William_H Macy

Posted on Updated on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
    1. Steve Buscemi, Twenty Bucks, 1993.  For the history of a banknote passing from hand to hand, Macy could only spare one day. So he cameoed as a Property Clerk and passed Frank to a hesitant Buscemi –  tired of being typed as a member of the criminal classes.
    2. Brad Dourif, Alien: Resurrection,1996.  While testing as Dr Jonathan Gediman for French réalisateurJean-Pierre Jeunet, Macy suddenly stopped…  “You know what guys, this is never going to happen.” And split.  Sigourney Weaver didn’t want a fourth Alien. What changed her mind? “They basically drove a dumptruck full of money to my house”  – $11m, in fact.
    3. David Cross, Small Soldiers, 1997.  First in the frame for the nerdy Irwin Wayfair in Joe Dante’s madcap view of the arms race with toy soldiers becoming real. An unhappy Roger Ebert damned it as “a family picture on the outside, and a mean, violent action picture on the inside.”
    4. Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy, TV, 1999-.     Macy auditioned for Brian but creator MacFarlane kept three main roles for himself. The titular Peter, his son Stewie (sounding not unlike Rex Harrison) and, with no vocal frills, Brian, the family’s anthropomorphic dog, who talks (indeed converses), drinks martinis and in the best Snoopy tradition, struggles with an unfinished novel, Faster Than The Speed of Love.
    5. Albert Brooks, Finding Nemo, 2003.     Marlin, the clown fish seeking his his son, Nemo, lost beyond the Great Barrier Reef, was first voiced by Macy. “Of course, they think it’s great,” stormed the the Disney chief Michael Michael Eisner, as quoted in James Stewart’s Disney War, book.  “Trust me, it’s not.” Auteur Andrew Stanton apparently agreed. He replaced Macy with Brooks and Nemo was not only found but become history’s then highest-grossing toon.
    6. Crispin Glover, Freaky Deaky, 2011.     All four original stars – Macy, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Craig Robinson – suddenly quit and were replaced in the film of Elmore Leonard’s favourite novel by Glover, Billy Burke, Michael Ja White, Christian Slater. 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  7