William H. Macy
You were tossed into Speed-the Plow pretty quickly. How’s it going?
Well, after four shows, I actually acted a little bit of it [laughs].
Congratulations.
Truth be told, the first night was a trial. I’m waaaay out of my comfort zone with this. As of my first performance, I hadn’t been through the play flawlessly. It’s so dramatic the way the show begins—there’s a blackout on the stage and I’m behind the curtain. So I’m sitting on the stage and I can hear the audience on the other side, and I was in great fear that my head was going to explode, that the curtain was going to come up and there’d just be a headless corpse on the stage.
But you survived.
I took deep, deep breaths and kept reminding myself that I have done this before. Then, a certain grace descended about 20 minutes into the thing and I was present. And now I’m finally starting to feel my oats. [Co-stars Raul Esparza and Elisabeth Moss] and I are all starting to rock and roll every once and a while. I don’t think the show’s changed that much. Sometimes when a new person comes in it suddenly starts running longer, but we’re doing fine and we’re keeping that pace up.
Is it a trip to sink into a role like this after spending the past decade in Hollywood?
Interestingly, I have a film coming out called The Deal, based on the novel by Peter Leftcourt, and I play a down-and-out movie producer who hoodwinks Hollywood—and I actually produced it. Sometimes actors take a “producer’s credit,” but I really produced the film: We came to the table with half a budget raised from civilians. After this, I’ve got a show with TNT network where, if they pull the trigger, I’d be the producer on that too. I find it interesting that at this point in my career I’m playing nothing but producers, both imaginary and real.
It must be a relief to have work laid out so consistently.
Hey, it’s just nice at this point to be driving the bus a bit, rather than going for the ride!
You and David Mamet came up together as young, broke artists. Is it surreal now to be starring in a Broadway production of one of his plays?
It sure is glamorous. And sweet. I guess on one hand I have to pinch myself to realize that it’s real. But at the same time, I’ve put in the time. I’m working on 40 years in this business, and was onstage for 20 before I even started making movies. So it’s a combo platter—I don’t feel I’ve hoodwinked anyone to get to this point, but I’m aware of how lucky I am. And David’s work is a joy! Speed-the-Plow is one of the most difficult plays I’ve ever done. The second most difficult play was his, and the third too. He’s a tough writer. But when you get it? Man, it’s like driving a Porsche: totally sweet. His language sings.
Which two Mamet plays round out your top-three most difficult?
Oleanna, a two-character piece, which was tough on many, many levels. And the film version of Edmund. Because it was such a low-budget film, I had to memorize the whole script before we started shooting. So I’ve spent many hours trying to sit down with this Mamet stuff. I used to think that he would close his eyes and count out the rhythm and the meter of his words, like it was iambic pentameter. Now I understand he just likes figuring out ways to torture actors.
Mamet’s American Buffalo was done on Broadway this year. Is it true he started writing that play because you made a snarky comment to him about cheese?
That’s totally accurate. [Director and writer] Steven Schachter and I shared an apartment together in Chicago when we started our [St. Nicholas] theater company, and David was living in the Hotel Lincoln at the time. He would stop by, talking a million miles a minute about everything we needed to do, and he would consistently walk directly to the kitchen and take out this Vermont cheddar and bread that we were so crazy about. It was hard to get in Chicago! Anyway, he would carve off these great hunks of it, and once the cheese was gone, he would leave. I had had a particularly bad day one day, and I looked at him as he was eating and said, “Hey, help yourself.” And oh lord, I thought the man would explode: “Help myself? Help myself?! You should think, pal, how many times do I pick up the tab?” We had a show to do that night and he was so angry that he wouldn’t speak to me! I finally cornered him and said, “I’m an asshole, okay? I had a bad day, I take it back, you’re very generous and please forgive me.” He agreed, and that was the end of it—until almost a year later when he goes, “I’ve got this new play [American Buffalo], Billy, I want you to read.” And the character Teach enters frothing at the mouth about a slight from one of his female friends over a piece of toast, and her character goes, “Help yourself.” It’s a two-page monologue now.
What were those early days as broke unknowns like for you?
