Mads Mikkelsen Quotes

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.

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 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.

There's no such thing as easy, but it's easier when a script is good.

I became a dancer late and an actor late.

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.

I love working back home, but it is a small country, and we do get tired of watching each other.

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.

Typically, I work with the script and the director for awhile before, just to make sure we're on the same page.

I was a gymnast for many years before I was a dancer, so it comes in pretty handy when we do stunts.

I don't want to be the stupid blond. I want to be an actor.

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.

Once you do one bad guy, usually all you get offered is bad guys.

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.

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 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.

Before we made films about gangsters, everything was about the royal families. They contain so much drama.

I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right.

Awards mean absolutely nothing if you don't get it. If you do get it, they're the best thing in the world.

I try not to carry any character back home because that would be extremely frustrating for my family.

I've always been extremely physical.

I always work with the tempo of the energy of the character, whether he's fast or slow, or heavy or light.

I choose work with the people I like to work with.

I'm not ambitious about my career, but I am ambitious with each job. I can be fairly annoying to work with.

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.

I was a late bloomer, but I had a career as a contemporary dancer before that, so I had some kind of connection to this world. But I was always a little more in love with the drama of dancing than the aesthetics, so I thought, 'Why don't you give it a chance if you think you can do it a little different?'

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.

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.

I'd rather be voted 'the sexiest man in Denmark' than 'the ugliest man in Denmark'.

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 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.

England and Denmark have a sense of irony and a darker sense of humour that you don't necessarily find in Germany and Sweden.

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

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.

I like to stay home with my family.

If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.

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.

I guess they have to label someone the sexiest person in the world, and it is always someone who is on telly even if it's the weatherman. For a couple of years it was me and then it was someone else. It's nicer being the sexiest man than the most ugly man. I live with it, and I don't mind it, but I don't go around with a big smile on my face everyday.

I can never wink at the audience.

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.

I like 'The Three Musketeers.' I like those kind of cool things where they were having a robe and a sword.

I'm engaged to Hollywood. If there's something I find I have to do, I'll do it. Otherwise, I'll just stay home and have a vacation.

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.

The criteria [to take or refuse the role] is that I would love to have some kind of dialogue or communication with the director. I need to understand that we can communicate and that we like communication. That's something I have to have a strong feeling about. Secondly, I have to find the script intriguing or interesting. I don't have to understand the whole script, but I do have to find it intriguing. If those two things are present, that would probably be a yes.

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 have quite a few suits that I really enjoy wearing but, unlike Hannibal, I like wearing them only at special occasions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I felt perhaps 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' was a little premature. It was a huge hit around the world - it was still running in the theatres - and the Americans at that time were already shooting the remake, and I was like, 'Whoa! Give it a break of five or six years and get a little inspired, and then do it.'

I can be intense in a lot of ways, but not the way you see the guy in 'The Salvation.'

I'm very proud of 'Valhalla Rising.'

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.

'Clash Of The Titans' is one of the biggest movies I've done; it was certainly the most effects I've worked with.

Danish film is spreading in a fantastic way.

I'm a big fan of film for one reason: because it is visual.

I think 40 years ago, it would have been a little bit different because people had a tendency to think the actor was their part. I do find people who, all of a sudden, realize who is sitting in the restaurant and the first thing they react on is not necessarily, "There's that actor," but it's, "There's that killer guy."

TV is obviously so different from film: because it's a never-ending process, it keeps going; you keep receiving new pages.

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.

If David Bowie wants, I'll put him in my phone book.

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.

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.

If you're not bruised up, then you're not doing an action film in a real way.

I'm not looking for a challenge, necessarily. I'm looking to make a really great film.

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.

I have the strange ability to shut things out.

I was into sports and swimming as a kid and didn't spend a whole lot of time sitting down. I was a gymnast.

Denmark is a small place. We all know each other.

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 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.

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.

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.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

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 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.