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Tavis: Jon Tenney is a veteran actor whose film credits include 'You Can Count on Me,' 'Beverly Hills Cop III,' and 'Tombstone.' He now stars in one of the summer's most popular TV shows, "The Closer.' The TNT series airs Monday nights at 9:00. Here now, a scene from "The Closer.'

Tavis: Jon, nice to have you here.

Jon Tenney: Thank you for having me. Nice to be here.

Tavis: My pleasure. It doesn't come much hotter for a cable series than "The Closer' right about now.

Tenney: It's going really well. People are tuning in, which is always nice. When you feel proud of a show, it's nice when people actually watch it, so.

Tavis: I read somewhere you, and I think you were cracking a joke. If I'm offending you or hurting your feelings, forgive me. (Laughs) But I think you were being funny when you said that one of the reasons, I'm paraphrasing, one of the reasons that you're so happy about this series of all the series you've done, this is, like, the first one to make it to season number two.

Tenney: That's actually true, yeah. (Laughs) I wasn't...

Tavis: I didn't wanna hurt your feelings.

Tenney: ...actually joking. It actually, I think I did two half-seasons once in a show that Thomas Carter produced, which was a lovely show. But this is the first official second season, so it's always nice to be invited to the party, but it's even nicer to be invited back to the party.

Tavis: So what do you do in season two? Is it season two or season three where you buy the new house and the new car and the...

Tenney: Oh, well, no, I've been doing this too long to jump right into that. (Laughs) I know, I wait for every check to clear, and then I reassess as we go along. (Laughs) So, I don't wanna get too far ahead of myself.

Tavis: I had somebody on the show one time, and I swear to you, they were on one of those rare shows that ran, like, 12 seasons, and they didn't buy a new car until, like, season 10. They were just, like, wait. It was, like, Jasmine Guy, I think, on 'Different World.' It ran, like, eight seasons or something, and she waited till, like, the season before they wrapped to be comfortable enough to go buy a new car, finally.

Tenney: Well, you see, I understand that. Acting is, you can say whatever you wanna say, but it is a blue collar job. Everything is a la carte as an actor. You never know. You can make a killing and then you can go years without work. And so I understand that mentality of really just taking it easy, taking it slow, not letting all the hype get to you, and all that sort of stuff, so.

Tavis: I wanted to ask you when you knew you wanted to do this, speaking of it being a business up and down. You made a decision at some point, obviously, that this is the life I wanna lead, to be in this up and down, heart monitor kind of a business. Before I ask that, though, since I'm gonna take you back to your childhood anyway, (laughs) I hear that there's a wonderful tie-in to our conversation with Joseph Califano. You know this guy?

Tenney: I don't know Joseph Califano personally, but when I was a child, I used to - both my parents got lots of mail. They were both, lots and lots of mail. And I always wanted to get mail, and I never received any. So, and I was just a little kid. So I would write myself letters so that they would come so I'd have some letters to receive. (Laughs)

Tavis: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.

Tenney: This actually sounds like a really sad story.

Tavis: Hold up. (Laughs) You wanted to get mail so bad.

Tenney: I just wanted something to come in the slot for me.

Tavis: That you wrote yourself a letter.

Tenney: Well, I had these fictitious characters. I had I had (word) and Califano that used to write me letters. And I used to get them. And I think maybe, and my mother has this idea that it was just 'cause my father once went to California, and I heard the name Califano, and I confused California with Califano. But when I heard that Califano was gonna be on the show today, I said, this is like, that can't be the man who wrote me my letters. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)

Tenney: But.

Tavis: Now, speaking of your parents, you're mother's, like, a shrink.

Tenney: My mother's a psychiatrist; and my father, well, he's no longer alive, but he was a nuclear physicist.

Tavis: So what was it like growing up in a house, that's like a Jeopardy household if there ever was one?

Tenney: Yeah, and I'm the youngest of four. There are four kids, too, so it was, well, that's the theory of why I became an actor. I just needed my say at the dinner table. (Laughs) 'Cause I was the youngest, and conversation was flying, flying, flying. And I needed to get my say, so I decided I'd be an actor, so I.

Tavis: Was there any particular, on a serious note, was there any particular pressure that you felt when you have two parents, one, who are highly educated, one who's analyzing everything you do whether you know it or not. (Laughs) My mother's tough; my parents are tough; but how the heck do you navigate a nuclear physicist and a shrink?

Tenney: Well, they could separate being Mom and Dad from what they do. So that was good. They loved me and they supported me, and I was fortunate that all the kids in our family went into the arts. My oldest brother is a playwright, and my other brother's a composer. My sister was a choreographer. So we all went into the arts, and my parents supported that.

So I didn't have to deal with those parents who were like, oh, get a real job. I didn't really have that, so I'm fortunate in that regard. But I don't think I figured out that my mom analyzed things until later in life, and then...

Tavis: (Laughs) Too late then.

