Fantastic Beasts Star Mads Mikkelsen Calls Method Acting "Bullsh-t"

Mads Mikkelsen is a Danish actor known for an array of projects ranging from Hannibal and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to Doctor Strange and The Hunt. In 2020, he starred in Another Round, which won Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards. This month, Mikkelsen will be seen in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore playing Gellert Grindelwald, replacing Johnny Depp in the role. During a recent interview with GQ Magazine, Mikkelsen spoke about his distaste for method acting. 

GQ explains that Mikkelsen was not aware of recent reports about Jeremy Strong's eccentric behavior on the set of Succession or Lady Gaga refusing to break character for House of Gucci, but Mikkelsen still calls the method "bullshit." GQ says that while Mikkelsen does a lot of preparation for his roles like learning to ride horses and wield swords for King Arthur and speaking French for Age of Uprising, he doesn't go as far as some actors these days.

 "But preparation, you can take into insanity," Mikkelsen explained. "What if it's a shit film – what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn't drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning! How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?"

"I would have the time of my life, just breaking down the character constantly," Mikkelsen said when asked about the possibility of working with Daniel Day-Lewis, the three-time Oscar-winner who is known for method acting. "'I'm having a cigarette? This is from 2020, it's not from 1870 – can you live with it?'" Mikkelsen imitated. "It's just pretentious," he added impatiently. "Daniel Day-Lewis is a great actor. But it's got nothing to do with this."

He added, "The media goes, 'Oh my god, he took it so seriously, therefore he must be fantastic; let's give him an award.' Then that's the talk, and everybody knows about it, and it becomes a thing."

Previously, Mikkelsen was asked how his performance in the new Fantastic Beasts would compare to Depp's.

"Nobody's interested in me going in there and trying to copy anything, that would be creative suicide immediately, especially when it's been done before and masterfully," Mikkelsen said. "So everybody's expecting us to find a different path. Having said that, we need a bridge between what he did and what I'm gonna do, so those bridges you have to find together, whether it's a certain look, whether it's a certain attitude in certain situations, but you have to make it your own. Anything else would be plainly just creatively stupid."

What do you think about Mikkelsen's comments on method acting? Tell us in the comments!