movie. so i was either going to be comfortable doing the scene or somebody else should do it, and so i had a year to mentally prepare. the worst part was the night before. i didn't sleep at all. but then when i got there, everybody is so professional and so nice, and they really -- they really do an amazing job of clearing out the set, and i was perfectly comfortable. afterwards i felt empowered. i still feel empowered. i can actually watch that scene. >> tell me what you mean by empowered. >> i had just had a lot of

insecurities when it came to sexuality and nudity and my body, and i have just been carrying them around for years. and i thought, you know, when i read the script i loved it so much, and i thought if i don't do it and if i say no and i miss out on a chance of working with francis again and doing this movie that i love, it is almost like all of the insecurities and fears win. and so i felt like i got something back. >> and when you were doing this and, you know, as you finished the film, et cetera, i assume it was before the me too movement, before this whole revelation started in october. >> yes. >> so you weren't talk bing -- that was about part of the conversation at that time. >> no, it wasn't. but i feel like this is a perfect movie that we made right now. i think that all of our test screenings with women and also just for me, i find it incredibly empowering. it also opens up the conversation because of the difference between consent and not consent, and, you know, i had a choice.

i'm an adult. i made a decision. i knew what i was doing, and that's really the end of the story. the two aren't comparable. so i think it is important to open up that conversation. >> i just wonder because obviously in the research, i've been reading some of the issues that you brought up in the past, and you mentioned that one of your early experiences with a female producer, i think it was, you almost identical to this. tell me that story. >> yeah, i -- i had a hard experience on a movie where basically the producers were trying to illustrate to me that i was overweight, but i wasn't, and a part of that was having me do a line-up with women who are much, much thinner than i was and, you know, we had plates covering our private parts but we were essentially naked. and then i was told to use the photos as motivation for my diet. so it was dehumanizing in a different way.

i didn't feel -- it was more -- i don't know, mentally brutal. >> and that was a woman? >> yes, it was a woman. >> i saw your face as she was saying that. you probably have heard it many, many times. it is extraordinary when you think that that kind of conversation can still be happening. >> yes. >> that people in your position can actually still do that to people like jennifer. >> well, hopefully, that will change now. that's what i think the great thing about people coming out and telling the story, i think there will be great change. what i think it shows and one of the reasons we made the movie is these things have been happening for a very long time. so the ideas in our movie are not new. i think what is new is the bravery of the people coming out and speaking about it and the movement -- the movement that she's involved in to make the change. >> yeah. we're creating a society that is supporting people who are coming forward. 97% of sexual abuse allegations are true. there's 3% that isn't, and i feel over the past we've focused

on the 3% and it's been so easy to say, oh, well, she's lying. but if we create a community where survivors can come forward and talk, then there's going to be change and there's going to be no way of going backwards. >> are you a survivor? are you a me-too'er? >> when i hear the harrowing stories of the victims of harvey weinstein, i don't feel right putting myself in that exact category. i was certainly mistreated. i was definitely treated in a way that i think now we would cowe call abusive. i had to deal with being young and having executives putting their hands-on my legs and not feeling able to say, please don't do that. but, no, i don't know. i don't know. >> but, as you say, both of you, the flood gates have been opened now, that you can talk almost about everything, the extremes of sexual abuse and harassment, and the kind of things that young girls are going to be looking at and looking towards

you. you are the millennial icon, and they're going to hear the story about how you were shamed when you were perfectly beautiful woman, into somebody making you have a diet. what will you say to the young girls who listen to you all the time and the young men who hang on your every word? >> i mean, you have to know who you are and you have to know your worth and you have to know what is worth -- what is worth it and what isn't. you know, i mean if you are doing a physical role -- when i was doing "the hunger games" i did a lot of training. it was a really physical role and i had to be in really good shape. there's a difference between getting in shape for a movie and being mentally abused and told you are fat. a lot of people lose weights for movies, they gain weight for movies. that's okay, but it is a different thing than shaming, basically, a teenager into losing weight. when we were doing "the hunger games" it is not like we told any teenagers that they should lose weight. >> yeah. i mean, josh hutchinson had to lose a bunch of weight because

