There's been no real reason to move to LA. The stuff I've done for America has been done in Europe anyway. We made a decision early on that we'd find our base and not shake the children's world as much as mine.
— Mads Mikkelsen
I can never wink at the audience.
TV is obviously so different from film: because it's a never-ending process, it keeps going; you keep receiving new pages.
I've always been interested in strange foods, coming from all different places.
I have the strange ability to shut things out.
I vividly remember Charles Bronson's face in 'Chino.' The western genre is screaming for a face like that.
I'm not even on Facebook. I've got enough friends I never see. You know how you have a lot of friends you never call? I don't have time for new friends, and I don't want to be friends with someone only online.
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 make an awesome soup with coconut milk and shrimps; it takes me five hours to prepare the whole thing. It does become very spicy, but you can definitely taste all the ingredients.
I'm one of the actors who really enjoys working with kids and animals, which is always a no go. There's something beautiful about it because you tend to forget yourself as an actor.
If you have to be frightening, you need some actors around you to be really frightened. And if they're not frightened, you're not so frightening anymore. In the same way, people say, 'I think you come in, and you're really sexy'. But how do you play sexy? It depends on the eyes that are looking.
I'm a beer man. I tried to drink whiskey and Scotch, but I don't get it. It smells like a girl who didn't shower and just splashed a lot of perfume on.
I've always been extremely physical.
If you spend a week at a casino you will very easily see that people have a certain way of behaving in a casino.
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.
I became a dancer late and an actor late.
Danish film is spreading in a fantastic way.
I try not to carry any character back home because that would be extremely frustrating for my family.
We can ask ourselves why we invent God, and then, ten minutes later, we invent Satan - why? Because we need him; there's something fascinating about the other side of the coin.
I've never been specifically attached to westerns, but there are those I like - one of the best westerns I've seen is 'Unforgiven.' I think the genre has something extremely powerful that can allow them to talk about good and evil in a very straight way.
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.
The physicality of any character is always split up into fast, slow, high energy, low energy, what kind of personality he has. So that's where the physicality comes in. And flying through the air is just something you have to do if they ask you.
I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.
In a way, we tried to make 'The Salvation' a contemporary film with contemporary emotions. At the same time, in the script, you get a feel that all the small talk is not a part of our universe. It's more precise talk.
Predominantly I'm an Adidas guy who walks around in sports gear all the time because there's always a ball right next to me somewhere. I do a lot of sports, but I do enjoy wearing a lot of suits.
I always try to find something I like about the bad guys and then try to find the mistakes and the flaws in the good guys.
Typically, I work with the script and the director for awhile before, just to make sure we're on the same page.
I'm not ambitious about my career, but I am ambitious with each job. I can be fairly annoying to work with.
I'd rather be voted 'the sexiest man in Denmark' than 'the ugliest man in Denmark'.
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.
I'm not looking for a challenge, necessarily. I'm looking to make a really great film.
I have an enormous metabolism, so I'm lucky.
I was a very focused kid. I always had this crazy lifestyle... billions of jobs, two hours of gymnastics every day, handball, anything with a ball, really. I must have had ADHD or something. I was very energetic, and very small. I didn't start growing until the last year of high school.
Sometimes we misunderstand what films can do. We just throw a whole book in there, with people just talking, talking, and talking. The picture can tell, the frame can tell.
England and Denmark have a sense of irony and a darker sense of humour that you don't necessarily find in Germany and Sweden.
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.
The whole Fannibal thing is predominantly something that happens in a world I don't know about, which is the Internet.
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.
I was a gymnast for many years before I was a dancer, so it comes in pretty handy when we do stunts.
If David Bowie wants, I'll put him in my phone book.
When I do outdoor scenes, I tend to find a quiet space where I can sit and carve a walking stick that can turn out to be interesting for me.
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.
I'm terrified about psychic people who have their little shops. I always walk across the street and go somewhere else. Imagine if one of them came out with their face all pale and said, 'Hurry up and enjoy yourself.' No one wants to know that.
One thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do. It doesn't matter if you're close - it still sounds terrible to their ears.
I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right.
I choose work with the people I like to work with.
If you're not bruised up, then you're not doing an action film in a real way.
Once you do one bad guy, usually all you get offered is bad guys.
I like to stay home with my family.
I don't wear cologne. I do occasionally, but anytime I take a shower, I just put on deodorant. That's basically what I smell like.
