A creative talk with actor Michael Madsen

What were your creative influences?

I liked Picasso. Picasso would have spit on a napkin and crumpled it up and thrown it away. If somebody had picked it up, the goddamn thing would have probably been worth ten million dollars. It’s insane how one person can become this thing that is unexplainably forever interesting.

I like old movies. I like old black-and-white movies. Humphrey Bogart pictures and James Cagney pictures. And Robert Mitchum, of course, was a fascinating actor. I remember thinking that it was the first time I saw and realized what acting was. ‚Cause I saw him in an interview and I realized how much he was like the characters he played. So I realized it probably wasn’t going to be that difficult, it wasn’t really that mysterious of a thing to be able to do. And…

…and Anthony Quinn?

Anthony Quinn, yeah, he was another one…

He played Zorba the Greek.

He could be anybody, he could be an Indian. He could be Greek, he could be Spanish, he could be anything. Because he had that crazy face, he could be anything. „Requiem for a Heavyweight“. He played a boxer called Mountain McClintock and it was just wonderful.

You published a couple of books with your poetry. What is the difference between movie acting and writing?

There is a difference between movie acting and writing because if you are in a movie and you got to play a role, then you got to do it. Because they wrote the part and they gave you the job and when it’s time to do it, you have to do it.

But if you are going to write something, you really can’t write it unless you are thinking of it. You can’t just get a piece of paper and write down a poem. If you are not consciously thinking of the poem you’ll never be able to do it. So I think it’s a lot more psychologically personal, I think.

Is it a different kind of creativity?

Yeah, very much so. I am haunted by movies I look at that I have done 20, 25 years ago because some of them I can’t even remember doing.  But I think I appreciate some of the books I wrote. Because it is more personal. I go back and read stuff that I wrote and I am glad I wrote it down while I thought it.

Can you tell us about your poetry? How it came about?

I used to write stuff on napkins.

In the restaurant, or on the back of a match book, or on a grocery bag. I would have these little thoughts and then I would write stuff down and I don’t know, I thought it was an instant way to record. But I wasn’t planning on being a writer. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to write a book someday. I don’t know where it came from. I think I had just a clever observation of things that I thought was different from most people that I knew.

I had that… thinking that I could contribute something to the world.

It’s a bit of a curse like I was saying. I think sometimes when I meet people, I can figure people out in about ten seconds, just by watching them walk or just listening to them. It’s the way they sit in a chair, the way somebody eats food and I wish I could turn it off.

But it’s always going, it’s always going and going and going. You know where I come from,  I had a blue collar father and a mother who was a writer. I had that weird combination of being a real hardcore disbeliever about anything and then, at the same time, hoping and thinking that I could contribute something to the world.

About Michael Madsen: Michael Madsen has become immortal through his roles in Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and The Hateful Eight and in Robert Rodriguez Sin City. He also stars in Tarantino’s new Film „Once Upon a Time“ in Hollywood. In October 2018 Michael visited Frankfurt where he attended Hermann Vaske’s Why Are You Creative Exhibition. He also was guest of Honor at the premiere of Hermann Vaske’s Fuel of Creativity in the Frankfurt Club Oosten where the new car brand Cupra celebrated the Launch of the Cupra Ateca.