William H. Macy says over-the-top violence in film offends him: 'You kill 18 people, it's just porn'
Published on March 04, 2026 EDT The "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" actor says he wants films to feel true.

William H. Macy has a very unexpected idea for a show.

"I've tried to sell this a couple of times," the Shameless star said on Wednesday's episode of the Films To Be Buried With podcast hosted by Ted Lasso Emmy-winner Brett Goldstein. "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."

The character doesn't die though.

"But don't write him off the show. 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," Macy said. "Let's tell the truth about it, because I swear to God, you kill one person, there's nothing more dramatic than that."

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Macy explained that he finds most movies these days to be too violent.

"You kill 18 people, it's just porn," he said. "The only thing you can do to make that more dramatic is kill 18 more."

The "rant," as Macy called it, began with him being asked about the worst movie he's ever seen.

"Oh, boy. I rarely get through them," the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes actor said. "I think at the end of the day, one thing any story has to be is true. It's got to be true to the human experience. And I think the test is if you put it out there and a couple of million people see it, that most of them recognize the issue and it moves them."

He declared that too many films these days are outlandish.

"What offends me is films that aren't true. And 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. It's not true, and it's not a good place to be lying when it comes to our portrayal of violence."

He said it's "cost me a lot of work."

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Macy said a Western he's writing — which he plans to star in alongside his daughter Sophia, whom he shares with Felicity Huffman — required some scaling back on the casualties.

"When I first started off, there were nine bodies on page four," he said, "and I lobbied for us to go back to the real West and not to Westerns. Don't imitate films."

Macy noted that only four men died in that infamous 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral. (Encyclopedia Britannica puts the number at three deaths.)

"It was the biggest thing. Four guys," he said. "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."

Known for his comedic work in Shameless and movies like 1996 Coen Bros. film Fargo (for which he was Oscar-nominated), Macy also revealed some of his favorite comedy moments. He told his daughters when they first began watching films that Airplane! is "the funniest movie you've ever seen — well, the funny bits are still funny, but you gotta sit there and wait for them to come along."

"I just saw Dumb and Dumber again," Macy said. "Oh, lord. I lived near Aspen, you know, and when I saw I hadn't seen it in a long time — and when when they dressed up, it was supposed to be a joke. Well, if you live in Aspen, it wasn't a joke — a lot of people with the cowboy hats and the fringe and everything."

"Oh, Horrible Bosses, too. Those guys are freaking geniuses," he said. "God, I love to laugh in movies."

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