Much has been made of the racial rage that Edmond feels, his homophobia and his rage against women, Macy agrees. The part that spoke to me most is the notion that people say men rule the world, and it s true. There s a certain kind of man white, Protestant, affluent, middle-aged, American who on one hand is at the top of the food chain.
But on the other hand, they are desperate characters, they can t ask for help. We ve all seen our fathers act that way, stoical to the extent that it s unhealthy. It s these guys who explode, or implode, like in Falling Down.
Macy has a long shared history with Mamet on both stage and screen, originating roles in several of his plays, including American Buffalo and Oleanna. Similarly Stuart Gordon, who directed Edmond, is a longtime Mamet collaborator. It was their shared friendship that brought the film to fruition after more famous names had failed.
I think he s our greatest writer, Macy says. A lot of people tried to film Edmond before, different directors, serious movie stars, but they could never get it made. Why?
Because it s so harsh. To be blunt, it s the word nigger . It s the last word in English that is still incendiary.
It s a strange word too, because every night on TV you can see comedians calling each other nigger it now means pal, brother. But to use it in the pejorative, to inflict pain on someone, it takes a David Mamet to write that. People won t touch it.
Yet you walk down the street in Los Angeles and you hear the word used, as it is in the film, to hurt, to insult, to incite. It s not like we re making it up. Edmond marks something of a departure for the new Jack Lemmon, whose characters generally bottle up their despair, hinting at it only through hangdog frowns and pleading eyes.
Macy considers himself a Method-style actor, but scoffs at the notion of total immersion that this term has come to represent. The technique that came out of the Actors Studio is poppycock, he laughs drily, but the actors who came out of there were magnificent. I tend to think they were magnificent when they went in, too.
As the father of two young daughters, Macy now juggles acting work with parenthood. This is especially true since his wife, the actress Felicity Huffman, became a sensation in Desperate Housewives. I didn t realise it was going to click with America like that, he says.
She s got the best job in showbiz. Like Huffman, Macy s main-stream success was a long time coming. He was already in his forties when he made stand-out performances in Fargo, Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
As a young actor, he paid the rent with commercials and voiceovers. Even now his career consists more of character and ensemble parts than star turns. With a strong script and a great cast, as in Bobby or Thank You for Smoking, he shines.
But even in mediocre fluff, from Sahara to Wild Hogs, he is often the reason to keep watching. The only thing that s ever made any sense to me, he says, is do the good stuff, don t do the bad stuff, and charge as much as you can. Edmond is released tomorrow Macy s decade of inner turmoil in Hollywood Macy excelled in this breakthrough role as ill-fated Midwestern kidnap mastermind Jerry Lundegaard.
Much has been made of the racial rage that Edmond feels, his homophobia and his rage against women, Macy agrees.
News RSS