GQ: What can you tell us about your Rogue One character?

Mads Mikkelsen: Very little. I can tell you he is [Galen Erso] the father of the main character, who’s called Jyn Erso, and I can say that he is a scientist. I think that’s about as far as I’m allowed to go.

You can’t say whether his intentions are good or bad?

Yes, I can. I can say good intentions; not necessarily the outcome.

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What was it like working on Rogue One? What was your experience on set?

Well, it was great. Obviously it’s a gigantic set compared to the stuff I’m used to doing back in Europe, especially in Denmark. But, you make it a small, intimate set as well, in terms of the scenes. You just have to make the scene work even though you’re standing on a gigantic landing air force platform or wherever you are. Obviously it’s gigantic, but you try to make it small within the terms you’re working with.

These were huge indoor sets that they’d built?

Yeah, enormous sets. Spectacular, as well. Especially because you’re aware it’s this legendary universe and you run around and shoot stuff that you have grown up with – you’re actually part of one of those films. It’s slightly different because in the next film you’ll see a set that you’ve never seen before. Some of it is quite familiar even though it’s updated.

Mads Mikkelsen stars in Ford Edge short film Le Fantôme

And what were the rest of the cast like to work with?

Oh, it was great. I worked a few days with Felicity Jones and she is a wonderful actress. I worked with Jyn at three stages, and three different ages, so there was a little kid that was four, one that was eight, and then there was Felicity. So that was wonderful. I spent a lot of time with Ben Mendelsohn and that was hilarious. He’s a very funny man and he makes the day just fly by.

What was it like working on Doctor Strange? How did that compare to Rogue One?

Well, another big film, another big set – again, a gigantic set. A supreme cast as well. I had quite a different physicality: I was extremely physical in the Doctor Strange film; not so much on the Star Wars film, Rogue One. I think that might just have been the most physical film I’ve ever done. Something I would have embraced heavily when I was 16, but I had to do it when I was 50, which I loved – it’s a childhood dream to do flying Kung Fu and we did that a lot.

Did your experience as a gymnast and dancer when you were younger help you with the role?

Absolutely. It’s a big benefit to be able to swivel round in the air and know approximately how you’re going to land and without hurting yourself too much. Having said that, obviously you will always bruise up, you will always get injured somehow, because we’re doing it 10 hours every day for three months. It is unavoidable that you will end up with some kind of fracture or pulled hamstring or something. But it was great fun and a big help that I used to be a gymnast.

Did they ask you to do the stunts or did you volunteer yourself?

I think it’s a combination. They always want us to do as much as we can because they take pride in teaching us and making us look good. And I was insisting on some of the stuff that they were planning other people to do for me: "Give me a shot. Let me try it once." Surprisingly, they let me do most of them and they also take very big pride in teaching us that.

And what were the injuries you sustained?

Oh, I had quite a few. And the thing about injuries: I can pretty much do what I could do when I was 20, but the healing time is just a little longer. What healed in, let’s say, a week, will now last at three months. That’s the name of the game. I kind of lost track in the end, but there was always something new happening, like: "Oh, damn."

Did they encourage you to work through them or take a break?

Well, luckily, those kind of injuries you suck it up. I had a pulled hamstring, a muscle I pulled in the groin, some bent ribs. But, they were all injuries that you could suck up, take a couple of pills and get on with it.

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What was Benedict Cumberbatch like to work with?

It was wonderful. He’s the perfect man for the job. It’s very hard for me to imagine anyone else doing it. It’s a combination of him being very much on top of a situation and quite arrogant and then having the other side of the coin as well – a very fragile person. And he was just a perfect match for the character. And we had some interaction, in terms of scenes of course, but also many physical interactions. It was wonderful. You get to know each other very well and know each other’s moves. He was a fantastic sparring partner.

Was he able to keep up with you physically?

Absolutely. He’s a little younger than me so I think that’s to his benefit as well. He’s not been a gymnast and he’s not done a tonne of sport in his life, but he did work out very, very hard for this one. Especially with the stunt guys and all the martial arts that we did. He could have fooled me. He seemed like a top trained person when I left him.

Your brother, Lars, is also an actor. What was it like growing up in a house together? Was it quite a performative household?

As kids, not really. I don’t remember action going on in the living room; we didn’t put on theatre that mum and dad had to watch every Sunday, or something like that. We watched a lot of movies together. We listened to the radio theatre, which was theatre on radio, so you used your imagination rather than watching the actual images. I think there was something we had in common, but we never, ever dreamt about the possibility of becoming actors later in life. It was just something that happened on different paths: I became a dancer and through that I became an actor; and my brother was touring around Europe, juggling, doing street shows – that was his angle.

Of the many professions you’ve played on screen – including horse dealer, butcher, physician, vicar – which do you think would most suit you in real life?

Hopefully, all of them. To have drama in a film and in a character, there have to be certain strengths and certain weaknesses that you put into the character. And I can say all of them somehow, in various doses. I can recognize myself in most of my characters. Even if it’s just a fraction of me I can recognize, then I have to turn up the volume on that energy and then throw away some of the other energies that identify me more as a person. I don’t act too much; I more skip things. I peel off stuff that is me and then I end up with a certain energy that is not necessarily something that people would recognize as me, but it’s part of me still. And somehow that ends up to be a character.

Which character did you most enjoy playing?

