| Mr. Supporting Actor
Actor William H Macy was born in 1950 in Florida, United States.
His first acting role was that of Mordred in Camelot in a school play. He
also performed in the folk singing trio The Minnesingers, where he sang
and played the guitar. After his graduation in 1968, he studied drama at the
Foreign Language League School in Reading, England. That lasted a summer,
and then he returned to the US to become a veterinarian. At college he
participated in student productions of Waiting for Godot
and Of Mice and Men.
His interest in acting increased, and finally got him to transfer from the
West Virginia Bethany College to Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont,
where the drama program is highly reputed. There he studied under playwright
David Mamet - later known for writing of The Untouchables, Wag the Dog,
Hannibal. Together with other of Mamet's students he
formed the acting group St Nicholas Company, which performed to and from
during the next years. After a couple of slow years, things started moving again
and William H Macy appeared in commercials and worked with the St Nichols. Macy
finally earned his SAG membership in 1978, and he was now a screen actor
under the name "W.H. Macy", to avoid confusion with Bill Macy.
He moved to New York and soon came his first film, Somewhere In Time in
1980 and after that Macy worked on a numerous off-Broadway theatres and more
commercials. After that followed House of Games by Mamet, and several small
parts on TV series. He continued to do commercials and got more and more fed
up with the whole thing. Trying to change things, he moved to Los Angeles.
There he managed to make a name for himself as an supporting actor in movies
like Searching for Bobby Fisher and The client. He also started appearing on
a regular basis on ER.
His big break came in 1996 when he landed the part of Jerry Lundegaard in
the Coen brothers wonderful Fargo. The convincing portrayal of the unlucky car salesman rendered him an Academy Award nomination for
best supporting actor. Following Fargo, William H Macy started appearing in
major supporting roles in major pictures, such as Wag the Dog and Boogie
Nights. He also received attention for his series of GAP commercials - which
you'd think he'd do no more. Anyway, after a couple of indie films, he was
back in supporting roles in blockbusters such as Pleasantville and Magnolia,
in which he made a fantastic Quiz Kid Donnie Smith.
His latest appearance on the screen was in a semi-leading part in David Mamet's
State and Main, 2000.
He lives with his wife Felicity Huffman in Los Angeles.
Major appearances:
reference: mrshowbiz, imdb
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