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
I was not into sci-fi, science fiction, at all. I was into some of the old pirate films with Burt Lancaster and stuff. I liked them.
I did a TV show called 'Unit 1.' It wasn't a bad experience, but yes, the first season I didn't have a good time because I was coming from Nicolas Winding Refn films where the corners were sharp and radical, but now we had round corners.
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.
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.
Before we made films about gangsters, everything was about the royal families. They contain so much drama.
I haven't watched that much TV, to be honest. To be honest, I don't watch that many films anymore - partly because I don't have time; secondly, because I watch a lot of sports, and I love watching sports.
I'm a big fan of film for one reason: because it is visual.
Danish film is spreading in a fantastic way.
I'm not looking for a challenge, necessarily. I'm looking to make a really great film.
I come from a culture where you don’t divide it up to what you can do on TV and what you can do on film,
In Denmark, we're making 20 films a year. If I'm showing up in even two of those, people will get tired of me really fast.
I've been watching 'Walking Dead' with my son, and there is absolutely nothing in there I find shocking, but it's cool, and I like it.
The script is always the main preparation for me. Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it, but if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.
England and Denmark have a sense of irony and a darker sense of humour that you don't necessarily find in Germany and Sweden.