William H. Macy

An Actor’s Craft

Master thespian William H. Macy has built a career on taking chances, choosing only the most challenging scripts and compelling roles.

Interview by Mike Bandler

WWilliam H. Macy is drawn to quirky characters. “Perhaps I am an oddball, and I don’t get that there’s anything odd about them,” he says. Oddball or not, there’s little doubt in Hollywood studios, in the indie fi lm world and in multiplexes across the country that Macy is one of the most enjoyable actors in movies today.

Both before and since his breakout role as hapless Jerry Lundegaard in the Academy Award-nominated 1996 fi lm Fargo, Macy—with his piercing blue eyes and square face—has exemplifi ed the average guy, yet he’s just off-center enough to rivet you.

Florida-born, Macy spent his school years in Cumberland, Maryland, followed by college in West Virginia and rural Vermont, then early theatrical exposure in Chicago, which fi nally led to New York City and Hollywood. He has enjoyed immense good fortune, thanks to the presence of two people in his life—playwright David Mamet, with whom he studied and later collaborated as theatrical impresario and actor, and Felicity Huffman, who was fi rst his student, then his partner, wife and the mother of their two young girls, and now an Oscar-nominated actress (for her role in Transamerica) and star of “Desperate Housewives.”

About to appear in a startling fi rst-time dual role in “Umney’s Last Case,” airing this July in TNT’s eight-part “Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King,” the actor refl ects on his life and career—where he’s been and where he’s headed.

GO: So here you are, for the fi rst time, coming face to face with a script that has you coming face to face with yourself!

WHM: “Pretty interesting, isn’t it? The whole notion of playing two guys from different eras was fascinating. That hard-bitten ’30s detective—fast-talking—I’ve played around with that sort of a character a couple of times, in Seabiscuit, for one. And then the guy from 2006—well, I thought, it’s a win-win situation.”

GO: You dip into fantasy even if the roles aren’t otherworldly, in fi lms like Pleasantville or Thank You For Smoking.

WHM: “They’re high-wire acts, aren’t they? I like writers who take a shot with the form. I think I’m pretty good at reading scripts. One of the secrets to reading a screenplay is to read it fast. I usually skip as many of the stage directions as I can, because generally they’re nonsense anyway. I try to read it all in one sitting. The trick is to try to see the fi lm in your mind’s eye. That’ll tell you whether it works or not.”

GO: And the character?

WHM: “Sometimes I prefer not to know who they want me to play. I like to read the thing with an unjaundiced eye, as an audience member. Then I go back and fi nd out what role they’ve offered me. Sometimes I’ll read a script and think, `This is great! I love it!’ and look at the role they’ve offered me, and say, `I don’t want to play him! I want to play him!’”

GO: It seems that every character you play is nailed with a line of dialogue, like “Honey, I’m home,” or “It’s not a lie—it’s a gift for fi ction,” or “The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese.”

WHM: “Well, I think you’re describing good writing more than acting. Perhaps what we’re saying is that I’m good at picking scripts. In almost all good scripts—because they’re well-written— there’s one line that everyone walks away loving: “Forget it, boss, it’s Chinatown.” Every script, if the writing is scintillating enough, has one line that jumps out above all the others.”

GO: Let’s go back to characters.

WHM: “I decided a long time ago that the best thing I could do for my career is to do the good stuff, not the bad stuff. It’s better for me to be associated with good fi lms irrespective of the size of the roles. I’ll take a small role in a good movie over the lead in a movie that’s not going to work. I like a story that is well told. It means that when you get to the third act, the climax, the solution is unexpected, and it’s got surprises all the way through. I love to be entertained. I love to laugh. I love to be scared. But there has to be just a wee bit something more than that. I like my comedies to have a resonance to them. In other words, they’ve got to be about something. Finally, I’m a sucker for good writing—good, snappy, original dialogue, with a voice. David Mamet was my teacher—so the bar was set pretty high.”

GO: There’s often something off-center, a bit oblique, and as a result something more compelling about the guys you play.

WHM: “Yeah, I’m drawn to them. It’s rough to fi nd something original being said—an original story, an original character, an original remixing of older stories. It’s a tough business, and when you fi nd an original character, a voice you haven’t heard before, that’s compelling.”

GO: Let’s go back to when you discovered theater.

WHM: “I had done a play in high school and liked it a lot. After I graduated, my grandmother gave me a trip to England—one of those six, seven-week tours for high school students. I missed Woodstock because of that. I went to England and Scotland and saw play after play after play.”

GO: You started at Bethany College, but transferred to Goddard. Why?

WHM: “I was not thriving at Bethany. Perhaps I went to college too soon. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I dropped out for about a year and a half. I’d done some plays at Bethany, and it was becoming clear that veterinary medicine was not what I was cut out for—that acting fi t better. Goddard was a hippie school, and I was a hippie. Mamet was my teacher there.”

