>> lieutenant dunbar? >> yes, sir? actually, i am here at my own request. i always wanted to see the frontier.

>> if you go there, he will come. -- build it. >> you don't look like a body guard. >> what did you expect? >> i dunno, maybe a tough guy. >> and this is my disguise.

♪ tavis: the thankfully, your career is nowhere near being over, but if the hatfields and mccoys was the last project on top of the awesome body of work, would you be happy with your porpoise? >> i would. i was surprised how happy i was with hatfields and mccoys. playing this quintessential american role, guns and fighting end vengeance and kind of the american fabric of how we moved across this continent. if you were tough enough, smart enough or ruthless enough, you could hold on to something you didn't have in europe. tavis: before we get too deep in

this conversation, the next project is turning to tv. a three-part six-hour miniseries beginning monday, may 28. here is a preview. >> i, unarmed and asking for my boy. you have my word, i will turn him over to the law. >> this is over and over again. and they shot him. i don't think so.

>> ira the day that i saved your life. >> if you feel the need to bring up got one more time. you won't be making a ride home. tavis: i will go back to that question that i asked before i played the club, situate this series in your overall body of work. >> when you boil me down, i am quintessentially american actor. i mean, i am the baseball guy, the cowboy guide. i have tried to do a lot of things with different kinds of things, but i guess i am about as american as you can really

get in terms of the films i have done. tavis: i think most of your fans would agree with that. hugh r. americana personified in terms of the theater. was that by choice or by chance? >> i feel really lucky about how everything has come down for me. i was going down a road that a lot of young men who do, what am i going to do with my life? you go to school, you get married, you do all of that. by the time you're 21, if you haven't done some of that stuff, who you are actually kind of wool. i have this baptist background the served me well, but i had to open my eyes deceive the world. the hardest thing i have to do

is realize in a blue-collar family to say, i think that i am a performer. i think i can tell stories. i was around all the guys with the launch, that he wanted to be recess. i drove trucks and worked fishing boats, but in my heart, i knew i was a storyteller. trying to make that decision. and by the way, when you make that decision to be an actor, there is no guarantee of success. i will interview and get people to come on. you come up against those questions, the people that love you the most. they don't want you to fail. but the reality was the pressure shifted from a knowing and my heart what i wanted to do to those that loved me the most which was, how is he going to do it?

>> this is a long way from being a hollywood tour guide. >> i was a stage manager for $3.50 at the studios out of college. i wasn't moving of the pay scale or moving towards my first car or house. but i was really happy because somehow, i got on my own path and i think that publicly speaking, be down, i have sons. the thing you worry about is if they will find their way. you worry about the more so than your daughters. the fact that i knew what i wanted to where the only break the really needed in life. to know what i wanted to do. tavis: 3 things that i have to get to. why greater concern for your sons than daughters?

>> not to diminish, you are so protective of her daughters, and i know that this sounds -- so male oriented. i'm not, i covet my daughters. but the idea that you're going to have to be a provider. i want my sons to have that satisfaction in that they are not in my shadow, that ey find their place in the world. to be able to do it gracefully. that does not eliminate my daughters, but i challenge my sons to make sure my daughter's -- that he takes care of his sisters. there probably smarter than all of us, liberals. >> how to ward against the being and a-list of celebrity and knowing that you want your kids to get outside of that shadow?

it is a lot easier said than done. >> my children have never embarrassed me in the sense that i never had to stop what i was doing somewhere because they had behaved in such a way. they were normal kids for sure. and as things develop over time, it will tell me some things i don't know about. but they have been the architect of their own lives. i don't care what they have done or what they will do so much as what kind of people they are. and i can tell who they are by the friends are around them. you talk about if people are going to be jealous of you and in view for something? if so, it would be these children. >> how did this conservative family take you telling them that you wanted to go to this liberal bastion called hollywood?

>> my mom was worried about it and thought those people have some much trouble. you know what i mean? make upburton can't their mind if they are in love or not. they weren't invested at all in hollywood, it is interesting to know that i did not know it was a job. early on, i thought people that were on the screen were born on the screen. i didn't translate it into it being a job. >> you mentioned richard burton, a great story about being on a plane with richard burton. >> more has been made of it, but at that moment in time, i was really struggling internally. i thought i wanted to be the actor. a big career 4 seats, i had

never heard of this. these are the ones you played basketball with and he had four seats on nobody could sit next to him or talk to him. i think, i still need to talk to him. everybody on the plane did this, they couldn't believe it. to see what was going to happen. i am sure at any moment in time, they could take my hat off. i would like to ask you a bit of advice and he said, ok. all the people sit back down and my wife at the time was like, what is that about? i think it is too much about this story, but i watched him like a hawk. i am thinking, this is my moment. you put it like this and went to sleep.

telecast, he waved to me to come forward. i sat in that seat and we talked for a little bit which is not really important what he said to me. but he was gentle and i think he could have been rough. he did want his privacy. if one person comes forward, i could have really violated his space. i thought about him in a lot of ways. regrets, we all have a few. i would love to have been able to talk to him later. tavis: i don't know if there is an answer to this, but given that you were at best uneven about whether or not you wanted to be an actor, and given out by your career is really americana on screen, are there worthier

persons that you have started to pay attention to? actors that you wanted to model? >> mcqueen n. newman. i would watch a lot of their different movies, but i love the character actors, and i love these guys. i like movies in general, and one of the things that don bellamy because i wasn't terribly good student, but something that started the strike me was that i started to understand where the moment were. there was a lot of stuff i did not understand. i was on the left-hand side of the telegraph. trying to sit next to the one that was on this side of it. but the idea about fell made sense to me. >> you were not a good student, but you were a pretty good

