Michael Søren Madsen was born on 25 September 1958, in Chicago, Illinois USA, of Danish (father) and British, Irish, German and Native American (mother) ancestry. He is an actor, photographer and poet, and most familiar because of his appearances in over 150 film and TV productions.
So just how rich is Michael Madsen? It has been estimated by authoritative sources that the total amount of Michael Madsen’s net worth is over $2 million, as of mid-2016, accumulated during a career now spanning almost 35 years in the entertainment industry. More recently, in 2012 he appeared in the TV reality show “Celebrity Big Brother 9”, which also added financially to his fortune.
Michael Madsen Net Worth $2 Million
Michael Madsen’s parents divorced when he was under 10, and his mother took to the arts, which Michael followed. He learnt his acting skills at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company under actor John Malkovich, and he eventually began his career on the big screen in 1983, opening his net worth account with the role of Steve Phelps in the film ‘WarGames’ directed by John Badham. Later, he appeared in a number of films as a main cast member but in supporting roles, but Madsen’s net worth increased considerably after he landed leading roles in the notable successful films “Kill Me Again” directed by John Dahl, “Straight Talk” directed by Barnet Kellman, “Reservoir Dogs” written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, ‘”Beyond the Law” written and directed by Larry Ferguson, “The Getaway’ directed by Roger Donaldson, ‘Species’ directed by Roger Donaldson, and ‘Mulholland Falls’ directed by Lee Tamahori to name a few, all before the end of the 1990s.
Afterwards, Madsen appeared as the main character in films such as “Blueberry” directed by Jan Kounen, “BloodRayne” directed by Uwe Boll, “Strength and Honour” directed by Mark Mahon, “Vice” directed by Raul Inglis, “Terror Trap” written and directed by Dan Garcia, “The Brazen Bull” written, produced and directed by Douglas Elford-Argent, and “Piranhaconda” directed by Jim Wynorski, among many others, all of which raised Michael’s net worth.
For his acting he was rewarded at the 23rd Annual Boston Film Festival, 9th Annual Malibu International Film Festival and the IFS Film Festival. The television productions in which Michael appeared, increasing his net worth, were the series “Tour of Duty”, “Quantum Leap”, “Vengeance Unlimited”, “Big Apple”, “CSI: Miami”, and ‘Hawaii Five-0’ among others.
Madsen’s net worth also rose after he voiced a number of video games, including “Grand Theft Auto III, “True Crime: Streets of LA”, “Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall, “Call of Duty: Black Ops II”, “The Walking Dead: Season Two” and other games.
Madsen is also a poet, who has been creating for more than 15 years, releasing a number of books including ‘The Complete Poetic Works of Michael Madsen’, ‘ Beer, Blood and Ashes’ , ‘Eat the Worm’, ‘Burning in Paradise’, ‘A Blessing of the Hounds’ ‘When Pets Kill’ and other books. As a poet he has won an Independent Firecracker Award and Red Hen PressLifetime Achievement Award which no doubt increased Michael’s net worth.
In his personal life, Michael Madsen has been married twice, to Jeannine Bisignano(1991-95) and Georganne LaPiere. He has been living with his partner DeAnna Madsen since 1996. He has fathered five sons.
Festival Prize (2007, Boston Film Festival), Hollywood Film Award (2015), Jury Award (Mount Shasta International Film Festival, 2008), Rebel Award (2005, 2006, Rebelfest), Career Achievement Award (2007, Temecula Valley International Film Festival)
Nominations
Gold Derby Awards, BTVA Video Game Voice Acting Award (2015), Awards Circuit Community Awards
Wears Ray Ban sunglasses in almost all of his movies
#
Quote
1
Kill Bill, Species, Free Willy, Thelma And Louise, Reservoir Dogs and Donny Brasco. Six, that's it. That's not a low number. I'm just hard to please. I've made some crap but you've got to pay the bills.
