Once upon a time in Hollywood, the charismatic heavy with smarts and a heart was a familiar archetype in mainstream cinema — think Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, or James Coburn — but the recent passing of Michael Madsen, at the age of 67, could well mark the end of that particular chapter in movie history. Though he made his breakthrough as the psychotic, ear-slicing Mr. Blonde in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs, Madsen was capable of much, much more, although it’s fair to say that only his work with Tarantino ever made the most of that soulful talent. Which other tough guy could have delivered the line, as he did so memorably in Kill Bill Vol. 2, “That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die” and sound like they meant it?

The following interview took place 10 years ago in February, high in the mountains of Telluride during the shoot of The Hateful Eight, Tarantino’s wintry Western with a whodunit twist, in which he played the mysterious Joe Gage. The director had chosen the town in Colorado for its predicted snowfall, but, for quite some time, none came, keeping the crew on their toes.

I met Madsen during a lull in production; though the talk was ostensibly about the film at hand, the actor couldn’t help but digress, at one point welling up behind his rockstar shades as he recalled his early days as an actor, pumping gas for the likes of Warren Beatty, his odd-couple friendship with Sergio Leone, and, after getting a bit too cozy with Tarantino’s laser-like auteur specificity, his fractious interaction with the mainstream film industry.

Parts of this interview have appeared elsewhere, but this is the full exchange, and it’s very revealing, even today. How much of what he says is actually true is hard to prove, and he certainly had his own particular style of self-mythologizing. But then, to quote John Ford’s 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” It’s a reference Madsen would have dug; indeed, just yesterday, he passed into legend himself.

DEADLINE: How did you get involved with The Hateful Eight?

MICHAEL MADSEN: Well, first, I just wanna remember one thing.

DEADLINE: What’s that?

MADSEN: You know, when Budd pulls his sword out [in Kill Bill Vol. 2] it says, “To my brother Budd, the only man that I ever loved.” And I would just like to start by saying that I have that sword. And I would say to Quentin that there should be one that says [the same thing]: “From me to Quentin — the only man I ever loved.” I wanna go on record by saying that.

DEADLINE: This is the third time you’ve worked with Quentin…

Well, it’s actually the fourth. I’d like to say it’s the fourth time, ’cause he cut Hell Ride. You know, Hell Ride wasn’t releasable when they finished that thing. ’Cause various people had had their hands on it. And he took it, and he put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. And he fixed it. And it’s a much better movie. And I like it a lot. But the reason it’s good is ’cause he cut it.

DEADLINE: Is that the 2008 Larry Bishop movie?

MADSEN: Yeah. So, I think Hateful Eight’s the fourth one, really. To be honest.

DEADLINE: When did you first hear about it?

MADSEN: Well, you know, I was actually sitting with a couple of cops. I was in my house and a handyman that we had had absconded with some things from the house — my wife’s watch and some jewelry. And I when I found out, I basically told the guy that I was going to cause him…

DEADLINE: Discomfort?

MADSEN: Yes, sir. And so, his father ended up getting in touch with me saying that he had a checkered past and I should forgive him. But I should file charges on him so that he would take it seriously. So, I did. And I had a couple of cops at my house. I was sitting in the kitchen with these policemen, and I was talking about this fella, and my cell phone rang. I hardly ever answer the f*cking thing. I always wanna see who it is first. And I never answer it. And for some reason, I don’t know why, I answered it. I said hello. It was, “Hey, Mike, it’s Quentin.” And I hadn’t spoken to him since the time I was gonna do Django. He was trying to find a part for me in Django.

DEADLINE: What part did he offer you in Django?

MADSEN: The only part that I wanted was Leo’s part. I wanted to play Calvin. I thought it was the best role in the film. But he wanted me in a smaller role, and it wasn’t working out somehow, so it didn’t happen. But I hadn’t heard from him since before that. You know, there’s all these stupid vicious things on the internet, like, “Madsen owes Quentin $1 million,” and, “Madsen will never work with Quentin again” — all this stupid sh*t, you know? And I go, “Hey, man, what’s up?” And he goes, “Ah, I just wrote this Western. And I want you to be in it.” I said, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah.” And I go, “Oh, well, OK.” So he goes, “Why don’t you come over?” We used to do that all the time. That happened for Kill Bill. ’Cause he wanted me to play a character named Mister Barrel in Kill Bill.

DEADLINE: Who was that?

MADSEN: Mister Barrel was a guy who had a mask on a stick. It was a Lone Ranger mask, and he’d whip it up and hold it in front of his face when he was about to kill somebody. He was part of Uma Thurman’s bodyguard team. So, one day he rang me up and he said, “Listen, I don’t want you to play Mister Barrel any more. I want you to be Budd. Come over.” So, I went over. My sons were swimming in his pool, he had a bottle of tequila, and we drank some tequila. He said, “You wanna play Budd?” I said, “Yeah, man.” And he goes, “Well, I already gave the part to another actor. So, I’m gonna have to tell the other actor that he doesn’t have the part. So, you gotta give me a couple days to work that out. But I want you to be Budd.’ And I said, “OK.” Then he goes, “But I want you to read it right here in my house.” Which I did. I sat there and I read the whole script in his house while he walked around doing things.

So, it was the same thing with Hateful Eight. He said, “Will you come over?” And I said, “Now?” He was like, “Well…” And I said, “OK, can I come tomorrow?” He said, “Yeah, come tomorrow.” I said OK. Now, I know his gate code. And I said, “Did you change your gate code?” And he goes no. So, the next day I went over to his house, and it was as if we hadn’t only seen each other the day before. He has so much great stuff in his house. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in there…

He’s got so much great stuff in there, man. He’s just got the coolest sh*t in there. Y’know, me and him, we both love movies so much. And he has so many things that are so cool. Like, memorabilia stuff. And he gave me Hateful Eight. And I said, “Holy sh*t, man!” And he goes, “Well, y’know, read it.” I’m like, “Right now?” And he goes, “Well turn to page…” whatever. So, I did it. He says, “Just a couple lines.” So, I read, like, four lines. He goes, “OK, OK. That’s great, that’s great.” He gave it to me, and I took it home. I read it and I realized it was probably the greatest part he’s ever wrote for me, you know?

DEADLINE: What happened then?

MADSEN: I left, like, three days later to go to Italy, ’cause I was shooting a picture in Rome. About a week later I was in an elevator with somebody, and the guy he was with, he was looking at his cell phone. And he goes, “Oh sh*t. Holy sh*t.” I go, “What?” He goes, “Tarantino’s not gonna make Hateful Eight.” I say, “Oh no, why?” He says, “Somebody leaked the script. Somebody gave the screenplay to someone.” I went, “Oh my God.” And on the internet, it said, “I’ve only given the script to three people — Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern. And I know for sure it wasn’t Tim.” And I’m like, “Why would I do that?” I mean, he had inadvertently fingered me, right? So, I called him up from the lobby of the hotel at the Valadier in Rome. And I said, “Quentin, in the name of God, would you please make a public statement that I didn’t leak your script?” And he started laughing on the phone. And he thought it was so funny. And I go, “Well, I didn’t obviously do it, so please tell someone.” Meanwhile, on my Facebook, I’m getting messages from people, saying, “You traitor. You ignorant f*cker — you’ve ruined our life.” And I’m like, “I didn’t do it!!!” It was so funny. Even my own son, he was like, “Dad, why did you do that?” I was like, “I didn’t do it!!!” Somebody actually put on the internet a picture of me. They’d Photoshopped a picture of me and Edward Snowden, and I’m giving Edward Snowden the Hateful Eight script. It was really an uncomfortable time.

