Tales from the Film Set: The Michael Madsen Method

My new book is now available on Amazon and I'm sharing some of the fun, interesting, informative and downright bizarre adventures I've had in the movie business!

THE MICHAEL MADSEN METHOD

The first time you engage to direct an actor whose body of work you respect is a wonderful thing. I’m past the point of being star struck, but I was looking forward to working with Michael Madsen. We had met a couple of times and come close to working together on a previous project of mine that didn’t launch. I was under no illusions that he was willing to work with me for any reason other than a paycheck. When a performer posts eight or ten or twelve IMDB credits a year, they get the reputation for being a “paycheck player.” And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong, in fact quite the contrary, with just wanting to work, especially when you can demand $5,000 or $10,000 or more a week. I can see how it might be a bit of a disappointment for an actor who was once considered “A-list,” but I would think, on some level, it’s still a pretty damn descent position in which to find yourself.

Back when I met with Mike the first time about the Ill Deeds film that never got out of development, I gave him a copy of my first film Impact. Now, I’ve brought this project up elsewhere in this book, and to date, it remains the film of which I’m most proud (from a purely creative standpoint). Now, in truth, I never expected Mike to watch it and gave it to him for no other reason than to express I was actually someone who had made films before (albeit small ones). In retrospect, I’m sure that wouldn’t have mattered at all as long as the check didn’t bounce.

A couple of weeks later, I was quite proud to find a message on my answering machine from Mike. He had just watched Impact and wanted to relay how much he thoroughly enjoyed it. It sounded to me like he was a bit choked up, which I suspected (hoped) was a result of the film which has an emotional ending. That was a great moment as I knew he had no real reason to stroke someone like me.

Mike was booked to start on a certain day and we got a call from his manager about a week out that he was running behind on the other film he was currently on. He was going to be a few days late to our set. This always sucks, but shit happens. We worked around his new schedule. Interestingly, by way of (I guess) an apology, his manager expressed that prior to the film Mike was currently on, he had just gotten out of rehab for drinking. He said I was getting the “best Mike” in years since he was now clean and sober. Oh, well, I guess that’s something…

We had a room set up for Mike at the Southpoint Hotel & Casino on the Strip. We were shooting our big casino scenes there which was exciting for us because it’s a beautiful property that would yield tremendous production value for our small film. As I wasn’t born yesterday, I knew enough to be careful about cast and crew burning productions by charging things to his room, so I made sure the room was covered, but not incidentals. Mike would have to put down his own credit card for that shit. I’m smart, right?

Nope. Mike gets to town and we have a production assistant pick him up and take him to the hotel. I get a call a short while later from his manager. I’m told I have to go down and put a credit card on file for Mike. I explained why I didn’t have one on file and that Mike needed to do that because we weren’t covering those incidentals. But, it seems, Mike and his manager had been playing the game longer than I had as he was ready with “Mike doesn’t have a credit card.” Well… shucks! As much I don’t believe it, I can’t really call bullshit on that. So, I drove down and put a credit card on file after reminding the manager that Mike didn’t have a per diem (a daily cash allotment that he could spend however he chose).

Two days later I was back at the hotel and decided to check in with the front desk to be sure I wasn’t getting schellacked. Sure enough – I was getting schellacked. There was already $1600 in room charges! What! The! Fuck! The short version of this part of the story is I canceled my card on his room and didn’t bother to tell Mike or his manager. Sure enough, a while later I got the call from the manager. I explained the situation and how pissed I was and the manager claimed to understand – but Mike still didn’t have a credit card! He couldn’t even use the phone! (He didn't have a cell phone, either, according to his manager!) We finally worked out a deal with the hotel where I had to put down my card again, but Mike couldn’t charge anything against it. The fact that I tried that very thing the first time around and couldn’t do it kind of pissed me off, but producing a film is about putting out fires. All the time. Mike did approach me that night and was apologetic. He claimed he thought there was a per diem that he was charging again. I didn’t believe that, but no reason to stoke the fire and say so. He even mentioned paying the production back. Trying to keep things copacetic, I told him it wasn’t necessary. In retrospect, I’m glad I took that approach, because I doubt I ever would have seen that money. Two days after that, he was pleading poverty and hit up our executive producer for some cash to take his family out to dinner (they had come along with him). It’s probably worth mentioning that he was not only the highest paid member of the film by far, but he was also paid in full in advance of starting work. Go figure.