Well, I’ve enjoyed a lot. There are so many different ways to enjoy yourself when you do a film. It can either be because a film is fantastic, or a character is super fun, or you nailed it. One of the characters I did enjoy tremendously was the character in The Green Butchers. He was called Svend and truly was the most annoying person. He was an understudy. He was always right and when he wasn’t right he would start crying like a baby to get his way. I thought that was a brilliant character to play and I cherish him a lot.

Do you think there will be another season of Hannibal and would you like there to be one?

I think we would all love there to be one eventually. I’ve said it before, this show is not going to happen unless Bryan Fuller is behind it and he’s got his hands tied heavily right now doing Star Trek, among other things. But, if he one day decides to come back to the show, and if somebody picks it up, I’m sure it would be very easy to convince the cast to come back. We all enjoyed it tremendously; we thought it was a very clever show. Unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.

Which actors have you particularly enjoyed working with?

That’s a tough question. If you mention some, you’ll leave out other people. I think one of the big gifts of this job is that you get to meet a variety of actors who approach their job from different angles, but somehow have the same goal. It’s always interesting to see how people work: some are very casual about it, but can still go in and nail it; some are very focused and they also go in and nail it. Every job I get surprised in a wonderful way.

And where do you figure on that spectrum of casual to focused?

I think I’m a mix, depending on what we’re doing. I’m extremely focused in certain situations and certain scenes. I’m also very much a pain in the arse when it comes to the director/writer. I will follow up on any question, any doubt about the script. I will hunt them down in the middle of the night and ask them questions: "Are you sure you want to do it that way?" So, I would say I’m very dedicated. I can also go into my own world to focus. But, it the scenes are more outward, more social, I don’t mind being quite social on the set as well.

How did your "Bitch Better Have My Money" music video with Rihanna come about and how was that as an experience?

It was fast. I was there for twi days, mostly waiting around to get chopped up by her. It was fun as hell – there was a high level of energy and improvisation. She was a very, very sweet woman and very dedicated – she had her eyes on the ball. And how it came about I don’t know: she knew something or someone recommended me. But I enjoyed it and I definitely went up on the “cool” barometer of my kids.

In European films you are often good characters. Yet, in Hollywood blockbusters, you are the villain. Why is that?

It’s a question I think you should pose to the American film industry in general. They have a tendency when they see someone do something they like to want to repeat that success somehow. So, you fall into the category of the baddie or the villain. Another thing is that heroes in America are predominantly played by Americans, in the sense that they have absolutely no accent. And even though the case is that 80 per cent of all Americans have an accent; they only have leading roles without accents. So, that’s another reason.

In the good old days, the Brits were the baddies and now it’s the Scandis. But, I take it, I love it. The alternative is not to work there. I have been offered quite a few things that have not been the baddies in American films, fortunately some of them I could do and the other ones I didn’t like. So, it’s not 100 per cent going that way.

Do you think people in the UK and US eye you with a bit more suspicion and fear as a result?

I don’t think they look at me like that. Those days are over. I think that people differentiate reality from the world of film. But, I do remember back in the 90s somebody would walk the street and get spit on because they had played the villain. I think those days are quite over – they can differ the actor from the actual part.

Small or production or blockbuster? Which one do you prefer doing?

Well, luckily, I don’t have to pick. Right now it’s a smooth ride and I do a little of everything. I feel that the second you choose you close your doors. If I do five small kitchen sink dramas in Denmark in a row, I get fed up with that and I need to be flying in the air with a sword. But if I do five of those in a row I might need to go back and do a kitchen sink drama. It’s a perfect mix at the moment.

You’ve just done an advert for Ford. Tell us a bit about that.

Well, it’s a short film. It was done by a film director, so the approach is very much a filmic approach; almost a stylistic, film noir feel to it, although it never becomes really dark in the film. But, for us, it was a filmic approach and luckily we have a cool car in the middle of the film. It becomes about the car, but hopefully it becomes about the car in a relevant way that we find filmic.

Are you a big car fan yourself?

I don’t know a lot about cars, but I do like cars I find pretty. I am one of these guys who will buy the bicycle that is red. It might be a crap one, but if it looks good I will buy it. This year I bought a Ford Mustang from 1967 just because I think it’s so beautiful. And not only is it beautiful, it also sounds fantastic and drives fantastic. I have a soft spot for things I find beautiful and obviously that’s taste and everybody has an individual taste.

Do you have a favourite car film?

Absolutely. Obviously, we all love Bullitt. I love The Italian Job, of course. It’s a wonderful way to have the car in focus where you almost forget it because it becomes so much part of the prop. They are so small that they can do whatever the film needs them to do. I think it’s a clever way of making a car film; actually a heist film, but it becomes about the cars.

Would you ever work with Nicolas Winding Refn again?

Hopefully, one day. We always meet each other, very Hollywood-like, at festivals and we always hang around and say: "We’ve got to work together soon." Then something will happen, something will come up, and we don’t. But I’m sure I am going to work with him again. We started out together; I’m sure we’re not done yet.

You and your brother have never done much onscreen acting together. Is that likely to change?

He was supposed to be in a Western I did, called The Salvation, playing my brother. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen because he was doing something else. But, yes, we would love to do it and hopefully there is a part that will fit perfectly for the two of us.

Mads Mikelssen stars in the Ford Edge short film 'Le Fantôme’, a thriller shot in Croatia, using the same location as Game of Thrones.