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Tavis: I am pleased to welcome the wonderfully talented actor William H. Macy to the program tonight. His increasingly impressive list of movie credits include terrific films like 'Fargo,' 'Seabiscuit,' 'The Cooler,' and 'Boogie Nights.' His latest project is a film for TNT called 'The Wool Cap.' The movie premieres this Sunday night on Turner Network Television. Here is a scene from 'The Wool Cap.'

Woman: Where is she at? You were supposed to watch her. Where did she go? What? I'm late, that's all. I'm just late. So, you just go and let her run off? What am I gonna do? I gotta go. Why did you do that? I have to find her myself. He's gonna kill me. Man, why did you do that? You know what? Thanks for nothing, man. Thanks for nothing.

Tavis: So much to talk about with William H. Macy. Nice to see you.

William H. Macy: Good to be seen.

Tavis: Glad to have you. Let's start with the important stuff first. How's Felicity?

Macy: She's great. She's great. I love her name, too.

Tavis: When she was on this program, first of all, I told her how much I respected and loved your acting. I said I wanna meet your husband one day. This guy's such a great actor. But now I get a chance to tell you, you better be glad you met Felicity before I met her.

Macy: I am.

Tavis: She's amazing. She's such a great actor.

Macy: She's a hot tamale.

Tavis: Yeah. She's--ha ha ha. That's one way to put--and her show, speaking of hot tam--her show, 'Desperate Housewives,' she is kicking.

Macy: It's huge. It's huge. She loves her job. She loves going to work. It's exactly the job that she was looking for. I was her committed listener. And she wished to get a series just like that.

Tavis: Yeah. So please tell me, though, the 2 kids you all have at home are nothing like her kids on the TV show. Please tell me this.

Macy: I'm sorry I can't. No. We got great kids, but kids are tough. You talked about it when you were with her. I mean, it's insanely tough. I think anybody that has kids, you look back at your mom and dad, and the first thought you have is, "I forgive you." I forgive you for being the maniac that you turned into. Because they will drive you insane.

Tavis: When she was here, we played the clip on the first episode, and I saw the kids were bad the first episode. I didn't know that the bad went from bad to worse. I mean, these kids are like tyrants.

Macy: I know. Um, I just can't imagine it. The bravest thing I've ever done in my life was to fly from L.A. to New York with Sofia when she was 2 years old by myself. It was so frightening. I can't tell you. It was like running in a marathon with a full glass of water. I mean, anything could've happened at any time. We got through it with Scotch Tape. I got some Scotch Tape and we destroyed the first-class cabin in this airplane. She taped everything down. I thought, I'll just take the tape off. It was the kind of tape that wouldn't come off.

Tavis: I thought you were gonna stop and say you got through it with Scotch.

Macy: Finally, when they said we're getting close, I ordered a beer. I made it. I was so happy. When she went, 'Ah, ah, ah,' I said, 'No, honey. You can't have--would you like a beer? Could I order another beer for...' but she wouldn't drink it.

Tavis: Yeah. Um, you taking the challenge of flying with Sofia on a transcontinental flight does not seem inconsistent to me with your character because you don't take, like, easy roles. I mean, you really--I was just thinking about the kinds of roles that you have played. You really like challenging. Not an easy thing to do, I would suspect.

Macy: It was difficult. It was difficult to write, and it had its oddities in acting it. But I was very relieved that the first day of shooting that it wasn't bizarre that I wasn't speaking.

Tavis: It was not bizarre.

Macy: It wasn't.

Tavis: Explain that for me.

Macy: I guess you gauge it by your fellow actors. The first couple of scenes we did, it didn't seem outlandish that I was not speaking. It didn't hang there like an idiotic scene. And I was very relieved. Because certainly as an actor, you know after the first day whether you're in a dog or not. You can tell. You can tell. Especially if you wrote it. Hmm. Concept doesn't work. Ooh. 28 more days of this. Hmm.

Tavis: Before I go further, tell me how one knows after the first day of shooting on a project this is a dog project, or there's something special. How do you know that? What do you base that on?

Macy: Um, I guess your skin. Every cell in your body is telling you how it's going. I've always thought that studio execs who go to a test screening and then send out cards and wait for people to write 'em down, they're being foolish. Test screening is a good idea, but you don't need those stupid cards. They're all jive anyway. You can just tell with your skin. You know whether the audience is with you or not. They all move at the same time when they get bored. You don't need to send out cards to the audience. And half the people in the audience at those test screenings are out-of-work actors anyway. Everybody can see these coming a mile away.

Tavis: So when I move, you move. Just like that.

Macy: Exactly. You get bored at the same time.

Tavis: All right, so it might have come easy for you, but I--again, it speaks to your talent that you can do something that challenging and find ease in doing it. But I can't imagine that it was just as easy for the folk you're working with to have to give their lines and then wait for you to do your thing, and then do their line and wait for you--I mean that--I'm not an actor, but it seems awfully challenging to me.

Macy: Well, like I said, it didn't seem unnatural. It was working. Don Rickles, of course, just made a meal out of me at every break. As soon as it was over, he would put me up on a pike. Oh, man, he's funny. And every once in a while, I would have to say, "Hold on. Hold on. You cut my line. I got a line here." "Oh, sorry. Sorry." But it worked. It worked. And I asked my fellow actors--magnificent cast in this thing. I said, "Don't do me any favors. If you don't understand what I'm trying to indicate to you, say, ‘I don't understand.' Don't assume anything. If it's not clear to you, it won't be clear to the audience. You say it."

