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Tavis: Pleased to welcome Timothy Dalton to this program. The distinguished actor began his film career opposite Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in the classic movie "The Lion in Winter." He later, of course, went on to play James Bond in two films during the 1980s. His latest project, though, is a comedy called "Hot Fuzz." The film hits theaters in select cities this weekend. Here now, some scenes from "Hot Fuzz."

[Clip]

Tavis: I was saying to you before we started our conversation that one of the cable channels is doing, like, a Bond-a-thon. So I saw, like, "The Living Daylights," like, five times last week alone, 'cause I'm a huge Bond fan. Bond has a sense of humor, but this is no James Bond stuff (laughs).

Timothy Dalton: NO, this is something else altogether. This is - I was watching "Bad Boys II" last night with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, and let me tell you, this movie's "Bad Boys II" meets Agatha Christie. (Laughter)

Tavis: I'm trying to figure out, if I were an executive, how I would have taken that pitch. "It's 'Bad Boys II' meets Agatha Christie."

Dalton: Well, it is, it is. These guys, they're great; they love movies. That is one of their favorite movies, and it's - you've got a sleepy west country redneck village into which this top - a very straight cop - goes. And his partner is a man whose whole idea of police work is inspired by American movies, and that's what it turns into: "Bad Boys" versus Agatha Christie.

Tavis: What do you like about comedies?

Dalton: It makes people laugh. I love that. That's the best thing in the world.

Tavis: How would you rate your comedic sense as a part of your acting repertoire?

Dalton: Well, I've not done a lot of comedy in movies. I suppose you can look at "Rocketeer," "Hawks," "Beautician and the Beast." "Flash Gordon" was a kind of a comedy. But I don't generally do it. I've done a lot more in the theater. I like to do it. It's harder. I think it's more satisfying, ultimately. It's great to make people laugh. People want to be entertained.

Tavis: What's harder about it?

Dalton: It's such a fine line. You can do something, you think it's working, and it doesn't. You can go out in the theater; every night is different. You can get a huge laugh, a good laugh, and a poor laugh, and the difference is almost infinitesimal. It's difficult to lock into it. And in film, it takes more than just the actors; it takes the director and the editor as well, because you can do it marvelously on the set but if it's timed wrong in the editing, it's gone.

Tavis: So let me go back to your point about the stage, 'cause I'm fascinated by that. So to your point about the stage and how there are three different kinds of laughs you can get on any given night, when you come off the stage on a particular night, do you know - you have any way of knowing what you did or did not do on that particular night with regard to that line that made the difference?

Dalton: Well, you hope you do.

Tavis: As an actor.

Dalton: Not always, not always, but is always to do being truly in the moment, being truly spontaneous to that moment. If you think about it too much, it often doesn't work. That's true about a lot of things, isn't it? You've gotta be honest, you've gotta be simple. You've just gotta be right with it.

Tavis: When something comes across your desk like this, what makes you wanna do it?

Dalton: Well, there's lots of reasons to do a movie. You might wanna do it because the directors or the actors are friends or people you've always wanted to work with. When there's a great script; you might wanna do it because it's great money. Sometimes you get lucky, and it's all of those things. This one wasn't all of those things.

This one was a great script and people I wanted to work with, because since "Shaun of the Dead," we've all become aware that Edgar Wright, who directs it, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who are in it - Simon and Edgar both wrote the show - are very unique voices. They're not making movies like other British people, and they're not making movies like other American people, either. They are unique at the moment, and that - it really is something you wanna work with. Very talented.

Tavis: To your point earlier about comedy being harder, I would argue that for a particular actor it may also be riskier. Not that James Bond is easy stuff, but because, as you said earlier, comedy isn't your first line of artistic genius, when you decide to play a comedy role is there a risk in that, and what makes it worth taking the risk?

We're all pretty confident that Timothy Dalton can pull off a dramatic role, but if you're playing in a comedy and you don't make me laugh - like Dalton, that was a bad - exactly. You rolled the dice on that, and you crapped out (laughs). Why take the risk?

Dalton: Well, life is about taking risks, too, isn't it? When people laugh, when you go into a cinema - I went into a cinema the other day to see a preview of "Hot Fuzz" down in Santa Monica, and it's great to hear people burst out with spontaneous joy. It means you've done something worthwhile. People are having a good time in the cinema.

Their $10 has been worth it, or their $5, or their $15, whatever it is they're paying. It's great. In a tragedy or a drama, it's wonderful if you've done it well. But there's nothing as immediate as the response of comedy.

Tavis: Now, do you often get a chance to sneak into theaters? I don't know how, with this face -

Dalton: I've always tried to.

Tavis: With this face, how do you do it? You can't sneak in theaters (unintelligible).

Dalton: Well, I've always tried to, 'cause I do think that the reason - I guess certain people work because they're narcissistic. Certain people work because it's all about them. But I think most serious and good people work because they wanna communicate something they love to an audience. And you're never really going to know in a movie just by judging the reaction of the people on the crew who are standing around. You've got to go to a cinema and watch it, so I always do go. So how do I go? I just - I don't know, I (laughs) go stand at the back.

Tavis: In a baseball cap?

Dalton: It doesn't work. It doesn't work. (Laughter) I've been driving in a car - I remember driving in a car down the street in London once. I've got a beard, a full beard, long hair, probably a hat, sunglasses, and a guy over there who all he could see was my nose, said, "Hey, Tim. James Bond." (Laughter) How? But no, I just go in and stand at the back or sit at the back, and just wait till it's started, and then.

Tavis: So you went to see "Hot Fuzz" and you heard what you wanted to hear for "Hot Fuzz."

Dalton: Yes, definitely.

