The role that Michael Madsen earned in five lines: “I’ll see you on set”
No actor can find out what someone wants out of them within the first few seconds of the audition process. What the movie is exists more in the director’s head before it’s eventually put to screen, and it usually involves the script going through many actors’ hands until magic strikes. But when Michael Madsen auditioned, he didn’t take any prisoners, and some of his finest performances only needed people to see him for a few seconds to realise that he was the right guy for the job.
But looking through his iconic roles, it’s not like Madsen had one set person that he was designed to play in every single movie. Although his turn as Jim Morrison’s close friend Tom Baker in The Doors was fantastic for what it was, no one would have expected that the same guy would find time to work in a James Bond movie like Die Another Day.
If there’s one person who believed in him every single time he got behind a camera, it was Quentin Tarantino. They might not have always got off on the right foot when making a movie, but there was a symbiotic friendship in the way the director and Madsen played off each other, with Tarantino later saying, “There’s a great child-like quality with him. It’s like playing cowboys and Indians.”
That’s not to say that every single role was the best fit for Madsen. Despite building momentum with Tarantino, the idea of anyone turning down the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction feels like one of the strangest moves he could have taken. But as with all artistic love affairs, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Tarantino always came back with Madsen if he had the right role.
Compared to all the other Tarantino films, though, The Hateful Eight was the perfect blend of his trademark action and the subtlest bit of humour that comes from all of his movies. There are moments that are absolutely breathtaking, but at the same time, there’s a bit of hard-edged whimsy that comes through every single frame as well, and even when working with everyone from Samuel L Jackson and Kurt Russell, Madsen was Tarantino’s go-to guy before he finished reading.
Any actor going in for a typical reading with Tarantino would typically have one part of their brain laser-focused and the other part trembling, but Madsen had the role within seconds, saying, “I went over [to his house] and he got out a script and asked me to read a few pages. I’d only read about five lines when he clapped his hands and said: ‘OK, Mike. That’s great. I’ll see you on set in December.’”
Then again, his performance as Joe Gage speaks for itself. Anyone who has Kurt Russell coming up to them in the middle of a snowed-in saloon would have been shaking in their boots, but over the years in the business, that cold and calculated stare Madsen has never gone away, always being able to look through even the biggest Hollywood legends before he steals the scene.
But that kind of acting method isn’t something that anyone is born with. Madsen had worked for years perfecting his approach to being onscreen, so when he donned that cowboy hat and put his spurs on, becoming Gage was already in his bones.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.