“Hannibal will never leave me” – Mads
Is Hannibal an angel fallen from the heavens or the smartest psychopath of the screen? We met Mads Mikkelsen, the star of Hannibal, the show that upset us greatly for ending so soon, and discussed the details of psychopathy.
The chef of the most delicious and at the same time revolting food on the screen, the smartest, the most elite, and the most sophisticated of psychopaths, Psychopath Psychologist Hannibal Lecter. We thought as if nobody could ever replace Anthony Hopkins’s place, who made us question ourselves with his Oscar winning 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, but NBC’s Hannibal tore this thought into the ground. Mads Mikkelsen brought forward such a Hannibal Lecter character and the production of the show was so successful that the show’s being cancelled before getting a season 4 approval shocked us all.
The truth was the producers of the show could not get the rights of Thomas Harris’s 1988 dated books Red Dragon and Hannibal. We are not the only ones having trouble to admit the fact that the show is over. Mikkelsen, whom we had the chance to meet and interview at the European gala of his film Doctor Strange, also believes that the show will continue on another platform after some time. Although Netflix and Amazon Prime rejected it, but we won’t give up hope. Mikkelsen made a return to cinema after 3 years of tv experience. He lately played Kaecilius, the villain of Doctor Strange. We’ll also see him as Galen Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars story next, which we’re enthusiastically waiting. As the topic is tv series and our minds are still stuck on Hannibal, our conversation with Mikkelsen revolved around Hannibal too.
Q: It must be a huge responsibility to recreate a character Anthony Hopkins played before. Did you ever contact him?
A: I’m sure he’s seen the show, he sent me his best wishes in the very beginning. But we’ve brought to life different lifetimes and different aspects of Hannibal. Unlike him I didn’t wink at the policemen behind bars as I wasn’t in jail, instead I was making real friends outside.
Q: Did you watch the films again before shooting?
A: No, instead I read the original book that is Red Dragon.
Q: What did you bring to the character from the book?
A: For Hannibal, psychopaths are boring, ordinary. They all have valid reasons to kill. Take for example a troubled mother or a father, or a trauma. For me, Hannibal is an angel cast out of heavens. He is the devil on earth. He’s someone who sees beauty in things we look in fear. Or, at least, this is what I see at the core of Hannibal.
Q: The food in the show – though we know the main ingredient – seem extremely mouth-watering. Did they really taste that good as well?
A: We had a food stylist who prepared all the food in two different ways. Each food was made with pasta or meat – though I should point out none had real human meat in them! Foods with meat tasted incredibly delicious. I can confess I looked forward to shooting dinner scenes.
Q: Your brother Lars Mikkelsen plays the bad guy in Sherlock. You seem quite the expert in playing the bad guys as a family. Do you ever talk about the continuity of shows? For example, what do you know about Sherlock that we don’t yet know?
A: Well I know a thing or two but it’ll spoil the surprise if I tell you know. I can just hint that the new season will be even more dramatic. I didn’t watch Sherlock all the way through the end but as far as I’ve seen, it’s a very unique show. Almost like a David Lynch work, but British.
Q: Both Sherlock and Hannibal dress well in kind of an obsessive way. Which one do you think is the more stylish?
A: When Sherlock focuses on a case he forgets himself. In Hannibal, there is no such thing. His three piece suits are as important as the work Hannibal does.
Q: The rumors that Hannibal won’t continue have been there since the first season. Wasn’t it difficult working with such uncertainty?
A: It was hard for all of us but in the end it was a surprise too when it finished. We thought we couldn’t go on at the end of seasons 1 and 2 and we were ready for it, but after season 3 we were relaxed and started thinking it won’t be cancelled before we had a chance to conclude the whole series. So in that way it was a surprise.
Q: What is the best way of acting such a unique character?
A: We worked with some very talented names. From the top to bottom everyone was incredibly professional and talented. You think you’ll get bored when you act the same character for a long time, but it never happened. Hannibal was a role I was very happy to be in. Spending three years of my life with him was an amazing gift. Hannibal will never leave me. At least my actor reflection will always be with me.
Headers: Doctor Strange
When they called him first for his role as Kaecilius in Marvel’s last marvel (and one of the truly best superhero films) Doctor Strange, Mikkelsen asked “Is there karate and taekwando in the fight scenes?”. When he heard that there was, he accepted the role without reading the scenario. Because since his childhood he was interested in the martial arts, but never had the chance to transfer this interest into cinema. “Doctor Strange was the hardest film I’ve ever done so far and I’m 50. I could jump very quickly and twist and turn when I was 20, but that’s luck, this role came to me when I turned 50. I loved every second of shooting. Even the moments I got injured.”
Header: Thief of the Set Mikkelsen
Q: Is there anything you took as a memento and hide from the set of Hannibal?
A: Whenever I do any work I try to steal something from the set. The clothes in Hannibal were fantastic. I tried to steal one of the suits. The one with the grey-red checkers. A week after my theft they called me and told me they wanted to give me one of the suits as a present and asked me which one I wanted. “The one with grey and red lines,” I said, and they said “Okay, we’ll send it to you.” I said “No need, I’ve already got that” and saved myself from being branded as the thief.