Michael Madsen left this world on July 3, 2025, at the age of 67. The burly, intimidating, gruff-voiced character actor was a staple of films both large and small, for over 40 years, though best known for his frequent collaborations with Quentin Tarantino. Having appeared in 300+ films and television series over the course of his career, Madsen was one of the most prolific performers of his, or any, generation. While his contributions to cinema are immeasurable, we at Cinepunx have assembled a group of writers, podcasters, and cinephiles from across the internet to celebrate Madsen the best way we know how – through the iconic and memorable roles he inhabited, and the impact they had on us all.
Michael Viers remembers Racing with the Moon (1984)
Director: Richard Benjamin/Role: “Frank”
Richard Benjamin’s Racing with the Moon is a coming-of-age film set during World War II that follows two young men, played by Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage, as they await their draft into the U.S. Marines. Together, they must confront the challenges of leaving childhood behind and saying goodbye to each other. Michael Madsen gives a truly sympathetic performance in Racing with the Moon. This isn’t what instantly comes to mind for many moviegoers when we envision the intimidating tough guy, but he’s more Michael Madsen than ever.
Sean Penn’s character, Henry Nash, is trying to impress Elizabeth McGovern’s Caddie with a poorly timed joke; he shows up at the library where she works, covered in fake blood from a routine drill for all the future nurses. He thinks it’s funny; she doesn’t. She knows he needs to grow up a little before going off to war. Caddie takes Henry to the veteran wing at a local hospital, and Henry meets Frank, played coolly by Madsen.
“Have any Hammett?” he asks while Henry hands out books. Henry has never actually had to face the reality of war, and the jokes he’s made about being shipped off now fall flat in the presence of those who have sacrificed so much. Frank, however, doesn’t like being put on a pedestal. Henry keeps calling him “sir”, to which Frank quickly shuts it down. “How old do you think I am?” he asks. “I’m twenty-two. You call everyone who’s twenty-two ‘sir’?” Henry is at a loss for words, and Frank sees him staring at where his leg used to be. “Go ahead, look at it,” he says before revealing the bandaged stump. “I do”.
Madsen has very little to say in this scene, but he commands it. He brings that Madsen magic to the role—still intimidating in his own way—but serves as a cautionary tale to this young, naive kid who hasn’t yet allowed the gravity of being called up for war to fully sink in. This scene is one of the most memorable in the entire film because of how Penn’s character now has a completely new perspective on war and what his future might hold. I can’t imagine anyone but Michael Madsen doing it justice.
Before I wrap this up, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a small, personal story I have with Michael Madsen. Back in 2013, I was lucky enough to meet him at the March HorrorHound Weekend in Cincinnati, OH. I was excited to meet him, but I was equally excited to get his autograph for my movie-obsessed midwestern mother, who has been a big fan for a long time. She also thinks he’s attractive, so there’s that. When I finally got through the line, I got him to sign an 8×1,0 and I mentioned how big of a fan my mom is. Without missing a beat, he looks right at me with his icy, cool stare and asks, “Is she hot?”. “I don’t know how to answer that,” I said. “But she likes that you have small lips.” He smiled, signed my photo, and we took a picture. It was awesome.
Michael Viers is a filmmaker, podcaster, and editor from Milwaukee. He is the producer and co-host of the Shame List Picture Show podcast, and texting buddies with Lloyd Kaufman (humble brag).
Director: Ridley Scott/Role: “Jimmy Lennox”
WYNTER: I was 11 when Thelma and Louise revved into theaters and off the cliff into our hearts and minds forever. What I remember most about the film’s promotion and release was, first, the hype around the stars Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. Both would sail on to the Oscars, both up for Best Actress for imbuing the characters’ vulnerability and verve note-perfect from Callie Khouri’s script. Tonally, a drama-thriller, the film has moments of levity and sentimentality that dampen the doom (or the glory) of its ending. Second memory: The Today Show and Entertainment Tonight fervor over an upstart Brad Pitt. Freed from horror B-flicks and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it roles, finally poised to break out as the playboy grifter who steals Thelma’s heart and getaway money.