DEADLINE: Did Quentin do anything?

MADSEN: No, and I kept saying, “Please, please, do something. Do something, please.” And so, the genius that he is, instead of publicly, like, falling down in front of everybody, he decides to stage a live reading at the Mary Pickford Theater, for f*ck’s sake. Right? And I heard that he was gonna do this publicly. And I was thinking, OK, does he think that I’m the one? And so, I called him. And he never answers his f*cking telephone ever. And he answered his phone. Which was astounding to me. And I said, “I see you’re gonna do this thing over at the Pickford Theater,” and he goes, “Yeah.” I go, “Well, I’m Joe Gage.” And he goes, “Yeah.” And I said, “So I’m gonna be in it?” He goes, “Yeah.” And I go, “OK.”

DEADLINE: So, you had to ask him to find out?

MADSEN: That’s kind what Quentin is like. Here’s a funny story. You know when Uma Thurman is buried [in Kill Bill], when I bury Uma? She’s in the box. And she gets a razor out of her boot, and she cuts the ropes on her boot. That razor is the exact same razor that I used as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs.

DEADLINE: How do you know that?

MADSEN: We were in London at the premiere of Kill Bill. We’re walking outside. And Quentin goes, “So, how’d you like the movie? “I go, “Oh, it was pretty good.” And he goes, “No, no, no — how’d you like it? How’d you like that scene when she’s buried?” And I go, “It was great, man. It’s pretty good.” And he goes, “OK, so… what about the razor?” And I go, “The razor?” And he goes, “Michael, that was Mr. Blonde’s razor. I gave it to her to use in the movie.” And I go, “Oh my God. Why didn’t you tell me?” And he goes, “I was waiting for you to ask me.”

DEADLINE: The live reading sounded amazing. What kind of rehearsal time did you have?

MADSEN: Well, you know, I’m no theater actor, that’s for sure. I really am not. The whole theater thing to me is kind of pointless. I just don’t get it. But we read through it for about two weeks to get ready to do it. Then we all sat in chairs, and we had like, you know, those metal things, those orchestra stands, to put the scripts on. We all sat there and then Quentin came out. He had a big cowboy hat on, and he kind of officiated over the whole thing. Y’know, there were a lot of people there. They were all dressed up. I remember everybody was all dressed up. And it was quite an affair. Fancy clothes.

DEADLINE: Were you nervous?

MADSEN: I feel very uncomfortable on stage. I’m a motion picture actor, you know? I need to be in motion. I’m very uncomfortable just sitting. And so, for me, it was academic. I mean, we’d read it so many times that I already knew it. So, I didn’t really have to, you know, study. But it was interesting because the energy in the theater was so big. It was just big. And afterwards Quentin said, “Wow, that really went well.” He goes, “I didn’t think it would go that well.” And we were like, “Yeah, it did, man.” The Weinsteins were there — Bob and Harvey were walking around — and it seems to me like that’s when he made the decision to make the movie. ’Cause he had said he wasn’t gonna do it. But he told the whole audience, he said, “You know what? I rewrote the middle, and I rewrote the ending. So, what you guys just saw ain’t gonna happen. And you won’t know what’s gonna happen till you see the movie, ’cause I rewrote it. So, f*ck everybody, right?” He gave everybody a punch. And the rewrite is so stunningly, insanely good. But I don’t know where it comes from. I really don’t.

DEADLINE: I’ve read the script, it’s fantastic.

MADSEN: Oh, it’s more than fantastic. That’s just another reason why I love him. ’Cause let’s face it; I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for him. I would have been dead and buried long ago if it wasn’t for Quentin. My life would have taken a bad turn. But… He’s a f*cking genius, man. I have so much fun with him… [Pauses] When I was a little boy, I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I was in trouble quite a bit. And I loved motion pictures. I don’t know why, but it seemed like there was something noble about it. About storytelling. Sometimes when we’re hanging out, he knows about those moments in films that I remember from being a little boy. And we share a knowledge with each other about movies that I’ve never had with any other director I’ve ever worked with — I never had it with any other director I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve been with some pretty good cats, man. I made some good sh*t, man, y’know? Donnie Brasco and The Getaway and all that. It was all pretty good stuff. But with him, there’s this weird kind of symbiotic notion we have with each other that I’m so blessed to have. We’ve had it from the beginning. And he’s sort of a film historian. I mean, there’s like nothing about any movie that I’ve ever known in my life that he doesn’t already know about. And it’s pretty bizarre. It’s… Can you ask me a question, so I don’t just keep rambling?

DEADLINE: Tell me about Joe Gage. What was it about the character?

MADSEN: Well, first of all, I will tell you the best story of all about me and him. And it kind of sums it up. It really does. It kind of sums up the whole thing. When Quentin asked me to do Kill Bill, I was making a Western in Mexico. I had gone through Durango on my way back into California, and I bought that white hat. That f*cking Stetson, right? So, we started to do the read-throughs in Culver City for Kill Bill, and I started showing up at the read-throughs with that f*cking white hat on. I’m just working on trying to figure out who Budd was, what my character was gonna be, and all that. And I kept going in that white hat. And Quentin he comes up to me and he goes, “You’re not gonna wear that hat.” And I go, “What?” He goes, “In the movie. When we shoot the movie, you’re not gonna wear that hat.” And I go, “I’m not?” He goes no. And I go, “Look, Budd lives in a trailer. He’s a bouncer in a strip club. His swordplay’s over. He’s a bum, he’s an idiot. He’s done. I wanna make a kind of like a cool character out of him.” And Quentin goes, “No, no, no. I want you to cut your hair too.” I go, “Really?” He says, “Yeah. I want it all cut it off and you’re not wearing that f*cking hat.” I was like, “Well, all right.” But I didn’t cut my hair, and I kept going to rehearsal in that f*cking hat.

DEADLINE: How come you wear it in the movie?

MADSEN: One day that we were doing the props — I was getting propped up — and Quentin comes walking up behind me and he goes, “OK, OK. Michael, Michael. Y’know, the thing is, now I can’t picture you without the hat. Because you keep wearing that goddamn thing, and so, y’know, now I get it. OK, fine.” I’m like, “Oh, I can wear the hat?” He goes, “You can wear the hat.” The first stuff that we shoot is the stuff at the graveyard where I have to bury Uma. I gotta pull her out of the truck, throw her down, make this offer to her of a flashlight, and I got a can of mace that I’m gonna spray it in her eyeball. And I didn’t wanna start with that scene. I didn’t want that to be the first stuff we shot. ’Cause I didn’t know what to do with Budd, right?

