BROKAW IS BIG NEWS
Sceremony and the likely Trump jabs that will come with it will bring on the usual conservative broadsides about Hollywood being a bubble full of liberals promoting a left-wing agenda, but is not buying it. “The world has always been reflected in Hollywood,” says Macy, who got a supporting actor nomination for “Fargo” in 1997. “You know, some conservatives would like to say it’s a big conspiracy, but I live in this town. There are all kinds of people here. A lot of my friends voted for ,alot of my friends didn’t, a lot of my friends didn’t vote. A lot of my friends are gay, a lot are straight. “This town is not homogenous. It’s liberal, but (writers) are not trying to hit some political agenda. They’re trying to find a story that will resonate with people.” If that’s a non-issue, the perpetual Caucasian domination of the awards is decidedly not, agrees Macy, who last year expressed support for those boycotting the ceremony – but he said imposing an ethnic quota on nominees, as some have suggested, would be “stupid.”
“You have to have four white guys, four black guys – no. It is all about the work.”
Rather, says Macy, if you want to diversify the nominees, diversify the Academy.
“There’s no conspiracy – it’s the makeup of the Academy that’s the only problem,” he said. “It’s mostly a bunch of white guys, and we gravitate to our own. I’m guilty of it too.”
Such issues aside, Macy believes we’re in the midst of a “golden age” in Hollywood, due to the booming number of television outlets.
“Now everybody is working,” he said. “Now to tell a story successfully for a couple of years on television, you just need a couple of million people. You don’t need a quarter of the country (watching), and so all of our stories are getting told and there’s brilliant work being done. How did that happen? It wasn’t political; it was technology, that’s the way it happened. We live in America. Things work out.” Legendary anchorman got a shoutout from the stage following a performance of “Come From Away.” The show is based on a 2010 documentary Brokaw did, which told the story of a town in Newfoundland that welcomed 6,579 stranded passengers following the closure of American airspace on 9/11. The town briefly doubled its population by doing so. The 77-year-old newsman got wild applause from audience members at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre when actor made everyone aware he was in the house.