LUCE: The banal cruelty of daily misogyny and objectification punctuates every scene of Thelma and Louise. Even when the main abusers are dispensed of, men are always watching, leering, from a sweaty bench at a gas station, the cockpit of a crop duster, or the cab of a big-rig driving alongside our titular outlaws at 110 MPH. Their presence and gaze always lingers, threatening even when passive. Even the cops in this flick flip listlessly through porno mags, consuming women’s bodies before they give chase.
This collection of sinister dirtbags positions Michael Madsen’s dimpled, clean-shaven, smartly dressed Jimmy in the rare-ish role of the good guy, or at least, the good guy dirtbag. As a failed musician and Louise’s long-term boyfriend, Jimmy hops a flight with $6600 for her (albeit uninvited), while Thelma’s husband is out all night and still doesn’t even know the women have skipped town.
WYNTER: Enmeshed in the buzz and accolades for a scene-chewing Chris McDonald and Harvey Keitel, playing against “type” as a sympathetic cop, was a quieter, more grounded performance from Michael Madsen as Jimmy, Louise’s estranged boyfriend. From her first panicked phone call to their last glance, you witness their relationship as complicated, volatile, and deeply felt. Shot in saturated, eye-burning tints and hues, Ridley Scott paints Jimmy and Thelma as gritty and rough around the edges, only softening when they’re together. It’s an atypical star pairing, but a deeply realistic portrayal of the kind of love that lives on the fringes: wounded, loyal, and hard to walk away from.
LUCE: Lest Thelma, or the audience, start to swoon, Louise is quick to chide, ”He’s no different than any other guy. He just loves the chase.” Yet Madsen’s Jimmy does acutely stand out as different from the other men we see skulking around this story. Not only is he neat and well-coiffed, but Madsen employs his signature twinkly, squinty eyes to convey naked emotion beyond hostile machismo. In his limited screen time, he oozes sadness and disappointment rather than malice and Machiavellian mischief – traits common to the other male characters in the film, as well as the types of characters Madsen was traditionally cast as.
Here, he’s not immune to outbursts of violence, but they are misdirected rather than calculated, and he IS the only guy who ever issues one of our girls an apology. “Think you’re the only one with dreams that didn’t work out?” Jimmy pleads with Louise, forehead wrinkling desperately, hoping she’ll take his engagement ring rather than his money.
WYNTER: Madsen’s worry and concern bleeds through Jimmy’s tough exterior. In a film filled with rebellion and chaos, his scenes offer something tender and haunting. He plays a man who doesn’t know what exactly is going on with the woman he loves, but shows up anyway with flowers and a ring and a heart too bruised to say the right thing. He’s the film’s port in a storm. More known for playing menacing, hard-boiled characters, it was his soft energy that was ever-present, humming beneath the surface. Learning that Madsen was originally offered the role of the rapist and instead chose to play Jimmy says everything. He understood the power of shifting convention and taking the road less traveled.
LUCE: Watching Brad Pitt as the bank robber hustling Thelma with a wolfish smile in the hotel room next door makes Madsen’s hangdog expression even more attractive. The kiss shared between Jimmy and Louise doesn’t have the spark of Thelma’s ill-fated one-night stand, but it has the knowing depth of long-term love, or at least dependable comfort – both of which are in short supply in their lives.
“Jeeze Jimmy, what did you do, take a pill to make you say all the right things?” Louise cracks with a playful smile. “Yeah,” Jimmy sighs, “I’m choking on it.” Eyebrows peaked and eyes barely open, his classic expression, Madsen is dripping with such regret and longing that even the diner waitress can feel it after Jimmy leaves Louise behind.
Is broken-down sadness the best behavior you can expect from a man in their world? Perhaps it’s Jimmy’s impotency that kept him front and center in Louise’s life for so long, but when faced with incarceration or worse, sparkly-eyed melancholy is no longer enough. It’s not enough that he’s not cruel because Jimmy’s not a hero either, and while his bare minimum does look like roses in this portrait of male scorn, Louise can’t sacrifice more than she already has for him. Perhaps the most heroic thing Jimmy does is accept that knowingly and with grace.
In a story about the threat that men pose to women, Jimmy certainly stands out memorably as safe and dependable. He might not be the good guy, but when the bar is in hell, it’s a delight to see Madsen play angelic.