But we did it. It was like 3am in the morning. There I am in my hat, right? And so he shoots it. And we’re all like, “Yeah, OK, cool, right, right.” So, then we go out to Barstow to shoot the strip club scenes. And, you know, the truck pulls up. I get out of the truck, I smoke a cigarette, I got my hat, I’m all cool. I walk across the parking lot. Boom, boom, boom — here comes Budd. We shot all that. Then I’m in my trailer and all of a sudden there’s a knock at my door. It’s Quentin. And he gives me some handwritten pages. He goes, “This is what we’re gonna do today.” And it’s the scene where f*cking Larry [Bishop] is telling me take off that f*cking hat. That “sh*t-kicker” f*cking hat. And, y’know, I’m not that good of an actor.

See, when I take that hat off, I’m really Michael Madsen. I didn’t wanna take my hat off. It had become an integral thing with me. And I didn’t wanna do it. But I had to do it. ’Cause he wrote it. ’Cause he wrote a scene where I have to take it off. It was so demeaning. It was so demoralizing. And I took the f*cking thing off, and I watched that scene many, many times. And it’s funny, ’cause, you know, it’s a defining moment for Budd. Because for some reason it gives Budd pathos. It gives him… He suddenly becomes a man. He becomes a person with a conscience. And he becomes an interesting guy, and you go “Wow, man, Budd’s not such a bad guy, is he? But the genius of him thinking to do that to him as an actor, that’s insanity. I mean, that’s George Stevens. That’s John Ford. That’s Hitchcock. That’s a story that I’ve not told many times, but he knew, psychologically, that it was gonna come off that way on the screen. And I think it gave Budd a morality in the piece when not many other characters have that.

DEADLINE: Well, talking about morality, The Hateful Eight is a very interesting film in terms of morality. Everybody has a dark side.

MADSEN: Yeah, when I first read it, I wanted to be John Ruth. And I remember thinking, “Quentin, hey, no, I’m John Ruth, man. Who’s this Joe Gage person? I don’t wanna be the cowboy fellow, man. I wanna be John Ruth, man.” But then when I get to the part where he’s f*cking throwing up blood on the floor, I go, “Oh well, maybe not…” [Laughs] And he, then I realize Joe Gage is probably the best role in the film.

DEADLINE: Why do you say that?

MADSEN: Well, because, first of all, he wrote it for me. And, you see, I was a big Steve McQueen fan. And I know that Steve, he didn’t like to do explanation. He didn’t wanna explain plot. He didn’t wanna be the guy who says, “Well, see, the reason that buckboard’s coming up the road is because… blah, blah, blah.” Steve’s not gonna do that. He’s just gonna be the guy that sits there. And you wonder what the f*ck is on that guy’s mind, y’know? And I’m much better that way. I don’t wanna have a lot to say. And so, Joe Gage, he’s there through the whole goddamn story. But he doesn’t really have a whole lot to say. And you don’t really find out why he’s even there until it rolls back and you find out who he’s with and what they’re doing. And that appeals to me greatly. I don’t wanna be all over the place with ten different monologues. There’s a lot of talking in that movie. I mean, Sam and Walt have a lot of dialogue, man. You know, I don’t wanna be that guy. I’m happy to just sit there and when the time comes… When the guns come out, that’s the fun part for me.

DEADLINE: It’s interesting that your character writes a lot.

MADSEN: Well, I wrote four books. I’ve written four books of short stories and poems and things. Stories about my life when I was a little kid. And Quentin knows it. ’Cause I’ve given them to him. And it’s funny, because every time I’ve ever given him a book, he’s never went, “Oh, Michael, wow, your books are great.” He never said a f*cking word. But now here I am, Joe Gage, and he goes, “So you know why I made Joe do that?” I’m like, “No, I don’t know why.” He goes, “Because you’re a writer, Michael. So, I wrote that in the part for you.” See so it’s like a personal compliment, that he allowed me to have my guy do that. Even though he’s a f*cking butcher, let’s face it.

So how has it the shoot been? First of all, what’s it been like with the 70mm camera?

MADSEN: Well, I’m fascinated by it. I mean, I hate the digital sh*t. I hate the hi-def sh*t. The first time I heard somebody on The Hateful Eight set say, “Check the gate,” it was like I almost got a f*cking hard-on. I was like, “Oh my God, man.” My balls started to tingle. I was like, “Oh my God, check the gate. Check the gate. Check the gate.” It was such a wonderful thing to hear.

DEADLINE: When was the last time you’d heard that?

MADSEN: Probably been about eight or nine years maybe since I’ve heard that. Because it’s all this stupid digital sh*t. And I don’t like it at all. And it’s like crucifying what a movie’s supposed to be, a movie, man. And to be on the set, you know, to see that great big, f*cking Panavision mag box, man. You see that big machine, you know? It’s like, wow, man, wow. Wow, we’re making a movie here, you know? There’s lenses that they’re using that they last used on Ben-Hur for f*ck’s sake. Did you know that?

DEADLINE: Yeah.

MADSEN: I mean, I’m sitting there the other day, I’m sitting in front of the camera and Bob Richardson is, like, the greatest. I mean, it’s not just Quentin, you have Bob shooting you. There’s a lot of anxiety that doesn’t exist. ’Cause you know he’s gonna get you. And you know he’s gonna get you good, you know? And I was looking at him, and I had heard the thing about the Ben-Hur thing. And he’s all casual, Bob, and he’s just sitting there, doing his thing. And I said, “Is this one of the ones that they used on Ben-Hur?” And he goes, “Yeah. And I go, “Right.”

MADSEN: Y’know, who gets to do that? You know what I mean? Cinemascope, Super Cinerama, that’s what created movies, y’know. And for Quentin to be the guy who’s bringing that back is such a wonderful, amazing thing. And he wants everybody to be cold. He likes it that we’re here in the cold. He wants us to actually be cold. And we f*cking are. You know what I’m saying? The elements are what they are. We’re actually in the elements; we’re not pretending to be cold. We are f*cking cold. You know what I’m saying? And who else is gonna get away with that except Quentin Tarantino? He told us, “You guys. Listen, you’re gonna be cold. We’re not putting any heaters in Minnie’s, OK?” And everyone’s like, “OK, Quentin.” But it is f*cking freezing in there.

DEADLINE: It looked quite warm in the dailies.

MADSEN: Well, you get used to it. But you don’t have to act like you’re cold just ’cause you are f*cking cold. Outside the windows they’re blowing this fake snow, but they only do that when it’s not really snowing, just to keep it going. But it takes me an hour to get dressed. ’Cause I got a lot of sh*t on. And by the time you get your f*cking pants on, and your gun, and your vest, and your sh*t, you start to actually realize how tough it would be, or how tough it was, to actually live in that day and time and to be one of those guys. Y’know, I said the other day, when we were sitting in the coach, “Can you imagine what it would be like to travel 50 miles in this f*cking thing? It’s no wonder everybody’s killing each other.” I mean, no wonder they were all killing each other. You realize what a tough, hard life it really must have been. And I think Quentin’s into the realism of it — I mean, he wants it to really happen more so than just to pretend it’s happening. And he’s been that way since Reservoir Dogs.

