William H. Macy is happy to play despicable

LOS ANGELES —Don’t worry. William H. Macy had the same reaction. The first time he saw the play ‘‘Edmond’’ he sat back in his seat, almost sickened, certainly stunned. He and his fellow theatergoers met the ending with absolute silence.

Macy has wanted to play the main character ever since.

‘‘I, like everyone else, was shocked to see that story and that language and those emotions onstage,’’ Macy recalled. ‘‘I almost had an urge to say, ‘You can’t say that.’ But the reason the play’s stuck around is it wasn’t just being salacious. It’s true.’’

The Macy who says this is nothing like the Macy in the movie version of David Mamet’s ‘‘Edmond,’’ a tight, almost painful 88 minutes or so of racist chatter, violent bloodshed, and out-of-control energy. In real life Macy’s not morose. He’s not sucking down anger. And he’s clearly no loser, although he’s often cast as one.

In fact the shaggy-haired fellow who shows up on his own (no Hollywood handlers in sight) for a lunch of turkey burgers and iced tea verges on happy-go-lucky. Why wouldn't he be? At 56, he's a working actor with every sort of role on his resume and plenty more scheduled. He's married to ``Desperate Housewives" hottie Felicity Huffman, with whom he has two young daughters. And he finally got to film ``Edmond," which opens Friday.

Now Macy is out stumping hard for ``Edmond." Beyond his having been one of the film's producers, it's clear he cares deeply about it. (``Thank you for supporting `Edmond,' " he says in all earnestness after introducing himself.) It's also clear that he knows the movie is no easy sell.

``Edmond" is the story of a middle-class man who abruptly walks out on his wife after a fortune teller informs him he's not where he should be. Soon he encounters a stranger (Joe Mantegna) in a bar who spews the N-word with abandon, then descends into a hell mostly of his own making. That would include a mugging, a murder, and other undesirable outcomes.

``It's short, you know; can you believe where you've been in less than two hours?" Macy said. ``It boggles the mind. . . . Mamet's the best we've got, if you ask me."

Macy and Mamet go way back, to Goddard College in Vermont, where Mamet was a teacher and Macy a student. It was, as Macy recalls, ``a hippie school," with few rules and even less formality -- except in Mamet's class. He expected promptness, proper dress, and a reverence for the theater -- traits that Macy embraces to this day. Later, the two launched a theater company in Chicago, Mamet's hometown. ``Edmond" director Stuart Gordon was part of the gang, although this is the first time he's worked with Macy since those early, heady days of experimental theater.

``It was one of those things where I was talking to David and we both said, `What about Bill for the part?' " Gordon said. ``It's amazing to me he never played Edmond onstage because it almost seems like it was written for him. When I asked him, it was the shortest conversation of my life. He said, `I've been waiting all my life to play this part.' "

The part of Edmond, like the movie, has an old-fashioned feel to it, what Macy calls ``an otherworldly quality." That's in part because the play is now almost a quarter-century old and the movie is a faithful adaptation. Updating was kept to a minimum.

As Macy put it, ``Stuart told David to update it, so he said OK and gave me a cellphone and raised the price of a hooker 50 bucks. And that was that." Even a reference to Edmond's having an athletic physique -- which Macy, who bares almost all, somewhat surprisingly does -- was in the original. (``For some reason I've got to get naked in everything I do," Macy said, laughing. ``I don't know what's going on, and it only happened after I was 50.")

Macy, who looks far younger in person with his mod red glasses and gently faded jeans, also can't explain why he's so often cast as a mope, except to say that actors have far less control over their careers than the audience might imagine. ``The reality is you get to pick and choose, but within a narrow scope," he said. ``It's rarely me or [Tom] Cruise. `What do you think? Hmmm? Macy or Cruise, Macy or Cruise?' "

That said, he has done action pictures (``Air Force One," the third ``Jurassic Park") and has the action figures to prove it. Then again, he's done a bit of everything and then some. There's television (``E.R.," the made-for-TV movie ``Door to Door," which he co-wrote, and the upcoming ``Curious George" cartoon, which he narrates, to name a few). There are major features (``Seabiscuit," ``Magnolia," and ``Fargo," which gained him an Academy Award nomination for his role as -- what else? -- an unlucky car salesman). That's not to ignore the offbeat or oddball roles; his 100-plus credits include plenty of those. But he swears there are some flat-out romantic comedies coming up.

``I've always worked hard, I'm a hard worker, I like to work," Macy said. ``Conversely, I don't do too well on my own. I'll create something if there's nothing going on. It's the way Mamet taught us: You can sit around waiting for the phone to ring or you can create your own fun. . . . Plus, I don't get the big bucks. There are a lot of roles, but some of them I worked for only a day or two."

Regardless of the role, Macy inevitably brings a sense of decency to it, said ``Edmond" director Gordon. That was especially important in the case of Edmond, who repeatedly risks alienating the audience with his ferocious behavior.

``The character does so many despicable things," Gordon said. ``Bill manages to maintain a humanity with all of his characters, and this was important here. Bill seems like your average guy and someone the audience can relate to in a significant way."

``Edmond" asks moviegoers to do that without offering up much information about Edmond himself. His back story is beyond spare; it's nonexistent. That's a trademark of Mamet's writing, and it's one that Macy applauds. He's such a Mamet acolyte that he divides movie history into pre- and post-Mamet. Even screenwriters who dislike Mamet have been influenced by him, Macy says.

``I think it's genius what he put in and what he left out," Macy said. ``The guy's leaving his wife in the first scene and everyone knows why. . . . She's a beautiful woman standing in her underwear and he says, `You don't interest me. I can't live this way anymore.' And everybody knows what that means on their own level. That's all the information that's necessary to set him up for the rest of the story."

For his part, Macy felt no need to fill in the gaps. He says he long ago gave up making fake identities for his characters or creating families and friends for them that didn't exist in the script. Partly out of audaciousness, partly out of laziness, he says he decided over a period of years that his talent alone was enough to bring to a role.

``It didn't help me act at all just because I did that extra homework," Macy said. ``You can't bring it onstage, not really. . . . It occurred to me finally that the actor's job is in the nanosecond -- not in the big picture but in the smallest moment where you break it down. That's all you need to do, pay attention to that one moment."

And how Macy loves that moment. Although he's branched out into producing, has written numerous teleplays, and is slated to make his big-time directorial debut next year with the movie ``Keep Coming Back," starring Salma Hayek, he says he still lives for that one moment on a movie set, when all eyes turn toward him and he gets to act, even when it's in a role as difficult as Edmond.

``That moment when everyone gets quiet and it's the actor's turn, I just love it," he said. ``I love to live in imaginary circumstances. It feels calmer and braver and safer there than anywhere else. . . . I love acting. I'm a lucky guy."

Lynda Gorov can be reached at lgorov@aol.com.

The nice-guy actor's decidedly

not-nice role in `Edmond' is one

he's been waiting for all his life