WYNTER: Madsen brought that quiet ache to every role, but Jimmy remains one of his most understated and affecting. His presence reminds us what it means to stay, even when staying is only a fleeting possibility. Like Thelma and Louise itself, Madsen is now immortalized in celluloid. A Hollywood classic within a Hollywood classic. RIP to a King.
Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh is a digital strategist, freelance writer, and podcaster in Los Angeles. She is the former host of the Waiting to X-hale podcast, and has been featured in Cosmopolitan and on NPR.
Jason Kleeberg and Drew McWeeny remember Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Director: Quentin Tarantino/Role: “Vic Vega/Mr. Blonde”
JASON: When Reservoir Dogs premiered at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival, it announced the arrival of Quentin Tarantino – a cocksure filmmaker with zero self-doubt. But that wasn’t the only revelation the film thrust upon us. At the center of Tarantino’s ode to his influences stood one memorable character amongst a cast full of incredible talent – Michael Madsen’s Mr. Blonde – a character so calm and cool, yet so terrifyingly unpredictable that he seared his mark into our brains, redefining the role of the on-screen psychopath going forward.
DREW: Michael Madsen was by no means a new actor when he appeared in Reservoir Dogs. Part of the reason he connected was because he had been a working character actor long enough by that point to have earned a gravitas he never had when he was young. There was a weight to the menace that he exuded in every scene, and he didn’t overplay it at all. If anything, it was the quiet that made him so scary.
JASON: Pre-Reservoir Dogs, Madsen was a working actor with memorable, modest parts in films – The Natural, Thelma & Louise, The Doors come to mind…but nothing quite prepared audiences for the ice-cold detachment he displayed as Mr. Blonde. In a film known for its signature Tarantino dialogue, his character didn’t need to say much to put everyone on edge. “Are you going to bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?”
DREW: But the reaction to his most iconic moment was different, and it’s both the moment that gave Madsen the rest of his career and the moment that put Tarantino on the map. Mr. Blonde begins to torture the cop that they’ve taken hostage, played by Kirk Baltz. The cop’s tied to a chair, already in bad shape, but as Blonde begins to enjoy himself, it becomes clear that things are about to get much, much worse for this poor sonofabitch. When Blonde pulled out that straight razor, the audience in the theater went silent. It felt like the film leveled up. And then the master stroke of having Blonde turn on “Stuck In The Middle With You” and dancing to it before he actually uses the razor? Brilliant. It is so absurd, so strange, and yet Madsen somehow sells it as a real thing that Blonde would do to enjoy himself. We don’t need to see the actual cutting of the ear. The horror is the feeling that we’ve left the land of rules and entered a world where any terrible thing can happen. It’s a feeling Tarantino has chased in film after film, and I’m not surprised he brought Madsen back as a collaborator as many times as he did.
After all, Quentin may have had the idea for the scene, and he may have directed it, but it was Michael Madsen’s swagger and charisma that made it impossible to look away, no matter how terrified we were.
JASON: While Reservoir Dogs didn’t catapult Madsen into higher profile roles like I thought it would, it certainly defined his career leading to tons of film roles (over 300), but almost all of them lead back to Mr. Blonde – dangerous men with an unsettling calm. Instead of shying away from being typecast, he leaned into it, and it certainly paid off for him and for audiences.
In the decades since Reservoir Dogs, many have tried to replicate Madsen’s sadistic swagger, including me in my first short film…and like me, most have failed. Mr. Blonde wasn’t just a character; he was a benchmark. When he cut off that ear, he smirked and said, “Hey, what’s goin’ on? Can you hear that?” into it.
We all heard.
Jason Kleeberg is a Blacklist screenwriter and podcaster from the Bay Area. He hosts the Force Five podcast, which invites guests from all walks of life to talk about the movies they love.
Drew McWeeny is a writer, film critic, and podcaster from Los Angeles. He publishes the popular newsletter, Formerly Dangerous, and hosts the podcast, The Hip Pocket.
