Actor Michael Madsen, known for his portrayal of brooding, intimidating tough guys in a career spanning more than 40 years, has died at age 67. The Hollywood Reporter says the cause of death has been reported as cardiac arrest.
Madsen appeared in hundreds of films and televisions shows over the years, beginning with something called Against All Hope in 1982 and progressing through a litany of ’80s TV staples: St. Elsewhere, Cagney and Lacey, Miami Vice, Tour of Duty, Jake and the Fatman, and Quantum Leap, to name a few. 1992 was a particularly big year for Madsen, with roles in films including The Doors, Thelma and Louise, and Fatal Instinct.
1992 was also the year of Reservoir Dogs, the film that kicked off Madsen’s long-running collaboration with director Quentin Tarantino—a partnership that continued through the Kill Bill duology, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Madsen did a lot of good work in those films, but this may be my favorite scene:
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Madsen also made appearances in numerous videogames, which is where our interests lie. His final game, Crime Boss: Rockay City, wasn’t great, perhaps reflecting his comments in a 2018 THR interview in which he said “you can’t always pick the greatest script” when you’ve got bills to pay. (Which, to be fair, also reflected the last several years of his film career.) Other game roles include Grand Theft Auto 3, True Crime: Streets of LA, Driv3r, and Yakuza.
But his real videogame star turn came when he was cast as Daud, the infamous Knife of Dunwall in the Dishonored games, whose murder of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin triggered the events of the series. The character evolved from a standard villainous presence in the first game to a complex, almost sympathetic anti-hero across The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches, and Death of the Outsider. And it wasn’t a half-assed, phoned-in effort in pursuit of a paycheque: Madsen’s turbo-gravelly voice is perfect for the role, and it drips with regret as he looks back on a long career of butchery.
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“He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness,” Madsen’s sister Virginia wrote in a tribute shared on Instagram. “A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother—etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark.
“We’re not mourning a public figure. We’re not mourning a myth—but flesh and blood and ferocious heart. Who stormed through life loud, brilliant, and half on fire. Who leaves us echoes—gruff, brilliant, unrepeatable—half legend, half lullaby. I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend. I miss my big brother.”
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