Playboy's 20Q: William H. Macy

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[Q] Playboy: Do people ever tell you that you look different in person than you do on-screen?

[A] Macy: I've heard a couple of times that I'm better looking in person, and I've always responded, "Thank you. Ouch!" Many times I play mild, meek men who are in way over their head, and that necessitates a certain physicality. What I'm trying to say is that I look like a dork in a lot of my pictures. But my wife, Felicity Huffman, thinks I'm cute as a button. When you're over 50, cute is the best you can hope for, unless you're Harrison Ford.

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[Q] Playboy: Is it true that it doesn't matter what a man looks like in Hollywood as long as he's famous?

[A] Macy: Well, the other day I had the top down on my car, and two young women pulled up beside me. One says, "Excuse me. I know you. What's your name?" I said, "William H. Macy." Then she goes, "Hey, you're humpable. Completely humpable." And I said, "Thank you." Then she rolls up her window and takes a right. I told my wife and she roared. She thought that was great.

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[Q] Playboy: In your current film, a gambling drama called The Cooler, you appear nude. Are your fans prepared to see that much of William H. Macy?

[A] Macy: I've been buck naked onstage about four times. The difference is I was in my 20s then. Why did they wait until I'm 50 to ask me to take off my clothes? My co-star Maria Bello and I discussed what the scenes were about and made sure they were important. We asked the director to cut one of the scenes because it didn't seem to go anywhere. And then we did--pardon the expression--a dry run with our clothes on. Knowing exactly what the shot would be and how it would fit into the film freed us to be a little braver, because we didn't have to worry about something being cut. I'm a brave guy, but I have no intention of showing young Will and the twins to the rest of the world.

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[Q] Playboy: Would you care to vent about the Motion Picture Association's ratings system?

[A] Macy: The ratings board has its head so far up its ass, it makes me crazy. They were making our director edit the film because they took exception to some sexual content. It's blackmail, because you can't put out a film with an NC-17 rating. People just won't come. When I was doing Boogie Nights I got to meet a couple of porn actors, including Nina Hartley. I've always been a fan of pornography. She's an astounding woman, and she's remained a pal. She describes herself as a feminist and says that adult films are empowering to women. I find Nina's attitude toward sex a lot healthier than the ratings board's. They need psychological help.

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[Q] Playboy: Put them on the couch for us.

[A] Macy: Their attitude toward sex and violence is backward: You can disembowel a woman, but you can't see her vagina. When you see people blowing each other away willy-nilly, that's tough on an adult, never mind a 16-year-old. No censorship, but let's hold Hollywood to telling the truth. If you want your hero to get the crap kicked out of him, that's okay. But don't have him making love in the next scene, because that's a lie. If you get beat up--and I know this--you don't want to make love for a long, long time. Put in as much violence as you want, but stop lying about it. What constitutes an R versus a PG-13 rating I find really disturbing, because phenomenal amounts of violence get put into films that are purportedly for kids. I would rather see more sex and less violence, because sex is good, violence is bad.

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[Q] Playboy: Has The Cooler caused you to contemplate the larger meaning of luck?

[A] Macy: I'm a terrible gambler. I get very nervous. I'm not much on craps--too much math for me. I usually play blackjack. When I'm in Vegas, I just go to the table with the prettiest croupier, give her all my money and sit in the bar the rest of the night. Luck? I've always felt that luck begets luck. I don't know if it's Christian values or a belief in karma, but I feel if you put good stuff out there, good stuff comes back.

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[Q] Playboy: Even if you're plugging nickels into a slot machine?

[A] Macy: Well, that's a loser situation. I see those slot players with a cigarette dangling out of their mouth, holding their fourth drink and cranking that handle. That doesn't look like fun to me.

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[Q] Playboy: You received an Oscar nomination for Fargo. Do nominees really write out the acceptance speech they hope to give?

[A] Macy: Just in case. You have to have something planned. As you're walking in on the red carpet, you realize 2 billion people are watching. This is not a time to say something embarrassing, although it happens. Every actor starts writing his Academy Award acceptance speech the first time he steps onstage. David Mamet offered me a large amount of money, if I'd won, to pull a card out of my jacket and say, "Two lesbians are shopping for swim-wear. Oops, sorry, wrong card." If you don't use the speech, you go home that night pretending everything is all right. Then you take off your tux and find that piece of paper in your pocket. It's a vile little reminder of what might have been.

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[Q] Playboy: Are we really supposed to believe it's an honor just to be nominated?

[A] Macy: Yeah, because it changes everything. It changed me. I went right to the front of the line. I don't have to audition anymore, which is a gift from God. Auditioning is the worst part of the business. When I lived in New York I knew four actresses who shared one expensive designer dress for auditions. The dress made the rounds as each of them auditioned.

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[Q] Playboy: After portraying a weaselly car salesman in Fargo, are you a better haggler on the showroom floor?

[A] Macy: I never pay sticker price. I bought a car when I was living in Manhattan. I picked out the car I wanted and drew a 100-mile radius on the map. I went to one dealer, got a price and then started calling all the dealerships and said, "This is the price I've got. I'll be there in 25 minutes if you can beat it." And when the price was lower, I'd call the next one. One dealer said, "All right, I'll match that price." I said, "No. You've got to beat that price or I'm going to New Jersey." I ended up buying it right in Manhattan for $3,000 lower than my first quote. I was proud of myself.

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[Q] Playboy: Was there a bowl of rubbers next to the fruit tray on the Boogie Nights catering table?