he had been starved in the movie and we did it with effects. i didn't want him to be unhealthy. i would never ask that of somebody. >> i wonder where you think people like you, all of the men in hollywood can really help change this? because obviously it is not just going to be the women, it has to be the men in all of our professions. where do you think it should start in hollywood? >> wow, i think it can start on a lot of fronts. as somebody that employs people, i would say creating the safest environment possible. i always try to do that. i will continue to do that. i would encourage other people to do that, so that people feel respected, safe and comfortable and can enjoy their work as they should. i think one has to continue to tell stories about women. i think one is to hire women in front of and behind the cameras as much as possible, and so that there can be a collaboration in terms of points of view in story telling. >> you do -- >> i would also say, sorry, that i think we also need more female executives out there in the world that are, you know, calling the shots and hiring people like me or hiring other,

you know, female directors. i feel very lucky. i mean our -- the chairman of our studio is a woman. the president of the studio is a woman. the creative executive is a woman. >> that's a good environment. >> but that's -- >> she's a woman, i'm a woman. >> that's really, really rare. >> and you were, you know, splashed all over the headlines a few years ago for another sort of moment of activism when it was shown with the sony hat that you were not paid equally to your male co-stars in "american hustle." has time changed that? are you now satisfied that you are fairly and equally paid as a woman? >> it is something i'm still diligent about, and, you know, i look for full transparency in all of my negotiations. i think a few years ago -- when i wrote that essay, it was more about my mentality because this is an issue that my problems aren't necessarily relatable to

everybody, but it is -- pay and equity is an issue across the globe. >> yeah. >> i was more interested in my own mindset of why i didn't think that i deserved to be paid equally. you know, at that point i had won an academy award, i had movies that were number one at the box office, and why i thought i didn't deserve to be paid equally than the men or i didn't think that it was possible. i mean of course i asked, of course i pushed, but i didn't want to push too far. i think a lot of that has to do with opportunity. if women or people of color don't have the same opportunity as white men, then it is harder for them to walk away from a job. it is easier for them to just take a role. we lose the negotiating power. >> let's just talk about again "red sparrow." you obviously talked to a lot of cia people, you have done a lot of research. >> yes. >> did you ever find evidence of a cia "red sparrow" program? >> you know, what is interesting, i heard a story. it was a real program that existed in russia in the '60s and '70s.

i'm not so sure it exists now. but i heard stories that americans tried a "sparrow" of their own but it didn't work because of the eastern european views on sex were very, very different. so they were much harder to blackmail, which i found really amusing that somehow, you know, there's something very, yeah, pure t puritanical about the americans, oh, no, my families can't know i have done this. the russians didn't care. >> thank you both very much for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. it is award seasons. perhaps this year the fastest rising star is one timothy shalomay. he arrived in a big way this year with "call me by your name," a coming-of-age romance which tells the story of a 17 year old and an older graduate student who began a secret gay affair in the sun-drenched italian countryside. look at this clip. ♪

>> that sounds different. did you change it? >> i changed it a little bit. why? >> i used to play it the way he would have played it if you altered bach's version. >> play that again. >> play what again? >> the thing you played outside. >> oh, you want me to play the thing i played outside? >> please. >> i sat down with him and his co-star army hammer. their banter and their chemistry continues off screen as well. >> timothy chalomay, armie hammer, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> this film has struck a cord. everybody who has seen it is knocked out by it, but it is kind of an independent movie, right? were you surprised by the reaction and how it has been, you know, received? >> well, i definitely didn't go into the movie thinking it would be accepted and celebrated like this. i mean it is a beautiful script, but it is also -- it is very much an indy movie. we shot it for almost nothing in a little tiny town in the

