William H Macy Interview

20 June 2011

The following feature is available free for reproduction in full or in part. Please credit Shameless US, Thursday 23rd June, 10pm, More4

 

As Frank Gallagher in the US version of Shameless, William H Macy spends his days consuming industrial quantities of drink and drugs. Whatever he's on in real life, it is to be recommended. He looks a decade younger than his 61 years, and exudes the contentment of a man whose life, both professionally and personally, is exactly where he wants it to be. Sitting in a luxurious central London hotel, with his wife (Felicity Huffman) being interviewed in the next door room, and his daughters out sightseeing, he can barely believe his luck. It would be easy to resent him his level of success, if he wasn't so clearly thankful for it, and such a thoroughly nice guy to boot.

 

Here, he discusses why Frank Gallagher is a role of a lifetime, the dangers of playing a drunk, and how middle America has coped with the more risqué elements of Shameless.

 

Shameless has an army of devoted fans here in the UK. What can you tell them about the US version of the show?

It's the same show, but it's so different. Paul Abbott came up with a great idea for a show, it's universal, so even though we don't have the class-consciousness that perhaps you do here, we do have class divides, certainly economic divides. The west side of Chicago is identical to Manchester in the struggle that people are going through, and everybody's got an alcoholic father or mother, and there are so many families where the children raised themselves. It's universal, that's why it works.

 

Frank Gallagher must be a dream role to play.

Dream role. All my friends are really jealous.

 

He's so reprehensible, but you still have to make him likeable, up to a point.

I think they cast me because, for reasons I don't fully understand, I'm pretty good at making characters who are reprehensible to some extent humanised. I'm good at that, I'm not quite sure why. I think some of it has to do with sense of humour - I gravitate towards the joke, regardless of the seriousness of the thing I'm in. Frank has great joie-de-vivre, he has a sense of irony about how stupid the things are that he's doing, he's smart. These are all qualities that make you like him, even though he's a rascal. Here's something about him.

 

Did you watch the British version, or did you consciously steer clear of it?

Yes to both! I read the script first - John Wells' version of the pilot, which is very similar to the British pilot. Then I watched the British pilot, which was directed by Mark Mylod, who also did our pilot. So there was a cross-pollenisation there that stood us in good stead. He gave our show the look, and he expanded on what he had done in the British Shameless. So it's similar but not the same. Then, when they picked up the show and we were going to do the whole of the first season, I watched the whole first season of the British series, and I loved it. I loved everybody in it, it's so fresh, it's so novel, great writing, very funny - from what I understand - I need subtitles! And then we were picked up for the second season, and I'm writing one - I'm writing episode six this year - I made it my business to watch the second season of Shameless. And about halfway through it I decided not to watch any more. Because, as an actor, it's so good, I felt like there was a danger I was going to start imitating them.

 

The first few episodes of Shameless US show or allude to underage sex, underage gay sex, underage drinking, drug use, fraud, domestic violence, and bondage. How does Middle America like Shameless?

Not a peep! We've not had anything. The one thing that we heard the most about was in the opening credits, Carl, the youngest boy, is holding a stray cat in one hand and a blowtorch in the other, and Ellen Degenres took exception, she thought that was singularly unfunny.  She's a great animal rights activist and has done magnificent work. So we cut it. She was right, it wasn't funny. But I was with you, I felt we were going to get strung up for this, especially for the underage gay sex - there's such a double standard, it's one thing for heterosexual underage sex, but gay sex? That's dirty! But no, we didn't have any problems.

 

Do you have a feel of how it's gone down with people who live in the projects? Do they recognise the warmth in it, or are they insulted by the depiction of all the criminality? Do you get a sense of how it's gone down?

No. I'd love to know the answer to that, but I'm the actor. People only say something to me if they've got something good to say. There are comments on the internet, but I don't look at them much - you can get your feelings hurt easily when you read what people say. For instance, the other day, somebody wrote 'Alcoholism is not funny, alcoholism is not funny' and repeated it over and over again. And somebody referenced that in an interview I did, and I cut him off and said 'That's just not true. Unfortunately, alcoholism is really funny sometimes, for all the tragedy and pain that it causes, drunks do really funny things.' It's not our job to get people to stop drinking, it's our job to tell the truth.

 

It's interesting that the show's set in Chicago, which is the hometown of President Obama. Is there a political element to that decision? Do you think the government should be doing more to help people in that position?

I don't think there's a political element - we chose Chicago because, just as Manchester is the perfect place in England to get a broad spectrum of the working class, it's the perfect place to set it, Chicago is politically, geographically and emotionally right smack in the middle of the country. It's the perfect choice. People work really hard in Chicago. There's a lot of poor people in Chicago, there are a lot of ethnic neighbourhoods in Chicago, and it was just a perfect choice. They were very conscious of not setting it in the South, where you hear that Southern accent and it's easy to just discount them and say 'they're dumb people.' As for the other part of the question, I think it's the government's job to make sure the safety net is commensurate with the wealth of the country. I'm a little Republican and a little Democrat. I voted for Obama. It's a government's job to make sure that we're all safe. But it's a human right to be poor, it's a human right to fail. Governments that try to make sure that nobody fails are doomed to failure themselves. It's a fool's errand.