DEADLINE: Well, this script reminded me a lot of Reservoir Dogs…

MADSEN: I think, in a really weird way, it’s an homage to Reservoir Dogs. First of all, Tim and I are in it. I’m Mr. Blonde and he’s f*cking Mr. Orange, y’know? There’s a lot of bloodshed. It’s like a weird spaghetti western version of Reservoir Dogs. Zoe Bell was Uma’s stunt double in Kill Bill. There’s a scene in Kill Bill when Budd’s in his trailer, and The Bride’s creeping around outside. She’s got her sword; she flings open the door and she’s gonna come in and get me. I’m standing there with a shotgun — BLAM! — and I shoot her. That was Zoe Bell who took the ratchet and went up into the air. And now she’s in the f*cking Hateful Eight playing Six-Horse Judy. And I’m gonna shoot her again. So, you see, there’s this weird continuity. Quentin has this insanely wonderful way of making sure everything is connected to something else.

Y’know, he’s seen films of mine that I’ve never even seen myself. And he knows dialogue that I’ve said that I don’t even remember saying. He’ll bring it up out of nowhere in the middle of the day sometimes: “’Member that time, ’member when you said that one line?” I’m like, “You saw that?” “Oh yeah, I did, yeah.” Like, how the f*ck…? I did a TV series called Vengeance Unlimited. And he’s seen every episode. He’s even put in lines that he’s heard me say in some other obscure f*cking thing. ’Cause he loves it. 

DEADLINE: Going back to Reservoir Dogs — how did you get involved with that?

MADSEN: See, I don’t really know. I did a movie called Kill Me Again with Val Kilmer. And there’s a scene in the movie where I have a guy tied up in a chair. And I’m hitting him with a baseball bat, then I go around behind him, and I cut his throat in slow motion and his chair falls over. I have a memory of him telling me that he saw that, and that that’s why he considered me for Mr. Blonde. But then a couple years later, I went on a talk show, and someone was asking me how I got Mr. Blonde. I told that story — I said, “Well, Quentin saw me in this thing, Kill Me Again.” And then when I saw Quentin at his house, he goes, “Why the f*ck did you say that?” I go, “Well, you told me that.” He goes, “No, I didn’t. That’s not why I cast you in the film. I never even saw that f*cking movie.”

So, I don’t know. But I know that I was at an agency, one of the bigger agencies, and they sent me the script. I read it and I thought it was really incredible. I said, “Hey, man, I really love this.” I had done Thelma and Louise with Harvey Keitel. All of my scenes with Harvey, unfortunately, were cut out of the movie. Not all of them, but me and Harvey had done a few scenes together that were not in the film, whether for plot reason or timing or whatever. But I was really sad that it was cut out, because I love Harvey. He’s Godfather to my son Max. But when I heard that Harvey was gonna play Mr. White, I was like, “Oh my God, I have to do this.” And my agents, believe it or not, they were like, “You know, nobody knows this guy, Quentin. He’s got no money. Nobody’s gonna get paid. You might wanna take a pass.” And I was like, “No. Not only am I not gonna take a pass, I’m gonna fire you f*ckers. So, f*ck you, OK? ’Cause Harvey Keitel is Mr. White. And I’m gonna go shoot with Harvey Keitel.” But I wanted to play Mr. Pink.

DEADLINE: Really? Why was that?

MADSEN: Because Mr. Pink had so many more scenes with Harvey. More interaction. And I so very much wanted to have that with Harvey. I hadn’t even met Quentin at this point. One of the producers called me up and he goes, “Hey, man, what the f*ck is wrong with you?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” They go, “You have this role, Mr. Blonde. We’re offering you this role. What is your problem?” And I go, “Well, you know, I kind of wanna play Mr. Pink. And they were like, “Oh my God. No, man, you’re not playing Mr. Pink. And I pushed it. In my naiveté! And finally they called me, they said, “OK. Quentin’s at 20th Century Fox. Harvey Keitel’s in town. They’ll meet you in the bungalow in the back of Fox lot. And Quentin says that you can come in and you can read for Mr. Pink.” So, I actually went in, and I auditioned for Mr. Pink. Even though Mr. Blonde was on the table.

I went in there and that was the first time I met Quentin. He was standing there. Harvey was sitting there. I remember Harvey had bare feet for some reason. I don’t know why. I remember that. But Harvey was sitting there, and he was like, “Hey, Mike.” And I go, “Hey, man.” We hugged each other, ’cause we hadn’t seen each other since Thelma and Louise. And Quentin’s like, “OK, let’s see what you got. Go ahead.” I had memorized all of Mr. Pink’s stuff, right? And I was like, “Yeah, OK, watch this sh*t.” Harvey did it with me, and I thought I was really getting there. I thought I really got it. At the end, Quentin looks at me and he goes, “Nope, you’re not Mr. Pink.” And I go, “Oh man. Oh man. Oh f*ck.” And then he goes, “I already have Mr. Pink.” I go, “Who is it?” He goes, “Well, it’s an actor in New York I met, his name is Steve Buscemi.” And I said, “Who the f*ck is Steve Buscemi?” He goes, “Well, nobody knows him now, but they will. And he’s gonna be Mr. Pink.” And then he goes, “Here’s the thing, you’re not Mr. Pink, you’re Mr. Blonde. And if you’re not Mr. Blonde, you’re not in the movie.”

DEADLINE: So, you took that surprise well!

MADSEN: Reluctantly, I took the role, which ended up, like, changing my life. I mean, it literally gave me a career in motion pictures. It really did. I mean, I’ve done some 160 films. And the only ones that anybody ever wants to talk about are the ones that I made with Quentin. Especially Dogs.

DEADLINE: It’s been said that you were quite uncomfortable with the violence in that film.

MADSEN: No, it wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with it, it was I didn’t really understand what the big deal was. ’Cause I didn’t really see it as being so violent. I didn’t really understand what the big to-do was.

 DEADLINE: And it’s been said that you had trouble getting into character.

MADSEN: Oh no, there was only one part where… [Pauses] See, Quentin allows me to improv. And he doesn’t do that with everybody. Really. He really doesn’t. For some reason he lets me do stuff that isn’t scripted. And if he doesn’t like it, he’ll say, “Michael, no, you’re not gonna do that.” But there are things that I’ve done in Kill Bill and in Dogs [that he kept]. Like when I was speaking in the [severed] ear. That was not in the script. I did that on the spur of the moment, because I was nervous. I cut the ear off, and I walked into frame with it, and I honestly didn’t know what to do. Quentin was off-camera, and he was going, “Throw it. Toss it. Toss it. Throw it. Michael, throw it.” And I just didn’t really wanna throw it. I’d just cut this f*cking guy’s ear off. You know, why have I done this horrible thing? So, I started talking in the ear. And then I threw it.

Three days later, Quentin comes up to me and he goes, “Ah, remember when you were talking to the ear?” I go, “Yeah.” And he goes, “We’re gonna keep it in the movie.” So, y’know, he’s smart that way. But when we were rehearsing the scene with Kirk Baltz [who plays the policeman], Kirk started going off on one, saying, “Don’t burn me, I’m a father, I have children, oh God, I have little children, don’t burn me up…” I said, “Y’know, Quentin, I’ve played villains and I’ll be a bad guy, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. I’m not gonna kill any children. I’m not gonna kill any women. That ain’t my thing, man. And if he’s gonna say that, if he’s gonna start talking about being a father and having kids, there is no f*cking way that I’m gonna drop that Zippo. I’m not gonna light him on fire. As a man. As an actor. Even as Mr. f*cking Blonde. Somewhere, the man has to have a conscience of some kind. And if he says that, man, I’m not gonna f*cking burn him up.” Then Quentin goes, “Well, actually, you don’t anyway, because Tim shoots you. And I go, “OK, that’s true.” 

