Top 100 Mads Mikkelsen Quotes
#1. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#2. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#3. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#4. I ask a million questions, and I insist on having answers. I think that is what we have to do. I have to know what the director wants. Some are very much in their head, and I need to force it out of them. I just can't play around for eight hours and see if something happens.
Mads Mikkelsen
#5. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#6. If I do my very best, then the camera and the audience will follow me, and eventually they will somehow feel like I feel. I don't have to show it to them. I don't have to speak it out loud.
Mads Mikkelsen
#7. I love working back home, but it is a small country, and we do get tired of watching each other.
Mads Mikkelsen
#8. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#9. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#10. I like 'The Three Musketeers.' I like those kind of cool things where they were having a robe and a sword.
Mads Mikkelsen
#11. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#12. I vividly remember Charles Bronson's face in 'Chino.' The western genre is screaming for a face like that.
Mads Mikkelsen
#13. I'm a big fan of film for one reason: because it is visual.
Mads Mikkelsen
#14. I do read some of the scripts from America and, even though the themes or subject of the film is very interesting, and some of the scenes are very interesting, there is a tendency that they have to explain everything. There will be no dilemma.
Mads Mikkelsen
#15. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#16. If you're not bruised up, then you're not doing an action film in a real way.
Mads Mikkelsen
#18. I think they tried the 3-D revolution at least five times throughout history, and it never seemed to work. However, finally, 'Avatar' did it.
Mads Mikkelsen
#19. A solid family, as they say. They join me on location if they have a chance, but I can also be home three or four months doing nothing, so I probably see my kids more than people who work constantly all year long. If that changes, we'll have to have a family meeting.
Mads Mikkelsen
#20. If I was doing 'The Hunt' constantly, I would get very old, very fast.
Mads Mikkelsen
#21. We are filmmakers, and we are specifically trying to entertain people.
Mads Mikkelsen
#22. Typically, I work with the script and the director for awhile before, just to make sure we're on the same page.
Mads Mikkelsen
#23. The problem is that you can't really read a script saying, 'Hmmm, I'll just see what this is.' You have to go right into it; you have to get engaged with it, and once you are engaged, you want to do it! It's really difficult to get uninvolved.
Mads Mikkelsen
#24. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#25. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#27. I'm not ambitious about my career, but I am ambitious with each job. I can be fairly annoying to work with.
Mads Mikkelsen
#28. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#29. Everybody wants a big crowd. You get amazed sometimes with certain things that millions of people are watching and you go, "Serious?! Really?!" And then, there are things that you really, really enjoy and not a lot of people are watching. It's very, very hard to predict how it works.
Mads Mikkelsen
#30. I've always been interested in strange foods, coming from all different places.
Mads Mikkelsen
#31. 'Clash Of The Titans' is one of the biggest movies I've done; it was certainly the most effects I've worked with.
Mads Mikkelsen
#32. Being physical and doing my own stunts - it is fun to do these kind of films once in a while, especially before you get too old.
Mads Mikkelsen
#33. I haven't watched that much TV, to be honest. To be honest, I don't watch that many films anymore - partly because I don't have time; secondly, because I watch a lot of sports, and I love watching sports.
Mads Mikkelsen
#34. I have a three-piece suit. I'm an art collector. I have a funny accent. So I'm probably the killer.
Mads Mikkelsen
#35. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#36. I can be intense in a lot of ways, but not the way you see the guy in 'The Salvation.'
Mads Mikkelsen
#37. We were in love with 'Mean Streets' and 'Taxi Driver.' We had no idea why nothing remotely like that was done in Denmark.
Mads Mikkelsen
#38. I will never be a fan of any kind of political correctness: I think it's instant death to creativity.
Mads Mikkelsen
#39. 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?
Mads Mikkelsen
#40. First, I have to read something and find it interesting and like the story. If I don't understand it fully, but there is something in there that is interesting, then it takes a director to convince me. If he can't do that, then I don't go with it. It doesn't matter where the project comes from.
Mads Mikkelsen
#41. Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.
Mads Mikkelsen
#43. 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
#44. I was into sports and swimming as a kid and didn't spend a whole lot of time sitting down. I was a gymnast.
Mads Mikkelsen
#45. I did a crazy version of 'Romeo and Juliet' once, and I played Romeo.
Mads Mikkelsen
#46. Awards mean absolutely nothing if you don't get it. If you do get it, they're the best thing in the world.
Mads Mikkelsen
#47. There's no such thing as easy, but it's easier when a script is good.
