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• Law & Order
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
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Tavis: Okay, so I'm pleased to welcome this guy to the program. Jonathan, just put your camera on his face, just for a second. All right. Just stay right there for one second. I have so many friends - and so does this guy, obviously - who are fans of "Law & Order," one of the most prolific and successful television shows in the history of television.

I want you to see that face, 'cause every night when the show comes on, when it goes off, on every freaking channel in America, you see that name, created by Dick Wolf. This is Dick Wolf. I have so many friends who never - they say, "What does that guy look like? Who is Dick Wolf? He creates everything." Anyway, so "Law & Order," created by this guy, Dick Wolf, there he is.

His - give me that prompter now, follow me, follow me. His latest project, though - thank you very much - is the upcoming HBO movie "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" which tells the story of what happened to Native Americans as a result of westward expansion. The film premieres May 27th on HBO. Here now, a scene from "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."

[Clip]

Tavis: Okay, now that we all know what you look like, it's an honor to have you here.

Dick Wolf: (Laughs) Thank you.

Tavis: That was funny to me.

Wolf: A pleasure.

Tavis: Yeah, but you see that name all the - do people get surprised when they meet you in person for any reason and they know that you're Dick Wolf?

Wolf: Yeah, I'm usually told I've ruined a lot of people's sex lives. (Laughter)

Tavis: All right, we'll segue back to that maybe later in this conversation. I want to get to "Law & Order," we'll do that in just a second. But I want to talk about this project. I'm glad that the project is done, but I suspect there are people watching right now who already have questions about what the story is that we're telling, and whether or not the story is going to be old in fairness to Native Americans, because those two things never seem to happen.

Wolf: Well, Tavis, first of all, I want to tell you that I'm shocked that you're this politically incorrect. Do you know that it is no longer the proper acronym, is not Native Americans anymore? It's American Indians.

Tavis: Okay.

Wolf: This shows, though, it's a microcosm of the problems that we basically had to overcome with the project at HBO, which is very conscious of how sensitive this area is. And that was a two-month discussion whether everybody on the film would be discussing Native Americans, native people, American Indians, and thank God the Smithsonian answered it by naming the museum where we're having a screening in two weeks the Museum of the American Indian.

So we now - everybody associated with the film has been referring to American Indians, and the thing that we are, I think, collectively proudest of is that it is, to my knowledge, the first time that a major picture has ever been told from the Indians' point of view.

Tavis: Before you go further, I'm curious about this now. Tell me more - what you can tell me about those discussions about Native American versus American Indian because there are still a lot of people who use the term Native American and this is news to a lot of people, that we're supposed to now say American Indian.

Wolf: Well, it's the same - there are very many similarities that as we grew out of the sixties and went into the seventies, Black was the proper term. Then African American became the politically correct term, and somehow Black has now retreated into almost a negative connotation. I don't think that's going to happen with Native Americans, but it's very similar when you have groups who have not been treated equally.

And names do hurt, and names are very important. And as I said, HBO was tremendously concerned, as we were, to do a picture that was both accurate or historically correct but emotionally correct, and not to offend the very people whose story we were so desperately trying to tell.

Tavis: I'm sure I'll get mail about this, and we'll probably have a whole show just about that terminology, which I'm happy to do any time on this program. That said, tell me about the picture.

Wolf: The picture is a fascinating story, and as I said to one reporter who was saying, “Well, Charles Eastman” - who is the Adam Beach character who we saw in the clip - “isn't even in the book.” But he is an actual, historical character and as I said to them, "Look, the book is essentially a textbook of everything that happened to every major American Indian tribe from about 1860 through the beginning of the twentieth century.

So they were not connected stories, they were historical events that were categorized and listed. That was not a dramatic film. We had a responsibility to turn this into a drama, and as I said, we're not doing the Ken Burns version of the book; we are doing a dramatic homage, in a sense. But it's completely accurate that (unintelligible) had also wrote and was Emmy-nominated for "A Path to War," which was the story of going to Vietnam.

And he is, I think, the best writer working in terms of synthesizing an enormous amount of information into not only a coherent story but something with a dramatic arc and an entertainment value to it so that you're not looking at a docu-drama.

Tavis: For those who don't know the breadth and depth of your work over the years, how much, if at all, is this a radical departure from the kind of work you've done over the years?

Wolf: Oh, it's radical because I've never done anything that was set outside, first of all, the twentieth century - I don't do period costume pieces. But Tom Thayer, who was my partner on this, brought it to me six and a half years ago. He used to be head of Universal Television, so we've known each other - actually, we've known each other for a horrifyingly long time 'cause I actually went out with his sister when I was a teenager. (Laughter)

But he brought me the project and said, "Do you want to become involved with this?" And I said, "Absolutely, but everybody's tried and failed." I think there were three major studios involved over the years that had options on the book; it was uncrackable until really we got a dramatic through line. And that's why the Charles Eastman character was added from history but into the story.

