Mads Mikkelsen. “Movies Showing Their ‘2023 Morals’ No Thanks”

James Bond’s nemesis Casino Royale (2006), The Sly Scientist Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), bad boy In Doctor Strange (2016) and c Fantastic beasts (2022), the rival of Indiana Jones last Indiana Jones and the Fate Collector*… for fifteen years, Mads Mikkelsen has carved a special place for himself in the hearts of the international community, lending his carnivorous smile to the villains (and supporting characters) of the greatest successful sagas. The most discerning moviegoers wouldn’t even give him a glance if the Danish actor wasn’t one of the most daring performers of his generation on this side of the Atlantic, lauded for his ability to play the killer and the victim. the same nuance adopted by unique authors.

Nicolas Winding Refn reveals it push (1996), Arnaud de Pallier won him a César Award for Best Actor in 2014. Michael Kohlhaas (2013), and Thomas Vinterberg brings him up as a teacher unjustly accused of child abuse; The hunt (2012 Cannes Commentary Award) and Teaching in Crisis Oscar winner Drunk (2020).

You can find magic in any movie

Mads Mikkelsen

In the video, Indiana Jones and the Fate Collectorthe teaser

Mads the Magnetic

It’s Mads Mikkelsenentertainment Popcorn that interacts with original cinema. cash register whose intelligence forgives Hollywood infidelity, black charisma combined with charming randomness… And the sexiest man in Denmark according to many polls. Magnetic will be fairer. That day at the Cannes Film Festival, where he presented Indiana Jones Outside of the competition, his charisma is intimidating. But after only a few minutes, the cold-hearted actor quickly breaks the ice by bluntly answering about his status in Hollywood. “My accent obviously helped with the villain roles. It calms them down to think that evil comes from outside,” he answers us with his famous smile.

“I was very happy in Scandinavia, but how can I refuse? James Bond, who, without looking for me, launched me in the USA? I’ve never planned anything, and I know I’ll go out of style across the Atlantic. In the meantime, I take advantage of this: you can find magic in any movie. What’s more? Indiana Jones, a saga he devoured on cassette with his brother Lars during his teenage years in Copenhagen. In this fifth chapter, he is the Nazi, the inseparable enemy of the adventurer. “Maybe there is a lack of imagination in the studios. when they like you in a successful movie, they want to reproduce the recipe. For them I am bad boy ! In Europe, the approach is radically different. the director comes to make you stand out, to reinvent yourself.” And “crazy lunatics(Mads le fou, his nickname) adapt easily to whatever the universe throws at him.

From dance to cinema

This flexibility he owes to his course more by chance than deliberate. As a child, raised by a bank employee father and a nurse mother, he did not dream of cinema. “I was thinking only about sports. I loved the dramatic stakes of pageants… A side of me as an actor is being created. She is involved in handball, tennis, basketball and especially gymnastics, which leads her to dance. This will be his job for eight years. “I only liked to dance when I embodied an emotion, a story that I could identify with. The only aesthetic search bored me.

Then he slipped into the theater, landed leading roles and met his alter ego, director Nicolas Winding Refn, who cast him as a skinhead. push (1996). In ten years he becomes a superstar in his country. “My notoriety has grown, and it has grown along with American productions and soap operas Hannibal (2013), by Bryan Fuller (for whom he would soon find again Dust bunny, editor’s note). But I have always tried to lead a normal life without thinking about my character or star system.

raging star

Living in Hollywood, for example, was never an option. When the majors knocked on his door, his two children, born in 1992 and 1997 from his love affair with his choreographer wife, were studying. He refuses to eradicate them. “Fame is only a consequence of my work, not an end in itself. It should not determine everything. Including his freedom of expression. If he escapes from social networks, which he considers reductive, the actor keeps an unbridled word in the interview. “For fear of being grilled, we tend to censor ourselves. But I refuse to give in to paranoia, to live in a world where the mind is limited, sanitized. Today, the shadow is no longer tolerated, we consider it suspicious. It is necessary to condemn, judge, feed contradictions. It’s dangerous. a single thought, whatever, has never had a happy result. Times are not easy. We try to politicize everything, including cinema. It makes me tired.”

I refuse to give in to paranoia, to live in a world where the mind is limited, sanitized

Mads Mikkelsen

Complex roles

Movies with a message, very few for him. Turning around with the director is not an argument either. “I’m interested in people and stories that challenge my thinking system, wherever they come from. But movies that flaunt their “2023 morals” or work with a director because it looks good, thanks. Male or female, that is not the question. It’s good or not, period.” In touch with his time, he nevertheless acknowledges the injustices that his colleagues fall victim to. “The inequality is obvious. At 80, we take it Harrison Ford still plays the adventurer. Better yet, we claim it, we find it cool and, indeed, it is. But a woman of her age would never have such an opportunity. However, when Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren are in a movie, I’m a fan. It is absolutely necessary to review the system and write stories to them. And I’m not talking about rotten comedies where we see three middle-aged women get their revenge one last time or go free with their friends. I’m talking about complex roles commensurate with their talent,” he suddenly gets carried away, finally becoming more political than he cares to admit.

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*Indiana Jones and the Collector of Destiny, by James Mangold. Released on the 28thJune 2023.