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 fancy myself at being pretty good at understanding a script and finding the weaknesses, and then making them more radical than they are. People tend to listen to me.
I've never been a big fan of making telepathy to the audience. That would be too much a wink in the eye. That would make people around me fools, right?
I never really planned a career. I've tried to avoid it. I've tried to do this stuff I felt for, the stuff I like. So, I've just been meeting these fantastic directors who've offered me a variation of different parts and different films.
Danish film is spreading in a fantastic way.
I'm a big fan of film for one reason: because it is visual.
I will never be a fan of any kind of political correctness: I think it's instant death to creativity.
I was a late bloomer, but I had a career as a contemporary dancer before that, so I had some kind of connection to this world. But I was always a little more in love with the drama of dancing than the aesthetics, so I thought, 'Why don't you give it a chance if you think you can do it a little different?'
I think I've always had to pick and choose whatever I want to work on. If I'm not happy with what I'm doing, it's probably not going to end up that interesting.
I was into sports and swimming as a kid and didn't spend a whole lot of time sitting down. I was a gymnast.
I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right.
I was very energetic and very small. I didn't start growing until the last year of high school.
Typically, I work with the script and the director for awhile before, just to make sure we're on the same page.
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 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.