Tavis: Tell me more--I could have asked this question a few moments ago, but since we're here--tell me about the storyline, since you wrote this.

Macy: Um, it was based on an old Jackie Gleason movie called 'Gigot' which he did back in the sixties.

Tavis: Not to be confused with 'Gigli.'

Macy: Not to be confused at all with 'Gigli.'

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! Yeah. Let's hope not.

Macy: And we wanted to work with Johnson & Johnson again and TNT. We had all done 'Door to Door' together, and it was wildly successful, and they did a great job on it, so we were looking for something that had sort of those core family values that Johnson & Johnson is all about. That's their brand. And Steven thought this would be a good idea. We re-wrote it, and it's to J & J's credit that they did it, 'cause there's some rough edges on this. It's urban, and it's kind of nasty for a J & J project. But they saw that ultimately it's about family and how families these days come in all different colors and stripes and shapes and we've gotta expand our thinking. It is about family.

Tavis: You mentioned the rough edges it might have that ostensibly could have challenged a company like J & J, Johnson & Johnson, to sponsor a program like this. I see that as the challenge, the downside potentially. Tell me what the upside is in having the opportunity to go back to this well again, to have standing at the ready a partner to sponsor a program if you could deliver something that is quality material?

Macy: What's the question? Why J & J?

Tavis: Yeah. Why J & J, and what's the advantage of having a partner like that, when you are a writer, to know there's somebody you can go to and have them put this thing on if you can write something that makes sense to them?

Macy: I always--

Tavis: You have, like, a leg up over most actors trying to write something.

Macy: Yeah. I've always found that it's easier to work with people you've worked with before. The second time is almost always easier. That's why so many directors work with the same actors over and over again. Uh, there's a shakedown period. You do--you do a movie, it's like a pickup baseball team and you're not firing on all cylinders, and sometimes half the movie is already in the can. That's unfortunate. So that's why people like to work together as often as possible. And this is the fourth project we've done for Turner. So, um, I know they're dying for us to do another one. Heh heh heh!

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha! Some of that Felicity humor coming out. I see it runs in the family. Let me ask you whether or not you write because you like to write, or you write because you want to do stuff that you want to do? Or maybe both, I don't know. Maybe you don't see enough of that, so you have to put pen to paper?

Macy: It's both. Um, certainly I write better roles for myself than other people offer sometimes.

Tavis: I would hope so. Ha ha!

Macy: And I really enjoy--I write with Steven Schachter, who directed this piece, and he and I had done about 14 of these for television, movies for television. I find it an amazing process, the way the creative mind works, where your subconscious comes out. Here's a good example--Steven had been on vacation. He saw a guy with a monkey in the park. He said, "What if Gigot has a monkey?" I said, "That's the stupidest idea, on a long list of stupid ideas, that you've had." He keeps going with it, going with it, "What about a monkey?" And finally I thought, "OK, what about a monkey?" And at the same time Felicity had been making these little caps, knitting these little caps for our kids, and I was wearing one. I'm crazy about these things. And so--and I said, "What about a monkey?" And then all of a sudden this image of a hurdy-gurdy man came, and then the character started to get more and more bizarre. And we--these things fed on each other, and it became a plot point that he wore this stupid cap. Felicity knitted that cap, and we sent it out and they duplicated it, made about 6 of them duplicates, but that's her cap. And then it became pretty much the climax of the movie, and it all happened because Steven saw a monkey in the park.

Tavis: Steven's dumb idea turned into part of the storyline. Wasn't so dumb after all, was it?

Macy: I'm always amazed at how these things work together, especially when you work with a partner.

Tavis: Yeah. When you--speaking of dumb ideas, dumb question--when you write for yourself, what does William H. Macy look to write for himself? I'm thinking, you said a moment ago, about your writing--I'm thinking if I were a writer and I was writing parts, 4, 5, 6, 14 times for myself, what would I be writing for myself? So what does William H. Macy write for himself? Is there a theme here? Is there a consistency here?

Macy: No. The story is the founder of the feast, and if you can come up with a story, you're home free. So that is always the preeminent impulse. And the story really boils down to the third act. Everybody can write the first act. A lot of people can write second acts. It's that third act that separates the men from the boys. If you can come up with this third act, the punchline, what's it all about? It's really farther down the line whether the character's a good character for me or not. But I guess, sort of solipsistically, I'm more attracted to stories that I'd be good in the lead.

Tavis: What's that word again? Solip--

Macy: Solipsistically.

Tavis: That's a good Scrabble word. I'd have to write that down.

Macy: I think solipsism is when you view the whole world just from your point of view.

Tavis: OK, we gotta end this conversation now. I'm out of time, but you need to write that down for me.

Macy: Solipsism.

Tavis: I want to use that in Scrabble.

Macy: I couldn't spell that if you put a gun to my head.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! But you know what? But if we can figure this out, that's definitely more than 7 tiles. That's a 50-point bonus on a Scrabble board.

Macy: There's no "Z" in it. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Tavis: Well, but a 50-point bonus. OK, we'll talk about it later. Anyway, nice to see you.

Macy: Nice to see you.

Tavis: Tell Felicity I said hello. The movie is 'The Wool Cap,' premieres on the 21st of November on TNT. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles and, as always, keep the faith.