William H. Macy
William H. Macy
William Hall Macy, Jr.is an American actor, screenwriter, teacher and theater director. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though he also appeared in summer action films. Macy has described himself as "sort of a Middle American, WASPy, Lutheran kind of guy... Everyman"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth13 March 1950
CityMiami, FL
CountryUnited States of America
It sure is boring to be around people who are in character all the time. I always find it's closer to mental illness than acting excellence.
I'm not religious. It's an issue, 'cause I've got two little kids, and I feel you can't grow up without knowledge of religion.
Anyway, I try to be a good guy. I try to tell the truth, but I'm not religious.
I don't watch rushes. My whole thing is to try to stay in the moment with the other actor, and to let it all hang. I'm not sure I'm right on that, though.
I've written a lot of scripts that someone else directed, and it's absolutely vital that, if I'm gonna act in it, then I have to take off the writer hat and let the director direct.
Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. It's not right. Someone's gotta say it. They said it. I applaud them.
I've always felt it's the directors purview to say what; it's the actor's purview to say how. It's not good for an actor to have the big picture in mind - it bollocks you up. An actor's purview is the tiny little... We measure our performance in seconds.
The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.
Writers love to write those idiotic, long stage directions, and some of them worse than others. They have nothing to do with the movie. They're just jerking around.
Perhaps there is such a thing as obscene sex, but I know that violence is always obscene. So I don't get it, that you can disembowel a woman but you can't see her tits. Who made that up? That's sick!
I do love comedy, but I'm not brave enough to tackle a script whose goal is to make you laugh. That's tough. The ones that can do it, I tip my hat off to them, but I don't have that kind of humor or mind.
I think what all actors share is that, somewhere down in your solar plexus, there's this fear that you're not going to be able to come up with the goods, that this is the one movie where you're going to look like a fool, and they should have cast someone else. And you feel ugly, and you've got three chins, and you've gained too much weight, and you're losing your hair, and there are so many better actors who could do this. But if you've got chops, what you realize is that everybody feels that way, so just show up and do the job.
I feel very secure about the role of the actor in the future. They need us, because stories are about people.
You'd much rather act with a pal, someone you know really well. That way, you can cut all the niceties and go right to insulting each other.