 

Obviously Frank is a drunk. They say that playing someone drunk is a very difficult thing to get right, because it can so easily lapse into parody. Do you think you've got it down pat now?

It's more of a trick than acting. I do a pretty good drunk. I just rewatched our series, our first season, and I do want to do it better. I thought I was neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring in a couple of scenes. What I'd been trying to do was figure 'It's ten o'clock in the morning, it's a two-beer kind of a thing.' It didn't really work. I think I want to go a little deeper with the character too, maybe as an actor explore why he does what he does a bit more. But the whole drunk thing is an ever-present danger. You can walk away from the day saying 'Boy, did I do a funny drunk!' And then you realise that you forgot to act the scene.

 

What did you do in the way of research for the role? Did you take to drink and drugs for several months?

Yes, I got stoned the second I heard about it! No, I've had more than my share of experience with drugs and alcohol, I kind of know what that's like.

 

Do you like Frank?

I love him.

 

Is it important that you love him?

It's important that I love him. It's also important that I don't care whether you do or not. I adore him. He's smart as a whip, he's hard-working. Even though he's a scam-artist, he's works hard at it, he gets up early and goes to bed late. He enjoys life.

 

You're working with a young cast who play your family. How did you enjoy that experience?

They cast it so brilliantly, they're really crackerjack actors, all of them. Emmy Rossum is really the heart of our series, she's there first, she goes home last. It's funny how our relationship has evolved offstage almost identically to onstage. They hang out together as a cast. I don't go out with them, just as Frank doesn't hang out with them. I don't go out with them because to do what they do in one night would take me two weeks to recover, I'm so old. But I just adore them. I'm in for a ride, I think our series is going to be around for a while. Good grief, they'll be going to college by the time we finish, they'll all be grown-ups.

 

You're over here with your wife, Felicity Huffman, who's doing publicity for Desperate Housewives. That must make doing as press junket much more enjoyable.

Yes, it does. Our kids are here with us too. It's just an indication of how charmed my life is and how lucky I am to have scored in this profession. We started in Monte Carlo, where there was a good bit of press, and that was trying and the kids were on their own a lot and they found it boring. But after today, we're going to Paris and we're going to spend almost two weeks in an apartment there, and this is something our children will never forget. And getting to do this press with my wife next door is lovely.

 

Do either of your daughters show thespian tendencies, and if so, would you encourage them?

They both can be very dramatic! It's fine with me if they want to, they have my full support. It's been a good life for me, I think it's a noble way to make a living, I'm not one of those who denigrates the profession. If they want to do it I'll do anything I can to help them. The only thing is, don't be dancers. That life is too hard, the life of professional dancers. That would break my heart if they did that.

 

Will you get to see anything while you're here?

We're going to see a couple of plays, yes. We're going to see Les Mis tonight. Believe it or not, I've never seen it.

 

When I saw Les Mis, I was taken very reluctantly, as I'm not a fan of musicals. I ended up almost dehydrated I'd wept so much by the end of it.

It's the same thing with Lion King! Felicity did an Aaron Sorkin series called Sports Night, and they did a whole thing where the whole show she's saying [puts on miserable voice] 'I've got to go and see The Lion King because of this Disney thing!' And then she comes back going 'Oh my God. You've got to see this show.' It sounds like the same thing with Les Mis. And we're going to see Warhorse tomorrow night. And we're sightseeing. That's one of the joys of having a nine-year-old and a ten-year-old with you. We went to the Tower of London and spent all day there yesterday.

 

I read that your kids don't watch TV, despite their parents starring in two massive TV shows.

They're allowed to watch TV now. They just don't want to, they don't have the habit of it. It's not for everybody. TV is a great nanny for so many families, so it's a bit of a privilege to be able to not park your kids in front of the TV. It's such an unfair fight, between a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and advertising. It's not a fair fight. So we decided that they couldn't watch TV until they could read. But it's because we had the money to be able to make such a pronouncement. But I've got nothing against TV. I think the best stuff being done anywhere is being done on television.

 

You guys live in LA. Is the series filmed in Chicago, or is it like ER, where you film in LA and then go and film the exterior scenes in Chicago?

Correct. We shoot the first six, then we go to Chicago for a week and do the exteriors, then we do the next six and go to Chicago for a second week.

 

Would you generally try and avoid roles that would keep you away from home for a long time?

That was one of the major impulses with taking a series. Going on location was increasingly boring. But never say never, if the role is right, either for me or Felicity, we have to go. We have fantastic nannies though. We've been lucky that way. So our children have been well-raised. They say 'It takes a village'. Well, no-one ever said you can't hire that village!

 

Where does Shameless sit in the pantheon of your work, as far as you're concerned?

I love that I have a pantheon! Well, it's up there. At my age, to be starting in a new medium - I've done a lot of television, but I've never been a regular. To do that, and to get a hit, is fantastic. And we are a hit in the States. To be able to play a character who is so novel - I mean, there have been rascals out there, but there ain't nothing like Frank Gallagher out there now, and all my actor friends know it. All I can say to them is nya-nya [thumbs his nose]. He is a godsend. I'm the luckiest guy. This is going to fall in the top five, maybe in the top three. It's going to change everything.