2
[2002] The thing with Wyatt Earp (1994)] was, I think every guy in that picture did it because they wanted to walk down the streets of the OK Corral. That's part of history. That's a historical event that actually happened. I remember standing on top of the street with Dennis Quaid on the morning that we started to shoot this sequence and he said, "Let's face it, what we're about to do is the reason that we're all here." And he was right and we all knew he was. It was kind of ironic, if any of us had known how far it was down to the OK Corral, then we would have taken the horses . . . I might have even grabbed a cab. Having seen the movie, it was a long boring exercise in nothingness, so . . . But I still have to say that doing something that was historically accurate and had to do with history was very appealing to me.
3
[2002] I liked The Getaway (1994). I think "The Getaway" is pretty good. It was exciting. I don't think that it's comparable to the original [The Getaway (1972)] by any stretch of the imagination, but I still think it stands on its own. I think it was a little bit more exciting than given credit for.
4
I like to diversify. And I am all about longevity. I want to be doing this for as long as I can. I have made, I think, 72 pictures now. And I have made a lot of studio stuff and I have made a lot of low-budget stuff. The fun of making independent films is that they are a lot more open and it is a lot easier to ad-lib and create a character and collaborate with the director. With a studio picture, you are a lot more controlled and your whole environment and your whole presentation is a lot more monitored.
5
I say my [tough guy] acting days are over, But then [Humphrey Bogart] made 30 pictures playing a [tough guy], and it wasn't until The Maltese Falcon (1941) that he was thought of as a leading man.
6
[on his role in Strength and Honour (2007)] It's a movie about fighters, not fighting. You know, I got over seeing myself on screen a long time ago, but watching this film really affects me.
7
I grew up in a time when I watched actors like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum . . . those are the movies that I liked and I responded to. They're all gone now and there's no talent like that anymore, there's no immensity of talent that exists like that in the motion picture industry. Even the movies are turning into a bunch of junk. They think if they put a handsome face in there or a good-looking body and they surround it with enough cars blowing up, that it is going to be entertaining . . . but in the long run it's just not going to last. It's all empty, there's no story anymore . . . the same thing is happening to the motion picture industry that is happening to the landscape.
8
My career has been very strange. My career is like a heart monitor. I get involved in a good project now and then to keep things going. And then I make things that I work on that I hope are going to be good so I can make a living and keep a roof over the heads of those little monsters I have in my house. You know, every movie you make can't be great, no matter who you are. Even [Marlon Brando] made some clinkers.
9
I probably made a few pictures I shouldn't have done, but I have four sons and I have to pay the rent. If you have a decision to make about whether or not you can buy groceries at the market or whether or not you're going to make a bad movie, you're going to make a bad movie.
10
I've been in a few brawls in my time.
11
[on Donnie Brasco (1997)] Great film, sure, but not a payday. [Al Pacino] and [Johnny Depp] got all the money. There was none left for me.
[2004] Maybe I was just born in the wrong era, man. I'm a bit of a throwback to the days of black-and-white movies. Those guys back then, they had a certain kind of directness about them. A lot of the screenplays, the plots were very simplistic - they gave rise to a type of anti-hero that maybe I suit better.
14
You get these horrifying straight-to-video things for very little money, then you go to the Cannes Film Festival and they got some poster of you, 40 feet high, in the worst movie in the world. You're like, "Oh my God. Take the fucking thing down!"
15
I'm a leading man trapped inside a bad guy's body.
16
The oddest thing is when children recognize me from Free Willy (1993) and their parents recognize me from Reservoir Dogs (1992). The kids are, like, "There's Glen!" and the parents are, like, "Don't go near that guy!"
17
I encourage my boys to do stuff in the arts, but I'm also an advocate of not taking any shit . . . I have a heavy bag and every morning the boys go three three-minute rounds on the heavy bag with the gloves.
18
Is it really selling out if it feeds your family?
19
Your children don't have to fear you to respect you.
20
Encourage your kids' artistic side. Toughen up everything else.
21
[in Men's Health, March 2004] Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one.
22
Well, one thing for sure, I won't be remembered for Free Willy (1993). Or maybe I will.
#
Fact
1
His wife DeAnna's ex-husband is Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer.