GO: After following him to Chicago then New York, you helped found the Atlantic Theater Company, where Felicity was your student.

WHM: “But I never touched her, man! I didn’t touch her until after the classes were over! Close to 20 minutes after the classes were over!”

GO: About David Mamet—we’ve experienced a quarter-century of his plays, fi lms, directing, essays and more. What makes him the force that he is?

WHM: “First of all, he’s a walloping good storyteller. He tells stories in an original way. Second, he’s the bravest guy I’ve ever met. He will tell the story from his point of view, and he doesn’t care. You can like it, you can not like it. You can be shocked, you can not be shocked. It’s absolutely his point of view, and he tells the truth about it. So he has brought to the stage and fi lms things that heretofore we’ve never seen.”

GO: And his use of language?

WHM: “That’s the most important thing—his voice—more than his storytelling technique and the stories he chooses to tell. Dave Mamet was the fi rst American writer to truly hear and understand the beauty in American speech—specifi cally midwestern American speech. He is a magnifi cent poet, so he combines his wonderful sense of poetry and meter and rhythm and music with an unfl inching portrayal of the way we actually talk. I’ve heard people say, `He overhears conversations and just writes them down.’ People who say that don’t know anything about writing. His dialogue is far from a recorded conversation; it is absolute poetry, iambic pentameter, and it’s got a music to it that you do not fi nd in normal speech.”

GO: You once said that reacting is as important as acting. Is that why in “Umney’s Last Case” you’re shot in close-up quite a bit.

WHM: “That’s the style the director wanted to bring to it, because it’s got a touch of the noir about it—from the fi lms of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.

Also, there were mechanical reasons: I’m both characters in scenes.”

GO: How was that handled?

WHM: “They hired a wonderful actor named Paul Gleason who looks something like me, dressed him in my costumes and gave him two different wigs that looked like my hair. So in a couple of the shots, that’s actually Paul Gleason.”

GO: Until about three years ago, your wife was well regarded as a solid actress, but now she’s just exploded. What has that success meant to you as her husband and as a fellow actor?

WHM: “It’s been an amazing thing to watch. I did have a similar experience when I was nominated for an Oscar. I was a workaday actor, and in one year I was thrown into the mainstream, taken seriously as an actor—and it all happened with one role. So I knew what was happening to her. I’m so impressed and moved by the grace and dignity with which she’s comported herself this past year. It seems to me that every little girl growing up would look at what Felicity has been through and say, ‘That is the pinnacle—that is what I want to do.’ She gets dressed up, she gets hair and makeup, she wears magnifi cent jewelry and fabulous gowns and gets to go out two or three nights a week to awards shows where it’s all glittery, with famous people, and gets her picture taken. This is on top of her day job in the number one hit TV series in America. The reality of it is that it is incredibly grueling.”

GO: What about what we see on the screen?

WHM: “That part’s not surprising to me at all. I’ve watched her for years. Let’s face facts—the broad can act. When I saw Transamerica for the fi rst time, I was stunned by the skill with which she handled a very physical, character-driven movie, and yet acted so brilliantly, so personally.”

GO: At home, is there a lot of discussion about work? Or do you keep the lines drawn?

WHM: “We actually do talk about it. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone; it could be dangerous. You know—‘Don’t try this at home!’ Because we have both taught classes and love the technique of acting, we like to talk the talk and walk the walk. I’ll have her read a script for me if I’m on the edge about it. I get her opinion. Once we’ve decided to do something, we talk about how we’re gonna play it. We bat ideas back and forth.”

GO: Is there any kind of role you won’t take?

WHM: “I don’t like silly violence; I think there’s too much violence in too many movies. I’m tired of operatic violence, with slaughtering of hundreds of people, and they try to make it look beautiful because there’s music playing, or slow-mo. It borders on pornographic sometimes.”

GO: What’s on tap ahead?

WHM: “Next is a movie called Wild Hogs. Four middle-aged guys go off riding on their motorcycles and hilarity ensues. John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen and me riding motorcycles. It’s gonna be great fun. Right after that is a romantic comedy with Lisa Kudrow, The Deal, based on a novel by Peter Lefcourt. I wrote it with Stephen Schachter.”

GO: Any fears?

WHM: “Yeah, dropping off the map, failing. Sometimes when there are choices to be made, which is happening a lot recently, when there are two movies to choose, I’m afraid to make the wrong choice. One could be career-changing, the other could lead you down a blind path to oblivion. Yeah, it scares me. But I’m 56 now. I’ve been doing this for a long time. At some point you think, you know what? I’m a grownup. This is my life. Stop worrying about it, and just live it.”