Mads Mikkelsen: Vikings & Mental Health

Ringo Starr? He is still alive and has beautiful black hair.

The director Anders Thomas Jensen is very successful with films in which he involves men in strange events. You are often the weirdest one in these groups.

Most recently, in “Heroes of Probability”, I was, for once, the most “normal”, but overall you are right: Jensen loves to push me to extremes again and again, now also with this frightened man called Manfred alias John Lennon.

The core theme in “Therapy for Vikings” is a serious one: paternal violence in the family. People are scarred for life when they experience something like this as children. Do you have to know something about trauma in order to talk about it?

Creativity does not depend on trauma. But it is important for me as an actor as well as for the director to know something about the human experience.

Part of your image is that you often play villains. Now it is a man who has almost completely withdrawn into his fantasy worlds. According to the original title of the film, he considers himself to be the “last Viking”. Is this imagination the core of an actor’s work?

I play Manfred as the six-year-old child he has always remained. He stays in the background because he distrusts the world. But he is also very narcissistic, as children can be as soon as he steps on stage and takes charge.

I can tell stories about my childhood that are less beautiful and really great things. It’s like the glass is half full or half empty. Childhood is what you want from it.

I ask because people like to look for a clue when it comes to actors: What experiences does someone have when playing an unusual character? You’re probably not a method actor who digs deep into your own psyche.

I tend to look for memories, but that has nothing to do with method acting. This is often very misunderstood. Method acting is basically a boring technique used to evoke a feeling. It has nothing to do with someone gaining 100 kilos for a role. In the specific case of Manfred: I try to understand what makes him happy. This can also be something banal. I just need to understand it. You can also overdo it when preparing for a role.

Robert De Niro is considered an advocate of method acting. The way he played Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver” really impressed you.

Above all, it was the ambiguity of the character. We’re used to movies with characters we like and others we don’t like. And nothing changes in this either/or until the end. I liked Travis Bickle at first, but then he grew on me and sometimes I wanted to hit him. That’s life. I was completely on him for two hours.

The cinema would therefore be a place where we as individuals, but also as a society, can learn and strengthen how to deal with ambiguity. One also specifically speaks of tolerance of ambiguity as an essential virtue.

There are also limits to this tolerance. This is what we as a society need to figure out. Nowadays we cultivate a high degree of individuality, and on the other hand, everyone should be equal somewhere. That doesn’t add up. If someone steps out of line, that person definitely shouldn’t be able to bring the whole world to its knees before them.

“Therapy for Vikings” is a nice example of a general finding: there are dramas, but hardly any tragedies, and when they do, they are told as comedies. Are the old genres dissolving?

If we think of the Greek comedies: the order of genres was very strict. The comedies used this to convey criticism of the authorities. Aristophanes spoke very specifically about untenable conditions, so he was very serious, and then he wrapped everything up in something crazy so that people would let him get away with it. We can’t get through without dark humor. That’s what lies behind these mixtures.

In 1996 you became known for the film “Pusher”, for which you had your head shaved. A nod to “Taxi Driver”’s mohawk hairstyle?

I think it was me who suggested it. These two guys, the only actors in the film, had a darkness in their eyes that I was missing. I was never part of this drug scene in Copenhagen. So it took something radical for this character of Tonny to gain respect.

You made “Pusher” with Nicolas Winding Refn, who later became a cult director with “Walhalla Rising” and “Only God Forgives”. It was the time of Dogma 95, when Danish cinema achieved world recognition with Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier.

We made the film in a way that was laid out by Dogma 95 with a manifesto: handheld camera, no additional lighting, all that stuff. We just didn’t talk about it. We simply didn’t have the money for more, and the film had to have a very documentary feel. For me, at the core of Dogma 95 is that the story should be the focus again.

Are you still in touch with Winding Refn?

He was at my birthday recently. We are parts of both of our life journeys and complement each other well: He only talks about films. I just talk about sports.

Her enthusiasm for football is well known. How do you remember the summer of 1992?

Haha, I was in Copenhagen and I was one of the hundreds of thousands who flooded into the streets when Denmark, against all logic, became European champions. It is said that 20 or 30 percent more babies were born nine months later than would have been statistically expected. But I don’t just watch football. Tour de France is just as exciting.

What fascinates you about these sports?

It’s the drama. Someone wins, everyone does their best. Things often happen that you would cut out of any script because they are too crazy.

When did you first meet Anders Thomas Jensen?

I had just finished my studies, it was the mid-nineties. He wrote short films. We argued quite a bit at the beginning because we were both very provocative back then.

His films are entertaining, but very complex in detail. Does he have to hide his intelligence a little?

Intelligence is diverse. I know actors who you wouldn’t think were super smart, but who have unerring intuition. Thomas’s mind is very, very quick, and when he talks, things come up that no one would expect.

Do you believe in something like fate? Karma? Your career seems as if everything happened very easily.

I never sat back, but I always lived in the moment and never thought about anything that was to come in two years. I know people who are so focused on a particular dream that they see everything as just steps toward that dream. In this way, a life can quickly be over.

What is crucial when you have a script in front of you?

If it’s badly written! If there is no wavelength with the director! Sometimes I see a film or a fire but also in bad scripts. Or if I don’t fully understand something – then it becomes interesting!

Do you read a lot yourself, or do your people already know what to put in the drawer?

Most things get through to me. I insist on that. I might notice something that only I notice. My people are very good and know me very well. But I don’t want to risk anything.

You’ve claimed you didn’t realize how big of a deal the James Bond franchise was when you accepted the role of villain Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

That was up to me. I’ve never watched Star Wars, and I haven’t watched any James Bond movies. I watched B-movies and horror films. Today I understand what was great about James Bond. But my heroes were the karate fighter Bruce Lee or Buster Keaton, Charles Bronson.

Buster Keaton must be particularly interesting to you as an actor. He is famous for his motionless face. It often looks like he isn’t playing at all.

He does a lot, but of course early cinema was different. Sometimes you notice a little joy creeping into your stoicism, and then the heavens open up.

You have repeatedly accepted roles internationally, soon also in the very exciting “Dust Bunny”. Was there ever a moment, for example after “Casino Royale,” when your life, your career, could have spiraled out of control?

I always had Denmark. That was always enough for me. It’s fun to work in Hollywood or anywhere else. But my friends, my language, my family, that was always Denmark. We don’t make huge pirate films, but we do our thing.