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Tavis:I'm pleased to welcome James Caan to this program. The Oscar-nominated actor starred in seminal films like 'The Godfather,' 'Rollerball,' and 'Eldorado.' These days, he's enjoying success on the small screen in the NBC hit series "Las Vegas." The show airs Friday nights at 9:00 PM. Of course, you know that. Here now, a scene from "Las Vegas."

Tavis: You're throwing guys around like you're 20-something, man, come on.

James Caan: What am I? I don't, yeah. Well, next week. (laugh) Next week, I'll be 36, yeah.

Tavis: Yeah. (laugh)

Caan: It wasn't so long ago we didn't even have birth certificates. That's how old I am.

Tavis: It's nice to have you on the program.

Caan: Nice to be here.

Tavis: I love these shoes. Jonathan, can you get a shot of these shoes? I love these. Can you see that?

Caan: My kickers.

Tavis: Three tone. I thought they were two toned when you walked...

Caan: I had to beat up Italians for these shoes.

Tavis: Yeah. (laugh) I like those, I like those. Speaking of Italian, I assume most people think are you Italian, given 'The Godfather.'

Caan: Yeah, I won the 'Italian of the Year' award twice in New York, honest to God.

Tavis: Are you serious?

Caan: Yeah. And I kept saying, hey fellas, look, I really can't accept this. Why? Well, basically, I'm really not Italian. (laugh) And it wouldn't look right. Five years later, the same guys called me back. Hey, you won the award again. (laugh) So. But I'm very proud of that, though.

Tavis: Yeah. Are there other misconceptions that people have of you based upon your acting career?

Caan: Based on my acting career?

Tavis: Yeah. Based on what they think they know of James Caan.

Caan: I run into, like, in New York, "The Godfather," if I walk into a bar, to this day, they say hey, hey, watch what you say, you're gonna wind up in cement shoes. They all, they can't, it was the same thing in the business for, like, I don't know how many years after "The Godfather." If there weren't 12 people dead on page 20, I'd never get the script.

So wow, can you can sing and dance. I didn't know that. Well, nobody ever asked me. I just beat up people. So, I'm still doing that.

Tavis: How did you learn to sing and dance? You're like a triple threat here.

Caan: Yeah. I don't, how?

Tavis: Yeah.

Caan: They paid me money, and I learned real fast. (laugh) I needed the cash.

Tavis: That easy, huh?

Caan: Yeah, sure.

Tavis: Yeah.

Caan: Though I had some great teachers, and it's fun, man. I loved it, learning to tap.

Tavis: Yeah. Why is it that after all these years, and I think I literally know every line of the dialogue from start to finish, and yet every time I see 'Brian's Song,' I'm still, like, drowning in my tears? How great a project?

Caan: Yeah, it was really great. Well, that's Bill Blinn, the writer. Because Brian was only dead like six months at that time. And I turned it down four times.

Tavis: Why?

Caan: For all the wrong reasons. Because there was a stigma attached to television at the time. Which is horse crap, it's baloney. But, nevertheless, you had to behave the way people expected, the people who hired you. And to them, it was like if you did television, you were out of business. Now, I had done "The Godfather" before.

It wasn't out yet, but I had finished "The Godfather.' And then they kept asking me to do it and do it, and the script was great. And the reason that, he didn't belabor the melodrama, it was all, like, it was humor, and which represented Brian pretty much. But then the Walter Mitty in me came out. Because they had a running back named Don Shy at Chicago, and I thought I was better than him.

So I did it because they said well hey, you're going to be training with the Bears. You ain't gonna be, so I went there, and after I got hit about four times, hey, come on, man, I'm an actor. Quit it.

Tavis: (laugh) As an actor, though, you've had, like, what, 13, 14 surgeries?

Caan: Fourteen.

Tavis: Fourteen surgeries over your career.

Caan: They're called non-Jewish activities. That's what I participated in, yeah. Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah, is that what they? (laugh) Why so many surgeries? I assume it's because you were insistent on doing things you probably had no business doing.

Caan: My activities. No, well, I rodeoed for nine years. I've been with (unintelligible), Master (word?) for 30 something years in karate tournaments. Just stuff. Couple cars here and there. (laugh) Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I get undressed, and everything falls to the floor. (laugh) I got nine screws in this shoulder. I have a lot of fun at airports with that stuff.

Tavis: I'm sure you do, I'm sure you do. Vegas. So you're back on television nowadays. You love this. The show's a hit.

Caan: Well, since 'Brian's Song,' yeah.

Tavis: 'Brian's Song,' yeah.

Caan: My one time.

Tavis: It's a long gap.

Caan: Well, yeah. I was busy. I did some movies, and then I quit for about six years and coached kids for six years, and that was great. And then I woke up one morning and found out I was broke. That coaching didn't pay a whole lot.

Tavis: (laugh) Yeah. Gotta get back to work.

Caan: And there some other little hanky-panky going on at the accountant's office. But nonetheless, yeah, so I went back to work. I moved to Park City for a couple of years with my kids, thought that was kind of nice for them. I saw all these kids running around the neighborhood, and sleepovers. In L.A., if you want a sleepover with your kids, you have to trade, like, Social Security numbers, the F.B.I. checks them out.

Tavis: Exactly. (laugh) Security check, yeah.

Caan: Yeah. And then they drive in their Mercedes 45 minutes. And it's, like, impossible. So we went up there. But my wife couldn't shop, so we left.

Tavis: Had to come back.

Caan: And I found that absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes them think you're dead. I came back after two years, somebody said, jeez, Jim, you look good. What am I, Anthony Quinn? What do you mean? (laugh) Jesus. So.

Tavis: What did you learn during that six year hiatus? Other than the fact you were broke, what did you learn in that six year hiatus? That's a long time to stay away.