Billy Ray Brewton remembers Free Willy (1993)
Director: Simon Wincer/Role: “Glen Greenwood”
Hollywood didn’t really know what to do with Michael Madsen in the 90s. Reservoir Dogs made him one of the most intimidating and chilling on-screen characters of all time, but Madsen seemed determined not to be pigeon-holed. After all, his role in Thelma & Louise was something entirely different – he was sweet, vulnerable, sexy, and quietly devastating. Flash forward to later in the decade, and he’s being pushed as both a leading action man and a hardened tough guy, in equal measure. Free Willy falls somewhere in the middle, where Madsen stars as “Glen Greenwood”, the owner of an auto shop, and the new foster father to the film’s protagonist, “Jesse” (Jason James Richter). For an entire generation of young movie lovers, myself included, Madsen was sort of the perfect screen dad – patient, understanding, yet firm, and set in his ways when it comes to right and wrong. His tenderness in this film is unexpected, and he really does create a full, complicated character from very little in terms of source material. After all, people don’t think about Free Willy with mulling over the great screenplays of the decade.
And that was the thing about Michael Madsen – the range. It was never something he was given enough credit for, whilst alive, but it separated him from so many of his contemporaries. Later in his career, he was relegated to the same sorts of roles – villains, heavies, weirdos – but was never more exciting than when he just played real people. As much good as Tarantino did for his career, it also limited him to an extent, as those higher profile roles turned him into a bit of a ‘known quantity’, when that was so far removed from the truth. Madsen was spontaneous, unpredictable, and a bolt of lightning just waiting to strike, whether it was during a scene torturing a police officer, or a scene in a car talking about life with a young boy in Free Willy. There’s a wisdom there; a knowingness. Failing Michael Madsen later in his career is on us, and Hollywood. He deserved more opportunities. Free Willy might not be the best film Michael Madsen starred in, but it’s one of the most unique, and a testament to his screen powers.
Billy Ray Brewton is a filmmaker, podcaster, and writer from Los Angeles. His written work can be found at Cinepunx and Film Festival Today, and he can be heard regularly on the Screen Drafts podcast.
Blake Howard remembers The Getaway (1994)
Director: Roger Donaldson/Role: “Rudy Travis”
Roger Donaldson’s The Getaway is a sleazy, sex-sweat-coated remake of Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill’s original (itself adapted from Jim Thompson). Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw’s off-screen chemistry and subsequent affair famously led to her divorce from Robert Evans. Their mid-90s stand-ins, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, exploit their burgeoning lust for our lurid pleasure, among a cast thick with era-defining character actors — James Woods, Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Morse, and Richard Farnsworth. But it’s Michael Madsen who scorches through the film’s grime and gloom.
Just two years removed from his tour-de-force as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs, Madsen slinks into frame dressed like a human hazard sign — dyed-red mullet, oversized shirts, tight denim, the scent of violence clinging to every glance. Cast as a minor scumbag, he emerges as the film’s chaotic centre. His chemistry with Jennifer Tilley’s Fran — all nervous laughter and bruised longing — moves from sleaze to menace and eventually to something genuinely disquieting.
Madsen had that rare ability to seduce the screen without softening it. Even in scenes that border on exploitation, he radiates a kind of wounded authority, the magnetism of a man whose pleasure is indistinguishable from destruction. His scenes teeter between pulp fantasy and psychological hardball.
Perched, wounded in the back seat of Harold’s car – hot on the heels of Doc (Baldwin) and Carol (Baisnger) – he starts an impromptu food fight in Harold’s car. When Fran asks why he’s behaving so erratically, he delivers the line — “Because it makes me feel good” — like a benediction. It’s less a confession than an ethos: the very fuel of his on-screen fire. Later, in a pit stop, Harold is bound in a tile echo chamber of a motel bathroom, forced to endure the once demure Fran expel animal moans of satisfaction in her, ‘sacrifice’. When Harold shimmies and wriggles to leer at the source, Madsen taunts him with modesty. The improvised threats, the guttural laughs — they mark Madsen not merely as villain, but as avatar of the film’s own bad conscience. You know you shouldn’t want to watch. But you do. Madsen is infectious.
Michael Madsen died in Malibu of heart failure at 67 — a number that feels premature only because he always seemed to be chasing a kind of forever. To paraphrase Garry Shandling: “67” and “young” only belong in the same sentence when someone’s gone. Madsen knew that tomorrow was never promised. That’s why you watched him like he might not be there next time.
