Macy was on stage after the world premiere of The Deal, a satiric comedy about Hollywood that was partially financed by about 15 investors from Sarasota and Bradenton. Many of them were sitting in the sold-out Eccles Theater at Sundance that January night. But Macy, who co-wrote the film and heads a cast that also features Meg Ryan, LL Cool J and Elliott Gould, said he wasn’t going to introduce his backers. “In fact, we’re going to body-check you if you try to talk to them,” he quipped to a chuckling audience that contained plenty of competing filmmakers.

But Macy did acknowledge Jody Kielbasa, the executive director of the Sarasota festival and a co-producer of the movie. The Deal is one of the main attractions at this year’s Sarasota festival, which runs from April 4-13.

In 2005, Macy sent Kielbasa the script for The Deal, which he had written with his longtime collaborator, Steven Schachter. Macy and Schachter have been coming to the Sarasota Film Festival since 2002, when they presented Door-to-Door, a television movie they co-wrote about a salesman with cerebral palsy. The film went on to win six Emmy Awards, including one for Macy for Best Actor.

When Kielbasa read The Deal, which was adapted from a Peter Lefcourt novel, he was immediately captivated. “I was laughing on the second page, and I could see what a wonderful role this would be for Macy,” Kielbasa says. Macy plays Charlie Berns, a struggling producer who cons a major studio into making a $100 million action picture without a script in hand. When the mercurial star is kidnapped and production shuts down, Macy and a studio executive (Meg Ryan) conspire to shoot the serious film they really want to make. In the process, they reluctantly fall in love.

Kielbasa passed the script along to Keri Nakamoto, a film festival board member who has started a Sarasota-based production company. They set up meetings in Sarasota between Macy and potential investors. Each investment share cost $250,000, though investors could partner with others if they weren’t able to pony up for a full share.

Kielbasa says investors were told upfront that putting money in movies is a risky business. “The language in any film-investment prospectus is pretty blunt,” Kielbasa says. “It all but states, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? There are better ways for you to invest your money.’”

Macy says he was brutally honest with investors, too. “At our cocktail parties in Sarasota and other places, we would start by mentioning a couple of movie titles, and asking if people had heard of them,” Macy says. “When nobody had, we said, well, exactly, that’s the point. Those films never made it. So there’s a chance you’ll lose all your money, you’ll never get it back. But then we added that there’s a good chance you'll make it back, and then some. And there’s a slim chance you’ll make a fortune. Some of the films I’ve done have done quite well, and some have done extremely well.”

Indeed, the prolific Macy has appeared in a wide range of commercial and independent films, including Air Force One, Jurassic Park 3, Wag the Dog, Seabiscuit, Boogie Nights and Mr. Holland’s Opus. He’s probably best-known for playing a husband who has his wife kidnapped in the dark comedy Fargo, for which he received an Oscar nomination.

Macy’s involvement with The Deal was a clear inducement for the local investors. “I liked the script, but I also liked the fact that this was Macy’s project,” says Nakamoto. “He is an amazing talent, and an amazing person. But I also did some research, studied some industry trends and tried to get a sense of the box-office potential. You have to take the emotion out of it and calculate the risk, just as you would with any investment.”

Jaymie Carter, a film festival board member, says Macy’s warm personality and reputation for integrity influenced her decision to invest. “I read the script, and I was impressed with the cast they had lined up,” Carter says. “But Macy himself was a big factor. And during the whole process, he’s been so great about keeping us informed, sending out newsletters that kept us up to date. And at one point, he and Felicity [Macy’s wife, actress Felicity Huffman] entertained us at their home in Los Angeles. They couldn’t have been nicer.”