Again, Michael Ironside Pisses Excellence

His career spans 45 years, specializing in playing villains and tough guys. Whether greatness or schlock, Michael Ironside never phones it in.

“I like to play bad guys, since good guys are always beaten up several times during the movie. Bad guys are beaten only once, in the end.”

If Thoughts Could Kill

Ironside landed his first role (uncredited) in The Ottawa Valley, a 1975 short.

But it was his role as evil telepath Darryl Revok in David Cronenberg’s 1981 sci-fi/horror classic Scanners that garnered recognition for his menacing style of acting.

The film revolves around a group of people with powerful telekinetic and psychic powers, some of which have designs on world domination.

Without Ironside, it would have been a very different film. His lines are said with deliberate ruthlessness, dripping with rage.

Undress Her

I fell off the toilet last night and hit my head on the sink.

When I came to, I remembered my dad took me to see Spacehunters: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) in the theater. The movie is about a 22nd-century bounty hunter who sets out to rescue three earth women who crash land on the planet Terra XI.

They fall into the evil clutches of Overdog, a vicious cyborg-warlord who rules with an iron claw from his fortress known as the “Graveyard,” located in The Forbidden Zone. Technically this qualifies as schlock, but this motion picture is an immensely fun ride straight out of the 80s.

More importantly, Ironside turned the volume up to eleven and conveys a vile blast of villainy with a voice so gravelly even Christian Bale was jealous.

Hamming It Up

Remember when fascist analogies referred to actual tyrants without being preachy, instead of being used to screech about childish politics and make-believe persecution?

I sure do.

One of those shows, “V” aired in 1983. It consisted of two mini-series, a short-lived TV show, and a 2009 quasi-reboot.

During the second mini-series, V: The Final Battle, they introduce Ironside’s anti-hero character Ham Tyler. Nothing fancy here. Just him being a badass.

You’re Making It F*cking Happen!

In Total Recall — my favorite of his roles — he does the dirty work for the film’s main antagonist. It’s like he is channeling anyone who worked under a shitty supervisor. Richter is cold-blooded, efficient, and absolutely despises failure. Unlike Cohaagen, he knows what needs to be done but isn’t let off the chain until the very end.

See you at the party, Richter.

There Is Only One

Ok, I’ll say it: I liked Highlander II: The Quickening.

But I’m not going to defend it.

“Yeah, listen, I hated that script. We all did. Me, Sean, Chris, we all were in it for the money on this one.

I mean, it read as if it had been written by a thirteen-year-old boy. But I’d never played a barbarian swordsman before, and this was my first big evil mastermind-type.

I figured if I was going to do this stupid movie, I might as well have fun, and go as far over the top as I possibly could.

All that eye-rolling and foaming at the mouth was me deciding that if I was going to be in a piece of shit, like that movie, I was going to be the most memorable fucking thing in it, and I think I succeeded.”

Smaller, More Personal Roles

DC may be a mess on the big screen, but they’ve always done a fantastic job on their animated universe. And his voicework for Darkseid was no exception.

Honorable mentions go to Top Gun and Starship Troopers, where he essentially plays the same supporting role as a grizzled veteran.