Blake Howard is a film critic, podcaster, and producer based in Sydney, Australia. He runs One Heat Minute Productions and writes for Empire Magazine, among other outlets.
Jason Shawhan remembers Species (1995)
Director: Roger Donaldson/Role: “Preston “Press” Lennox”
There was something in the zeitgeist in mid-to-late ‘90s horror, where beloved character actors got lead roles battling monsters, that just doesn’t really seem to happen all that often anymore. It was a magical Michael Madsen moment when 1995’s Species came around (and echoed a couple years later for Tom Sizemore in The Relic), and all of a sudden we got that charisma battling an unholy sex-monster from beyond. Making his entrance while entrusting his cat (Lorca! The cat’s name is Lorca) to a neighbor, we’re already off balance, because this Miami Vice-dressin’ mercenary is a unique kind of cat owner – what kind of things does Press (that’s his name. Press) have in his home that he doesn’t trust his cat there by itself?
This is a guy who is proficient at his work, and as such, it makes sense that Madsen is giving us Manhunter-era Will Graham vibes, because he is giving us Michael Mann leading man energy. It’s interesting the way he plays the physicality of the role, often distancing himself from the rest of the crew when he’s doing hardcore merc shit, but also incorporating weird production design into the moment – he has a little flourish with a bowl of hospital candy that indicates the kind of excavation that you like from an actor, especially one still willing to show the groceries if it’s necessary to the plot. (It is; he does.) He’s giving earthy pragmatism, with Orbisonian jet-black hair that devours most of the light that enters its gravitational pull.
He’s ideal in this rogue’s gallery of scientists and freaks (particularly when playing off Forest Whitaker at full benevolent unhinged), and it’s a testament to him and Marg Helgenberger (OG China Beach fans represent) that their dalliance doesn’t feel obligatory or tacky, but rather like a pleasant moment of liberation. When Whitaker (“I feel things”) explains to Press that Helgenberger’s character wants him to come up to her room, it’s a throwaway moment that carries some genuine emotional resonance.
The best Madsen roles always find a way to thwart expectations (see also Thelma & Louise), and it’s one of the many joys of Species that he takes a stock archetype and finds all manner of side facets to spice up the proceedings. It’s a shame to see him go, because he really was one of the greats. And as a side note to why streaming will never replace physical media, Tubi streams this film in a cropped 16:9 aspect ratio, which means you’ll have to dig deep in the storage closet for your DVD because we haven’t settled the whole aspect ratio issue for thirty years now.
Jason Shawhan is a film critic and programmer from Nashville. His written work can be found in Nashville Scene, and he is the co-host of the Fearless Pretender podcast.
Ryan Luis Rodriguez remembers Die Another Day (2002)
Director: Lee Tamahori/Role: “Damian Falco”
I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that 2002’s Die Another Day is a great film. Or even a good one. In fact, it’s probably not only the nadir of Pierce Brosnan’s four-picture tenure as Ian Fleming’s globally popular MI-6 spy, James Bond, but the nadir of the entire franchise. Some would argue Spectre fills that role. Those people are wrong. But there are a few things in it that work. Halle Berry’s performance as the requisite Bond girl, Jinx, was so popular in post-production that M-G-M put a spin-off of her character into development (it never went anywhere), but what is under appreciated is Michael Madsen as Jinx’s superior at the NSA, the delightfully monikered Damian Falco, a name that could only fly in a Bond movie. Madsen is barely on screen for most of the picture. In fact, he gets more screen time in the following year’s VH1 anthology I Love the ’70s, which, to be fair, he steals by partially reciting the Oscar Meyer Wiener jingle, for what it’s worth. Of his time on screen, most of it is on a computer monitor, chiding the British government for not doing its part in the plot’s skirmish.
But, although the picture is, at best, a Gentleman’s 3, Madsen never fires a false note. He has a gravitas and presence that had been previously unseen from the requisite American in Bond movie history (mostly Felix Leiter, a character so underused and forgettable throughout Bond’s first twenty films that he was played by a different actor virtually every time and nobody batted an eye; this all changed with Jeffrey Wright’s portrayal in the Daniel Craig films, although I would argue he too was underutilized there).
