From crush to killer: William McNamara reflects on going from a romantic lead in Stealing Home to a serial killer in Copycat, a film that changed his career path. (Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images, Paul Archuleta/Getty Images for World Culture Film Festival, Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection)In high school and into college, I watched my VHS copy of 1988's Stealing Home approximately 876 times. William McNamara, with his tousled hair and Hollywood-approved cheekbones, played a teen whose relationship with his childhood babysitter defined his coming of age.
Back then, McNamara was on a path to leading man status. The heartthrob graced the pages of fan magazines, made a movie with the Coreys, shared the screen with rising star Reese Witherspoon and was cast as golden-age icon Montgomery Clift. He even dated Brooke Shields.
Everything was coming up Billy - and then he sort of vanished.
AdvertisementAdvertisementBlame Copycat - or at least he does. In the 1995 psychological thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, McNamara played a clean-cut sociopath. Perhaps too well."It ruined my career," he tells Yahoo. "I was on the leading man trajectory - the good guy roles. All of a sudden ... casting agents said, 'No, I saw Billy in Copycat. He's too edgy. He's too dark. He's too comfortable in that role. There's no acting. That had to be him."After that, the parts McNamara got offered changed, and his leading man status faded. It also killed his dating life. Women "saw the movie and my character disturbed them," he says.
So you can imagine the whiplash he felt when, 30 years later, Copycat landed on Netflix and rocketed to the platform's global Top 10 the week of June 16, charting in 46 countries. The film that derailed his career was suddenly back.
AdvertisementAdvertisementStunned by its resurgence, McNamara talks to Yahoo about the film's surprise second life, the toll it took on his career and his hope for another shot.
The Copycat comebackMcNamara had no idea the Jon Amiel-directed film landed on Netflix until his social media started blowing up in June."I was getting 100 new Instagram followers a day and all these [direct] messages," he says. "I go on IMDbPro's STARmeter and usually I'm between 5,000 to 10,000, which is not bad for a '90s star, by the way. I was (No.) 165, above Angelina Jolie. I thought it was a mistake. Then a couple of people started texting: 'Hey, Copycat is trending."The whole thing "blew my mind," he says of Copycat getting 6 million views in a week on the streaming service. It also "tells me that I make an impression on people. I have a supporting role in Copycat. For that many people to look me up [says something]. They should give me another shot today."The killer role that changed everythingMcNamara was cast against type as Peter Foley - a soft-spoken, button-down shirt-wearing guy who's secretly mimicking infamous murderers.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"I didn't suspect at all that I would be asked to do a serial killer role," he says. "I thought he was interested in me for the detective role [that went to] Dermot Mulroney."At his two meetings with the director, he didn't read lines. They talked, which McNamara says felt more like "a psychiatric tour of my life" than an audition. Finally, an offer followed."My agent at the time said, 'They want you to play the serial killer,'" he recalls. "I was like, 'Really? I don't know if I could do that.' He said, 'This is an important film... It's Warner Bros. You need to do this.' I thought: It seems difficult, but at the time, I was not a superstar. The money was very good, and [so was the opportunity to work] on a big studio movie with Sigourney and Holly and Dermot and Harry Connick Jr. ... It was like: 'OK, I gotta do it. I gotta just figure this out.'"McNamara prepared extensively for the role, working with forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who consulted on the highest-profile criminal cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and FBI profiler Robert Ressler, paying them out of his own pocket.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"I did an interesting, definitely unique portrayal of a serial killer and everybody liked it," he says. "I got letters from Warner Bros. and [Regency Enterprises founder] Arnon Milchan, so it seemed everything was good and my career was taking off. Then I was walking through [L.A.'s] Westwood ... and two UCLA girls recognized me: 'Hey, we just saw your movie.' I thought they meant Stealing Home, my big movie everybody recognized me from, but they said, 'No, Copycat."His role in Stealing Home opposite Jodie Foster helped put him on the leading man track. (Courtesy Everett Collection)It turns out they had participated in a test screening of the yet-to-be-released film."I said, 'How was the movie?' and they replied, 'Not too good. You didn't score well," he says. He thought it was a joke until the next day, when his agent called."He said, I've got good news and bad news,'" McNamara says. "Good news: Th