Actor William H. Macy Thinks Violence In Movies Has Gone Too Far: “You Kill 18 People, It’s Just Porn”
“But where are those good old fashioned values – on which we used to rely?” is a likely question Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes star William H. Macy is asking himself these days.
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During a recent appearance on the podcast Films to Be Buried With With Brett Goldstein, the time-tested actor went on the record with his distaste for how extreme movie violence has gotten over the years, and what offends him most about it.
“I guess the most obvious example – and I can see the will to live just fade from people when I get on this kick – but I think Hollywood is doing a lot of damage to the world with our portrayal of violence,” Macy explained (via The Hollywood Reporter).
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“It’s not true, and it’s not a good place to be lying when it comes to our portrayal of violence,” he continued. The actor then admitted his stance has affected his work to the point he becomes a pain on sets, especially when making Westerns.
“When I first started off, there were nine bodies on page four, and I lobbied for us to go back to the real West and not to Westerns,” he said of his experience on one production. “Don’t imitate films.”
Macy cited the infamous shootout at the OK Corral, which was depicted in classic Westerns like Tombstone, where the number of deaths can be counted on one hand. “It was the biggest thing. Four guys,” he added.
“Most of the scripts you get, there’s four guys on the first page. You see them downtown blasting away in New York City. There’s not a cop to be seen. People get shot four times and they give a speech,” Macy continued.
“Let’s tell the truth about it, because I swear to God, you kill one person, there’s nothing more dramatic than that,” he exclaimed. “You kill 18 people, it’s just porn. The only thing you can do to make that more dramatic is kill 18 more.”
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The star of such films notorious for their bursts of violence as Boogie Nights, Air Force One, and Jurassic Park III didn’t simply rant in his chat with Goldstein. He offered a solution in a pitch for a series that might inject truth and realism back into the picture.
“I wanna do a thing where you take three episodes to have you fall in love with one of the major characters and then shoot him,” Macy explained. “But don’t write him off the show.”
He continued, “And every week, you can see what a bullet does to a human body. You can see how it wrecks his marriage. You can see how he gets infections. You can see how he has to learn to walk again or use his hands again. You can see the deep, dark depressions.”
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