Mads Mikkelsen
#48. I try not to carry any character back home because that would be extremely frustrating for my family.
Mads Mikkelsen
#49. I don't necessarily prefer playing villains. I know a lot of people say they are more fun, but if the scriptwriter has done their work well, you can find something realistic in a villain and find the mistakes in a hero - it's all down to the writing.
Mads Mikkelsen
#50. TV is obviously so different from film: because it's a never-ending process, it keeps going; you keep receiving new pages.
Mads Mikkelsen
#51. I watched westerns when I was a kid, like everybody else, but I wasn't a total nerd or geek about it. I kind of fell in love with westerns heavily when I started watching Sergio Leone's westerns.
Mads Mikkelsen
#52. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#53. If David Bowie wants, I'll put him in my phone book.
Mads Mikkelsen
#54. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#56. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#57. I think the meaning of life is life itself. We don't necessarily want to know what it is, but we want to live it. Hopefully, we'll go out fast without knowing it.
Mads Mikkelsen
#58. England and Denmark have a sense of irony and a darker sense of humour that you don't necessarily find in Germany and Sweden.
Mads Mikkelsen
#60. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#62. I like to stay home with my family. But travel is good in a way. It makes you redefine each other each time you see each other. Also, it helps that I think my wife is the hottest woman in the world.
Mads Mikkelsen
#63. If you believe in Odin and Thor, people laugh themselves to death. While it's okay to believe in a man who turned water into wine, and walked on water
Mads Mikkelsen
#64. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#65. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#66. The day before I was famous in Denmark, nobody looked my way. The day after, everybody wanted to talk to me.
Mads Mikkelsen
#67. I always wanted to play some kind of instrument - piano, saxophone, whatever. I took it up for a while, then forgot about it because I didn't have the time.
Mads Mikkelsen
#68. Sometimes you're trying your best and you still can't find a solution, but I try not to waste my life living in a dark place.
Mads Mikkelsen
#69. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#70. I choose work with the people I like to work with.
Mads Mikkelsen
#71. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#72. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#73. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#74. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#75. I'm in a very lucky position. You have to remember that 95 percent of all actors aren't working. I'm actually able to go to France and work. It's a situation I couldn't have dreamt up.
Mads Mikkelsen
#76. I don't want to be the stupid blond. I want to be an actor.
Mads Mikkelsen
#77. If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.
Mads Mikkelsen
#78. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#79. I never even thought about being an actor. Somebody asked me if I'd like to learn the craft, and I said, 'Okay.' I was a gymnast in a show at that time, and somebody asked me afterwards one night. I performed as a gymnast for nine years, and then I did acting after that.
Mads Mikkelsen
#80. When you do a TV show, there's always the fear that it will become tired and you'll know exactly what's going to happen.
Mads Mikkelsen
#81. I go to the pub, hang out with my family - that's pretty much it. I also do a lot of sports when I get the chance. I'm actually a pretty mellow guy.
Mads Mikkelsen
#82. I was a gymnast for many years before I was a dancer, so it comes in pretty handy when we do stunts.
Mads Mikkelsen
#83. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
#84. I'm not looking for a challenge, necessarily. I'm looking to make a really great film.
Mads Mikkelsen
#85. I always work with the tempo of the energy of the character, whether he's fast or slow, or heavy or light.
Mads Mikkelsen
#87. I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right.
Mads Mikkelsen
#88. Actors are very good at not revealing anything, so they're safe.
Mads Mikkelsen
#89. Once you do one bad guy, usually all you get offered is bad guys.
Mads Mikkelsen
#92. I'd rather be voted 'the sexiest man in Denmark' than 'the ugliest man in Denmark'.
Mads Mikkelsen
#93. I was not into sci-fi, science fiction, at all. I was into some of the old pirate films with Burt Lancaster and stuff. I liked them.
Mads Mikkelsen
#94. I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious.
Mads Mikkelsen
#95. If you spend a week at a casino you will very easily see that people have a certain way of behaving in a casino.
Mads Mikkelsen
#96. If people need to be informed by lines, then there's no reason why the actor is saying the line except for information for the audience; I think there's something wrong.
Mads Mikkelsen
#97. Before we made films about gangsters, everything was about the royal families. They contain so much drama.
Mads Mikkelsen
#98. II know a little about Greek mythology. It's not that far away from the Nordic mythology.
Mads Mikkelsen
#99. The whole Fannibal thing is predominantly something that happens in a world I don't know about, which is the Internet.
Mads Mikkelsen
#100. 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.
Mads Mikkelsen
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