On network television, kids are force-fed exploding heads....

Hello, where are you from?

Oh, sweet!

Yes and yes. I don't know about Great Britain but I think America has got it pretty well bollocksed up. And I think our films have a lot to do with our views about sexuality, and I think we're ill-served by our ratings board, who need to get into therapy, in my opinion. We're so accepting of violence – ugly, ugly, ugly violence and we let our children watch it. I don't let my kids (2)watch it. And yet we are allergic to sex. And I don't know much but I know this: violence is bad and sex is good. Even the bad sex I've had was pretty good. But violence is bad – it's always bad, there are no exceptions. It's bad. And it's ugly and we've got to paint it as it is.

As an actor I don't want any censorship of any kind but I think we can hold the film industry to a higher standard. If we're going to have violence let's tell the truth about it. It makes me disgusted when I see the hero get the crap kicked out of him and he's making love in the next scene. If you're going to kick the crap our of your hero then have him stay beat up. Tell the truth about it. And this film (3) tells the truth about it. It's people with real disabilities and sex – what could make an audience more uncomfortable? And yet the result of the film is that you love being human; you love humanity, you feel good about yourself at the end of it.

You have priests molesting children. You've got Jeffrey Dahmer. You've got a huge porn industry. You've got people going to their grave unfulfilled. You've got husbands and wives torturing each other because we can't talk about anything and we can't be honest about it.

It's a huge part of being alive. They say that young kids, especially boys, are thinking about it every four seconds, or something like that. They think about sex more than they think about food. Our normal way of suppressing it does not work. It doesn't work at all. I mean with the amount of crap we've had laid on our shoulders from our parents about our sexuality, it's a wonder we can function at all.

Well, I love that I get to play a character whom I think the church will endorse. (4) Priests get a bad rap, and deservedly so, but there are lots and lots of priests out there who are doing very good work and are really good guys trying their best and I love that I got to play one of these guys. And even though he goes against church doctrine and perhaps his elders would not second his opinion, I think he looks to Jesus and he says: what should I do? And I think the answer is clear, and he's got the guts to act on it, and the church falls on the correct side of this issue.

It is a benevolent view. The priest in this helps, and is perhaps the catalyst for such a lovely conclusion to this question and I think that's true. For all the stories we tell about the church going awry, the church has done a lot of good too and I'm proud that I can be playing someone of the cloth who is the good guy because that's a true story too. And perhaps it takes an indie film to tell that story.

[1] Getting straight to the point as this is technically a video interview spot, so quite brief. You can see it at the top of this article.

[2] Sophia and Georgia – he's married to Felicity Huffman.

[3] The Sessions, about a man in an iron lung who hires a sex surrogate to take his virginity. Macy plays a friendly priest.

[4] Continuing the Christianity theme, Macy is a keen carpenter, and once made the cover of Fine Woodturning magazine. His specialty is occasional bowls..