DEADLINE: So, you didn’t end up having to play it…

MADSEN: I didn’t have to do it. For me, it was like a James Cagney thing. Because if you watch Angels with Dirty Faces, Jimmy Cagney, he plays Rocky Sullivan, and the Bowery Boys are in it. He’s a gangster and he’s, like, the big hero to all the juvenile delinquent kids. And at the end of the movie, he goes to the electric chair. Pat O’Brien comes to him and says, “Rocky, listen, I want you to turn chicken. I want you to be yellow. I want you to be scared when they throw the switch. Be scared. You know, do it for the boys. ’Cause they think you’re supercool and they’re gonna grow up like you. Don’t do it. Go out like a f*cking rat.” And he goes, “Ah, f*ck you, Father,” and he punches the guard. “F*ck you, man!”

They put him in the chair and there’s this wonderful, wonderful shot where you don’t see him, but there’s a shadow on the wall. And all of a sudden, man, you realize it’s about to happen. All of a sudden, Cagney starts this mournful sound: “I don’t wanna die. Please don’t kill me.” It’s so incredible. Oh my God. And then it leaves you with that question in your mind — was he really afraid to die? Or did he do that for the boys, ’cause he knew what he was, and he didn’t want them to grow up and face that same fate? Now, I had read Cagney’s biography, and in his biography the person writing it, the ghostwriter, whatever that is, asked him what did. He asked, “Did your character do that for the boys or was he f*cking scared to die?” And Cagney goes, “That’s a question that I will never answer.” And it’s the same for me, with Dogs. You can hear Kirk faintly say something about having children and being a father. And then I get shot. So, for me, it’s like, “OK, when Mr. Blond heard that, would he have set the cop on fire? Would I set him on fire?” That was my little Cagney moment. I got that from Quentin, see. The beauty of that kind of unanswerable question.

DEADLINE: He’s very fond of that.

MADSEN: Huh?

DEADLINE: The suitcase in Pulp Fiction, for instance.

MADSEN: Oh, of course. He wrote Vincent for me. I was supposed to do Pulp Fiction. But what happened is. Promise me that you’ll write this, just for the f*cking record, man.

DEADLINE: OK.

MADSEN: You know what, I was shooting a movie called The Getaway. I had four days off during that movie. I really wanted to see my son, Christian. And it was Father’s Day. I wanted to go to LA, and I wanted to see my son for Father’s Day. I left Phoenix, Arizona, I went to LA, I saw my son. Had a wonderful, nice afternoon. It was a great, wonderful Father Day. And my agent said, “Oh, you’re in LA.” I go, “Yeah, man. And he goes Larry Kasdan wants to see you.” And I said, “For what?” And he goes, “He’s making Wyatt Earp.” And I go, “Wow. Well, f*ck, man, I wanna be Doc Holliday.” Man, I wanted to be Doc Holliday. Because of Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas in Gunfight at the OK Corral is the greatest f*cking Doc Holliday that anybody’s ever played and nobody will ever do it any better. Part of me was like, “Come on, man. You can’t touch it.” But I wanted to do it. I wanted to try it. That was my boyhood dream — to be Doc Holliday, man. I thought, man, “I can smoke this f*cker, man. I’ll be so good. I know what to do.” So, I went to see Larry. I sat in his office, and I said, “Hey, man, I said, I gotta go back to Arizona, I’m shooting this f*cking movie called The Getaway. And, you know, I wanna play Doc Holliday.

He started laughing, and he leans forward, he goes, “Now, well, Michael, I already have another actor to be Doc Holliday, and y’know, it’s not gonna happen.” I go, “Well who is it?” He goes, “Oh it’s Dennis Quaid.” I started to get up and he goes, “How about Virgil? What do you think about Virgil?” Then I realized, well, Virgil, he walks down the OK Corral, doesn’t he? So, in my mind I’m thinking, wow, man, I am gonna walk down the OK Corral. I’m gonna repeat Western history, man. I did Reservoir Dogs, and I did The Getaway and I’m playing all these savages. Now I’m gonna be Virgil Earp, man. And I’m gonna walk down the OK f*cking Corral. And I said, “Yeah, Larry, absolutely I’ll do it.” Right then and there I said, yes, I’d do it.

The next day, I was at CAA. They wrote up my contracts and signed me up to play Virgil Earp in Wyatt Earp. I went back to Arizona; I finished The Getaway. I went to New York to do publicity for The Getaway. And Quentin rang me up and asked me if I’d read a script. I was at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan, and the f*cking script was at the concierge. I read it and I thought, Holy sh*t, y’know? It was pretty goddamn good. So, I called my agent, and I said, “Hey, man, I got this thing from Quentin.” And he said, “Well, you might as well forget it.” I was like, “Well, why is that?” “’Cause you’re doing Wyatt Earp.” I couldn’t get out of it. Larry wanted two and a half weeks of rehearsal before shooting the movie. Which in my mind was a complete and total waste of time. And if they would have let me out of the rehearsal time, I could have done both movies. But he wouldn’t do it. Larry wouldn’t do it.

Y’know, if Wyatt Earp had turned out to be some big Academy Award-winning movie, I would have been genius, right, ’cause I didn’t do the gangster picture. But then again, if I had done it, whatever would have happened to John Travolta? ’Cause he was doing movies about babies talking. He was over. You know what I’m saying? So, you know, I just had this conversation with Quentin in Cannes last year. We were driving in a car, me and him. And he was saying, “What if you had been Vincent?” And I go, “Well, y’know, I thought about it a lot of times.” He goes, “Michael, the thing is it would have been a different movie.” I said, “It would. But Quentin, honestly — would it have been the big thing that it was without Travolta?” Wasn’t that part of the whole thing, that John came out of obscurity? He had the long hair. It was this huge thing. And honestly people started taking a much bigger look at Reservoir Dogs because of Pulp Fiction. So, originally, it was Larry Fishburne and me. Larry Fishburne turned it down. And that’s when he went to [Travolta and] Sam [Jackson]. But I couldn’t do it because I was under contract for Wyatt Earp. And all these years, man, it’s this thing. This lingering thing. No, man, I didn’t turn it down. And if I had done it, it would have been a different thing. I wouldn’t have played it that way. I wouldn’t have done it like that. It would have been a different thing. And it would have been a different movie.

DEADLINE: It’s interesting, it looks like an even more different film now because neither Travolta nor Bruce Willis are as famous as they were back then. It looks even more like a character piece.

MADSEN: Yeah. I saw it on the beach in Cannes at an outdoor screening.

DEADLINE: I was there; I saw it.

MADSEN: OK, I mean, it was pretty mind-boggling. And frame by frame… I can’t help it. Quentin told me the same thing, he goes, “I’ve always imagined you in all those scenes.” And I watch the movie and I kind of I realize what I would have done that would have been a bit different. I think it would have been a little more edgy.

