Shameless star William H. Macy got good reviews as a director. He does not want to direct again
Shameless star William H. Macy says he’s done with directing — and his reason, even after a run of critical hits, isn’t what you’d expect.
Here we go then: William H. Macy is back in the spotlight, but not for taking on another gig behind the camera. Turns out, the Shameless veteran has had quite enough of directing, thank you very much. Even though he has a handful of well-received films under his belt as director, he's now quite clear that those days are probably behind him.
I’m not dying to. It’s really hard, man, especially indie films. I have described it as you have about four weeks of prep, maybe five, where you create this imaginary structure. And it is beautiful. And it’s going to be one of the finest films ever made.
That’s how Macy put it when asked in a recent interview with ComingSoon about whether he'd take up directing again. And to be honest, "not dying to" is putting it mildly. For him, the charm quickly wears off once you get to the actual shooting: all those grand plans go up in smoke—usually on day one. Macy’s fairly blunt about how indie film shoots become a scramble to keep that dream project from collapsing due to all the usual culprits: budgets, impossible timelines, and people trying to punch above their pay grade. Not exactly a surprise to anyone familiar with lower-budget filmmaking, but he's more direct about it than most.
And on the first day of shooting, it catches fire. And for three and a half weeks, you’ll see the director and the producer throwing shit out the windows, trying to save anything they can from this original grand structure. Because there’s not enough money. There’s not enough time.
He was just as candid about the chaos involved with indie crews, noting there are always 'a lot of people who are working a little over their pay grade', and sooner or later, things are bound to go wrong. For Macy, the takeaway is simple: making indie films is not for the faint-hearted, and frankly, you should think twice before diving in. Even so, he does admit there's a unique spirit about these projects: everyone wants to be there, everyone’s enthusiastic, and even he finds it hard to resist being swept up in it all. There’s an energy and honesty on those sets that, despite everything, is ‘seductive’—his word.
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Back on Screen—Not Behind It
Macy’s not vanished from the movies completely, though. His newest release, The Deputy, is in UK cinemas now. It's an R-rated crime thriller, a bit of a neo-Western, and Macy’s both starring and definitely not directing this time around. He takes the role of Sheriff Krueger, running the show in a small town straight out of a noir fever dream.
- Duke Nicholson takes the lead as the young deputy with a rather grim job: looking after a dead body at the local morgue
- Tiffany Haddish makes an appearance—as always, quite the scene-stealer
- Stephen Dorff, Julia Fox, and Billie Lourd round out the ensemble, so the casting’s nothing to sniff at
The Deputy is currently playing in UK cinemas.
As for the plot: it kicks off with the young deputy being ordered to guard a corpse, but naturally, things go very wrong when the body disappears. Cue decades-old local corruption unravelling, hidden secrets, and the usual rural American mayhem. If you’re in the mood for a grimy crime story with a bit of Western grit, that’s the pitch. Macy sticking to acting, perhaps wisely, this time round.