Mads Mikkelsen opens up about Johnny Depp, Fantastic Beasts chaos, Indy 5, and more

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore apparates into cinemas this weekend, and soon the world will get a load of the new Gellert Grindelwald, played by Mads Mikkelsen. The intimidating Danish actor replaced Johnny Depp in the villainous role after Depp lost a libel case against the British tabloid The Sun, which published an article calling the actor a “wife-beater.” Between Depp’s departure, ongoing trouble surrounding Fantastic star Ezra Miller, polarizing statements against trans women from Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, hasty script rewrites, and other matters, the road to The Secrets of Dumbledore has been difficult to travel.

Mikkelsen recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about coping with all the chaos and even dropped some comments about Depp and his upcoming roles for The Secrets of Dumbledore and Indiana Jones 5.

“It was quite chaotic,” Mikkelsen said, who hastily watched the first two films and read the script for Secrets, which he thought was “a great story.” He notes, “You don’t want to copy anything [Depp was] doing — that would be creative suicide. Even if [a role has] been done to perfection, and you want to make it your own. But you still have to build some sort of bridge between what came before.”

Mikkelsen aimed to make the character his own when he stepped into the role. He didn’t see a point in copying anything Depp did. The hair and make-up team also toned down Mikkelsen’s look for the character. Grindelwald no longer has a head of platinum blonde hair. Instead, he has subtle highlights accentuating Mikkelsen’s natural silver fox aesthetic. They’ve also changed the look of Grindelwald’s albino eye to one that looks subtly reptilian.

“We didn’t really focus too much on the eye thing, no pun intended,” Mikkelsen told THR. “In general, doing something to an actor’s face will often end up being something with the eye for a number of reasons: It’s recognizable, they’re the windows to the soul, it’s easy to control, while a prosthetic piece often will crack or fall off, and, finally, it’s cool.”

While Mikkelsen has stated in a previous interview that he wishes he could have spoken with Depp about the character, he’s content with the performance delivered. “I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, please let me talk to him,'” he says while hoping to clear the air about his intentions for speaking with Depp. “It would have been great to touch bases, ‘clean the room’ in a sense. Maybe I’ll see him in the future.”

Unlike other actors associated with the franchise, Mikkelsen did not have the chance to speak with J.K. Rowling about his character. Rowling has been keeping a considerable distance from the production of The Secrets of Dumbledore, essentially making herself a resource unable to be tapped. Nevertheless, Mikkelsen says he would have liked the chance to speak with her about his part. For starters, Mikkelsen wanted to ask her why Grindelwald hates non-wizards so much that he wants to wipe them all out.

“I’d like him not just to be instantly demagogic,” he says. To compensate, Mikkelsen came up with his backstory for the character. “My reason is that something happened to his entire family when he was a child that explains the hate he carries around,” he adds. “It’s a fantastic, detailed, complex universe [Rowling’s] created, and I’d love to hear her thoughts on it. I hope I will do more than this one [film].”

Lastly, Mikkelsen spoke to THR about his upcoming role for James Mangold’s Indiana Jones 5. While he’s not permitted to talk about it at length, Mikkelsen did say that the film returns to the franchise’s 1980s roots.

“[Raiders of the Lost Ark] was one of my favorite films, and it just oozed that golden period of serials from the 1940s — and that’s in the fifth film as well,” he says. “They’re going heavily back to the first and second film and getting that original feel, the original Indy, something dense and epic.”

For more from Mikkelsen about his variety of upcoming films, be sure to check out The Hollywood Reporter‘s full interview.