DEADLINE: Travolta plays him as quite dopey…

MADSEN: Yeah, yeah. I had never met John until Cannes of last year. I was at an outside cocktail thing. I walked in and I was looking around and someone said, “Oh, hey, Quentin’s over there.” So, I walked around the corner and there’s Quentin, but he’s sitting with John. And I had never met John before. It was so awkward. I was like, “Oh f*ck, man.” But I wasn’t gonna stop and turn around. So, I went right up to the table. And John stood up. He stood up, and as I walked over, he hugged me. It was such an odd moment. It was very strange. You know, it had become a turning point in both of our lives. It was so bizarre. ’Cause Quentin, for years, has been threatening to make this movie called The Vega Brothers with me and John. In fact, I asked him the other day, “I go, Quentin, let me just ask you flat out, are we ever going to really make The Vega Brothers?” And he goes, “Well, not unless someone invents a time machine. But I definitely wanna do something with you guys. There’s something about you two guys together that I noticed that day when you met. There’s something there. And it’s in my brain.” I went, “Well, OK.”

DEADLINE: You started out with Quentin when nobody knew who he was. Is he more confident now, or has he always been confident?

MADSEN: He’s exactly the same as he was in Reservoir Dogs, he just has a lot bigger toys. He’s got a much bigger stage to play on. But he’s exactly the same. His energy to me is amazing. He’s so excited, and he loves making movies. It’s so good to be around that kind of energy. If you work on a film, usually you go in and you’re kind of like, “Well, y’know, man, I don’t know — this thing might not be so good.” But when you’re working with Quentin you already know that it’s gonna be good. All the anxiety is gone. ’Cause you know it’s gonna be something: this is probably gonna be good. And it’s because of him. Y’know, he has this boyish masculinity. He loves what he does, man. He loves every minute of it. And he laughs at his own material. Which makes me laugh, ’cause he’s laughing at something that he actually wrote.

To me that’s really funny. It’s like we crack up together a lot. He has this crazy kind of drive to really make things real and make it work. And he’s the only guy who’s successfully been able to join together horrendous violence with a strange, strange undertone of humor. Everybody’s been trying to copy him for 20 f*cking years, and nobody can do it. They can’t get there. They’ll never be able to do it. If you watch television, any day you watch TV, they’ll be some people walking in slow motion in a f*cking toothpaste commercial. Or they’ll use some jingle from Kill Bill or some sports thing or something. His movies have been injected into the human psyche. And people think they can copy it, y’know. And they can’t for some reason. You know, Sally Menke, who unfortunately died?

DEADLINE: I met Sally, yes.

MADSEN: Well, you know, it’s a cause of big sadness in my life that I never really got to know Sally that well. Back in the day, I was a pretty… I was kind of… I was… I don’t know what the word for it is, but I was…

DEADLINE: Exacting?

MADSEN: Huh?

DEADLINE: Exacting? Demanding?

MADSEN: No, I was just… I was very impatient. I got it from my dad. I was an impatient cat. And I just didn’t really have a lot of time for anything. And I just was incredibly cynical. And I never really got to know Sally. But she was Quentin’s goddess of editing. I mean, the two of them together were such a force. They knew how to cut me. I remember her saying to me once, “Michael, you have all kind of things that you do. When we watch your stuff, we try to grab certain things that you do and put them in there.” And because she had known me, over time, she was probably responsible for getting certain things. I was so sad when she I heard that she passed away. That’s just blew me down. It was so f*cking sad. I know for Quentin, it must have been really sad too ’cause he lost one of his key players. And everybody was like, whoa, what’s gonna happen to Quentin? But obviously he’s persevering.

DEADLINE: Yeah.

MADSEN: He’s got Bob [Richardson] now. You know, Andrzej Sekula did Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. But now he’s with Bob and, between the two of them, they have five Academy Awards. Holy sh*t, man. That’s pretty good. Maybe I’ll get one of those. I think it’s time for me to get a little trophy.

DEADLINE: Quentin likes to have an adventure with his productions. He went to Santa Barbara for Death Proof, Germany for Inglourious Basterds, Japan for Kill Bill. You didn’t travel to Japan, did you?

MADSEN: I was gonna go to Beijing ’cause I was gonna play Mister Barrel. But he swapped me out for Budd, so I didn’t end up going.

But even so, you’re in a very deserted setting. Where does Budd live?

MADSEN: In Barstow.

DEADLINE: Yeah. It’s away from the city, is what I’m saying.

MADSEN: Yeah, the desert. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Yeah. I just wonder if that’s interesting for you as an actor…

MADSEN: Oh yeah, it’s a part of the whole adventure. I mean, look at this, man. I’m from Chicago. I’m a f*cking blue-collar kid from Chicago. I was an auto mechanic, man, y’know? I mean, what the f*ck am I doing in Telluride? Y’know, with ski people, Making a movie. It’s part of the whole thing. It’s tremendous, and he knows it. Quentin does this stuff on purpose. He knows that the environment creates a reality. Like, I’m Joe Gage, all right? And when I go on the set, let’s just say that I would have a drawer. If I open that f*cking drawer, there’s gonna be stuff in there that Joe Gage would have. That you may never, ever see on screen. It might never be in the movie. But it’s there. It’s there ’cause Quentin put it there. ’Cause he wanted it to be there. He creates this when we were doing wardrobe — when you go in for your fitting, he has mannequins with the other characters’ wardrobe on. So, when I’m getting dressed in my sh*t, I’m in the room with my gang. With the outlaws. They’re right there with me. On mannequins, but they’re there, you know what I’m saying?

It’s crazy. It’s insanity. But how wonderful it is, right? He had this little doll called Johnny West. Or at least I think he was called Johnny West. That’s a plastic doll that he had called Johnny West. And goddamn it, he was like, “This is Michael Madsen.” He gave it to wardrobe, saying, “This is Michael Madsen. And they made my clothes exactly like this f*cking doll.

DEADLINE: What sort of doll was it?

MADSEN: Like, a GI Joe-size cowboy character. Did you know that in his house he actually has the video store that he worked in? He bought the entire contents of the store. The inventory, the shelves, the f*cking calendar, the f*cking cash register. And he put it in a room in his house. So, when you go in his f*cking house, he’ll take you right upstairs, you go in it and you’re in the video store that he worked in. ’Cause he bought all the sh*t. He has all the VHSes and the f*cking Beta tapes… Oh my God. He has the bar from Kill Bill. Remember the bar where Gogo stabs that guy in the belly?

DEADLINE: Yeah.

MADSEN: OK. He has that bar in the basement of his house. He had it dismantled and shipped from f*cking China to his house. And rebuilt it down in his f*cking basement. I mean, he has a game room where he has all games and lunchboxes. All this crazy memorabilia from Kung Fu and from The Rifleman and from Bonanza and just the most obscure sh*t you ever imagined. Whoever even knew they made a board game for some of these shows, y’know? And my character is this incredible combination of characters like The Virginian. We talked about The Virginian. And I brought up Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster. I wanted my hat to be like Burt Lancaster’s hat in Vera Cruz, and that’s exactly the f*cking hat that I have. I really liked The Virginian, ’cause he always had that super-cool black vest. And also Nick Barkley, who was played by Peter Breck in The Big Valley. I wanted to do some Nick Barkley. I wanted to do some Virginian. I wanted to do some Burt Lancaster — these are the characters that were put together for Michael Madsen to be Joe Gage.

