Q 1

PLAYBOY: People know you for playing explosive types such as Sonny in The Godfather and Will Ferrell's nasty dad in Elf. But on your TV series, Las Vegas, you play a casino security chief who drops pearls of wisdom to the show's younger characters. What advice about Hollywood or the larger world do you give your co-stars offscreen?

James Caan: The fact that I'm playing a guy who gives advice tells you how far-out the show is. Las Vegas is not The West Wing or The Practice. It's just meant to be fun, the kind of show you can watch and go to the refrigerator during. I'm not knocking it--it's great--but sometimes we cross the line a bit in terms of its integrity. I would like some of the shows to be more intense, more involved with the underbelly, scams and grit. I might say to the guys I respect on the show, "Look, this is stupid. Nobody would do this," but then they come back with, "You know what? The people like it." The main pearl of wisdom I give these young kids is that you shouldn't make your career your whole life. No matter what heights you achieve, even if you're Brad Pitt, the slide is coming, sure as death and taxes. So if you put everything into that one basket--acting--you'll wind up hurting yourself, either with drugs or any other self-destructive thing you can think of.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: You've had your own well publicized struggles with drugs. Would you say some of those were attempts to hurt yourself?

James Caan: They were very self-destructive. My sister passed away in 1981, and she was my best friend, kind of the glue that held my family together and really the only thing I was afraid of in my life. If I didn't sleep, I'd actually put on makeup so she wouldn't say, "Where were you all last night, you bastard?" When I lost her I was at the height of my career. I just quit trying. I think I missed most of the 1980s, really. I think I had a good time, but I don't remember. I never really liked cocaine, but I was a real purist because I never did anything but coke. It was coke and it was girls. I'd like to think the girls wanted to be with me because I was so good-looking, but that's horseshit. It was because I had coke in my pocket.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What finally made you turn things around?

James Caan: One morning you wake up and realize there's no party, there's no girls--and yet you're still doing it. And if you're not doing it, you're looking for it. I got tired of being tired. I went to meeting after meeting, although I'm not a drinker. I know I can't do coke. I know I can't take this or that pill. I inadvertently hurt people emotionally. My last wife, I hurt her so badly. You have to make those amends. Professionally, when I get paid, I show up. Sometimes I don't feel like it, but I realized that unless you have passion for something, just don't do it. My least favorite answer is "I don't care." If I say, "You want to make love?" and the answer is "I don't care," I'm like, "Hey, then go masturbate."

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Do you worry about your actor son, Scott, or any of your four other kids making some of the same missteps--or some of their own?

James Caan: You always think your kids aren't smart enough to know what's going on, but Scott knew. For him it was, "Cocaine, see you later." People think I'm on cocaine when I'm not because I'm a hyper person. You can only imagine how I was when I was going, like, 180 miles an hour. It sucked. I don't miss it at all. It was part of the whole self-destructive thing. All I can do with my kids is tell them my story. You'd think that as life goes along I'd make fewer mistakes than my dad, Scott would make fewer mistakes than I did, and eventually we'll raise a perfect Caan. I don't think that's likely. I keep making the same mistakes.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Have you ever been competitive with Scott?

James Caan: Not when it comes to acting. Scott's a tough guy, but he's sweet. You don't really have to push him, and you're sorry if you get to that point. I made him competitive. When he was a kid and we played Ping-Pong, basketball or whatever, if he knew I was dogging it he'd get pissed. So if he won a game or if he played extra good, he had a sense of pride, which is important. The poor guy--I was his baseball coach for six years, and he was such a good ballplayer I thought I'd be watching him from front-row seats at Yankee Stadium. But then he became a goddamn actor [laughs].