Considering that Halle Berry’s proposed spin-off would feature backstory involving Madsen’s character recruiting her to the agency and then, in present day, giving her assignments much like M would issue to 007, it’s a shame the project never went anywhere. Madsen deserved a recurring role, or at least a greater presence in the franchise, but the only actor to make the transition between the Brosnan and Craig eras of the franchise was Judi Dench, and it’s a shame. I actually think he could work better as a foil to Craig than Brosnan. They both have an energy and steeliness that is undeniable, and if anybody could intimidate this cold-blooded killer (depending on how hardcore the film goes), it would be Madsen.
It’s all a matter of the road not traveled, and I for sure could have traversed that road for another twenty films, no matter who wielded the license to kill.
Ryan Luis Rodriguez is a film critic and podcaster based in San Jose. He hosts the One Track Mind podcast and co-hosts the Reels of Justice podcast.
Darren Franich and Trey Lawson remember Kill Bill (2003/2004)
Director: Quentin Tarantino/Role: “Budd”
LAWSON: I was on the verge of graduating from high school when Kill Bill Vol. 2 hit theaters. The previous film was, I think, my first Tarantino – certainly first on a big screen – but over the months in between, I tracked down and devoured his previous films. It was through this lens, in the Quentin Tarantino repertory ensemble, that I first encountered the screen persona of Michael Madsen. However, Kill Bill Vol. 2 subverted all of my teenage expectations, both in terms of its overall narrative and especially in Madsen’s performance as Budd.
FRANICH: The cowboy sits in a trailer in the desert. Spitting tobacco into a coffee tin. Day-drinking schnapps from the bottle. Laughing about selling his priceless katana in El Paso for 250 dollars. “I’m a bouncer in a titty bar,” he says. Michael Madsen is Budd. Budd is a loser.
LAWSON: As “Budd”, Madsen brings something like the menace of “Mr. Blonde”, but here it is tempered by loss, regret, and even a degree of introspection. Kill Bill Vol. 2 spends much of its first act showing us Budd’s life after the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, in all of its squalor. It would have been easy for Madsen to play a more mustache-twirling villain, but instead, he shows what a pathetic man Budd has become. Also, while this isn’t a film overly concerned with conscience or morality, Budd is the only one who openly expresses anything like guilt (even if in an equivocal sort of way).
FRANICH: Shocking stuff in 2004, when Kill Bill: Vol. 2 arrived. 12 years after Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Blonde was still an obvious Top 3 pick for Coolest Quentin Tarantino Character. The actor’s raspy behemoth cool was earning him series-lead gigs on broadcast networks, a James Bond bit part, and a Grand Theft Auto III voice role. Kill Bill’s epic first half climaxed with a massive battle in an awesome nightclub. Budd never fights anyone. No choreography, no duels. His shotgun just fires rock salt. People call him a “shitkicker” and “a bushwacking scrub alky piece of shit.” He is a penniless man in an empty strip club. He has a mullet.
Uma Thurman will bring action, blades, horror homage, and cultural dissertation. For ten marvelous minutes, though, Kill Bill is the greatest Michael Madsen star vehicle a filmmaker ever lovingly curated for Michael Madsen. He looks noble in a tank top, grand in a parking lot. He makes David Carradine, Bill’s majestic Bill, seem rather fretful or desperate. Budd doesn’t run from guilt. “That woman deserves her revenge,” he says, “And we deserve to die.”
LAWSON: Budd’s scenes in Kill Bill Vol. 2 notably don’t culminate in an intricately choreographed fight. Instead, as his sadness gives way to something more cold and calculating, Madsen reveals a range I didn’t know he had and leaves us with one of the most complex and ambiguous characters in this world of jet-setting martial arts assassins.
FRANICH: This guy’s no good. He will bury the Bride alive. Still, you love him. Madsen’s low-key humanity carves soul into Kill Bill’s aesthetic hysteria. This killer has layers, mystery. (Why does he lie about his Hanzo sword?) I’m convinced when Budd nails the Bride into a coffin, he knows she’ll escape. His offer of a flashlight a coded message, maybe a respectful challenge.