Who else does that? I mean, what a wonderful thing, to have all that going for you. You know, to be in a cowboy movie, paying homage to the guys that you watched — the guys that were in your memory as characters. And even the character’s name. My other character name [in The Hateful Eight] besides Joe Gage is Grouch Douglas. Quentin knows I love Kirk [Douglas], right? I said, “You named me f*cking Grouch Douglas because you know I like Kirk, don’t you?” He said, “Oh yeah, of course.” So, you know, I even got that. It’s a wonderful thing, man. It’s a gift that you get. My little son is here [in Telluride]. My wife and my son are here, and I feel like the hand of God is like on my shoulder, y’know? Like, “I gotcha, Mike,” you know what I mean?

DEADLINE: Is it true you started in theater?

MADSEN: Huh?

DEADLINE: You started with theatre, didn’t you?

MADSEN: Well, you know, that whole thing kind of got blown out of proportion. I mean, I did maybe about two months with Steppenwolf in Chicago. I did some scene-study classes. But that’s all.

DEADLINE: So it wasn’t a big deal?

MADSEN: Nah, it wasn’t what it was made out to be on the internet. There’s so much bullsh*t on the internet. It’s all bullsh*t. Everything they say about me on there is all a crock of f*cking bullsh*t. I went there for about two months. I was very, very impatient. I wanted to get on with sh*t, OK? I wanted to go to New York. I went to New York, and I met Sergio Leone. Like, Sergio Leone walked around his house in a robe with a giant pot of pasta. Eating it out of the pot with a fork. Speaking in Italian. Telling me I should be an actor — I should be an actor. He told me that I reminded him of Henry Fonda. I mean, what a compliment from him, right? He wanted to put me in a movie.

I stayed at his house in his brownstone, and he lived right next door to Katharine Hepburn. One day he calls me upstairs. I go upstairs. He looks over the edge, and I look over the edge. He didn’t speak a lot of English, so he had an interpreter named Brian. Brian would tell me what he said. I look over and I see this old woman with this big hat, and she’s gardening. And he goes, “Hepburn, Hepburn, Hepburn.” I looked at Brian and he goes, “Yeah, man, that’s her. That’s Katharine Hepburn.” He lived right next door to Katharine Hepburn. F*cking living in New York, right? It was so amazing. I go, “What is she doing?” And in Italian he said, “Oh, she’s picking up sticks.” And she was — she was picking up all these tiny little twigs out of the garden, for some reason. And he told me, “Michael, you should be an actor.” In Italian. I was a very young man. I didn’t know what the f*ck I was doing. I was fixing cars at Joe Jacobs’ Chevrolet [in Illinois].

DEADLINE: So how did you meet Leone?

MADSEN: Well, this really weird thing happened. It was my sister Virginia, who, y’know, got nominated for f*cking Sideways.

DEADLINE: Oh yeah.

MADSEN: She had an agent, ’cause she was doing singing telegrams. And she was doing theater. I had went with a buddy of mine, I was going to school to be a paramedic, ’cause I thought maybe I would make more money than fixing cars. My father was a firefighter, and my dad really wanted me to be a cop or a firefighter. So, I figured I’d be a paramedic. Y’know, I thought it’d be cool riding in an ambulance and saving people — that kind of thing. But this kid that I went to school with was an actor. His name is Chip. And he asked me to go with him to this audition, ’cause we used to ride the train together to go to school. So, I said, “OK, man.” I went with him to this thing. And there was like 50 guys in this big auditorium. There were people from LA.

They were casting a movie called WarGames. I watched these guys go down one by one and they’d sit down at the table, and they’d read. Then, 10 seconds later, the people doing the auditions are like, “That’s great. See you later.” And these guys would walk out all sad. Chip went down there, he said two words, and they were like, “Thank you very much. Thank you.” I thought it was so funny. When he’d finished, I got up to go, ’cause we were leaving together. We’re walking out the door. And this guy was sitting there ± Marty Brest is who it was. Who later did Scent of a Woman and all this other stuff. He was sitting there, and he goes, “Hey, where are you going?” In front of all these people. And I go, “We’re leaving.” And he goes, “Why?” I said, “What do you mean, why?” He goes, “Why didn’t you read?” And I go, man, I didn’t come here for that, man. And he goes, “Are you an actor?” And I go, “No, man.” He goes, “Oh, is this your buddy?” I go, “Yeah, man. And he goes, “Do you wanna read?” I go, “Well I don’t know. Not really. I’m sure I’m not gonna sit down at that f*cking table, I’ll tell you that.” And he goes, “Well, we’ll do it over here. Let’s go over here and do it over here away from everybody.” And I was like, “Wow, OK.”

Meanwhile Chip wants to kill me. Y’know, I know now why, but I didn’t understand why he was mad then. He was like, “You f*cking asshole. You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?” And I go, “Well yeah, man.” So, I went over, we set these metal chairs, and we sat down, and he gave me two pages to read. He goes, “OK, I’m this guy and you’re that guy.” And I read it with him. He says, you know, “Have you ever thought about being an actor?” And I said, “No, man. I mean, I like Humphrey Bogart and I really like Robert Mitchum, and I get what they’re doing. I understand it.” He goes, “You know, if you went to LA or New York, you would get work as an actor.” I said, “You think so?” And he goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, buddy, you know what, man? I got about $400 to my name, so the chances of that happening are f*cking non-existent, OK? It ain’t gonna happen.” He goes, “You know what an agent is?” I go, “Yeah, yeah, my sister has an agent.” He goes “Oh what’s her name? And I told him. He goes, “I know her.” I go, “Oh you do?” He goes, “Oh yeah.” And he goes, “So if I wanted to reach you, I could reach you through her?” I went, “Yeah, sure.”

And, like, a week later, my sister comes in the house — my sister who had been doing theater all through high school, and singing telegrams, and having voice lessons, with Marilyn Monroe posters in her room, while there’s me stealing cars and, y’know, just doin’ bad stuff. She comes in the house, and she goes, “Did you meet some people from LA?” And I go yeah. And she goes, “Well my agent wants to talk to you.”

I was like, “Really?” She goes, “Yeah.” So, I took the f*cking train down there. I went in her office, and she goes, “You know these people from California, they wanna give you a part in a movie?” And I said, “What, are you insane?” She goes, “No, no. It’s a small scene that takes place in the beginning of the film. You’re a soldier in a missile silo. You and your buddy have to simultaneously turn keys to launch a ballistic missile. And your partner chickens out and he can’t do it.” John Spencer was the other actor. She goes, “Do you wanna do it?” I go, “F*ck. In front of a camera? Oh my God. Oh, my sh*t, man.” She goes. “They’ll fly you to LA, they’ll put you up in a hotel, and they’re gonna give you $900. And I was like, “Holy f*ck, man. Holy sh*t, man.” Then she goes, “But there’s one thing they want you to do.” I go, “Oh my God, what’s that?” And she had one of those f*cking camcorders. Remember those goddamn things where you put the VHS tape in it, right?

DEADLINE: Yeah.

MADSEN: And she gets it out and she puts it on the table. She points it at me, and she goes, “Just tell a story.” I go, “Tell a story about what?” And she goes, “Michael, I don’t know. Just make something up. I don’t care. I’m gonna start it and I want you to just talk.”

DEADLINE: What did you do?

