William H. Macy Quotes

I love making movies, I love the differentness of it, I love writing. But I've always liked television. I grew up on television.

A favorite cast? Lisa Kudrow, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and my wife.

That red carpet has to be felt to be believed.

It's hard to be depressed around a ukulele. You just pick it up and you're halfway home.

We, in America, are so screwed up when it comes to sex. That's all we can see.

I'm getting bigger roles, and I'm on location more, and I have a wife and family. I'd rather work less, and I've started to implement that. It was either that or my wife would break my heart.

Every scene has two people who want two different things, so there's conflict in every scene. You've got to duke it out, and you've got to get the other person to change his or her mind and do it your way.

Somebody's gotta stand up and say pubic hair is good, murder is bad. Sex is good, violence is bad.

I'll tell you this about the Oscars - they're real.

With an inexperienced director, a lot of times the days go on to 14, 15, 16 hours. It goes horrendously overtime. And because of the lack of money, they just keep you there, regardless of the hours.

The reason they came up with the ratings board is that there are a lot of movies out there, and parents need some guidance. Not only for the kids, but for adults, as well. If you don't like to see a certain kind of film, there should be some rating, so that you know what you're getting into. But the present system doesn't work.

I really love hanging out on the set, and I love the life, and all of that. But I don't think I could stick with this profession if it weren't for those 15 minutes a day when I get to act. That's the part I love. For some strange reason, it's the time that I'm the least self-conscious in my whole life.

The only reason an indie gets made is because someone has a burning passion to do it and won't take no for an answer, as opposed to a big film, which is like a train that starts rolling down the tracks and nothing can stop it.

I have a tendency to say 'yes' to a script or no to a script. Not 'yes' based on a rewrite.

I'm a big fan of rehearsal. I'm famous for pulling the cast together, not so much to formally rehearse, but just to run the lines. My theory of acting is that it takes all your attention just to stay in the moment, and keep your attention on the other person, and get him to do what you want him to do.

I think what all actors share is that, somewhere down in your solar plexus, there's this fear that you're not going to be able to come up with the goods, that this is the one movie where you're going to look like a fool, and they should have cast someone else. And you feel ugly, and you've got three chins, and you've gained too much weight, and you're losing your hair, and there are so many better actors who could do this. But if you've got chops, what you realize is that everybody feels that way, so just show up and do the job.

You should know the lines, be prepared, get sleep, and have the script analyzed so you're ready to rock and roll.

When I watch a film I get swept away. I don't really watch the camera.

Writers love to write those idiotic, long stage directions, and some of them worse than others. They have nothing to do with the movie. They're just jerking around.

Everyone hooks up with George Clooney. He's a genuinely cool guy. He's using his powers for good.

One of the things I did early on in film was over-enunciate and talk too loud.

There are some older women out there who are just knockouts, real beauties, and they're not getting the roles they should.

It's not good for people to have the safety net too low... People can take care of themselves better than we allow them to.

What actors are good at doing is walking into a situation that should make you incredibly self-conscious and frightened and doing it anyway. That's the gig, pretending that you are comfortable.

Nothing else counts except what you want.

All that back-story stuff doesn't help. What you get paid for is to stand toe-to-toe with the other actor and get him to do your will.

So much of the violence in the movies is b.s. violence: A guy in the middle of a large city with 14 people lying on the ground that he's just killed with his superhuman powers, and there's not a cop to be found. Not a siren to be heard. No price to be paid. That's not true, and I don't like that sort of stuff.

I love metaphor the way some people love junk food.

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.

The emotions will take care of themselves. You don't have to prod them along. As a matter of fact, you get in trouble when you prod them along.

Making a mistake means overshooting a scene, shooting too many takes, for instance. Long after you've got it, you just keep shooting.

We always want to see people strive and see the human spirit triumph against adversity. That's what it's all about because that's what we're doing. We're trying to triumph in our lives.

Shameless is a rough show, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s also beautiful.

There are statistics out that say 20 year olds, 18 years olds think about sex 90 percent of the time. They only don't think about sex when they're eating, and that's rare.

I think theater is powerful. The best experiences I had in the theater are more powerful than the best experiences I had in movies.

There will always be people with disabilities. And by my estimation, the scorecard for the way we take care of those who need our help the most, those at the very bottom of that safety net, is pretty dismal. And that has to change.

A good director is very well prepared, and knows exactly how he's going to cut the film, so the shooting is as efficient as possible.

I've discovered that I can't trust the ratings board at all, because they have - to my mind - a perverted point of view about what's appropriate for children. They think that if you see any part of a male or female anatomy, we have to protect children from it, which is not true, and they think almost any level of violence is okay for children, which is absolutely not true... They're really off the mark.

Actors are embracing a new aesthetic, which is leaning more toward truthful and simple and direct, as opposed to what we would normally call sitcom acting.

The ratings system is so bogus and people know it. Fewer and fewer people care. The ratings board has sort of exposed itself. But my problem is, as a parent, there's this area of film that my daughters want to see. They're not my kind of films, I don't want to go see them, but I really want to know whether my daughters can see them or not. The morality of what the ratings board is doing now escapes me. I don't get it.

I've written a lot of scripts that someone else directed, and it's absolutely vital that, if I'm gonna act in it, then I have to take off the writer hat and let the director direct.

That's pretty much what every scene is about, getting people to see your point of view. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

To a certain extent. I'm a fan of rehearsal on the day [of the shoot], more than getting together a week beforehand.

It sure is boring to be around people who are in character all the time. I always find it's closer to mental illness than acting excellence.

Yeah, I made it. It sneaks up on you. You're some schmuck and you wake up one day and you go, Good God, I'm the cheese.

I'm sure I have a process, but it mostly takes place in my dreams.

All modesty aside, I think I'm good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don't read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they're always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind's eye in real time.

Our glorification of violence is ripping society apart. I don't want my children exposed to it.