Mads Mikkelsen
Mads Mikkelsen
Mads Dittmann Mikkelsen; born 22 November 1965) is a Danish actor. Originally a gymnast and dancer, he began his career as an actor in 1996. He rose to fame in Denmark as Tonny the drug dealer in the first two films of the Pusher film trilogy, and in his role as the brash yet sensitive policeman, Allan Fischer, in Peter Thorsboe's Danish television series Rejseholdet...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth22 November 1965
CityCopenhagen, Denmark
CountryDenmark
It was never a plan to be an actor.
I try not to carry any character back home because that would be extremely frustrating for my family.
I don't wear cologne. I do occasionally, but anytime I take a shower, I just put on deodorant. That's basically what I smell like.
I don't want to be the stupid blond. I want to be an actor.
I'm a beer man. I tried to drink whiskey and Scotch, but I don't get it. It smells like a girl who didn't shower and just splashed a lot of perfume on.
If you have to be frightening, you need some actors around you to be really frightened. And if they're not frightened, you're not so frightening anymore. In the same way, people say, 'I think you come in, and you're really sexy'. But how do you play sexy? It depends on the eyes that are looking.
I've never been specifically attached to westerns, but there are those I like - one of the best westerns I've seen is 'Unforgiven.' I think the genre has something extremely powerful that can allow them to talk about good and evil in a very straight way.
We can ask ourselves why we invent God, and then, ten minutes later, we invent Satan - why? Because we need him; there's something fascinating about the other side of the coin.
When I do outdoor scenes, I tend to find a quiet space where I can sit and carve a walking stick that can turn out to be interesting for me.
We have no chance to comprehend what goes on there - it's so dramatic, and people are so poor. We all felt bad about being there. Filming in India felt like we were going to borrow something knowing that we were never going to give it back.
There is a tendency to underestimate the power of what we can do without words. Sometimes you can make a scene even more powerful and precise without dialogue.
When I was a kid, I wasn't looking at the small-budget films myself. I was looking at 'James Bond' and all the major films, so I still have that energy. I still love those films.
There's been no real reason to move to LA. The stuff I've done for America has been done in Europe anyway. We made a decision early on that we'd find our base and not shake the children's world as much as mine.
A solid family, as they say. They join me on location if they have a chance, but I can also be home three or four months doing nothing, so I probably see my kids more than people who work constantly all year long. If that changes, we'll have to have a family meeting.