Rogue One’s Mads Mikkelsen has returned to his acting happy place, with grotesque horror, and humour akin to Hannibal in Netflix’s ‘Polar.’
He sat down with Bloody Disgusting to discuss the role which obviously by the title and introduction is not for the younger reader or squeamish…
“The comic books of Doctor Strange and Marvel films, in general, are obviously superheroes with superpowers,” Mikkelsen told Bloody-Disgusting. “What they lift from the realistic thing is the super thing. What we lift from Polar is the style, the grotesqueness of the whole thing. So that’s also a lifted film but it doesn’t have the superpowers.”
The movie adaptation of Polar brings some of the surreal aspects of the comic down to earth, but trades them for blood and guts.
“I think we were all very impressed with the comic book,” Mikkelsen said. “We call it a graphic novel because that’s what we call it in Europe. It was the simplicity of the black and white and red colors and then very, very comic book characters. Some of the characters were 10 times bigger physically than some of the other characters. We were wondering a lot about how we can bring that on screen without actually having somebody who’s 10 times bigger, but try to make it grotesque in that world.”
Polar has a sense of humor too. At one point, Duncan speaks to a grade school class and demonstrates his knife technique on a child.
“We thought it would be a great idea that we started a scene like that,” Mikkelsen said. “Instead of just sitting there chit-chatting with the kids, it would be fun to make the kid piss his pants. And this character Duncan doesn’t really notice. He’s not really good with kids. He’s not really good with people. He has a hard time reading them unless they’re killers. Those he can read. Normal people he has a hard time with.”
“Doctor Strange was also going on for days,” Mikkelsen said. “I had a fight with Benedict Cumberbatch that was also quite a big thing. The difference was that I could be padded on my elbows and my knees on that film. I could not on this one. I was literally not wearing any clothes meaning that I would have to fall on my elbow on a concrete wall. That’s a different ball game.”
You can check out the trailer below, which again is of a violent movie. Viewers beware.
