The movie Mads Mikkelsen called a dream come true: “How cool can it be?”
A sexy serial killer. A James Bond villain. A Star Wars hero. An enemy of Indiana Jones. An evil wizard in the world of Harry Potter. Mads Mikkelsen is one of the few actors alive today who really can claim to have ‘done it all’. Remarkably, despite showing up in almost every major franchise in cinema, people don’t seem to be sick of him yet. Oh, what it must be like to be so talented and beloved…
The Danish actor hasn’t just lived one dream. He’s lived several, which makes you wonder which of his many roles stands out the most to him. Well, during a conversation with The New Yorker, he revealed that it was a character from yet another billion-dollar series – rogue sorcerer Kaecillius in Marvel’s Doctor Strange.
“To do a flying kung-fu film – we had wires and stuff going on in Doctor Strange – was like a dream come true,” he revealed, citing his childhood love of the genre. “I loved Bruce Lee. And I was not only doing flying kung fu – Jesus; I had an orange fucking jumpsuit! How cool can it be?”
As a youngster, Mikkelsen originally had his sights set on becoming a gymnast. This early affinity for athletics is what the actor credits with his ability to perform so many stunts on the set of the superhero film. “That I was able to do that at the age of fifty obviously had to do with my past,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to train that up.”
Interestingly, had he been a better gymnast, he might not have developed such a passion for wire-fu. “I was not the best gymnast in the world, necessarily,” confessed the Hannibal star. “So, we had plenty of time to fool around and do stunts constantly in this massive place with mattresses. We tried to make them look as real and crazy as possible. I think that that’s coming in handy today.”
Doctor Strange, which came out in 2016, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular mystic. Mikkelsen’s character, Kaecillius, is a former sorcerer who turns his back on his old order and attempts to release an ancient evil called Dormammu. Unfortunately, this doesn’t end well, as once the creature is defeated, it drags Kaecillius and his minions back into its homeworld, the Dark Dimension. Fans are still waiting to see if he will escape, but nobody’s holding their breath.
Mikkelsen’s early love for Bruce Lee (and his previous career as a dancer) probably contributes to the actor’s insistence on doing as much of his own stunt work as possible. “I will go as far as I can and feel out how far I can get,” he stated. “I might be wrong. I’m often right, I believe.” He wasn’t completely oblivious to the work of stunt performers, though, saying, “Stunt guys are fantastic. They save our lives every day.” He did admit, however, that “sometimes it is more brutal to watch the actor actually do it, and actually fall down on set, and not make it too choreographed.”
Fans can next see Mikkelsen – or rather hear him – in Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 2019 live-action remake of Disney’s animated classic. He is also set to appear in Bryan Fuller’s directorial debut, Dust Bunny, a horror movie also starring Sigourney Weaver and David Dastmalchian.
