Rumors & Tid Bits

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Michael Madsen on holiday laughed and said he is just glad to get a break from his six "rebellious" boys during his trip to Utah.

"They're driving me crazy," Madsen said while checking in at the Hollywood Life House on Main Street. He stars in the Sundance film "Hell Ride."

It's been over a decade since he's been to the festival for his part in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." Madsen said he's glad to hang out with guys like Tarantino and Dennis Hopper again.

Hopper's publicist, however, said he was much too busy to comment for this story as she whisked him to a waiting SUV.

Madsen's "Hell Ride" co-star Eric Balfour is busy helping to promote

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The much talked about vigilante film presented by Quentin Tarantino has yet to come out theatrically, yet there is already a talk about not just a sequel, but a planned trilogy. ‘Hell Ride’ premiered at Sundance late last night, and after the film was shown, writer/director/actor Larry Bishop and co-star Michael Madsen were hinting at a franchise.


Co-star Michael Madsen tells us during an interview, “I hope this is going to be a trilogy.” In the film he plays a well-dressed biker named The Gent and it’s a role he’s looking forward to revisiting. “The Gent’s story has not been completely told.”

When we later spoke to writer-director-actor Bishop, we inquired about a possible “trilogy” and Madsen’s desire to slip back into The Gent’s skin, to which Bishop merely sat back, raised his eyebrows over his dark shades and smiled, “Absolutely.”

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Madsen refused to play victim to Bale & Blooom Feb 17, 08 Tough guys Michael Madsen fought to play the lead in new fight film Strength + Honour because he didn’t like the idea of Orlando Bloom & Christian Bale knocking him out. ...

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Movie tough guy MICHAEL MADSEN won a role in QUENTIN TARANTINO's KILL BILL by breaking into the director's Hollywood home. The actor reveals he and Tarantino fell out after working together on Reservoir Dogs and Madsen felt he'd have to resort to extreme measures to be considered for a part in the Kill Bill films. Madsen explains, "I couldn't get him on the phone so I just drove to his house. I know the gate code so I went in and I just sat by the pool for two hours and figured he's got to come home. "He saw me, said 'Michael, what are you doing here?' I said, 'Well I heard you wanted me in this picture.'" Tarantino originally offered Madsen a small role in the iconic martial arts movie, but eventually decided the tough guy would make a better Budd. Madsen adds, "I had a really small part and was only shooting for two days, but then we made up with each other and, after about a week, he actually did call me and when I got there he brought out the Kill Bill script and asked me what I thought about playing Budd. "It was obviously a bigger part. He said, 'I've already cast another actor as Budd but I'm gonna give the part to you.' He said he'd give the other actor a different role which he did."

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"I'm a leading man trapped in a bad guy's body." RESERVOIR DOGS star MICHAEL MADSEN on his reputation for playing villains.

Michael has been killed in 37 movies.

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This may have been posted before.

Actor MICHAEL MADSEN has been sued by his ex-wife for buying a top-class horse instead of paying child support, according to reports. The Sin City star allegedly bought the thoroughbred animal despite being three months behind in child support payments. Now his former wife, Jeannine Bisignano, is preparing legal action - insisting he owes around $38,000 (GBP19,000) in support for his sons Christian, 17, and Max, 13. Madsen, 49 - who also has three sons by his current wife, De Anna Morgan - allegedly bought the race horse for Morgan while in Ireland, and had it shipped to their Malibu home. But a source tells the New York Daily News, "You don't buy a horse if you're broke." Madsen's manager refused to comment.

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SF INDIEFEST REVIEW: Being Michael Madsen




The premise of a celebrity turning the tables on a paparazzo, in itself, is a cool idea for a mockumentary (but bad for an action movie, okay, Mel Gibson?) that puts the hunter/hunted connection under a microscope. But Being Michael Madsen sets its sights higher, aiming at America's entire tabloid culture instead.

Starring as himself, Madsen willingly allows himself to be the butt of the movie's in-joke: it continually refers to Madsen as a top A-list celeb hounded by the media—a farce that is continued further when the paparazzo turns into a celebrity, and the documentarians that made that happen also become an overnight celeb, ending up on the cover of Tiger Beat. It's endlessly absurd, and while it's rarely laugh-out-loud funny, every scene is beyond amusing. In a way, this movie is a tribute to Michael Madsen's fans, hilarious for its crafty creation of this alternate dimension. For the rest of the herd, it's a bizarre and unbelievable documentary—not necessarily in a bad way. The satire is simple: celebrity status in the rag-mag age is so gutter cheap that virtually anyone can become a celebrity with the right kind of story.