Caan: Well, when I lost my sister, to be serious for a minute, it just destroyed me. Because she was like my best friend, and truthfully the only person on Earth that I was really afraid off. She scared the, oh, man.

Tavis: Wow.

Caan: She'd curse me, and then she'd tell me, like, what are you doing Saturday night, she said? I said, nothing, Barbara. She said, well, there was some charity at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Eight o'clock. And you know that blue suit? Yeah. Just wear that blue suit. And you know that red tie with that thing? Be there at 8:00. And I'd, okay. (laugh) She was tough.

But when I lost her, I just realized, like, I got into this whole thing, and I had my son, Scott, and that if there wasn't passion involved, I just decided I didn't wanna do it. My least favorite expression in the world is I don't care. You know what I mean?

Tavis: Yeah.

Caan: I don't care. Do you want to play tennis? I don't care. Well then, go screw yourself. Go play by yourself. I want to know if I play you that I beat you on that day when you were trying. You imagine making love to somebody, I don't care.

Tavis: I don't care, yeah.

Caan: Yeah, that doesn't work.

Tavis: No, at all. (laugh)

Caan: So I just kind of felt like that about my whole life, 'cause I was so passionate about my sister, and she was a passionate girl, and maybe that's, like, the Italian in me, too. So, you either love it or hate it, that's cool. But the middle ground is boring.

Tavis: I assume, listening to you, then, at some point what had been a passion for you dissipated?

Caan: Yeah. I was very - it's hard today, too. These movies that - I came along at a real good time. I feel bad for my son, as far as my career is concerned. But always told my son, Scott's doing great, and he loves it, and really happy that he loves it. But we didn't have, in the late seventies, and those wonderful writers and wonderful directors.

And they're around today, but they don't seem to use them too much (laugh) is the difference. But, so I had that opportunity to work with people who cared. But it's not about the job. The passion is, the job is secondary. I always used to say that acting isn't my life. And people would right away assume that that meant I didn't care.

Tavis: Right.

Caan: No, I didn't say that. I want to be the best actor in the world, but my family is first, my friends are second, third, and the only lecture I give some of these young actors is, like, look, I don't care what heights you achieve in this business. The only thing that's inevitable that you're gonna slide back, the degree of which varies from actor to actor.

But if you put all of your passion and all of, everything you care about into that basket, when that slide happens, those are the guys that hurt themselves. You can't, it's a fickle business. And it's true, you're only as good as your last movie and whatnot. So that's important. So my passion wasn't about, when I worked, I was passionate.

I never did a movie that I thought was, like, for the money. I don't why I did so many stinkers, but (laugh) unfortunately, I gotta live with my opinion. (laugh) But, yeah, I lost; I just really wanted to love something. Or, and if it was okay. And I had the best time ever. I coached kids, and for six years, Little League, and Scott was great. And I went nuts. I had a batting cage from the Dodgers in my back yard, and I was...

Tavis: So what kind of coach were you, screaming, yelling, throwing stuff?

Caan: Only good. A lot of vocal, but only good stuff.

Tavis: Only good stuff, okay.

Caan: No bad stuff. And I had the greatest experience. I turned, today my favorite thing is I walk down the street, and there's some kid, a couple of my boys went to college on scholarship. And hey, Coach. (laugh) So, that makes me feel pretty good. And poor Scott, I was throwing ground balls at him two hours a day, and then I started to think of the Jimmy (word?) story.

I said, this guy, I'm gonna drive him nuts. I better lighten up here a little bit. But he was good. But that creative need that was filled instantaneously. You didn't have to wait, like, six months for them to put music and all that stuff to it. You change a kid's life in a minute.

Tavis: You're a long way from done, I assume, but I also assume that you are, to your point earlier, that you've done a few stinkers. Everybody has in his or her career. But I assume that at this point you are, in retrospect, happy with your body of work.

Caan: Yeah.

Tavis: You comfortable with it?

Caan: Yeah, I'm proud of it.

Tavis: It's quite a body.

Caan: I tried very hard not to duplicate. You know what I mean? Like remakes. And I tried from the beginning. Nobody, the third picture, I had an Irish accent. I played somebody else. And so I've tried to vary it up, and I've been really fortunate to work with wonderful people. And I learned throughout the years that, and it's automatic.

The most talented people in the world are the nicest. It's only those who've gotta hide what they don't have. Become jerks, start yelling at people, and act like fools.

Tavis: Insecurity, yeah.

Caan: So I had the great fortune of working with, like, the Bobby Duvals, and the Francis Coppollas and Brando, and...

Tavis: Brando, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum.

Caan: Yeah, I was around a lot of nice people.

Tavis: Yeah. You ain't done bad, James Caan.

Caan: Well, don't bury me yet, son.

Tavis: Yeah. (laugh) So how long do I have to know you before I can call you Jimmy? Can I call you Jimmy next time you come on?

Caan: You can call me Jimmy or Your Holiness. One of them two.

Tavis: (laugh) I like that. I like that. 'Las Vegas,' starring His Holiness, Friday nights at 9:00 on NBC.

Caan: And by the way, I got a lotta, lotta nice people on that show. Every single one of them, they're nice.

Tavis: Great cast, yeah, yeah. Now, what size shoes are those?

Caan: You ain't getting them, big boy.

Tavis: Yeah.

Caan: Oh, you're way too big. Ten and a half?

Tavis: Yeah.

Caan: Hit you right?

Tavis: Yeah, you got me right. You sold shoes, too?

Caan: Here, God, no, I can't, my wife just bought them.

Tavis: (laugh) I'm glad to have here. Honored to meet you. Stay tuned. We'll be right back in a moment. (laugh)