countryside of italy that was gorgeous, but it felt more like a passion project and a labor of love. it wasn't anything anyone was expecting to blow up. now that it's been so, you know, wonderfully received, especially considering how much of our, you know, blood, sweat and tears we put into it, it feels really nice. >> timothy, what about you? how do you account for how it has resonated? >> you know, i guess there's no formula to people ever knowing why people like things. it is similar to what armie just said, in my short experience so far, being a part of a lot of indys that don't get seen or don't get the distribution for the possibility to be seen. so i don't know what it is. it can't be discounted there was a fan base for the book already, the novel that came out in 2007. that was part of it. also, i think it is just the right time for an uncynical, unabashed, pure celebration of love and all of the star that comes with it, but a lack of gross, dark subject matter for the sake of being cynical.

>> that is a really good way to put it, because i think everybody has relished exactly what you just said, the lack of cynicism and the pure beauty, not just visually but also in terms of the characters. so the characters, you were a 17 year old, you were a 20-year-old graduate student and working for your father during the -- during the summer. how did it come about? i mean you were two straight guys playing gay guys. how did that happen? was it the director, he saw you, how did you create that chemistry? >> well, i mean they say experience is the greatest teacher and it was just about spending as much time with each other as possible, in such a way if we have four days with each other before we started filming, and sometimes my instincts, scenarios and stories, to try to get as much information as possible about them, in a kind

of artificial way. when you have the gift of three or four weeks like we did, it is not even about that. i mean i -- we just spent a lot of time with one another. and then there's also -- and i'm sure armie would have a lot to say about this as well, but i feel like it is the random luck of the universe that we hit it off as human beings. that you can't really -- it is not about that first impression or randomness, but rather we just hit it off. we had some sort of -- >> we liked each other, too. you know, our relationship really kind of grew with the film. i showed up and he had been in the small town where we shot it for weeks at that point, familiarizing himself with the place, you know. so i showed up and we got on bicycles and we rode around and said, you know, that's a great place to get coffee, that's where you want to get your lotto, they had great pizza there. we spent a lot of time together. >> what did the director, luca, what did he do to make you comfortable with these scenes? >> he didn't treat anything

preciously. it wasn't like, you know, on days we were riding bikes he would come up to us and go, okay, don't forget tomorrow we have to do a scene with nudity. you guys are going to have a love scene, so don't forget. every scene was dealt with in sort of this wonderfully -- sort of like language wished, beautiful mediterranean style where it was just a relaxing enjoyment of everything, whether it was a scene where we were picking fruit off of a tree, that became the most enjoyable thing, or if it was a scene where we were laying in bed, then that was the most enjoyable thing. every scene was celebrated. the scene with love was celebrated, the fact that love is love. every scene was celebrated. he made us comfortable. >> is it a gay movie? i mean your characters, we think that you're gay, but towards the end of the i'm many -- i don't want to spoil it, you call up and say, in fact, you are engaged to be married to a woman you've been on-and-off dating and we're not sure whether your

character is gay. you have relations with girls in the movie. >> right. >> how would you describe the film? >> i think it is to each its own. i think more importantly it is for the audience member, and i think it would be fair for anybody to watch the movie and say it is a gay movie or a bisexual movie or a coming-of-age story or a coming-out story or a northern countryside in italy, summer movie or a first romance. i don't know. i'm always careful with any movie i'm a part of, the art takes place in the head of the viewer, not on screen. to each his own. >> one of the most arresting, dramatic speeches was your father, when oliver leaves for the summer and you're left alone and you're very sad. i mean your father's speech brings tears to the eyes. >> absolutely. the speech is essentially saying live and let live and accept the pain in your life and the sorrow, and that few are feeling badly and you're grieving,