MADSEN: About a week before that, I had been in this little diner. And this guy sitting next to me was being a real asshole to the waitress. Just being a dick, man. I just let it go on for a while, while I was eating, but I was getting angry. She was kind of cute, y’know. So finally, I took the mustard pot and I went [he makes a whooshing sound] I shot it right in his face. And I told the story of doing that. And she sent that f*cking tape to Cis Corman who was Sergio Leone’s casting director. I don’t know why she did that or why that happened, you know. But shortly thereafter, they flew me to New York.

They f*cking put me on a plane and… I’d never been out of Chicago. I went to New York City. Sergio Leone wanted to meet me. And I stayed at his goddamn house, man. He told me he wanted to put me in film. And then, unfortunately, he died. And then I went to California and did this stupid f*cking thing — WarGames. I didn’t wanna go back to Chicago. No f*cking way. So, I got a newspaper, and I looked in the want ads in the newspaper, ’cause I knew that I could get a job at a gas station anywhere on the planet Earth. And there was a full-service gas station attendant needed in Beverly Hills. At the Union 76. At Crescent Drive and little Santa Monica Boulevard. And the second day I was in California, I f*cking went there and I applied for the job, and I got hired. I went to MGM Studios, and I shot WarGames. They still had the big neon lion up on top, y’know, with the big numbers on the soundstages. And the first time I… [Madsen chokes up.]

DEADLINE: Are you OK?

MADSEN: Yeah, no, I’m fine. It was raining. It was raining the first day I got there. I’ll never forget it. I had to take a taxi. And I got out of the cab, and it was raining so hard. I couldn’t believe it was happening. 

DEADLINE: So, you kind of caught the tail end of old Hollywood…

MADSEN: Oh sure, Schwab’s was still there. Schwab’s was at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Sunset. I used to go in Schwab’s every day and have lunch in there. I went to Bartels’ Harley-Davidson when they were on Washington Boulevard, and I got my first motorcycle. I got my first Harley, my ’74 Sportster. And I had a job at the gas station. So, by the time I got done with WarGames, I made enough money on that thing to rent a little apartment. I had an apartment up by Griffith Park up on Western and Franklin. I had my f*cking motorbike, and I would drive every day to Beverly Hills to go pumping gas. I drove a tow truck. And I changed flat tires.

DEADLINE: Did you pursue movies at the same time?

MADSEN: Well, I didn’t know what to do. See, a lot of people used to come in there. Warren Beatty would come in there. Jack Lemmon would come in there. Jack Lemmon would roll up in his f*cking MG and I’d give him gas in his f*cking car. Warren Beatty would come in really late at night and he would always use the payphone inside. Nobody had cell phones back then, so he’d go in and he’d put change in the f*cking phone, and he’d be on the phone. He’d come back out and he’d stare at me, you know. And he asked me one time, “Are you an actor?” And I go, “Yeah, well I’ve done a little,” and he goes, “Really?” And I go, “Oh yeah.” He goes, “Do you have any headshots?” And I go, “Nah, I don’t.” And he goes, “Well you should, you gotta get some of those.” I go, “OK, man.” And he goes, “You know, if you ever do that, send one over to my office.” I go, “OK, Warren Beatty, where is your goddamn office? “And he goes, “Oh, it’s at Paramount…”

Don Knotts used to come in there. Cicely Tyson would come in there. Peter Falk would come in there. All these people I had seen in movies my whole life would come in there; I’m pumping gas in their f*cking cars. I was wiping their goddamn f*cking windshields, you know? There was one particular girl — we became fond of each other. And she would come in and, y’know, she usually had a little short skirt on. I was happy to wash that window! I started staying at her house now and again, and she introduced me to an agent. And it was Andy Friedman, with the Smith and Friedman Agency, and they started submitting me for episodic television. I did St. Elsewhere, I did Miami Vice and Tour of Duty, Jake and the Fatman. And Cagney and Lacey. The episode of Cagney and Lacey I did, Tyne Daly won an Emmy for. Didn’t even mention my name when she got her Emmy. And I was so… I remember feeling so kind of like… Wow. It wasn’t about the ego or the fame, I just thought, “Wow.” The whole episode was about me and her. And she won an Emmy for the f*cking thing, and she didn’t even say anything about me. And that was my first realization about Hollywood, right? The insidiousness of the whole f*cking thing.

DEADLINE: But you seemed to get through it…

MADSEN: Well, I kept pumping gas. I remember when I got Thelma and Louise. I told my boss, I go, “Hey, man, look I got this movie and I’m gonna go do it.” And he goes, “Y’know, why didn’t you tell us you were an actor when we hired you? Goddamn it.” I was like, “Well I didn’t really think I was, man.” And he goes, “We need you around here, Michael. Make up your f*cking mind. The chances of you making it any further are a billion to one. You got these stupid TV shows you keep taking time off to do and now you’re gonna go and do a f*cking movie, is that it?” I was like, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Well goddamn it, you’re fired.” I was like, “Oh man. You give me two dollars and 50 cents an hour and I got my little motorbike over there. And I live up on Western and Franklin. I think I’ll take my shot. I’ll take my chance, right?”

DEADLINE: So, what keeps you in the business?

MADSEN: LA is a festering wound. It’s a festering wound that has gangrene. Y’know, LA is all about crucifying. Building people up and then crucifying them. They find out something negative about you and they fry you on the f*cking griddle, man. And they love it, y’know. But I don’t give a sh*t, ’cause I’ve always stayed employed and I’ve always kept working. I have five sons. I’ve been married three times. I could have done without that, but my wife and my sons are everything to me, and I’ve been able to give them a great life because of what I do. I’ve been all over the f*cking world. Who gets to go all around the world? Who gets to do that? Just some dumbass, f*cking juvenile delinquent from Chicago. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been all over the f*cking planet making movies. Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

DEADLINE: Do you have any regrets?

MADSEN: I don’t regret not doing Pulp Fiction. But I do regret making Wyatt Earp. Because I can’t say anything nice about Wyatt Earp, y’know? It’s boring. It’s long. It’s stupid and boring. It’s a giant close-up of Kevin for three f*cking hours. I remember I got the quote of the day one time. I got the quote of the day on the call sheet: “There’s a rumor that Wyatt had some brothers.” Y’know, I wish I could say something good about it, because the only f*cking reason I did it is ‘cause I wanted to walk down that goddamn street to the OK Corral. If I had known how long it was gonna take to walk down there, man… We did it, like, 10 times. And if I knew that the movie was gonna be that f*cking boring and stupid, I would rather have rode the horses down there — taken a f*cking taxicab or something else.

But no, Quentin’s pictures are… there’s something very individualistic about each one of them, everyone that he’s done. I happen to feel like I’ve been in the best of his work. I’ve been very lucky to be in the best ones that he’s made. Kill Bill is ridiculously great. It’s better than anybody even gives it credit for. Django — I wanted to play Calvin in Django. I wanted Leo DiCaprio’s part. To me that would have been the greatest part in the film. Obviously, that didn’t happen. But, you know, Dogs was his first shot, man, and to be in that was a pretty goddamn, pretty cool thing, and over time it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And now in The Hateful Eight, I’ve really come full circle with him. Richard Gladstein was the producer of Reservoir Dogs and Quentin got him back for Hateful Eight. Now that’s pretty cool, right. I mean, it’s a nice, nice package. It’s a wonderful blessing.

Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

Sign Up