William H. Macy Biography

The reliable actor and sometimes writer-producer William H. Macy worked steadily on stage and screen for more than 15 years before breaking out in the Coen brothers‘ 1996 movie Fargo (with Frances McDormand). Macy got his acting start at Vermont’s Goddard College as a student of playwright David Mamet’s. In the early 1970s he joined Mamet and others in founding the St. Nicholas Theater Company in Chicago, and Macy was one of the original actors in Mamet’s American Buffalo. During the 1980s Macy was based in New York, where he helped co-found the Atlantic Theater Company and worked on stage and in commercials and television productions. By the late 1980s his film career was taking off and he quickly became known as a reliable supporting player, appearing in films by directors such as Woody Allen (1987’s Radio Days and 1992’s Shadows and Fog) and Macy’s old friend David Mamet (1987’s House of Games and 1991’s Homicide). Macy also showed up in TV movies and had a recurring role in TV’s E.R. (1994-2009). Since winning an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for his performance in Fargo, William H. Macy has found steady work in a variety of projects, from big-budget movies and independent films to TV productions such as the Bill Porter story, Door to Door. (Macy won Emmys for acting and writing for that movie.) His feature films include Boogie Nights (1997, with Mark Wahlberg), Mystery Men (1999, with Ben Stiller), The Cooler (2003, with Alec Baldwin), Sahara (2005) and The Lincoln Lawyer (2011, starring Matthew McConaughey).