Mads Mikkelsen talks CGI, humor in Doctor Strange; Rogue One reshoots

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Mads Mikkelsen seems like someone who shouldn’t be as famous in America as he is. Not to say he’s not a phenomenal actor. He is, and he deserves all the gift baskets and roses thrown at him as he can handle. But you just don’t see many people from Denmark make it big here—and not just big—but Marvel and STAR WARS big.

But that’s exactly how big he is, and he recently sat down with Digital Spy to talk about many things, among them his two massive movies coming out this holiday season—DOCTOR STRANGE and ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY.

When it comes to DOCTOR STRANGE Mikkelsen talked about the CGI work on the film, and clearly he's just as badass with that stuff as he is with everything else:

CGI is not a new thing for me, I've done it in a few movies. This one was not too bad, the CGI was not in direct interaction with me in my scenes, it was more like the backdrops, the landscapes would be slightly different sometimes, but I didn't have to interact with it. But I've done that before in CLASH OF THE TITANS when we were fighting giant monsters. They were obviously not in the film and I was fighting tennis balls, and that I'd say is real acting!

He also talks about the humor in the movie, and how it may even skewer a bit toward dark comedy:

There is some. My character is not necessarily carrying too much of it but Doctor Strange is. there's a certain darkness in the Doc and a sense of humour in there, absolutely.

As well, Mikkelsen dishes on those ROGUE ONE reshoots, and even though he's quite vague he does a good job of putting the whole thing into an honest perspective:

…they will be done soon I guess, so yes in a few days.

In all the big-production films I've done so far, they have always called me back for little reshoots, it might be something that they want to change, the way we did it was wrong, or it might be something that they wanted to add so it's kind of a normal process on big films, they're covering all their bases.

And as for working with director Gareth Evans:

Wonderful, he made it quite easy for us to feel like we are in a real film in a real situation and forgetting about all the circumstances, all the monsters, all the spaceships, all the planets, so he was a real actors' man for us.

Mikkelsen hasn’t stopped for a moment since he made his claim to fame in America as the baddie in CASINO ROYALE, and that makes me happy inside. He has been able to strike a balance between huge movies like CLASH OF THE TITANS and smaller flicks like THE HUNT, and in all those films you never not notice him. His presence is a dominating force, and I’m anxious to see what he brings to these two massive movies later this year. Point goes to Denmark.

DOCTOR STRANGE will bend your mind on November 4 and ROGUE ONE will come barreling behind it on December 16.