Why I admire Michael Ironside
When you discuss the characters that Michael Ironside has portrayed during his impressive career, it’s often the bad guy roles or the bad guys fighting on the good guy’s side roles or just plain tough guy roles that often come to mind first… but one striking character trait of his that often gets forgotten is this: LEADERSHIP.
NO other actor has found the niche for portraying leadership roles in a sci-fi or horror genre like Michael Ironside. Even Star Trek Captains rarely portray a similar role in another series the way Ironside has. He’s been Captain of the SeaQuest, Lt. Ratazchek in Starship Troopers, a Resistance Leader in V, and is filming to play a captain in Ice Planet. Even when he’s not at the top giving orders there’s usually people under him taking them, like in Total Recall, Omega Code, ER, Free Willy, Top Gun, Highlander II and so many others.
In a world where most heroes are often portrayed as lone gunman, it’s rare to find someone who can fill a “leadership” niche as nicely as Ironside can, who repeatedly convincingly portrays men that others will follow into battle and die for (and often do, in these movies).
In a SeaQuest episode he tells a shipmate that true leaders would never give an order that they would not be willing to do themselves (and later that episode takes a suicide mission himself instead of ordering another man to take it). In Starship Troopers he sets the example and gives advice to Johnny on how to lead men (by setting standards high, risking his life to save his men repeatedly, throwing huge parties when they succeed, and being willing to put another man out of their misery when it’s too late to save him…). His characters are often marked by simple, straight-forward advice he has for those under them (“One rule: Everyone fights, no one quits” in Starship Troopers or “I may bring down the neighborhood, but they’ll eat it” in V), and by his ability to fight and work alongside his men (even as the bad guy yelling and pushing the guys under him in Total Recall, he’s running with them the entire time, pushing them along, taking the punches and dodging the bullets with them, instead of sitting in an office giving orders from afar).
One thing I can say for sure: there is a lot to be learned on how to lead others, and the importance of good leadership, through the works of Michael Ironside, who has shown us how to lead through a variety of works like few others have.