Tavis: Ever gone to the theater to do your research and heard something that you didn't want to hear, or want to hear something that you didn't hear?

Dalton: Well, not really, because it's all new so it's all - it's a great, wonderful moment of learning just to see how well we did do. But I do remember once I was in a movie and it was a moment getting a great laugh, so they put it in the trailer. The trailer was on all over the place, so when I went to see it in the cinema it didn't get a laugh, because everybody'd heard the joke a million times. It was over; it was dead.

Tavis: That's fair.

Dalton: Which was disappointing.

Tavis: How did you get into the acting thing? You grew up in Wales.

Dalton: Yeah, I was born in north Wales, then grew up in Manchester, an industrial town in the north, and then down in the north Midlands. And I don't know, I guess as a kid I went to what we called Saturday morning pictures where they have the "Flash Gordons" and the "Hop-Along Cassidys" and "Lone Rangers" and all the comics and everything, and Douglas Fairbanks movies and adventure stories, and I just thought this was just a fantastic world that was - well, as we all did.

Any kid who grows up anywhere - look at Forrest Whitaker at the Academy Awards, what he was saying about a kid growing up in a suburb of I think it was L.A. We all have those dreams, and what movies do is they open up our hearts to these dreams. They make them kind of possible. If you want to be a - if you ever wondered what it's like to be a pirate, (laughs) go watch Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Get out there on the warm seas with the sails and have fun, and you think you can do that. And you know it's -

Tavis: But so few people, though, Timothy, get a chance to - I'll say blessed; that's my own language, not yours - but are blessed to have their careers start in such an auspicious way. Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole?

Dalton: I know.

Tavis: That's how you start a career, I'd say.

Dalton: I know; it was a hell of a kick-off. I sometimes think the first year I ever had out of drama school was really the best ever. I went to work in a repertory theater that I'd always wanted to. It was my goal to, because Laurence Olivier and Albert Finney had worked there. Then I did a play that went down and went into the West End of London, so that was a big deal.

Then I did a short TV series, and then the end of the year was crowned by what we're seeing on the screen now, "The Lion in Winter" with O'Toole and Hepburn and those wonderful fellows there.

Tavis: What do you recall about working with those legends at that age?

Dalton: Katharine Hepburn was sensational as a person as well as an actress. She was thoughtful, she cared about everybody, she talked to all the crew, she always welcomed people. She looked after everyone. She was - I don't know, a mother, in a sense. She was a great star, a great actress, but she embraced everyone on the set and made it a joy to be there with her and work. O'Toole, I remember as just a fantastic kind of spitfire. When he got going, the air would tremble and crackle, and oh, he was so exciting.

Tavis: So you start your career with essentially hanging out with Hepburn and O'Toole. Fast-forward a decade or so later and near the end of her career, you're hanging out with Mae West.

Dalton: Yes, here in this town. Here at Paramount Studios. That was remarkable. (Laughs) I think it's a film that we might not want to watch too often, but it was astonishing.

Tavis: Well, she's 85 and you're in your thirties and you're -

Dalton: Oh, no, I don't believe she was 85. (Laughter) I think they lied so they could get some insurance.

Tavis: Well, she was old and you were young, and you guys played husband and wife.

Dalton: I think they kind of figured she was at least 87, (laughter) and someone who was (unintelligible) said, "No, no, no, she's 91." And we'd go out with her for dinners - once a week, we all went out for dinner and she'd tell you stories of New York in the 1890s. Imagine, she'd tell stories of the theater in New York in 1914, 1913. She was an amazing woman, and very funny. If we had more time, I'd tell you some more stories about her.

Tavis: You'll come back and tell me some Mae West stories. Before I let you go, though, I'll mention "Hot Fuzz" again. But tell me anything about Bond. I don't even know if there's a question there, I'm just such a huge Bond fan. What's it like playing James Bond?

Dalton: Gosh. At the beginning, it's just like kind of playing anything. You've got a script, you've got a crew, you get on with it. But there is a constant pressure surrounding you wherever you go. I remember doing a scene in the street, (laughs) and some woman came up and asked for an autograph. And I said, "Oh, I can't, I can't, we've got cameras rolling. We're making a movie, go away." She said, "Well -" I can't say the word on television, can I, but she basically (laughter) said the f-word, and said, "I'm never going to go and see any of your movies again." People are on top of you all the time.

Tavis: Did I read a story about you going to the North Pole?

Dalton: Oh, you did.

Tavis: It's a funny story, tell me about this.

Dalton: Yeah, well, I was making a documentary about wolves (laughter) and we were going up all over everywhere. And I went up to stay with some Eskimos for about 10 days and do some filming there, 'cause you think they must know about wolves. It was a documentary about wolves, you see? (Laughter) And it was a place called Namak Tuvak (sp?) which is in Ubator. (sp?)

They prefer to be called Eskimo. I know Inuit is the politically correct word, but they said, "There's Inuits over the hill, but they're Indians; we're Eskimos." Anyway, and that means where the - namak tuvak I think means where the deer defecates. (Laughter) And we arrived, like, in the middle of winter.

It was 40 below and sort of a blizzard, and this little two-engine plane skidded down onto this ice runway and there were all these Eskimos, covered up in all their furs. And there was only three of us. And as we got out of the plane, they all went, "James Bond, James Bond." (Laughter) They'd been watching the movies.

Tavis: Even at the North Pole.

Dalton: Yes.

Tavis: Yeah, see? What can I tell you? Anyway, "Hot Fuzz" is where you can see Timothy Dalton right about now. Thank you for all your years of good work, and thanks for "Hot Fuzz."

Dalton: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tavis: Good to see you.