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Born in Miami, FL. One of the few American actors whose stage experience equals that of their film work, William H. Macy (sometimes credited as W.H. Macy) struggled for years to make others realize what mentor David Mamet knew from the very beginning, that here was an astonishing "cleanup hitter" (Macy's description for a character actor). Early on, his boyish handsomeness led to typecasting as the callow youth ("dead or weeping by the end of the play") or the boy genius with the solution to the play's central conflict. When he first moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s to pursue a film career, he was mostly the villain, the child molester, the sleazy lawyer, the good cop gone bad. He went broke twice along the way, and the frustration seeped into his hangdog persona, played out on his melancholy features as he humanized despairing, imperfect people. His square-faced, weathered innocence finally landed Macy his breakthrough role as the smarmy car salesman who arranges the kidnapping of his wife in the Coen brothers' quirky FARGO (1996), and suddenly the lovable loser was an Oscar nominee and a recognizable face, firmly ensconced on the Hollywood A-list. Though he entered college with every intention of studying veterinary medicine, Macy transferred to Goddard College and met Mamet (the man he calls his "godfather"), a recent Goddard grad who had returned to teach acting at his alma mater. The student responded to his instructor's call for hard work (the very antithesis of the liberal laxity of that "hippie" institution), and when Mamet returned to his native Chicago, he took Macy and fellow "Mamet Mafia" member Steven Schachter with him. The trio founded the St Nicholas Theater, and in 1975 staged Mamet's American Buffalo with Macy playing Bobby, the youth who serves as a kind of witless apprentice to two hapless thieves. Acknowledging his debt to Mamet, he told The Guardian (January 27, 2000): "He wasn't just my mentor, he also gave me my career. He gave me crucial roles throughout my career. I just wouldn't have made it without him." For the rest of the 70s, the actor continued to hone his craft on stage until he began to land small roles in TV (the 1978 NBC miniseries "The Awakening Land") and films (FOOLIN' AROUND 1979; SOMEWHERE IN TIME 1980). Macy settled in NYC and found success in Off-Broadway shows, including a Mamet-directed Twelfth Night (1980-81) and A R Gurney's The Dining Room (1982), and he and Mamet also co-founded the Atlantic Theatre Company, where Macy has both acted and directed. By the time the actor finally reached Broadway portraying Howie Newsome in the 1988 all-star revival of Our Town, Mamet had already used him in small roles for his HOUSE OF GAMES (1987, Mamet's feature directing debut) and THINGS CHANGE (1988) and would soon promote him to a major part as a doomed police detective in HOMICIDE (1991). After starring onstage as a college professor accused of sexual harassment by a female student in Mamet's Oleanna (1992), he reprised the role in Mamet's static 1994 film version opposite Rebecca Pidgeon (the director's second wife), the only time he has played a film lead to date. Despite fine turns as the uptight vice principal in MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS (1995) and a recurring role as the forever put-upon hospital chief-of-staff Dr. David Morgenstern on NBC's "ER" (from its 1994 pilot to his bare-bottomed exit in the series live season premiere episode in 1998), Macy did not hit his stride until FARGO (1996). The career surge that followed his battle of wits with Frances McDormand's pregnant police chief more than justified his threats to kill the Coens' dogs if they didn't give him the role. Macy may see "Howdy Doody" when he looks in the mirror, but since FARGO the ubiquitous actor has become in his own words "a big fat star", playing frightened, fumbling men on the brink, fighting to maintain a grip as events overwhelm them. "I'm completely hooked into the imploding WASP role," he informed the Los Angeles Times (December 20, 1998). "Even in the New York stage I did that a lot. I think there's a great part of me that's actually an imploding WASP." 1997 marked his action-adventure debut as a gun-toting presidential adviser supporting Harrison Ford in AIR FORCE ONE but also saw him deliver a touching performance as the cuckolded assistant director to a pornographic filmmaker in Paul Thomas Anderson's BOOGIE NIGHTS (both 1997), not to mention his small role in WAG THE DOG (co-scripted by Mamet). The following year he gave a poignant portrayal as the repressed TV father in PLEASANTVILLE, stuck in a black-and-white world while everyone around him was blossoming in color, and was equally splendid in A CIVIL ACTION as the harried legal accountant, whose thankless job it was to go to the bankers and keep asking for more money while John Travolta's obsession with one case threatened to bankrupt the practice. He rounded out the year by stepping into Martin Balsam's shoes as private dick Milton Arbogast in Gus Van Sant's unnecessary shot-for-shot color remake of Hitchcock's classic PSYCHO. Macy was his usual droll self as the unlikely superhero The Shoveler in MYSTERY MEN, a sharply-written comedy compromised by overlength, and was even better reteaming with Paul Thomas Anderson for MAGNOLIA (both 1999), portraying damaged former "Quiz Kid" Donnie Smith, reduced to a routine job in an electronics store and hoping that some pricey dental work will revive his love life. Despite his ability to attract the big bucks in mainstream projects, he still made time for independents like HAPPY, TEXAS (1999, as a gay sheriff) and the romantic drama PANIC, which debuted at Sundance in 2000. Macy co-wrote one of his best parts of 1999, that of a movie critic who turns out to be a philandering, larcenous murderer in TNT's "A Slight Case of Murder". His fourth TV-movie scripted with "Mamet Mafia" mate Schachter cast him opposite wife Felicity Huffman, and he got to spend even more time with the missus by taking a recurring role as a ratings expert on her ABC series "Sports Night" during the 1999-2000 season. He was back with Mamet for STATE AND MAIN (2000), playing a libidinous Hollywood director on location in Vermont. He also acted that year in a London revival of American Buffalo, this time taking the larger, and older role of Teach. In 2002, Macy starred as Riley in a Sundance All-Star lineup that included Patricia Clarkson, Sam Rockwell and Luis Guzman in the light-hearted caper comedy WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD, directed by the Russo brothers. 2003 credits include THE COOLER, STEALING SINATRA, SEABISCUIT, U-BOAT, OUT OF ORDER and MINNESOTA NICE (video). In 2004, he appeared in SPARTAN, IN ENEMY HANDS, CELLULAR and the TV dramas "Reversible Errors" and "The Wool Cap" (also writer). 2005 saw him in THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT (voice), SAHARA, EDMOND and THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. In 2006, the busy actor appeared in DOOGAL (voice), BOBBY, INLAND EMPIRE, EVERYONE'S HERO (voice), and on TV in "Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King" and "Curious George". Macy's 2007 credits include "The Unit" (TV, as the US President), WILD HOGS and HE WAS A QUIET MAN. Scheduled appearances for 2008 include THE DEAL (also writer), BART GOT A ROOM, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, THE LONELY MAIDEN, HURRICANE MARY, ANTIQUE, HOUSE OF RE-ANIMATOR and KEEP COMING BACK. As a writer of screen- and teleplays, Macy's credits also include an episode of "thirtysomething" (1991), ABOVE SUSPICION (1995), "Every Woman's Dream" (1996), "The Con" (1998), "Door to Door" and "Just a Walk in the Park" (both 2002), and "Family Man" (scheduled for release in 2008). Since 1997, Macy has been married to Oscar®-nominated and Emmy®-winning actress Felicity Huffman, whom he met when she was one of his students at the Atlantic Theater Company. They have two daughters: Sofia Grace (b. 2000) and Georgia Grace (b. 2002). Visit the IMDb for a full listing of Macy's screen and television credits.  Nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role 1996: FARGO 1 nomination