Tavis: Tell me more about the source of the difficulty in getting it made over that six-and-a-half-year period, because a lot of people have reason to believe that these kinds of things are tough to get done in this business, period.

Wolf: Oh, impossible. Literally, it's an aberration that it was made. It was started out, first of all, six years ago as a six-hour miniseries. That script took about two years to write. Then they decided, no, six hours was too expensive 'cause that script would have cost close to $85 million to produce. They said, "No, let's do four hours" and then the script was totally rewritten as a four-hour.

And then they said, "Well, I don't know, this is still too expensive." And I was troubled because I think a miniseries is a different animal than a two-night experience. And I said, "I don't know if we can get people to come back for a second night of this story, because it is emotionally draining." It is not going to see "Animal House." It's really intense.

And I said, "Let's get them into the room and hold them for one night," and that's what we have now, which is a two hour, 20 minute movie. But if you had Dan Giat here, he'd say, "My favorite script is still the 260-page version." But this is - we synthesized it down and it is a dramatically very satisfying story that tells, really, the story of Sitting Bull, the main focus of the picture.

Tavis: On a project like this, how do you define success? To your point now about all the hell you had to go through just to get it made, so it's going to air.

Wolf: Yeah.

Tavis: How do you define success on the telling - 'cause some people just think that telling the story is, in fact -?

Wolf: I consider - I am enormously proud. If nothing happened but that it ran on HBO this summer, I would be incredibly satisfied because I think that it's a story that nobody thought would ever get to the screen, and it's good. So I have no further expectations. I have very high hopes. It's opening the Monte Carlo Television Festival - the world premiere after the run on HBO is going to be in Monaco this summer.

I hope it's going to sell all around the world. I think that it's an important story that has incredible resonance with what we have done several times since in almost exactly the same manner. I hope that people are going to realize that when one civilization tries to overlay itself on another civilization that is totally different, it usually doesn't work too well.

And we seem to keep repeating that pattern, so hopefully that will be a secondary benefit. The wonderful thing about working at HBO, though, is that they expect you to get nominated for everything. It's basically in their eyes; you screwed up if you don't win. So, it's a different (laughter) kind of motivational factor.

Tavis: And these days, being on HBO usually pretty much means you're going to get nominated for something, yeah.

Wolf: Well, not only that, they won eight of the last nine years. So -

Tavis: Precisely, yeah.

Wolf: - this is where they're putting a whole stack of chips in terms of marketing. So I live in anticipation and dread of the Emmys. (Laughter)

Tavis: All right, I can't let you get out of here with that "Law & Order" build-up at the top of the conversation, I can't let you get out of here without asking you - and you should actually give me a check, 'cause I have talked to more people on all of these shows over the course of my career, from all these different spin-offs. I think I've talked to every star of every one of them.

But my first time getting a chance to meet you and to ask you this very question: what has made this work so well for what, 17 years now?

Wolf: Seventeen and hopefully many more. I think the most important aspect of it is that it's a self-contained hour of television; it has a beginning, middle, and an end. You know you will watch at the beginning and something will happen that'll be interesting, and by the end of the hour you'll have a total resolution. And about 10 years ago, I sent around to all what were then the network heads, little desk cards that said, "It's the writing, stupid."

And that's why the show is still on. And it's why I hope the show will stay on. We've been blessed over the years with just extraordinary show runners and writers that have kept this machine going at a level - it's not a question of coming up with the stories; the stories are there on the front page of the "Post" every morning. It's a question of executing them at the level that they're constantly interesting and surprising.

Tavis: You know something about branding a lot of folk don't know.

Wolf: Well, that's 'cause that was my first job. I spent eight years in the advertising business, and I learned - especially for the last five of those - from the best in the business, which was Proctor & Gamble. When I started, there was one Crest. You know that there's now Crest in every possible combination (unintelligible).

Tavis: I'm still using the original version, though.

Wolf: That's right, well, that's -

Tavis: I'm still an original kind - I'm an O.G. (Laughter) Or an O.C.

Wolf: Yeah, but you see, you're moving towards the north end of the demo. That's not -

Tavis: Yeah, I know, I know, I know. You didn't need to remind me of that. (Laughter) I let you on my show and you insult me like that?

Wolf: No, hey, listen, I'm out of every demo. They don't even measure me anymore. (Laughter)

Tavis: Let me ask you one last question before I let you get out of here, though. Speaking of one of your many stars, so one of your guys may be running for president and may be president. What do you make of this? Fred Thompson, of course.

Wolf: I'm not surprised. I cast him as president in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." He plays President Grant. He's very convincing as a president. Can't you see "Hail to the Chief" when he walks into the room? (Laughter)

Tavis: His name, of course, is Dick Wolf; his signature series, "Law & Order." But you got to check out this wonderful piece on HBO, and I'm glad to have you on.

Wolf: Thank you, pleasure.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.