Michael Madsen's eclectic taste (with passions ranging from motorcycles and NASCAR to the smell of flowers in Kauai and poetry-writing) may account for his wide-ranging roles. Indeed, fans of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs were often surprised to learn that Madsen (the vicious Mr. Blonde) also played Glen Greenwood in a fun-for-the-whole-family feel-good whale tale (Free Willy).

"The oddest thing is when children recognize me from Free Willy and their parents recognize me from Reservoir Dogs," Madsen once remarked. "The kids are, like, 'There's Glen!' and the parents are, like, 'Don't go near that guy!'"

["Everyone just wants to watch me shoot people," he later remarked. "When I read the script, honestly, I thought there must be a scene in there that I didn't read or something."]

[Dennis Hopper called Madsen's poetry "better than Kerouac": "Raunchier, more poignant. He's got street language. Images I can relate to. He blows my mind with his drifts of gut-wrenching riffs."]