Has starred in three films as a gangster whose organization is infiltrated by undercover law enforcement: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Donnie Brasco (1997) and Beyond the Law (1993).
He has an older sister named Cheryl Madsen (Cheri). She's the owner of a restaurant in Wisconsin.
19
His parents, Cal and Elaine Madsen, divorced when Michael was 9.
20
Lives in Malibu with his family.
21
According to his interview in Maxim magazine, he doesn't own a cell phone nor does he use the Internet to send e-mails; he still writes letters by hand.
22
The character of Officer Wendell 'Bud' White in L.A. Confidential (1997) was written with Madsen in mind, but Russell Crowe got the part.
23
Was offered the role of Seth Gecko in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), but couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts.
He painted houses, repaired cars, worked as an orderly in a hospital and pumped gas in his late teens and early twenties before he moved to Los Angeles.
31
He was originally asked to play "Harland", the man who rapes Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise (1991), but he refused the part and, when director Ridley Scott asked what part he would like instead, Madsen asked if he could play "Jimmy Lennox", the well meaning but short tempered boyfriend of Susan Sarandon's Louise. Scott initially scoffed at the idea, but Madsen got the part of "Jimmy" after having lunch with Sarandon.
32
Married his wife, DeAnna Madsen, in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
33
Has worked as a car mechanic, a landscaper and a hospital orderly before turning to acting.
In 2002 he was presented an award for his work with the Shriners Hospital For Children.
36
"Burning in Paradise" won the Independent Firecracker Award for Poetry in 1998.
37
His maternal grandparents are Lance and Lavinia.
38
He has said in an interview once that his feminine characteristic would be that he has soft feet.
39
One of his dogs is "Buftea", a recent addition. He found it emaciated, wild and roaming the forests of Romania while he was filming The Last Drop (2006). Madsen gradually tamed the dog, adopted it, named it after the town in Romania where they were shooting and whisked it back to beach-front Malibu.
40
Poetry collection: 10-Year Anniversary Edition of his poetry book, "The Complete Poetic Works of Michael Madsen, Vol I: 1995-2005/," available at Amazon.com.
41
Was considered for the role of Sergeant Mike Horvath in Saving Private Ryan (1998). The role eventually went to Madsen's friend, Tom Sizemore.
42
For his past, present and ongoing commitment to independent film, was presented with the inaugural Rebel Award by good friend/actor Harvey Keitel at Rebelfest 2005, Toronto.
43
His mother has English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry, and is also said to have Native American roots.
44
His paternal grandparents (Soren and Anna Marie Madsen) immigrated from Denmark in the early 1900s.
45
Was offered role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994) but turned it down because he couldn't get out of rehearsal for Wyatt Earp (1994).
46
Owned the yellow Cadillac that his character Mr Blonde drove in Reservoir Dogs (1992).
47
TV commercial (voice-over): Boeing Corp.
48
Was set to play "Sean Harrison" in the series Hawaii (2004) but was replaced by Michael Biehn.
49
He points to Robert Mitchum as his idol and role model. Many similarities are apparent, as both are large, intimidating "tough guys" who are generally underrated and Madsen (as did Mitchum) doesn't always appear in films for their artistic merit. They both shared a love for poetry. He and Mitchum also both appeared in War and Remembrance (1988), though they never had any scenes together.
50
Because of his strong aversion to violence, Madsen was very uncomfortable filming the torture scenes in Reservoir Dogs (1992), especially in the scenes in which he was required to hit Kirk Baltz.
Dennis Hopper wrote the introduction to his book of short stories and poems "Burning in Paradise".
56
His character of Mr. Blonde was one of the 200 nominees on the American Film Institute's list of 100 years of the best Heroes and Villains. He was also the only character from Reservoir Dogs (1992) who was nominated. However, he didn't make it into the top 50.
57
Announced the second greatest movie villain of all time by Maxim Magazine's "Greatest Movie Villains of all Time" for his character in Reservoir Dogs (1992) of "Mr. Blonde".