As the film begins, we're given a "history" of Michael Madsen's career and his subsequent legal troubles, of how in recent years, his name was besmirched by tabloid publications claiming he's a murderer. It's the classic "write something about a star often enough, and it becomes true" morality tale, but this one skips homosexuality or anorexia and goes straight to murder. Did Michael Madsen kill young up-and-coming starlet Vanessa Rappaport? To make the matter all the more confusing, the film mixes interviews with the likes of Harry Dean Stanton, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, and sister Virginia Madsen—all playing themselves, denying the charges and standing by Madsen's side—and unknown actors playing non-famous people, criticizing him as a manipulative psycho.

When the situation becomes more and more bizarro, the interviewees all keep straight faces and sell this bizarro world adamantly. The exception being Madsen himself, who coyly winks at the camera at every turn ("What happened… almost seemed like it was written," he said, smirking to the camera), but in a stroke of genius, the film proposes the idea that the whole scandal was manufactured by Madsen as a publicity stunt, so all that winking might've just been his ego showing through. The average person would be tempted to Google these charges to see if they ever actually happened, just to maintain a grasp of the real world. They would find that Vanessa Rappaport, the murdered actress, isn't even a real person.

Though you'd have to be really naive to believe for a second that any of this is real, it's fun to pretend along, and perhaps it's a requirement to pretend along to even make sense of this movie. Especially when the film goes to such efforts like getting entertainment news shows to mention this movie we're watching as a real documentary, and then including those clips in the movie as a "late minute addition." It's so meta, the only definite thing to take from all this is an image of Michael Madsen laughing his ass off.

[Madsengirl]

I wonder when this one will be released on DVD? I'm dying to see it!

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So am I. As usual there's been conflicting reports. However,i watch anything with Michael in it and form my own opinion.

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French singer/actress VANESSA PARADIS is set to make her first English-language movie - she's been cast alongside MICHAEL MADSEN in THE MIDWIFE CRISIS. Paradis, the longterm partner of Hollywood superstar Johnny Depp, has made only a handful of forays into the acting industry since winning a Cesar Award for 1989 film Noce Blanche (A White Wedding). Shooting on the film is due to start in New York in September (08), but The Midwife Crisis director Mabrouk el Mechri warns it won't be your average romantic comedy. He tells the Hollywood Reporter, "It's not your typical cheesy romantic comedy. It's not Hugh Grant. "I don't want to film New York like a tourist. No squirrels in Union Square, no zooming in from the Empire State Building to a close-up of Vanessa Paradis."

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More than just a villain
Michael Madsen’s known for playing heavies and bay guys, but that’s not all he can do



‘STRENGTH AND HONOR’









Actor Michael Madsen, the man known to millions as vicious, ear-slicing jewel thief Mr. Blonde, worries about video-game violence.

Who knew?

Madsen has built a career on playing murderous thugs in movies such as “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill.” Yet, even though he’s voiced characters in several Mature-rated video games, such as “Grand Theft Auto III,” Madsen said he’s concerned about the effect such games have on his teenage sons.

“Some of those video games are a little more violent than I realized early on … It just seems a little excessive to me,” said Madsen, whose six sons range in age from 2 to 20.

Known for his dry, raspy voice and intimidating screen presence, Madsen is full of surprises. Who would guess that he’s written four books of poetry or that, as a kid, he dreamed of becoming NASCAR’s next Richard Petty?

“I’m a leading man trapped in a bad guy’s body,” explained the 6-foot-2 actor, who appears at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival this weekend, when two of his movies are scheduled to be screened.

The son of a fireman and a writer, Madsen grew up admiring actors Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas.

“A blue-collar boy from Chicago was not likely to become a successful film actor in Hollywood, that’s for sure,” Madsen added. “I still don’t know exactly how I lucked into it.”

Most moviegoers will remember Madsen from Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” The 1992 movie includes a cringe-worthy scene in which his character, Mr. Blonde, slashes a captive police officer, cuts off his ear and douses him with gasoline.

