Mads Mikkelsen Quotes

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 have a three-piece suit. I’m an art collector. I have a funny accent. So I’m probably the killer.

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 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. This guy was evil, and this girl was very sweet. And in the end, we'd have to see eight endings because we'd also have to know what happened to the uncle. It's like, "Are you kidding me?!"

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'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.

One thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do.

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

Actors are very good at not revealing anything, so they're safe.

I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right. I’m not ambitious about my career, but I am ambitious with each job. I can be fairly annoying to work with. No compromises, let’s put it this way. Compromises are from hell.

I'm terrified about psychic people who have their little shops.

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

I dont wear cologne. I do occasionally, but anytime I take a shower, I just put on deodorant. Thats basically what I smell like.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

II know a little about Greek mythology. It's not that far away from the Nordic mythology.

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.

Yeah, I do all the stuff I can. Let’s be frank, if you are in an action film, you are not in it for the characters, you are in it for the action – the stunts. If they take that away from you, it’s a sad story. Ha ha! I have damaged everything: knees, elbows, ribs. But I’m an old gymnast. I know how to survive.

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

Danish film is spreading in a fantastic way.

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

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."

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

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.

I have an enormous metabolism, so I'm lucky.

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 like to stay home with my family.

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

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

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 would have turned any offer down, if it had turned into a thriller. I would have seen no point in a thriller here. I don't need to entertain people, on top of what we were doing. It's not a question of whether he did it or not. I would have thought that was banal and uninteresting, and I wouldn't care. And it could have also turned into a shoot-out because there were a lot of guns in the film.

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.

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 think the days are over where we were okay with bad guys just doing the pirate laugh and eating kids just for fun. There has to be a goal, you know? They have to have a point, and they have to make sense.

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.

All actors have to believe that our characters have a point that makes sense. Hopefully, they make sense to the crowd watching it, but at least he has to make sense in his own mind, in his own universe.

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'd just love to see the next Star Wars films when they come out because I'm very into the whole universe and the stories. So they're always rewarding.

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

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.

Everyone who makes a Star Wars film wants to make it their own but they also have to be true to the concept.

I think it would be pretty cool if my kids were super kids.

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'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.

I became a dancer late and an actor late.

I've always been extremely physical.

I'm very dedicated to the things I do.