In a later vignette, I talk a bit about the first night Mike worked with Tommy and how enjoyable that was. But there were some other moments with our big leads that actually sucked. At one point that first night, while I working with the cinematographer, Mike was talking to one of the other producers, Chris Blewitt. They were talking about the other scenes to shoot that night and Blewitt told him what was ahead, including a quick scene where Mike’s character was having sex with a hooker.

So you understand the gag, it’s like this – The casino owner (played by Mike) approaches a prostitute working at one of the bars in his property. Basically, he’s sleazy and approaches her letting her know that if she wants to work his hotel, she has to give him a freebie. She obliges. From there, it’s supposed to cut to a very brief scene of them having sex in her office. This whole little bit is to establish him as more of a scumbag plus, while he’s in the office doing the deed, he’s actually more fixed on his expensive painting than the girl he’s with – as the painting plays a key role in the film, this was actually somewhat significant.

Anyway, when Blewitt mentioned this scene, Mike got belligerent and said he’d never shoot that scene. A while later, Chris told me of the exchange, so I went to Mike’s dressing room. It played out like this:

Chris: Hey, Mike. You’re doing great work.

Mike: Thanks.

Chris: Chris told me there’s a problem with scene 68.

Mike: Oh, there’s no problem with it. I’m just not fucking doing it.

Chris: I don’t understand.

Mike: I’ve never done a scene like that and I’m certainly not doing it for this movie.

Chris: It’s only a few seconds long. There’s not even any nudity.

Mike: I don’t care. I’m not doing it. And I think it’s really shitty that you tried to slip that scene in there at the last minute.

Chris: (long pause) Uh, Mike…that scene has been in there since the first draft of the script…

Mike: Well, I don’t remember it...

In that moment, I realized that Mike hadn’t read the script. It wasn’t a major revelation, but it was a surprise. It also got me to understand his method. Mike did a bit of improvising and ad-libbing on our film. At first, I assumed this was just his style, at least on these small films. On reflection and as we got deeper into the show, I changed my assessment. In some or many or most cases, if he’s getting paid, the script really doesn’t matter much to Mike. So little, in fact, that he doesn’t need to read it in advance. I think he prepares his scenes right before which explains why he’s a bit fast and loose with the dialogue. However, he seems to do this well. And if I’m being honest, on a film like this, I didn’t see it mattering much as long as he hit the important beats – which he always seemed to do.

Mike was with us for a week shooting Dirty Dealing. His manager told me he was fresh out of rehab, but by our fourth day of shooting Mike was drinking again… on the job. It probably didn’t help that we were shooting a scene at a bar in a casino. I’m sure it helped even less that one of the day players was sucking up to him buying him those drinks. When I got word, I sent that actor home and made sure his agent knew so she could blacklist him. Although I have no idea how much he drank, he was solid every time the cameras were rolling. I ended up being very happy with Mike’s performance in the film despite the difficulties and disappointments that went with it.

Some months after he wrapped our film, Mike was arrested for child endangerment after allegedly getting into a physical altercation with his underage son (the charges were later dropped). Not long after that, he was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol. It was somewhere around this time that we were finishing up audio on the film and needed Mike (even if it was no longer the “best Mike”) to come into the studio for a few hours for looping (this is where an actor lip-synchs any lines that need to be rerecorded more clearly). Despite the fact that this was in his contract as part of the deal, he was unwilling to oblige. Perhaps if I got him a hotel room and let him charge a thousand dollars in massages and steak dinners he would have showed up. Or maybe I should have just texted him a photo of the sound booth with bottles of Jack Daniels lining the walls. Oh, that's right, he doesn't have a cell phone....

More stories to come! Film Schooling is now available on Amazon.

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