Actor Michael Madsen plays a corrupt cop in the film. He discussed Sin City and directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino with The Prague Post during the recent Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

"I never made a film like [Sin City] before," Madsen said. "The whole thing is done in front of a great big green or blue screen. There is no real set. You are just standing on a stage with a screen behind you. It's a little disorienting."

All of the backgrounds, modeled on comic book pages, were put in behind the actors later by computer. "Now that I've seen the film, I guess I understand what he did," Madsen said.

Madsen's cop is the partner of one of the few honest characters, a cop played by Bruce Willis. The film's other major plot features Mickey Rourke in a comeback role as a criminal out to get revenge for a murdered prostitute. Both of these stories lead to a mysterious farm at the edge of Basin City.

Robert Rodriguez handled the cinematography and editing, but shares the directing credit with Miller, the books' author.

"He was there all the time and I was glad to have him there," Madsen said. "Frank [Miller] has a very strong opinion because he created the whole thing, and that's why Robert wanted him there."

It wasn't a difficult transition from the book to the screen, according to Madsen. "A comic book in a way is almost like a storyboard for a film," he said. "All Robert had to do was to re-create the characters as human beings." The film has no screenplay credit since the comics were followed so closely. Madsen got along well with the author. "He's an interesting man. His comics are very dark. It ain't Spider-Man, that's for sure."

One unusual credit for the film lists Quentin Tarantino as special guest director. Madsen worked with Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill. He didn't work with Tarantino this time. "Quentin directed the part of the film that Benicio Del Toro is in, and I think he just came around to hang with Robert," Madsen said. The actor likes the idea of multiple directors. "I don't mind so much having a couple of guys there if you trust them. ... I think the more help you can get in a situation like that, the better off you are.

"[Rodriguez] and Quentin are very similar in their view of things. Robert did all the music for Kill Bill," Madsen said, adding that Rodriguez is already planning a Sin City sequel, which Madsen will be in.

Madsen feels that Sin City, with its complete absence of a conventional set, redefines the way movies are made. The new technology concerns him, though. "I don't know if I like it or not. It's kind of scary because you figure if they can generate all that stuff in a computer to surround an actor with, pretty soon actors may become obsolete. Maybe they'll just design some guy in a computer and put him in the movie and I'll be out of a job." But he hopes that actors will always remain essential. "Every once in a while I see something ... that completely revitalizes my idea of being an actor and why I started out in the first place. I guess there will always be special effects and all that kind of jazz. But I think at the end of the day, people just want to see a story about people, so there is room for it all."

In Sin City and Kill Bill, Madsen plays violent characters. He tries to leave those characters on the set. "You have to be careful not to bring too much of yourself into a character because you don't want to take it home with you," he said.

Surprisingly, he would rather not always play tough guys. "I'd like to be on the screen with a woman instead of a gun," he confided. "If there are any directors out there with something nice and romantic — perhaps I could be a florist, a doughnut deliveryman. ... I'd like to do something like that without any mayhem."

Madsen said he regrets the voices he did for video games. "I wasn't fully informed about the content of the video games. I got involved in that when it was just beginning, and later on when I saw some of the games that my voice was in, I wished that I hadn't done it," he said. "I will be thinking twice before I lend my name to anything else like that in the future."

His concern over violent entertainment extends to his own family. "My youngest boy hasn't seen Reservoir Dogs and I am not so sure he is ready for that. I would prefer that they watch Free Willy or Wyatt Earp or some noble thing," he said. (Madsen had a role in Free Willy.)

Another regret is missing out on Pulp Fiction. "I was doing Wyatt Earp, you know. I wanted to walk down the street to the OK Corral because that is something that really happened. And I had never played a cowboy before. I thought that would be kind of cool," he said.

Madsen said Tarantino is planning a spin-off film called The Vega Brothers, in which he would play the brother of John Travolta's Pulp Fiction character. "I always try to look for the silver lining in the gray cloud. Maybe that will get made some day. I spoke to Quentin about it last year. ... He had a great idea for that script," Madsen said.

But that's not the next project they will work on together. "Inglorious Bastards is a war film, and Tarantino wrote that at the same time he was writing Kill Bill. ... I am looking forward to it."