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ne of the best effects of the '90s indie boom was the transformation of William H. Macy from a classic "That Guy" anonymous face to a beloved character actor with the recognition he deserves. That said, there's an enduring everyman quality to Macy, a modesty that's shaped some of his most famous roles: the hapless car salesman in Fargo, or the vengeful cuckold in Boogie Nights. This week, Macy stars in Edmond, a screen adaptation of the 1982 play by his frequent collaborator David Mamet. It's a role that in many ways epitomizes Macy's characters, a meek, average man who gets in too deep. After a fortune teller pronounces him misplaced in his life, Edmond walks out on his wife, solicits prostitutes, and loses at Three-Card Monte, a succession of ugly encounters that eventually provoke him to violence. The film is horrifying, grimly funny, and haunting. We fear Edmond and we pity him — Macy has the craft, intelligence, and humanity to incite both reactions. It may be the best performance he's ever given. Hooksexup spoke to Macy about his latest descent into the underworld. — Peter Smith

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I'm a little nervous about interviewing you.

[deeply surprised] Why?

You're an icon. Everyone that I talked to was sort of amazed that I was doing this interview.
You're kidding!

I'm serious. Were you surprised when Fargo made you a well-known name?

I've always thought that I'm pretty good at reading scripts. I knew it was a good script, and of course the Coen brothers are some of the best filmmakers there are of our generation. I knew it was going to be a fabulous film. It's one of the best scripts they've ever written, I think.

That's one of your greatest performances — is there one that's a least favorite of yours?

[laughs] I'm sure there is, but I'll never tell.

Is there one that you would've done differently, looking back on it?

Oh my golly, there isn't one that I wouldn't have done differently. When you're making a film you have to relinquish so much control. Every film I've seen I would have done differently. The thing about acting is it's a process. I think as an actor one of the best things we can do is put our attention on the process and let the results go.

Johnny Depp has avoided seeing almost every movie he's ever done. Do you have that kind of detachment from the final product? Is it really in the moment for you?

Well, I've seen everything I've done, I'm pretty sure, but it's not a pleasant experience, truthfully. Usually I have to see a film twice. The first time I sort of sit in horror. And then the second time I'm able to let go a little bit and really see the film.

You're known as something of a chameleon, but there is a recurrent character in your work: the shlub who gets in over his head. What about that personality type speaks to you?

Well, more to the point, that's, for better or worse, the role that I've been given. I don't actively seek these loser roles. But if you do a certain thing well, they're going to ask you to do it again. I think it's a reflection of the scripts that come my way, and there you have it. I am a little tired of those roles.

But you've said, or at least the film's press kit says you've said, that Edmond is the role you've been waiting all your life to play, and that very much fits the same personality type. Do you think that it crystallizes your work somehow?

I don't know if I said exactly that. I'll say this: it's the most difficult role I've ever had. First of all, technically, the script is very difficult. Mamet is tough, and this is one of the toughest that he's ever done. It's difficult to memorize the lines, it's difficult to do them properly so that they don't sound odd, so that they sound like human speech. The emotions that the character goes through are really awful. Hard. And the whole production was difficult, physically difficult. We did it fast and didn't own any of the locations we were on.

You've said that Hollywood tends to portray racists in them-and-us terms, and I think your performance in Edmond sort of suggests that the division's not that clear.

Yes, I think that's fair. I think that's one of the most magnificent things about David Mamet's storytelling: he will tell the story from his point view, truthfully, and he doesn't care if you like it or not. David holds the truth higher than being liked. And I think the character of Edmond, very much like all of us, has a huge fear of other races. I think we do, I think we just sort of instinctually do. It's certainly less now than it was in years past, but it still remains. And yes, I think Hollywood, a lot of times, we tend to make our bad guys so bad that they're cut-out, cardboard figures.

One of the great things about Fargo, and particularly your performance, is how much it refutes the Hollywood cardboard villain tendency. Jerry Lundegaard and the two kidnappers are not cackling and self-aware. They're sort of pathetic, but they're no less frightening or dangerous. That speaks much more to evil in the real world.

I think if you really want to find out what drives people to be racist or homicidal, look at the Mamet play. I mean, no one's all of one thing.

Was that a conscious theme in that movie, to you? I remember hearing you say that you had taken the risk of playing Jerry as a little dumb.

I think Jerry was dumb. There was nothing I could do about that. But I never characterized him as being bad. I never characterized him at all. I've always thought that's a big mistake for an actor to make. They say "Who're you going to play?" and you say, "Oh, I'm playing this asshole, blah blah blah," I think you should never characterize your characters. Never cop an attitude about them. The audience will do that — that's not your job.

Edmond
is very harsh. You've worked with David Mamet so much, and he's often accused of cruelty or misanthropy. How you would address that?
Well, I don't see that at all. Good grief, all he does is tell stories. I mean, personally he's the most courtly, gentlemanly fellow I've ever met.

It's not a personal accusation, but there's a sort of perceived coldness to his work.

Well, he tells a particular story, he's attracted to very particular stories. He loves men, he loves low-lifes, he loves people that live on the fringe, and those are the stories that he chooses to tell. But that's certainly not him. I mean, no one got mad at Wendy Wasserstein for writing about women.

So would you characterize him as a humanist? As somebody with faith in some kind of redemption?

I would. I'm not sure I understand [the ending of the film] fully, but there is redemption there, I mean, that's clearly what he wrote. Whatever Edmond was looking for, by the end of the film he has found it. You know, as I've been talking about Edmond to various and sundry people, I've been saying this all along, I can't tell you what it means, I can only tell you what happens. [laughs] Cause I was there.

Edmond is more surreal and more stylized than much of Mamet's work.

There's a poetry about the piece. And this is a straight-ahead tragedy. From the very beginning, his fate seems to be sealed. Edmond 's on a journey that he cannot stop. I don't know how he could've prevented it, but here's a poor guy who's trying to find some meaning in his life, and it sends him on a tragic journey. And the speeches are beautiful, for an actor, they have a meter and a rhythm and a poetry about them, a music to them which is just amazing. At one point I say "You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, we cannot distinguish between fear and anxiety." Five "you knows." He does things in threes and fives. A lot of speeches you find your self saying, "I, I, I, don't know what to do, you, you, you..." and it's always three to five. And rarely seven.

On special occasions.

There're also some great performances in this. Joe Mantegna, doing that little scene with Joe Mantegna, oh, what a treat that was.

Is there anyone you haven't worked with who you'd really like to?

My stock answer is Gene Hackman. I just think he wrote the book on acting. I've never seen him be bad. Never, ever seen him be bad. But there're a lot of others. I used to say all the time, Lisa Kudrow, and as it turns out my next project is going to be a romantic comedy with me and Lisa Kudrow. So that wish is being fulfilled. I really like acting with my wife, Felicity [Huffman]. I'd like to do a big Broadway play with her. So that's sort of a dream role. I don't know what it would be, but maybe when Desperate Housewives is over we can go to New York together and move the kids there and I'd love to do a big Broadway play. This next film I'm doing is called The Deal, and I wrote it with my friend Steven Schachter, and he will direct it and Lisa Kudrow and I star. We produced it, we raised the money for it ourselves, pretty much completely outside of Hollywood. So that's a big change in my life, and then right after that I'm going to direct my first feature, and that one's called Keep Coming Back, by Will Aldiss, and it stars Salma Hayek. And I will direct that in, probably in January the cameras will start rolling. So it's a whole new, I feel like I'm going into a new portion of my career.

Are you planning to move more towards directing in general?

Ask me the same next year.
 





  ©2006 Peter Smith and hooksexup.com.
 
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