I’ll never forget the ruined look on Madsen’s face when the strip club boss tells Budd to take off his Stetson. That white hat tells you who Budd wants to be, like his Johnny Cash record and his Charles Bronson poster. Madsen could go there: Tough, smirkish, cynical, Bad Ass. In Kill Bill, he’s all that — and he’s fixing toilets. It’s the saddest performance in any Tarantino movie, maybe the loneliest. But Madsen’s got a twinkle. His eyes shine bright and secret like the light glinting off an old sword in a golf bag in a trailer in a ruined place called the West.
Darren Franich is a film critic and podcaster based in Los Angeles. Formerly of Entertainment Weekly, Darren publishes the Draftland Scene newsletter on Substackd, and is a frequent guest on Screen Drafts.
Trey Lawson is a critic, academic, and sometimes actor from South Carolina who hosts the podcast, Tomb of Ideas: A Marvel Horror Podcast with his friend, James Hickson.
Ryan Verrill remembers Sin City (2005)
Director: Robert Rodriguez/Role: “Detective Bob”
Hell of a way to end a partnership.
When I got word that Michael Madsen had passed, one of the first pieces from his filmography that I thought of was the incredibly stylish Sin City (2005). Madsen plays Bob, who has an extended history with Bruce Willis’ Hartigan. In a film that lived to fit as much unique Frank Miller imagery into every single frame, such as this, Madsen is somehow still able to come across as a rock-solid foundation of charisma. His scenes with Willis are mostly played for Bruce to take the majority of the attention from the viewer, but it is Madsen’s exasperated visage that draws my eye. Things like his cracked and decaying glasses are a key into his character’s heart- he has seen it all and has simply grown cold to the world around him.
In his climactic scene with Willis, Madsen really turns it up to 100, using cliche phrases like “Sit down, stay down” to implore Hartigan to follow his directions. What really got to me here is the sinister way he goes from speaking with Hartigan to a little girl actively being traumatized on this pier by the deplorable acts happening in front of her. It -HAD- to be Michael Madsen; his voice, his demeanor, his wincing as he pulls the trigger on Willis AGAIN… The end of this scene has Willis say, “An old man dies, a little girl lives, fair trade.”
Something about Madsen made it seem like he was going to live forever. He always happened to show up when you least expected, right in time to make a movie better. He always had a line of dialogue that felt snarky enough to be charismatic and JUST miss the line of being an asshole (unless he was meant to be one).
And now, that can’t happen anymore. I feel robbed.
This isn’t a fair trade at all.
Ryan Verrill is a podcaster, producer, and physical media juggernaut based in Missouri. He runs a YouTube channel, The Disc-Connected, and created The Physical Media Advocate.
DeVaughn Taylor remembers Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Director: David Zucker/Role: “Oliver”
The thing I love about character actors is that they don’t seek out the spotlight because they know it will find them. Michael Madsen never had to fight for attention; we, as an audience,e were always lured in by his signature gravely voice and aura of mystery. Madsen appeared in over 300 films, not for the money, but because he loved to work and he loved to play. While all the various tributes to his performances in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill are great, I was taken aback by the tributes made by those that worked with him on smaller movies or his less popular roles. Many would gush about his humility and professionalism that he brought to every set, whether it was a debut for a first-time director or a sequel in a series of parody movies. Which brings me to the performance I wanted to highlight: his brief appearance as Oliver in Scary Movie 4.
The Scary Movie franchise has never been known for its esteemed acting performances, but has had its share of legendary actors appearing to have a little fun. Madsen appears for less than 5 minutes in the War of the Worlds portion of the film. The film utilizes Madsen’s dark edge demeanor to its advantage, making for hilarious juxtaposition as he delivers ridiculous dialogue with 100% sincerity. No role was ever beneath Madsen, even this one where he shovels dirt with his mouth. Madsen was always known for his tough guy persona that many films had him play, so there’s something special about his Scary Movie 4 performance, where we get to see him have fun being goofy. There’s a shot of him doing a silly smile at a gay porn magazine gag that I don’t think I’ve seen him do in any other film.
