Michael Ironside (born Frederick Reginald Ironside, February 12, 1950) is a Canadian actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed sympathetic characters. Ironside is a method actor, who stays in character between takes. Ironside was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Robert Walter Ironside and Patricia June Passmore. His father was a street lighting technician, and his mother a homemaker. Ironside attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and wrote a play at the age of 15, The Shelter, which won the first prize in a university contest. He also won the Senior writing award for Riverdale Collegiate Institute in 1967. In a January 2010 interview, Ironside stated in response to a question about his many roles in science fiction movies that he has always been a big fan of science fiction and often received science fiction short story collections from his grandfather that he kept in a shoebox under his bed.