Legitimate tough guy Michael Madsen made a name for himself playing gun-toting psychopaths, but the versatile stage-trained actor can slip on the white hat too as he did for the "Free Willy" franchise, playing the good guy foster father. He spent two years apprenticing at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre under the direction of John Malkovich before getting his first big break, saying a few lines in his feature debut, "WarGames" (1983). Relocated in L.A., he landed small roles in TV (Edward Zwick's Emmy-winning "Special Bulletin", NBC 1983) and films ("Racing With the Moon" and "The Natural" both 1984) and established enough of a persona with his steady diet of bit parts as the heavy to earn the role of Augie Danzig, the murderous son of a crime lord (Eli Wallach) on the short-lived ABC series "Our Family Honor" (1985-86). Although his turn as the understanding boyfriend of Susan Sarandon in Ridley Scott's "Thelma & Louise" (1991) raised his profile substantially, it was his role as the psychotic killer in John Dahl's "Kill Me Again" (1989) that caught the eye of Quentin Tarantino and led to his true breakthrough performance.
Madsen was sensational in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), prancing to the classic 70s tune "Stuck in the Middle with You" while slicing the ear off a bound and gagged policeman. He looked surprisingly at home throwing a football with his 12-year old foster son in "Free Willy" (1993) but took willingly to the part of Rudy, the kitten-loving sociopathic killer in the remake of "The Getaway" (1994), starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. Madsen put away his pistol for "Free Willy 2" (1995) but strapped on a holster as the oldest Earp brother in Lawrence Kasdan's ponderous "Wyatt Earp" (also 1994), played the trained assassin hired to locate an escaped alien in "Species" (1995) and portrayed the rakish member of the Hat Squad in the disappointing "Mulholland Falls" (1996). He provided able support to Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as Mafia hood Sonny Black in "Donnie Brasco" (1997) and reprised his role in the sequel "Species II" (1998). The actor once again tackled series TV as Mr. Chapel, a man with no first name, no past and no gun who crafts unique punishments for criminals who have outsmarted the legal system in the ABC drama "Vengeance Unlimited" (1998-99).
In 2002, Madsen joined Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry for the much anticipated James Bond feature "Die Another Day," directed by Lee Tamahori, playing CIA Agent Damian Falco, redefining Bond's relationship with his American counterparts. After a brief succession of roles in lower-grade fare, Madsen next resurfaced in a high-profile way when he collaborated again with Quentin Tarantino for "Kill Bill, Vol. 1" (2003) and "Kill Bill, Vol. 2" (2004) as Budd, one of the team of assassins marked for retribution by The Bride (Uma Thurman). He also had a welcome turn as Bruce Willis' corrupt cop partner Bob in Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of writer-artist Frank Miller's "Sin City" (2005). In “Bloodrayne” (2006), the cinematic prequel to the popular video game, Madsen was a vampire hunter schooled in battling the forces of darkness. Along with the other founding members of the Brimstone Society, he does battle with the evil Lord Kagan (Ben Kingsley), the most powerful man alive whose quest for even more power has no bounds. “Bloodrayne” was distributed by director Uwe Boll himself, making a paltry $1 million at the box office. Meanwhile, Madsen appeared in David Zucker’s zany sequel, “Scary Movie 4” (2004), playing a crazed farmer who houses a bumbling father (Craig Bierko) and his daughter (Conchita Campbell) during an alien invasion—a spoof of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Wolds” (2006).