From early roles to recent stardom on screens big and small, Michael Rooker – today’s ultimate antihero – has become a favorite of directors, fans and fellow cast members by staying true to himself.Posted on 07/03/2017 10:47:08 AM PDT by w1n1
From early roles to recent stardom on screens big and small, Michael Rooker – today’s ultimate antihero – has become a favorite of directors, fans and fellow cast members by staying true to himself.
ONE OF HIS EARLIEST road trips took a 13-year-old Rooker from his birthplace of Jasper, Alabama, to Chicago, where his mother moved him and his siblings following her divorce. But instead of sending him spiraling out of control with teenaged angst, the move seemed to cement a life focus that continues to drive him today.
“I was meant to be this actor that I am,” he told the Chicago Tribune in 2014. “Even growing up as a little hillbilly kid in Chicago in my neighborhood, Division and Ashland, which was not the nicest neighborhood when I was growing up, I always knew inside my heart that I was meant for something else.
I was not meant to be on the streets of Chicago. I was not meant to be in a gang. I was not meant to do drugs. I had that belief all through my life.” While seeking a way to express himself, Rooker discovered acting. “I got involved with some theater people and enjoyed what they did,” he said. “I thought, ‘I could probably do this.’ I ended up auditioning for a theater school [DePaul University’s Goodman School of Drama], got accepted and the rest is history.”
From his earliest star turn as the title character in Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Rooker has worked in productions of all sizes and budgets. In fact, audiences who know him only from his recent success may be surprised to learn that he had important roles in some of the most popular pictures of the ’80s and ’90s, including Eight Men Out, Mississippi Burning, Sea of Love, Days of Thunder, JFK, Cliffhanger and Tombstone.
That also means that he has acted alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest names, from Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise to Kevin Costner, Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell (he recently worked with the latter two again in Guardians 2).
In a town with a reputation for short-term memory loss for who’s on top and who’s not – sometimes on a week-to-week basis – Rooker just keeps moving forward. Those seeking a secret formula to his long-term success, however, will be disappointed.
“You just keep working, dude,” he told me, “That’s all. In this business, there are always ups and downs. The last couple of years I’ve been on a pretty good high, starting with The Walking Dead. Getting involved with that series was like a gamble in the beginning.
Who the hell knew that shooting zombies’ heads off would become a popular way of releasing stress, and being an escape from normal, everyday life? We always knew there were zombie fans out there, because I started out in horror, so all of us horror guys and gals always knew that it’s a popular area, ever since George Romero did his first movie [Night of the Living Dead, 1964], but we didn’t know whether or not society had caught up with us. Apparently society has caught up with our sick minds, and they are into it as well.” Read the rest of the Galactic Gun Guy here.
Rooker seems to have his priorities better than the vast majority of Hollywood.
Too bad they offed his character. A Merle vs. Negan throwdown would have been the ultimate scene.
Archetype of a tough guy. /s
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