A Chicago star: a conversation with Michael Madsen | Interviews

Ed. Note: This interview was initially published on Moviemom.com in April 2012 and is republished here in honor of Michael Madsen.

Michael Madsen is a favorite actor of the writer / director Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill: Volume One). He appeared in Thelma & Louise and on the television series “24”. And he is a published poet, about to take out his second collection. I had a wonderful moment to tell him about growing up in Chicago, to meet his idols and the two films he just made consecutive. In “Loosies”, he plays a cop to continue a pickpocket played by the writer / director Peter Facinelli of “Twilight”. And “infected” concerns the spread of a deadly virus of Lyme disease.

We both grew up in Chicago – Do you often go back?

Well, my father still lives in Chicago. He is a retired firefighter. He was a firefighter of Chicago for thirty years … and he made the lieutenant and he retired, so I go from time to time to visit him.

As an actor, you are particularly good in calm moments, attentive and waiting. Is it something that comes naturally or are you very aware of it?

I think what is is that I don’t know. If I knew what it was, I might not be able to do it. I don’t think it’s an actable quality. I just think it’s something that is or not. I can tell you that when I was a child, I noticed that in Steve McQueen, and I read a lot of books on Steve, and I know he used to cut a lot of dialogue from his film scripts because he did not like to talk much. And I noticed it in Robert Mitchum. I met Mitchum and I know he looked a lot like that in real life. Humphrey Bogart had this. I don’t know, but I consider him a compliment.

You remind me of Mitchum. How was it to meet him?

Well, he made a photo with my sister, he did this thing Hearst and Davies in Toronto, and I really wanted to meet him, because he made this film entitled Heaven Knows Mr. Allison directed by John Huston, with Deborah Kerr, he played a navy who is failed on an island.

And she is a nun.

I do not know, his performance in this film is on – I would say – 75% responsible for my fantasy even to be a film actor. And I had always wanted to meet him because of this film, and I went to Toronto under the guise of visiting my sister, but the real reason I went is because I wanted to meet Robert. And so, you know, he was there, having breakfast and he was sitting there eating his waffles, and my sister brought me and introduced me, and I sat – and he continued to eat … and he didn’t even look at me! And I was sitting there thinking: “Well, ok, that’s all”, and I was just starting to get up to leave and I suddenly heard him say: “What are you going to do with yourself?” And I realized, he was talking to me actually, and I sat down and I looked at him and I said like an idiot of all things in the world I could have said, I said: “Well, I thought of … I am an automatic mechanism and I thought I could do a few things here and there, but I work on a film career. I thought I could do a film actor.” And he put his fork, put his knife on the plate, and he looked up and leaned forward and he said: “Why?” It was a bit funny, I started to laugh.

Oh, it was good. He was really nice to me. I asked him if he had advice for me, and he said: “Yeah … Smirnoff!” OK, agreed. And he says: “Forget everything that works, don’t start trying to transform yourself into Hercules, just take a padded jacket.”

Tell me about the characters you played in “Losies” and “Infected”.

I made “rescue” because of the kid Peter Facinelli, by Twilight. He wrote the game for me, and when I met him, he was such a big child, I couldn’t refuse him. I mean, I am a detective from New York, and he plays a pickpocket, and he gets my golden shield, and he sink in New York with a golden shield, and in a way an idiot of me in the newspapers, because I am the pretty big New York detective. So, I continue it mainly throughout the film trying to recover my shield. Vincent Gallo is in the film, and he is a great, big kid, a good actor, and it was great to have him on the set and Michael Correct did it and we filmed in the Rhode Island. The fact that he wrote the role for me, and I am not a villain in the photo – it worked well and I ended up making “Infected”, another film for the same production company.

Well, it’s a first director, Glenn Ciano, and Quentin Tarantino was a first director, and often they don’t want you to get involved in films with directors for the first time because you never know, but if you don’t give someone a chance, you never know. As if I had refused “tank dogs” because Quentin was a first director … You know, it would have been a big mistake. And so, it taught me a lesson. You never know how these things will happen, and Glenn Ciano, it was his first blow … And I had never made a photo of horror before and it was a kind of horror of a film on a family that takes place in the woods and stays in a cabin and everyone has this crazy Lyme disease that transforms everyone into cannibals. I end up having to make the shotgun with a Winchester pump.

