CBS News correspondent Holly Williams made her 60 Minutes debut Sunday, reporting from China on the booming film industry there.
Williams, who has lived in China, traveled to the country with a CBS News crew that included veteran 60 Minutes producer Michael Gavshon–but nobody to translate interviews from Mandarin. Williams discovered shortly before a key interview with Chinese movie mogul James Wang the translator would be Williams herself.
“Michael had not had that conversation with me,” Williams says in a 60 Minutes Overtime interview. “He hadn’t told me that he was expecting me to do a full-on 60 Minutes sit-down, hour-long interview completely bilingually.”
Williams’ Mandarin held up–just as Gavshon had expected it would, noting that Willliams reported from China for the BBC and Sky News before joining CBS. “This is where she came from,” said Gavshon. “This where she cut her teeth journalistically, in China… and she really just generally, genuinely loves the place. So it was her coming back home. It was her home for so long and I think it shows in the way in which she told the story.”