Other well-known turns include the dad in “Free Willy,” mafioso Sonny Black in “Donnie Brasco,” a corrupt cop in “Sin City” and the sadistic Budd in Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies. One of Madsen’s recent projects, the boxing film “Strength and Honor,” earned him Best Actor at the 2007 Boston Film Festival. Writerdirector Mark Mahon won Best Film.

Talk about the two films you’ll be promoting at the film festival, starting with “Strength and Honor.”

I shot it in Ireland. It’s the story of an Irish-American prizefighter. He kills somebody in the ring in a fight. He promises his family that he’ll never box again. Two years later he finds out his son has a terrible illness and needs an operation in America … and the only way for him to make the money is to fight again. …

It’s not the usual kind of film that I’m predominately thought of to be in, unless I was the evil fighter. I really wanted the role and it took some convincing to the financiers to let me not be the antagonist. (Smasher O’Driscoll is played instead by footballerturned- actor Vinnie Jones.)

How did you get involved in the documentary about deaf-blind triplets, “Through Your Eyes”?

Well, David Carradine is a good friend of mine. He and I have made a few films together. He got involved in being asked to narrate this documentary, and … I watched a tape they made about these three little kids.

I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. … As a parent, I just really had a lot of empathy for them. …

Every once in a while, somebody will come out of the blue and ask me to do a project like that that would least be expected. And I try to rise to the occasion.

Do you constantly struggle to be considered for projects like that?

Predominately it just so happens that the films that I’ve been in that have been the most successful…were movies where I was playing some nefarious character. Nobody remembers that I was in “Free Willy” or “Wyatt Earp” or “Species.” It’s always the “Donnie Brascos” and the “Kill Bills” and the “Reservoir Dogs” that seem to have stuck in people’s minds.

Financiers … are scared about losing money. People in the studio system are afraid of losing their job by suggesting giving anybody a role that no one’s seen them do before. It’s really hard to get over that stereotyping thing. …

As soon as I show up in a comedy that’s funny that makes a lot of money, then all of a sudden maybe I won’t be able to play any villains any more. Maybe I’ll be complaining about that.

Some of your favorite leading men had the same problem.

Humphrey Bogart did 40- some films for Warner Brothers with a gun and a cigarette before he finally did “The Maltese Falcon” and everything changed for him. So I figure I still got a long time to make the switch.

The reason I bring up Bogart is he wasn’t the handsomest guy in the world. But if you look at him in “Casablanca” and look at him in “High Sierra,” there’s two completely different guys there but it’s still him. I think it’s just depends on putting a certain person in a certain circumstance. Alan Ladd, look how great he was in “Shane,” and yet Alan Ladd’s earlier roles were as gunslingers. Jack Palance had that kind of a thing. Charles Bronson.

A lot of times, bad guys will make the best heroes if they’re given just a chance to be surrounded with those circumstances in a story.

For better or worse, most people see you as Mr. Blonde.

I could probably discover a cure for cancer and I’d be in a press conference somewhere and they’d say, “That’s really great about the cancer, but what was it like working with Quentin Tarantino?”

It’s pretty mindboggling to me how this one performance I did years ago has completely isolated itself in everyone’s mind. I’ve made 72 pictures and 99 percent of the time the only one people actually want to talk to me about is “Reservoir Dogs.”

Do you ever wonder what your career would be like without Quentin Tarantino?

Obviously working with Quentin is one of the high points. … I don’t want to think that we’re close to being finished with each other. I really enjoy working with him and Robert Rodriguez.

The funny thing is that he understands me and he knows pretty much exactly what I’m going to do before I do it. And I kinda know what he wants me to do before he tells me. We just have an instantaneous understanding of each other in the approach to certain characters. His kind of material just works for me. I fit into his way of thinking. We share a love of certain old films. We find similar things that are humorous in different movies and we like the same kind of actors. …

I want to keep making pictures with him as long as he’s doing it.

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I'm so looking forward to seeing "Strength and Honor".

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Malibu Festival Honors Michael Madsen


Veteran character actor Michael Madsen will be honored at the ninth annual Malibu Film Festival, it was announced today. "Like many filmmakers, I started my adventures in independent filmmaking writing charters into my screenplays in hopes that Michael Madsen would be in the cast," said festival founder David Katz. "Michael is an inspiration to the independent film world and we are proud to honor one of Malibu’s own." As part of the ceremonies, Madsen's Strength and Honour will close the festival, screening on Sunday, April 6 at 5 p.m.