athlete. >> with the idea of movies, it was the first time i understood that i could be a good student. i went to ucla, i took class's, and i remember reading the entire but before the first class. like most people, i pulled all- nighter before finals. i became that person that was harder to compete with. i showed up the first day, the book was read at the wanted to move on from the blow. i want to know what you know. i would say, academically, i was on fire. tavis: when did you fully commit yourself to becoming a thespian? >> i don't think anyone has ever asked me that. it was early on, and i think i

took a job in an industry for 30 days. i got it through a headhunter and he would not have got his commission if i have left. i wanted to stay there long enough so that it will happen for him. i told my wife, i am going to be an actor. i was probably 22 years old. how? i don't know how, but the same way that everything else is going to happen. i am going to work for it, and that was hit. it was a real switch, but the pressure switched from may, i felt at ease at that moment. tavis: fast forward a couple years in another project i am talking about. when you end up on the cutting room floor, your first big break. did you rethink this? >> some of the things marked me on that particular movie.

we are talking about the big chill, and i knew that i was around the right guy. i was around the right cast. and all that it was confirmed to me all the things i really felt, it was about rehearsal. and i felt strongly that the movie would work. it was my own sensibility. and when it were, i wasn't surprised. the reality of being cut out things they could have played most people. i would have liked to have been in the movie, by in my mind, this movie came and i had a scene, and now the scene was cut out, i might be disheartened. but in my mind, i don't always go to the end game. i know what i am picking up momentum and i know what i am around the right people that things are going to start to

work for me. the moment i got the part, i knew that it was my big break. how did you really know that? that is the truth. i knew that i was changed at that moment. i knew that i would be able to parlay all this. in fact, there is a big problem with a lot of people saying, why are you not doing press? i intuitively did not want to do it. somebody back east said, i have tried to track this acted out, and they went through a step-by- step thing about trying to get ahold of me and said, it is clear nothing is ever going to happen for this guy. over't feel victorious that comment, but the point was in my life, you don't take credit for things you on again. you don't do it that way. and when things actually did

start to happen, the story had so much more power that i was in the big chill and suddenly i am in trivial pursuit and a lot of stuff. the mythology of that movie is part of my story. tavis: i love the way you phrased that it is important to be able to sense when you are gaining momentum. the flip side of that is knowing when the pump your brakes. i raise this because just like you have had successes in, you have had failures. everybody in this business does. how do you sense when this isn't going to work? >> where the problem comes, you have to have a force of will. you want to accept that you're going to wake up tomorrow and think about something differently. i wake up differently and go, if

i really believe in this thing and it is not working, i will think differently about this. sometimes, just driving things to make them happen hasn't served me well. certain instances or you go, we are going to solve this. i will make this happen. did everybody leaves right? i don't know. but i accept the idea and i really can't change the dna about me. but i can probably learn if something is calling a little bit, to step back from that. >> even when you are a major box office stars, when you hit rock bottom and it goes south on you, the critics just eat you alive, how do you navigate through that? there are folks that suggested after waterworld that your career was drowned.

you have been back for a while. but how do you navigate those dark times? >> if you believe it is a good movie and a beloved movie, that is the truth. you have to know what you believe. you can spend your life trying to be popular, and that is a tricky business. you can try to be true to yourself. it didn't feel like rock bottom. the there was a lot about the moment the was a high mark in my career. people were running for the exits and i stood with the the movie. movie nottart the having a third act, these movies have a life of their own. is it a perfect movie? ho. it is a beloved movie? it actually is.

i accept that as part of who i am. tavis: tomorrow night we will talk specifically about hatfield and mccoy is, but tell me why now is a good time for you to return to television. >> is like love, you might have an idea of a girl you think is going to walk in the room and you're having a hamburger and there goes the waitress. so your idea of the model or the whatever, i conducted by courier about what speaks to me out loud. i made to baseball marie v. 0. one was not even what you would call a great strategy. now i do to a narrow. i was confident in what i read. they separated themselves and this is what i should be doing.

field of dreams, there it was. i am really confident in storytelling. and i feel like i just lost the question, almost. we were talking about field of dreams, but i circled it back. tavis: i wanted to figure out, why television. and you answered it. call you. >> it spoke out to me. do i think the world who wants to see this? no. but i think that i want to see this and maybe the world will find it interesting when they see it. >> we will pick up on this very note tomorrow night. >> i think i confused everybody, but we did get to the end.

tavis: until then, keep watching, keep the faith. >> no, no. serve it up. >> home run. >> good ball. >> i thoguhught he was going to throw a decueuce, right? >> yup. >> that ball that appear in a hurry. anything that travels that fast should have a stewardess on it, am i right? >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. part twonext time for

of our conversation with kevin costner and the upcoming miniseries, hatfield's and mccoy's. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >>

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: egyptian's military is cracking down on islamic militants fighting in the sinai peninsula. it's the first mor test of the new president, mouhamad moursi. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we have a report on the clashes and mounting tensions in egypt and beyond. >> woodruff: in syria, government forces launched a major ground assault against rebel-held areas of aleppo. we'll have a first-hand look at the bloodshed from james foley of global post. >> brown: in the wake of the sikh temple shooting, we examine the scope, profile and power of homegrown hate. >> woodruff: ray suarez has part two of our energy series.

tonight, he's in colorado, where natural gas battles coal for prominence, but it comes with a hefty price tag. >> taking a 60-year-old plant that's been generating electricity by burning coal and converting it to natural gas isn't cheap, and it isn't easy as flipping a switch. >> brown: margaret warner continues our look at congress' "unfinished business." tonight, solving the threat of cyber attacks on our critical infrastructure. >> woodruff: and poet priscilla uppall captures the olympic spirit. >> i just love it because it's really metaphorical. it's very playful. many of the sport terms are basically invented by teenagers and young people. >> wiidruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: