Michael Ironside, born Frederick Reginald Ironside, was born in Toronto and attended the Ontario College of Art. Always a creative, at age 15 he wrote a play called The Shelter, which won first prize in a university contest, as well as winning the senior year writing award at Riverdale Collegiate Institute. He developed a lifelong love of science fiction from his grandfather’s influence.

Michael is mostly known for playing villains and antiheroes. One of his first major roles was the evil telepath Darryl Revok in David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981), after which he played serial killer Colt Hawker in the slasher film Visiting Hours and appeared as Miler Crane in The A-Team, as well as Overdog McNab in Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

Michael’s breakout role followed, as cynical antihero Ham Tyler in the miniseries V: The Final Battle (1984) and the subsequent V TV series. He starred opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986) as Naval Aviator Lieutenant Commander Rick “Jester” Heatherly, with Nick Nolte and Powers Boothe in Extreme Prejudice as Major Paul Hackett, opposite Corey Haim as the conscience-free mutant assassin Lem in Watchers, before blowing up in 1990’s smash hit Total Recall, hunting down Arnold Schwarzeneggar as murderous henchman Richter.

In 1991 Michael played the villainous General Katana in Highlander II: The Quickening and also starred in Chaindance as a small-time crook, unable to make it on the outside. He went on to play M. Emmet Walsh’s brother in David Winning’s thriller Killer Image, and starred as Dial, the main antagonist of Free Willy. After a starring turn in the inaugural season of ER, he replaced Roy Scheider as captain of the high-tech submarine SeaQuest in the third season of SeaQuest DSV. He featured as Lt. Col. Stone opposite Damon Wayans in Major Payne, before reuniting with his Total Recall director Paul Verhoeven for the cult hit Starship Troopers, as the intimidating Lieutenant Jean Rasczak, commander of Rasczak’s Roughnecks, opposite fellow Metro Comic Con guest Casper Van Dien.

Michael later appeared in The Perfect Storm and The Machinist, before reuniting with his The Machinist co-star, Christian Bale, when he starred as Resistance General Hugh Ashdown in Terminator Salvation.

Michael has also performed as a voice actor, with roles including Tyler in Heavy Metal 2000, and as comic book supervillain Darkseid in the DC Animated Universe, in Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, later reprising the role in the 2018 video game Lego DC Supervillains and the 2020 DC Universe/HBO Max web series Harley Quinn. He voiced Batman in a Batman: The Dark Knight Returns sequence for The New Batman Adventures. In the live action DC Comics universe he also played Lois Lane’s father, General Sam Lane, in Smallville. Other voice acting roles include GDI General Jack Granger in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and the lead role of Sam Fisher in the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell game series and its sequels; Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Splinter Cell: Essentials, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.

Michael has appeared in dozens of other films and TV shows, including Burn Notice, X-Men: First Class, Justified, Walker, Texas Ranger, Tokyo Trial, The Alienist, Nobody, The Dropout, Hidden Assets, Turbo Kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ransom, Still/Born, Knuckleball, Atropa, Hawaii Five-O, Marrow, Barry with Bill Hader, and, with over 270 roles, too many more to mention. He returned to voice acting as Ultra Magnus in Transformers: Prime Beast Hunters, Kane in The Callisto Protocol: Helix Station opposite Gwendoline Christie, and the narrator in Late Night with the Devil, and to the DC universe as Lewis Snart, father of Captain Cold, in The Flash.

Michael is a four-time Gemini Award, a Genie Award, and a Canadian Film Award nominee.