Acting and AI

Hollywood Legend William H. Macy on the Challenges of Quickly-Changing Technology

- By Charles Warner & Lindsey Feth with Jeremy Glowacki

Actor William H. Macy will forever be connected to his breakout role as the worried and down-on-his-luck Jerry Lundegaard in the 1996 feature film Fargo. In that quirky crime drama, directed by Ethan and Joel Cohen, Macy plays a car salesman in Minneapolis who has gotten himself into debt and is so desperate for money that he hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his own wife. Spoiler: the scheme does not go as planned, and Macy's Lundegaard squirms and stammers his way through awkward exchanges and encounters that later became the calling card of Macy’s acting, earning him many awards and nominations for his film and television work over the next 25 years.

This summer, Macy is back on the big screen in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, during a time following the Hollywood writer's strike when summer blockbusters are fewer and farther in between. Coming off his Emmy-nominated work in the Showtime series Shameless, he plays Trevathan, an opportunistic human who styles himself as Proximus Caesar's chief advisor and teaches him human history. During the film's production, Macy worked alongside the latest AI tools, which enabled the actors and production team to see in real-time how some CGI effects would look after post-production work was completed.

In this interview, Macy talks more about his experience with that relatively new acting tool but also shares his concerns about the influence of AI and other fast-moving technologies on society in general and the arts in particular, as well as his thoughts on the business challenges of the film business and his proudest accomplishments so far as an actor.

Innovation & Tech Today: To start things off, we wanted to get your take on the increasing influence of streaming services on the film and TV industry.