This sounds good. I like Armand Assante.

Vinnie Jones, Michael Matthias, Michael Madsen, DMX and Armand Assante are set to star in The Bleeding, a horror actioner from Indifferent Entertainment.

Charles Picerni will direct from Lance Lane's script. Shooting begins next month in North Carolina.

According to Variety, the story centers on an ex-Army Ranger searching for the killer of his parents who discovers a family of vampires in a former chemical weapons factory-turned-nightclub.

Also cast in the film are William McNamara, Pittsburgh Slim, Rachelle Leah and Kat Von D.

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Michael Madsen is angry at the delay in releasing Vice






Madsen gets mad



Michael Madsen is known for his "tough guy" image in films and the actor seemed just as menacing off-screen towards movie bosses at the premiere of his new film Vice.

Speaking on the red carpet outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, the star who played the razor-wielding, sadistic ex-con Mr Blonde in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, wasn't shy about expressing his anger about the film not coming out sooner: "We spent a year trying to get the movie released and everybody tried to sell the damn thing to DVD and just flush it down the toilet and we stuck with it and tried to get it out there for people to enjoy."





Michael added that he hadn't been bothered about having a massive glitzy celebration to mark the movie's Stateside release: "I'm just very happy that anyone showed up."

The film, which Madsen also executive produced, surrounds a drug bust operation gone awry. The actor plays Sgt Max Walker, who, Michael explained, is: "betrayed by his friends and has to solve a bad situation".

Actor Kurupt also stars in the independent flick. The former rapper revealed Michael isn't as scary as he'd have people believe: "He's the best. He's real cool, he's like a big bro. He talks to you, he gives you a lot of game, and a lot of love."

The film is written by Raul Inglis, who revealed Madsen was instrumental in getting Daryl Hannah to sign up, saying: "He just made a phone call and Daryl was on board."

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Gun guy Michael Madsen seeks his redemption in Vice

He’s cut off a cop’s ear in Reservoir Dogs, buried Uma Thurman alive in Kill Bill, and even kissed Susan Sarandon without flinching in Thelma & Louise, but this time Michael Madsen swears things are different with his new film, Vice. “Sure…I’ve fired some weapons in my life, yeah,” he tells the Georgia Straight on a film-set phone.

In Vice, Madsen plays Max Walker, a cop who’s haunted by the memory of his dead wife. A drug bust goes awry and Walker’s partners start getting killed off, one by one. With no obvious suspects, Walker looks to his own people for the killer.

“For me, the story is about redemption,” Madsen says. “When I first read it, it seemed like a predictable cop story, but then I figured that it was a bit deeper and darker than that…I thought maybe if I could get more involved as a producer…we could turn it into a bigger story than just a cop movie.”

Raul Inglis, Vice’s Vancouver-based writer-director, sent the script to Madsen’s manager, hoping for the best. He lucked out when Madsen agreed to jump aboard as a producer and star. One of the perks of doing so, Madsen explains, is that he was able to get a lot more involved in how the film would turn out.

“When you’re talent, you just come in and you do your scenes and you leave, and you have absolutely no say over anything.” But once Madsen got involved on a bigger level, many things changed. “We changed the ending of the script. And I got to get involved in the casting. I had casting approval for certain roles. I brought Daryl Hannah into the movie and I was able to get the director of photography, Andrzej Sekula [Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction].”

Taking hold of the producer reins also meant that Madsen’s wish to become more than just an on-screen tough guy is coming closer to fruition.

“I really don’t want to be 75 years old with a cigarette and a gun,” he laments. “I’ve played a lot of tough guys that aren’t redemptive…a lot of tough guys that don’t have a conscience, and I think that it’s an altogether different ball game this time.”

When asked about Quentin Tarantino’s comments from another interview, wherein he said that Madsen’s character in Kill Bill remains an incredibly likable guy despite doing horrible things, Madsen becomes more reflective. He acknowledges that audiences need redemptive qualities in their tough guys.

“But I don’t think redemption is an actable quality,” he says. “I think you either embody it or understand it or you don’t.” Judging by his on-screen history of violent acts, Madsen may have the chops necessary to play a character primed for change.