I think in essence we were just young and dumb. It’s a long shot to try and make it in this business, and we didn’t have the brains to know that what we were attempting was nigh unto impossible. I moved to Chicago in my twenties. We rented a theater with no money. We renovated the inside ourselves. The first play we did there was American Buffalo, which I had done at the Goodman Theater’s Stage Two with director Gregory Mosher. There was talk of moving the production, and without an ounce of irony I said to Greg, “Why don’t you move it to our theater?” I think we had $7,000 in the bank at that point. Greg looks at me and goes, “Billy…you don’t have a theater. You have an empty warehouse.” I said, “When do you want to move it?” He said, “Six weeks.” Well somehow, six weeks later, we opened the play, working 25 hours a day to get the thing ready, and it was a hit. It was a glorious time; Chicago theater was just exploding.
At what point did you meet your wife, Felicity Huffman?
After 10 years in Chicago I moved to New York. Mamet and Schachter were already here, and Mamet started teaching classes at New York University. He hired me to help him teach, and after about two years of this one class, he said, “I’m done. I don’t have anything else to say to you folks and you’re all bored with me. You should start a company.” So we did, the Atlantic Theater Company. Felicity was in on the genesis of it, and that’s how we hooked up, as the young folks say.
What was it about her specifically that caught your eye?
I hope you’ve experienced this, but she was my dream girl. I was smitten. I saw her and I thought, “Holy moly, I’ve been looking for you my whole life.” She was smart and she was funny, and for reasons that to this day I still don’t understand, she liked me.
With the success of Desperate Housewives, her career has exploded. What has watching her grow been like for you?
Just fantastic. I think we have an unusual relationship. It’s sometimes hard for there to be two actors in one household. You need a big house to hold that much ego! From the beginning I have never gotten any indication from her other than she wants me to succeed and she loves watching me act. I’ve never felt threatened by her success, I’ve loved every minute of it and she truly continues to amaze me. When Transamerica came out [with Huffman as a transsexual] I said, “Who are you?” I had no idea where she got that performance. It was a jaw-dropping experience for me.
Okay, now you’re making me a little jealous.
Well, I don’t blame you, I hit the jackpot. I honestly hit it out of the ballpark when it came to choosing a mate. And we’ve got great kids too!
Is the family on different coasts while you’re doing the show?
Yeah. They came with me when I flew out to enter the show, so I’d rehearse during the day and see them at night. Now they’re back in school, and Felicity is coming to see me this weekend. The girls [Sofia, eight, and Georgia, six] will be here in two weeks to just hang out with me.
Are they allowed to see the show?
Ohhh, no. The show’s not for them. But they can hang out with me backstage. They’ve heard all that language before, but, you know.
You did a lot of Mamet’s plays at the beginning of your career. Were you there at the beginning of Speed-the-Plow?
Yes, actually. I read it really early on, because Dave sends stuff to me to read. And then I was there for the Broadway opening night and saw Joe Mantegna do it. I saw the second preview of this production as well—Felicity and I were in town so, much to [director] Neil Pepe’s chagrin, I showed up. It’s quite the play. It’s very funny, but profound in the questions that it raises and, ultimately, so bittersweet and melancholy as it ends. It’s wonderful.
Director Neil Pepe was a student of yours. What’s it like to work with him in this way?
It’s a rarified experience. I’m joining a very successful production, which has been less like taking a journey and more like hopping a moving freight train. And my castmates, Lissy and Raul, have been so, so kind. I can’t say enough: Those two actors have been through the wringer this last month. There’s nothing worse than coming in for a put-in rehearsal when you’re already running the show. Running a play is a fulltime job. One thinks, “Hey, you only work three hours a night. Big deal.” But it is a big deal. It’s all you can do, and it’s exhausting. As the play matures it gets a little easier, but then to have to come in and rehearse an understudy or a replacement actor? The pair of them have been nothing but completely generous, kind and helpful.
Has it been difficult to enter a show with such a media frenzy around it? Between Piven’s departure and all the rumors…
I’ve been able to mostly fly under the radar—actually, the television is on and there’s Jeremy [Piven] right now. I don’t know anything more than you know. I hope he gets better, and that’s that. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. I get to do this play and it’s pretty grand.
People are buzzing about how the economy will affect theater. Having been there at the genesis of Chicago’s stage boom, do you think there’s an opportunity for new growth?
Ever since I got into this business, theater has been “dead” or “dying.” But it keeps not dying. Our show, has full houses. I always feel like, “Do the work and they will come.” The economy is in the tank, everyone knows that, but the theater will survive.
So, how much sushi are you consuming these days?
Ha! I’m steering clear! Steering clear.
See William H. Macy in Speed-the-Plow at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.