Atomic Blonde

After reservoir dogs, Michael Madsen became tarantino’s go -to tough guy. He shares memories of a friendship that began with a severed ear.

- Damon Wise

“NOW THIS IS something you gotta see, okay?” Michael Madsen pulls out his iPad and punches at the keypad. “This is Charles Bronson,” he cackles, “in a perfume fuckin’ commercial in 1976, man, okay? You gotta see this, man. This is amazing. It’s so funny.” On screen, a fuzzy analogue image bursts into grainy life. Bronson looks longingly at a bowtied lounge pianist, walks out past the over-familiar Bronx concierge and steps into a taxi that takes him to his bachelor pad. Alone in his mancave, the Death Wish star whips off his shirt, throws it into the air (it doesn’t come down) and liberally douses himself in ridiculous quantities of a Japanese aftershave named, somewhat unappealingly, Mandom.

“Look how fast he goes,” beams Madsen. “There he is, man. Look at that fucker! LOOK AT THAT FUCKER, MAN!”

Although he turned 60 this year, the screen hardman seems much younger and gentler in the flesh. His voice, though gruff, is softer than you might expect, much like his face, which, close up, suggests how time might have been kinder to Mickey Rourke. He’s modest too, and as he pours a sachet of Emergen-C into his bottled water, he makes a point of dedicating the interview to someone else. “You know when Budd pulls his sword out?” he says, referring to the samurai sword-wielding assassin he played in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. “On the sword it says, ‘To my brother Budd, the only man I ever loved.’ Well, there should be one that says, ‘From me to Quentin, the only man I ever loved.’ I wanna go on record by saying that.”