(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 15 March 2026 21:45, UK
Existing on a level above ‘that guy from that thing’ but a level below genuine stardom, William H Macy is one of those actors who everyone knows, appreciates, and can rely on never to phone it in.
In an era where character actors of his exact ilk are in danger of being lost to cinema history forever, he’s a defiant throwback, not entirely dissimilar to John Goodman: just a really fucking good actor who wasn’t born with leading man looks, but spends decades showing up everywhere and getting the job done.
He hasn’t been flying under the radar for quite some time, which was inevitable when Macy has been nominated for an Academy Award and five Golden Globes, has won two Primetime Emmys from 15 nods, and has starred in both acclaimed independent films, awards season darlings, and blockbuster hits.
Since beginning his career in the late 1970s, and having devoted equal time to movies and television ever since, the veteran has seen many trends come and go. Some of them stick around for longer than others, but there’s one particular 21st-century phenomena that he’s hoping will die off sooner rather than later.
“You kill 18 people, it’s just porn,” he declared, making his opposition to violent cinema as pronounced as possible. “The only thing you can do to make that more dramatic is to kill 18 more.” It’s a sentiment shared by many, but let’s not forget that Macy starred in Mel Gibson’s Blood Father, which sees the latter kill a fair few folks in increasingly brutal ways to protect his daughter.
That’s an exception, though, and you can tell from his filmography that he’s tended to avoid pictures with high body counts, even if he was in Air Force One, too. He gets a pass for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, since no actual apes were harmed in the making of the film, and as Hollywood continues to ratchet up the violence in its action-packed adventure, he continues to be more disgusted.
“What offends me is films that aren’t true,” he explained. “And I guess the most obvious example, and I can see the will to live just fade from people when I get on this kick, but I think Hollywood is doing a lot of damage to the world with our portrayal of violence. It’s not true, and it’s not a good place to be, lying when it comes to our portrayal of violence.”
He even acknowledged that his stance against any scripts that land on his desk featuring excessive death, despair, and dismemberment have “cost me a lot of work,” so if anyone’s hanging their hats on Macy appearing in a John Wick movie, it’s time to make peace with the fact that it’ll never happen.
He’d be a great fit for a supporting role in a Quentin Tarantino movie, too, but you get the sneaking suspicion that his signature brand of heightened and stylised violence would also be off limits.