Tenney: Yeah, then I had to see my own therapist. (Laughs)

Tavis: Take me back to "The Closer' and tell me about your character. I talked about the fact earlier it's such a huge hit. But tell me about your character.

Tenney: Agent Fritz Howard, works for the FBI. Well, everybody, Kyra Sedgwick, first of all, she is the anchor of the whole show. She is "The Closer.' And so we all are there to support this character, Brenda Lee Johnson, which she plays. And everybody has a piece of the puzzle. And my character really, how I like to look at it is, 'cause you always try to find how you fit into the bigger picture.

At least I do. And I think what's nice about the relationship we have on the show is that you get to see Kyra's character, Brenda, in areas where she's not so sure-footed. She's very on her game professionally, but in her personal life, she doesn't really know, she's not as accomplished. And so, my character really reveals a lot of her personal life. That's, so far, at least, been the thrust of how we interact.

Tavis: Sounds like somebody I know who's doing well professionally, but...

Tenney: Basically that's the complicated way of just saying, I'm the love interest.

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)

Tenney: So, I'm the love, I'm the buxom blonde on the show. (Laughs)

Tavis: I was waiting for you to break that down. I was, like, that's a long way to go to say, I'm her love interest, Tavis.

Tenney: Love interest. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. But you finally got there.

Tenney: But I finally got there. Thank you for...

Tavis: Yeah. Speaking of a long way to go...

Tenney: ...reeling me in.

Tavis: You have a love, as I do, for traveling. And I've been really stuck stateside for a while. I've been out a couple of times over the last year, but the show and some other things have really kept me kind of buttoned down here stateside. But I love to get a chance to move around the world for one simple reason, basically. I think one, we learn when we travel.

But I really love to get around because it allows me to check what I think about the state of our nation against what other people in the world think. And I think when you stay here too long without moving back and forth, you get myopic. Oftentimes, you get closed-minded. That's my own commentary about why I love to get around the world. But you're, like, really a seasoned traveler.

Tenney: Well, I've been fortunate, 'cause of the work I do as an actor, I've been able to do a lot of traveling, which is a major perk. And I agree with you. There's nothing like going away from home to really getting a little perspective on things. And I think that is a danger, that people can get myopic, and not really see a larger picture. So yes, I have done some traveling.

The first time I actually went abroad was because of a television series. This was back in the late eighties. I was doing a show based on the film 'The Dirty Dozen.' 'Dirty Dozen, The Series.' And we filmed it in what's the former Yugoslavia. We filmed it in Zagreb. So I lived in Zagreb for about a year, and traveled around Eastern Europe. And that was a really eye-opening experience. And then recently, just between the first season and the second season of "The Closer,' I did a film in India.

Tavis: Wow.

Tenney: And that was an extraordinary experience. I did Albert Brooks' latest picture called 'Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.' And we shot that in India. And I'd never been to that part of the world, and it actually wasn't on my list of places to go, per se. I hadn't really thought of it much. And then...

Tavis: What'd you make of it? 'Cause I've heard so much about India.

Tenney: Well, it was spectacular. And now, I have to go back. I really have to go back. It was just amazing to be in a country, for one, that I'm walking around ruins that are hundreds and hundreds of years older than our country. And the history, and the perspective that that brings, was really eye-opening.

Tavis: Did you come away with a different view? I don't know what your politics are, but how did you formulate, in your own mind, the political state of our nation? Particularly in that region of the world?

Tenney: Well, it was interesting, because we arrived one week after the elections in 2004, right after, in November, just after Bush had been reelected. And I was very curious. 'Cause I know that when I'd traveled before abroad, sometimes there had been this idea of oh, the ugly American. People sort of come in and say, don't often recognize themselves as guests in someone else's country.

And I didn't wanna be viewed that way. And I was very curious to see, all right, well, how do they feel about us? And the feeling I got was that they were a little dismayed at the reelection, to be honest. I think that they had some questions about the administration, and so they were being watchful. I think they seemed a little surprised at the reelection, to be honest.

Tavis: They wouldn't be the only ones.

Tenney: Yeah. No, I agree. (Laughs) And I agree, it's...

Tavis: I think the President at some point was, yeah.

Tenney: Well, (laughs) I'm very curious to read this article in 'Rolling Stone' that Bobby Kennedy wrote. I don't know about the...

Tavis: Yeah. I haven't read it myself, but I've heard about it, yeah.

Tenney: Yeah, I'm curious, I haven't read it, either. But no, I think it's a really important time to be politically active and to be politically aware. I think it's very important, because there's a lot going on right now.

Tavis: Yeah, a whole lot. Well, we'll break and we'll both go read the Bobby Kennedy piece.

Tenney: Yeah, okay. (Laughs)

Tavis: How about that? Nice to have you here.

Tenney: Thank you.

Tavis: Jon Tenney, one of the stars of "The Closer' on TNT. One of the - actually the hottest show on cable these days. So, check it out, if you already are not. Jon, nice to have you here.

Tenney: Thank you.

Tavis: Take care. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International, check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.