Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor known for his roles as Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out (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), Jared Svenning in Mallrats (1995), Detective Howard Cheney in The Bone Collector (1999), Grant Grant in Slither (2006), Merle Dixon in AMC's The Walking Dead (2010–2013) and Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), its sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), and the animated series What If...? (2021). Since 2006, he has been a frequent collaborator of filmmaker James Gunn, and has appeared in all five films Gunn has directed so far.