Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker is an American actor, best known for his roles as Hal Tucker in Cliffhanger, Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out, Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead, Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy, Frank Bailey in Mississippi Burning, Bill Broussard in JFK, and Jared Svenning in Mallrats...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth6 April 1955
CityJasper, AL
CountryUnited States of America
Horror fans need horror, okay? They don't need little worms squirming around going down your throat. To them, that's not horror.
I don't approach a role by saying I'll be unsavory or unlikable.
You know how it is, somebody will see your work and like it and remember it, then decide to make it a role in their film.
I've always wanted to play a teacher.
Cliffhanger' got me in the best shape of my life, working at 10,000 feet up in the mountains. And everybody was great. I lived in Italy for seven months doing that movie. It was a great vacation.
I got my training here in Chicago at the Goodman School Of Drama, and a lot of my personal work is usually internal work and stuff. Everything else that goes on is icing on the cake - your wardrobe, your makeup, whatever else you have to do.
Don't mess with me! I'm a black-belt!
Well, I think that's been my career. I always choose stuff that's the same, yet different. These projects just happened. I didn't plan it out that way. I just happened to be free, and the director, Dan Pritzker, decided to do his film again. I say again because we did it seven years ago. A lot of the actors were not available, so he just couldn't wait anymore and he recast everything. Me and two other characters are the only people involved with the new one, who were involved with the previous one.
I don't approach a role by saying I'll be unsavory or unlikable. I think all the roles I've done have been very passionate people who go to absolute extremes to make their points.
It's a super super strange world when the actors are the less weird ones.
When you think of it I haven't really done a lot of horror. It's amazing: I have done some really good ones, but I haven't done a lot of them.