Michael Madsen will always be remembered for Mr. Blonde, Jimmy Lennox, and, of course, the cowboy assassin Bud. He brought gravitas, danger, and a sense of cool to so many roles over his 4-decade career. And yet, if I had to pick a performance that I think shows Madsen’s dedication to the craft of acting, it’s him giggling at an alien humping a vacuum. Work was never work to him; he got to wake up and play pretend, which obviously brought him immense joy. Every time I watch his menacing dance sequence in Reservoir Dogs, I’ll be thinking of the goofball with a heart of gold behind the performance. There will never be another Michael Madsen
DeVaughn Taylor is a podcaster based in Los Angeles. His podcast, Specter Cinema Club, explores various horror sub-genres with special guests from the spooky community.
Austin Proctor remembers The Hateful Eight (2016)
Director: Quentin Tarantino/Role: “Joe Gage/”Grouch” Douglass”
When I heard the news of Michael Madsen’s passing, I felt a twinge of guilt — his name was so familiar, yet I could not immediately picture his face. A quick IMDb search changed that instantly. There he was: the unforgettable presence from Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Sin City, and hundreds of other films. I realized I had not seen much of his work, but every time he showed up on screen, I enjoyed watching him. One performance that always stuck with me was his role in The Hateful Eight — so let’s talk about that.
Michael Madsen’s role as Joe Gage in The Hateful Eight is low-key but loaded with tension. While most of the cast gets to chew scenery and fire off Tarantino’s trademark monologues, Madsen stays quiet, keeping his cards close to his chest. And somehow, that makes him even more unsettling. As Gage—the gruff, mysterious cowboy who claims he is just trying to get home for Christmas—Madsen brings this steady, unreadable energy. He barely raises his voice, rarely breaks expression, and yet there is always this sense that he might snap at any second. It is a slow burn, and he plays it like a guy who is always listening, always waiting for the right moment.
Tarantino clearly knows how to use Madsen: not as a scene-stealer, but as a presence. He lurks more than he performs, letting other characters light the fuse while he waits in the shadows for it to burn down. And when things finally pop off, his restrained performance makes the reveal land even harder. It is not the flashiest role in the film, but it is one that holds weight—and Madsen plays it exactly right: tough, quiet, dangerous. Classic Madsen.
Austin Proctor is a filmmaker and podcaster based in Florida. He hosts the Frightmares podcast and is a frequent guest on the Shame List Picture Show podcast.
BJ Colangelo remembers The Wrong Neighbor (2017)
Director: Sam Irvin/Role: “Coach “Jaws” Jaworski”
David DeCoteau’s Lifetime “Wrongaverse” typically features Vivica A. Fox, but The Wrong Neighbor, not only swaps Sam Irvin into the director’s chair but trades Fox’s celebrity star power for Michael Madsen. The film centers on a recently separated father and his teenage daughter who fall prey to the obsessive fantasies of their new neighbor — a dangerously unhinged woman determined to become their wife and mother by any means necessary. It’s familiar suburban exploitation territory for Lifetime, but with a few unforgettable detours.
Michael Madsen makes a brief, but oddly memorable appearance as Coach Jaws, a crotchety high school swim coach whose presence is more cryptic than consequential. While he’s only in a handful of scenes, Madsen brings his signature mix of menace and gravitas — even when barking swim drills. It’s a small role, sure, but in a career filled with curious choices outside Tarantino’s orbit, this one feels less like a paycheck and more like a wink at the camera. His name looms large on the posters, but his role is anything but; still, for Madsen completists, it’s a must. Even in a smaller role than what fans are used to seeing him play, he gives it his all. He’s a lot like Eric Roberts in Stalked by My Doctor in that regard.
This schlocky, campy thriller is worth highlighting because it’s one of the best showcases of Madsen’s uncanny ability to elevate every film he appears in. While it’s not his movie, it’s worth tipping the hat to Madsen. Even in a glorified cameo of a role, he brings a magnetic screen presence few others can. Yeah, sure, it’s not Reservoir Dogs, but it’s fun watching him in a setting this absurd. I have no idea why Madsen signed onto this film, because his caliber and resume is almost like he wandered onto the wrong set and decided to join in on the fun.
And honestly? The film’s better for it.
BJ Colangelo is an award-winning filmmaker and the Lead Evening News Editor at /Film. Her work has been featured in Fangoria and Vulture, among others, and she co-hosts the This Ends at Prom podcast.