whether it is the loss of a romance or another human being, you are doing it perfectly. pain is enough. you don't have to beat yourself up because it is pain. that's another layer you don't need. that's how i always understood it. >> i mean it is incredibly timely. it is all about tolerance as well, and how do you think that -- do you think that this moment is a moment that needs to hear that message of pure tolerance? >> i think that that is a message that is always timely. i think it is something that people can always stand to hear more of. i think that there's always a place for movies that are about love, which is love is love is love is love, and it should be celebrated in any form it takes, especially if it is genuine and from the heart and beautiful. and to go back to michael's speech, it is kind of that thing of, you know, don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened. i think that that's a beautiful thing to remind people of. >> i wonder whether you guys also -- really the basis of

telling you as a young man that it is okay to have feelings and it is okay to be emotional, because so many young boys are told, you know, be brave, stiff upper lip. >> don't cry. >> don't cry, yes. >> man, i love that you say that. that's one of my favorite things to hear in the response to the movie, particularly about a young male character that is experiencing the spectrum of emotions like any human being. i think it is a particularly, like, recent phenomenon, very american as well, you know, it is supposed to be stiff upper lip or moodiness like brando or whatever, you know, and it is fine to just be. there's nothing wrong with that. if anything, one should embrace that. >> i want to get to the me too movement because obviously, you know, hollywood is sort of the kraussible crucible in terms of women's right and women's pushback in terms of sexual harassment and quid pro quo in your business. how has it affected both of you? do you also believe it is you

guys who have to help us women? >> i think absolutely and the importance of doing this interview with you as opposed to another journalist is not lost upon me. i went to the golden globes with my sister and it was really great as relates to the second part of the question as far as what's the guy's role in this. beyond the importance of the movement independently, how does the guy fit in? and it was like an education in talking to her. she said, you know, you're part of this new wave. you are a millennial, you're a new generation, you have to be talking about this. and i guess i always thought -- i always think i'm unknown anyway, but i guess i always thought, maybe a consequence of my age or lack of clout or something, that it is not one's responsibility but i guess that's where the problem lies. it is everyone's responsibility. >> and you are a slightly older generation, probably seeing this overt misogyny in hollywood. >> sure. >> what do you think? there's a feminist writer who

just said, you know, it is men who created sexism and misogyny and they have to help us fix it. you know, it will be useful if one day robert downey jr. wakes up and demands equal pay for his co-star, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. what do you think of that aspect of it? >> i think that there is -- i don't disagree. i think that there's a system in place that has a very wonky set of rules. it seems kind of one-sided, but like any system it is not would be element at fault. it is normally like a confluence of things. i think that, you know, part and parcel with sexism, there's almost like a powerism that's in play as well, you know, where it has just been accepted for too long that those with power are allowed to abuse it. and because of sort of, you know, the male-dominated nature of a lot of systems in the world, it is the men who have the power, who are able to abuse it. i do think that there is a big role to play, you know. i think that there is, you know,

curt vonnegan said it well when he said artists are like the canaries in the coal mine because we're sensitive to what is going on and they'll kill us first because we're so sensitive. this movie finding its genesis in the entertainment industry shows you something that is starting to kill canaries, and it should be something that expands past that. so there is a role to play, there is something to do, and, you know, you want to be allied with the site of doing something as opposed to being part of the problem. >> do you have any qualm, timothy, about working with woody allen? your next film has him as the director. as you know, he has been accused by his daughter of sexual abuse. he has never been charged, never been arrested, none of that. i wonder whether you think about it and whether you ask, how has he escaped the me too revolution? >> it is really important for me to talk about that and to really -- there is -- i hesitate to talk about it right now

because what i say will only -- it is only going to anger people. so when that film comes out, if it comes out, that's going to be really important to talk about, but it is not the time right now. >> what is next on the horizon for you? >> i will be making a broad way debut this next summer here, so i will be here for the summer. yeah, just trying to enjoy right now this process, this kind of crazy wave of, you know, "call me by your name" love that the film is getting, trying to enjoy as much time with my family. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> nice to talk to you. >> that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. ♪

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