But Mikkelsen, whom many will recognise as the Bond baddy Le Chiffre from the 2006 remake of Casino Royale, has a coolness that qualifies him perfectly for the role, and is unfazed by his forerunners. “Both of those performances were iconic, and I am not trying to emulate them. Anthony played Hannibal to perfection,” says the 48 year-old, who won a Palme d’Or last year for his role as a teacher falsely accused of sexually abusing a child in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt. “Luckily, we are starting in a different situation: my Hannibal is not yet captured, I am still out on the loose, I am a practising psychiatrist, and for that reason, I have to behave a little differently than Anthony did.”