Actor William H. Macy has been a mainstay of American stage and screen for decades, but the 64-year-old has just made his debut as a movie director, and he compares making Rudderless to D-Day. “The actor’s purview goes down to seconds,” he tells the Guardian. “We concentrate intensely for maybe three minutes tops. But directing a film for 12-14 hours a day is exhausting. The two disciplines are completely different. It’s more akin to invading Normandy than painting a nice little picture.” The change to directing is daunting but exciting. On the one hand, I’m scared half to death, which means that I listen to people. And on the other, it’s as though I’ve fallen in love with the business all over again … So I’m scared and I’m horny. I’m like a 14-year-old boy.” One possible reason why he would take on such a task at his age is that he has fallen out of love with acting. “My career is what it is, but I felt that I’d exhausted the fun in acting. I still get a good role every once in a while, but a lot of it is yeoman work. I’m usually being called on to play somebody’s uncle, or the elderly senator. And that’s fine, it’s money. But it’s not that scintillating anymore.”
This is distressing news for those of us who regard this consummate actor, the actor’s actor, as one of the finest presences we have in movies. From his portrayal as whining Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo to his work with David Mamet and Paul Thomas Anderson to his gig on Shameless, it’s hard to imagine the modern cinema without him. Indeed, he has over 130 acting credits, more than enough to know what makes a film director good or bad. “Bad directors can’t make a decision,” he says. “They want the film set to function as a democracy, but a democracy is the kiss of death. You need a benign dictatorship. You need a leader … Bad directors ask you for more and more takes with no discernible goal in mind. Bad directors leave the stars alone and direct the smaller actors into a coma. They’re intimidated by the stars so they think: ‘Who can I tell what to do?’ I’ve seen directors take a child actor who was perfect in take one and make them do the scene again and again until the kid totally sucks. It’s hard not to step in when you see that shit happening.”