[A] Macy: There wasn't any real schtupping in the movie, although there were real adult-film stars. But it was surreal. One of my first days was the scene in which Dirk Diggler wins the Golden Phallus Award. In the audience were a hundred extras who had been told to wear their finest 1970s clothes. All they knew was that this was a Burt Reynolds film. They're sitting there, and the director says, "All right, let's give it a shot. When she announces the winner, you all applaud." Melora Walters walks up to the microphone, opens the envelope and, with that fabulous little voice of hers, says, "And the winner is--and I can't wait to get his big cock in my mouth and my ass and my pussy--Dirk Diggler!" There was a stunned silence, and literally half the extras walked out, got in their cars and drove home. We were shut down for a while until they could get another set of extras. The next time, the director described the scene and told them what they were in for.

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[Q] Playboy: As a veteran of commercials, can you tell us whether actors are disappointed when we fast-forward past the flawless delivery of a line such as "Ring around the collar"?

[A] Macy: Actors want to book commercials because they want the residuals, but they don't care if they sell much product or if people fast-forward through the programming to get to the next commercial so they can hear the dulcet tones of William H. Macy. When I lived in New York I supported myself by doing commercials. Mostly I auditioned. Once in a blue moon I would actually book one. I have great respect for commercials that can accomplish more in 30 seconds than some films do in two hours. On the other hand, those are the exceptions.

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[Q] Playboy: Did you bring a bit of your upbringing to that self-effacing, white-bread 1950s father in Pleasantville?

[A] Macy: I'm sure I did. It would be difficult not to bring my upbringing to all my roles. I was born in Florida and was raised in the South until I was 10. Then we moved to Maryland. To my mother, who was a Mississippi girl, anything north of Raleigh-Durham was suspect. She didn't think Maryland was the South. My father kept saying, "Well, you know, technically...." My mother would go, "Phutt." There's a certain gentility in the South, which I find refreshing. The world could use more of that simple politeness. Many of our lawyers and our great generals came from the South. We Southern folks might speak a little slower, but we are a ferocious bunch.

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[Q] Playboy: Did playing a 1930s radio announcer in Seabiscuit make you wonder what being an actor in that era might have been like?

[A] Macy: Well, people say Hollywood doesn't make movies like it did in the old days, back in the 1930s and 1940s. That's when they really made films. But you know what? Go back to 1935 and look at those films. It's just like today. The vast majority were just garbage.

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[Q] Playboy: Your father was in the insurance business. Did he advise you to purchase term life insurance or a whole life policy?

[A] Macy: I'm insured quite heavily. My business manager says it's prudent to have a lot of liability. Anybody with any sort of name recognition can be a target. It would be so flattering to have a paternity suit, but for me it's more like when the lawn mower guy cuts off his finger.

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[Q] Playboy: Your hobby is woodworking. Is there a secret to good craftsmanship?

[A] Macy: Measure twice, cut once. I love good furniture. The dovetail joint is one of the greatest things mankind has invented. My passion at the moment is turning bowls. My wife gave me a Powermatic lathe. It's a big sucker, about the size of a Volkswagen. I can turn a big salad bowl on that. I'm a tree aficionado. In Los Angeles everything is imported. It's a desert. None of the trees started there. Every time there's a windstorm, a couple of them come down. I keep a chain saw in the trunk, and if I'm driving around I get hunks of wood.

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[Q] Playboy: You also own a place in Vermont. What do you think the locals say about you when they hang out at the general store?

[A] Macy: I've never tapped a maple, although I do own a lumberjack shirt. I knew I had achieved some degree of (concluded on page 184)William H. Macy(continued from page 166) acceptance when a bunch of us were standing around complaining about the rich flatlanders who come in and buy land and raise the tax base: "They're only with you the one month out of the year, and isn't it a shame?" "Yes," I said. "Don't you hate those sons of bitches?"

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[Q] Playboy: You and your wife were students together. You've appeared together onstage, on television, in films. Don't you feel a need to get away by yourself every once in a while?

[A] Macy: I do. I have a little cabin in the woods, and there's no room for two kids and a nanny and a wife. And Felicity is so cool. Not only does she say okay, she encourages it. And I encourage her to go back to Colorado by herself every once in a while. I married very well. We love working together. We'd love to work together more than we do, but we decided that we should do it sparingly because it's kind of special and we don't want to use up all that cachet.

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[Q] Playboy: You recently completed work on a submarine movie. Is the genre's lure for an actor the opportunity to speak lines such as "Fire one!" and "Jawohl, Herr Kapitän!"?

[A] Macy: Yes. It's called U-Boat--a low-budget submarine movie made on a set in Los Angeles. Through the machinations of the plot, an American sub is sunk, and seven of us end up on a German U-boat. What we did in U-Boat, which I thought was quite novel and wonderful--I'll take credit for it because at the last minute everyone got cold feet and wanted to change it, and I prevailed--was to have the Germans speak German and the Yanks speak English. The cast on that side was completely German. We borrowed heavily from Das Boot. We used the same set--not literally but, you know, a U-boat is a U-boat is a U-boat. Very few exteriors. The whole concept was for it to be as claustrophobic as Das Boot. That submarine war was brutal.

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[Q] Playboy: Do you announce "Honey, I'm home!" when you return to Ms. Huffman at the end of a long day?

[A] Macy: I'm going to start. It's a good line. I've said, "Where's my dinner?" a couple of times. She does cook for me. It gives her great pleasure to cook for me. She says she's not a great cook, but she is. She can cook anything. I can't cook to save my soul. Every once in a while I'll cook something that's really good, and if you put a gun to my head I couldn't repeat it.

People say Hollywood doesn't make movies like it did in the old days, back in the 1930s and 1940s. That's when they really made films. But you know what? Go back to 1935 and look at those films. It's just like today. The vast majority were just garbage.

I have a little cabin in the woods, and there's no room for two kids and a nanny and a wife.