Age: 71
male
Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor who mainly plays roles of antagonists. He first rose to prominence for portraying the titular role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and is best known for starring as Merle Dixon in the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2013) and as Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), followed by its sequels Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). He is a recurring collaborator of Guardians of the Galaxy director and co-CEO of DC Studios, James Gunn, appearing in all of his films to date, including Slither (2006), Super (2010), and The Suicide Squad (2021). Rooker's other notable roles include Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out (1988), Frank Bailey in Mississippi Burning (1988), Terry Cruger in Sea of Love (1989), Rowdy Burns in Days of Thunder (1990), Bill Broussard in JFK (1991), Hal Tucker in Cliffhanger (1993), Sherman McMaster in Tombstone (1993), Jared Svenning in Mallrats (1995), Detective Edward Kennesaw in Deceiver (1997), Detective Howard Cheney in The Bone Collector (1999), Detective Jake Riley in Replicant (2001), and Buddy in F9 (2021).
Michael Rooker
Frederick Glass
for Frederick Glass in The Phantom Wolf
Suggested by misterwolf
The Phantom Wolf is a 2025 American revisionist Western film directed by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote the screenplay and the story with Joe Carnahan and Jerry Bruckheimer, and produced by James Mangold and Quentin Tarantino. The first installment in the Wyoming's Wolf film series, distributed by Lionsgate, and set in 1855, the film stars Samuel L. Jackson, Anne Hathaway (in the title role), Michael Rooker, Lucas Black, Chris Pratt, Millie Bobby Brown, Laurence Fishburne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Viola Davis, Don Johnson, Christoph Waltz, and Robert Downey Jr., and it follows a legendary bounty hunter as she is approached by another, who offers to help her kill the people responsible for the deaths of her family and the kidnapping of her sister if she helps him first to rescue a group of slaves, to which she agrees. The Phantom Wolf was released in theaters on March 1st, 2025. The film was a financial box-office success, grossing $921 million worldwide; it became the highest-grossing western film of all time and surpassed Django Unchained. It received critical and universal acclaim, mainly for the action sequences, visuals, story, Hans Zimmer's score and Hathaway's performance, but its graphic violence and usage of racist words drew controversy. The film overall was deemed an emotional wreck, namely for its heartbreaking ending. A prequel entitled The Phantom Wolf: Russell is scheduled to be released on October 8th, 2026, while a proper sequel is also in development.
