Michael Ironside Net Worth

Michael Ironside's Quotes

• 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.
• I get to bring these misshapen, emotionally unbalanced people to life.
• If I didn't like the attention, I suppose I wouldn't be doing this job. What do you do? Destroy someone's fantasy about you or play it to the limit? I still haven't quite worked it all out and I don't know how to resolve it. It's said actors act because they fear death and it's the one and only certainty for some kind of immortality. My attitude is: screw the future, let's get on with here and now. You don't know how long it'll last.
• The weirder the role, the more toys around to help suspend reality, the easier it is - and the better I think my work gets. All of these things make it easier to take risks. Children - and actors - take risks all the time.
• Acting itself is a very childlike thing. You're asked to suspend reality and to play - and what better place than when you're sitting there looking like the most weird villain imaginable? You have all these toys around you. It brings out the child in you much easier than when you're standing around in a suit playing a cop.

Interesting Facts about Michael Ironside

1. Came to notice in the Canadian sci-fi horror classic Scanners (1981) in which he played the mind-controlling, head-blowing megalomaniac Darryl Revok, which led to a dynamic, infamous career of out-and-out villains or edgy anti-heroes.
2. Has a daughter, Findlay Ironside, by his second wife Karen Marls Dinwiddie.
3. His brother is a high school shop teacher in his hometown of Toronto, Ontario.
4. Father of Adrienne Ironside from a previous marriage.
5. Said in an interview he is mostly recognized by the public from his voice-over work in the Splinter Cell (2002) series.
6. Moved to Los Angeles, California, USA in 1982.
7. Was for some time attached to play the title role in RoboCop (1987), but the crew had to give up on the idea when they realized that he would have to have a much smaller frame to fit into the costume envisaged.
8. At age 15, he wrote a play called "The Shelter" which won first prize in a Canada-wide university contest. He used the prize money to mount his own production of said play.
9. Like Terence Stamp, he has played both a Superman adversary and friend. The adversary he played was Darkseid, one of Superman's greatest enemies, on the animated series Justice League (2001). The friend he played was General Sam Lane, father of Lois Lane (Clark Kent's future bride) on the television series Smallville (2001).
10. A talented arm wrestler in his youth, he ironically often loses an arm and/or other limb in his films: Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers (1997), The Machinist (2004) and Guy X (2005). If he had not been too bulky, he also would have played Alex Murphy in RoboCop (1987).
11. Good friends with WWE Hall of Famer Jerry Lawler (aka Jerry "The King" Lawler).
12. Is a huge fan of Professional Wrestling and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series.
13. Attended and graduated from OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario.
14. Is the oldest of five children of Robert Walter and Patricia June Ironside.
15. Has had a love of reading since childhood, with which he credits his father instilling in him: "My dad gave me and my brother this rule - as long as we were reading and doing nothing else, we could stay up until dawn or until we passed out... whichever came first. That's why, to this day, I'm a sucker for a good book.".
16. Lives in Los Angeles, California.
17. Has started acting in Canadian television and films in 1977 and attracted American attention with his role in David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981) which earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the Canadian Genie Awards.
18. A former chain smoker, he has been diagnosed twice with cancer (thyroid and prostate cancer). Both times he has beaten it. His own sister also had cancer and also beat it. During filming of Total Recall (1990), Arnold Schwarzenegger noticed that he was constantly on the phone between takes. When Schwarzenegger broached the subject with him, he was told the he was phoning his sister and that she was currently suffering from cancer. Arnold immediately brought Michael to his trailer and they had an hour-long 3-way conversation with Ironside's sister about what exercises she should do and what kinds of foods she should be eating. Ironside has never forgotten Schwarzenegger's kindness and neither has his sister.
19. His father was a street lighting technician and his mother was a housewife.
20. Admitted in an interview with George Stroumboulopoulos that he has had both his knees replaced (they are both titanium). He ruined them playing football and roofing before he made it into films.