Oh my God!

Yeah. It seemed exciting and I wanted to give Glenn a chance as a director for the first time, and it was the same production company that produced “idities “, and there was therefore no reason not to do it.

And you can shoot everyone!

Yeah, the more I receive the pump. It was a beautiful pistol, it was an older hunting rifle, it was really a very effective weapon, let’s say it this way. I do not know if you saw vice, but there was a hunting rifle action in this film – it was my idea – I rewritten the whole start, I rewritten the whole end of this film. I like hunting rifles.

Do you want to write a whole screen game? Do you want to direct?

Well, I’m going to make a film with a woman director, her name is Heather Ferreira. She worked with Quentin a few years ago, and we are taking a picture in New York, it’s called “The Little Matstick Boy”, and it is a veterinarian of Vietnam, and I am excited. I wanted to work with a director, I think it changes things a bit. I look at stuff all the time now to do and produce. I produced “vice”, and you know, most people can note it as a B-Genre film, but if you are really looking at it with attention at start-up, maybe watch it twice … a lot is happening in this film. There are many subliminal and subtle things that happen in this film which could easily be recognized because they have not been broadcast in theaters. I was really involved in places, I wrote and rewritten the beginning and the end, I threw everything. Get involved in all these other things, in addition to playing a character – it makes him much more fun. It makes me feel much more responsible for the final product. I cannot assume the responsibility for a horrible photo, that people do not take my advice on certain things, you know?

What started you to write poetry?

When I was still in Chicago, I painted houses and worked in a car washing. As I told you, I saw “Heaven Knows M. Allison”, I had to have about seventeen or eighteen years. So, I became curious about the actors and I was in a library with a friend of mine and I found myself in the biography section, so I read the biography of Clark Gable, I read the biography of Spencer Tracy. This is the first time I have read Hemingway. While I was there, I obtained for whom the penade bell, which was Hemingway, and I suppose that after having read the biographies and read the book Hemingway, I realized that I think of a lot. I started writing it. When you take pictures, you are often on an airplane or a motel, and you have a lot of stopping time, or sitting in your motorhome while waiting for something to set up, and I would just start writing poems and news and events that have occurred in my life. I never really wanted it to be a book, but I spoke to a publisher and now I just finished another – he went out in September. It’s called, Rain waiting. It is a book of photographs and news and poems. Jerry Hopkins, who wrote Jim Morrison’s biography, he wrote King Lézard – he will write the foreword.

Are there poets you love, who inspired you how Robert Mitchum inspired you as an actor?

I would say that Loren Eiseley and Hemingway were a terrible poet, but some of his books, however, his way of writing inspired me, his first things. And of course, Charlie Bukowski, you know, I can’t really think about anyone else. Robert Frost, perhaps some of them. Kerouac – I would like to play Jack in a film, but no one has ever asked me, which is confusing, because I think I would make a fairly good jack.

What would you like to do another?

To be honest with you? A long time ago, what I really wanted to do was drive to Nascar. Richard Petty was my great hero, I wanted to drive a nascar and that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I thought I was going to do. I built a few cars and I ran a few Dragsters cars in a quarter of a mile, and I driven a nascar when I got the getaway. The character of James Woods has a racing car, and we shot a few scenes at Phoenix International Raceway, and I was able to drive the Citgo Dirt-Devil Nascar. I did five laps in this thing on an open track and it was one of the strengths of my acting experience. In the third round, I made around 160 and the car is so well built and balanced that it really does all the work for you. I was so happy to be able to do that. It was so exciting. I had a lot more fun doing that I was shooting the film. I have been convinced for years that one day I will be able to take advantage of it, but as time passes, it seems less and less likely that it happens. I would like to make a film on a Nascar driver.