William H. Macy: Character Issues

UNLESS YOU'RE A DAVID MAMET AFICIONADO OR AN "ER" BUFF, chances are that you hadn't fully registered the existence of William H. Macy before Fargo. Since Fargo, Macy seems to be everywhere.

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While he couldn't have known the profile he'd achieve, he did know enough to go after the role of the scheming car salesman from Minnesota: L.A.-based Macy flew to New York at his own expense for a third audition, and, he says, "I essentially told them I'd shoot their pets if they didn't give me this role and I wasn't leaving the room until they cast me." One of the unusual qualities of Macy's role in Fargo is that it's a character part with lead actor screen time--the type of role it takes a Gene Hackman or James Woods to bring off.

These are exactly the guys Macy cites as inspiration--"Both of them have this wonderful quality, which is that they don't give a shit. They don't care whether you like them, they don't care whether they're attractive. They pursue their objectives selflessly." So what separates a great character actor from a leading man, besides the physical attributes of a Brad Pitt? "I really think it's a function of being told, 'You're great, you're great, you're great' and making oodles of money and getting a lot of fame," says Macy. "You start to believe it. And so you carry yourself differently. You do things with great authority."

This summer, Macy plays the military attache who advises president Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Even though the plot of Air Force--the president is held hostage by terrorists at 30,000 feet--sounds like hooey, with Ford, Gary Oldman and Glenn Close in it, it's at least thinking-man's hooey, right? "Oh, I'm not going to touch that," says Macy. "But you know, we were sitting on the set and a lot of us would go, This is kind of a ludicrous situation, don't you think?'" He plays a porn movie producer in the upcoming Boogie Nights, a film Macy suggests is not so far-fetched: "Boogie Nights is about someone schtupping your wife. I mean, everyone knows what that's all about."

Hanky-panky also figures into the cable film Macy cowrote for himself, Pascagoula--he portrays a "redneck retard" that Janine Turner's con woman has to sleep with in order to bring off her scam. "The first time she sees me, she thinks, There's not enough money in the world for me to bed that down," Macy chuckles. She ends up changing her tune, though, when Macy's character proves not what he seems. Or, as Macy explains it, "He blossoms into the charming fellow that I am."

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Wolf Schneider