A rough-hewn, prolific character actor best known for his striking portrayals of genre villains, Michael Ironside began as a writer in his native Canada, where he wrote and produced his first play at age 15. While attending the Ontario College of Art, he wrote, directed and starred in his first film "Down Where the Lights Are", which attracted the attention of actor-director Janine Manatis. She cast him in a Canadian TV version of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger", the first of many Canadian TV and film projects he would undertake before relocating to California in 1983. An early highlight from this period was David Cronenberg's psychic thriller, "Scanners" (1980), wherein the evil Ironside uttered the immortal line, "Let's do this the Scanner way . . . I'm going to suck your brain dry!"

Once in Los Angeles, Ironside landed a leading role as Ham Tyler in NBC's miniseries "V: The Final Battle" (1984) and subsequent "V: The Series" (1984-85), after which he pursued his film career, working with distinguished directors like John Schlesinger ("The Falcon and the Snowman", 1985), Walter Hill ("Extreme Prejudice", 1987), and Paul Verhoeven ("Total Recall", 1990). Ironside segued to screenwriting and producing with the Canadian feature "Chaindance" (1991) and followed up with roles as the evil park owner in "Free Willy" (1993) and the baddie opposing Pat Morita in "The Next Karate Kid" (1994). He created the character of Dr. William Swift who shows up periodically on NBC's "ER" and joined the cast of "seaQuest DSV" (NBC) as a regular for its 1994-95 season. Ironside reteamed with Verhoeven to play a schoolteacher who joins in the fight against invading insects in "Starship Troopers" (1997).