Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets
Mads Mikkelsen as Grindelwald: “I didn’t want to copy anything Johnny Depp did”
Mads Mikkelsen has taken on the role of Gellert Grindelwald
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After Johnny Depp’s departure from “Fantastic Beasts”, Mads Mikkelsen was cast: in an interview he now revealed how chaotic the whole thing was and how he wants to differ from Depp.
Two days. That’s how long Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen had to decide whether to replace Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore. That’s what he told the “Hollywood reporters” in an interview.
Mikkelsen was cast to play the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the Harry Potter spinoff when Depp stepped down. Johnny Depp has lost a defamation lawsuit against British newspaper The Sun, which called him a “wife beater” amid his turbulent divorce from Amber Heard. Depp made a brief appearance in the first film in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series, as Grindelwald goes undercover for most of the film. As the main actor in the second film “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” he had a lot more work to do.
Mads Mikkelsen on his role in Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore
Mikkelsen was quickly brought on board to lessen the impact on the shooting schedule. He watched both films and read the script for the third film, which he described as a “great story”. He said: “You don’t want to copy anything of what [Depp] made – that would be creative suicide. Even if you [eine Rolle] played perfectly, you want to make it your own. But you still have to build a kind of bridge between what came before.”
Mikkelsen said he particularly likes his introductory scene in the film, in which former lovers Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore, who are now ideologically divided, meet for a cup of tea. “I love that scene,” said Mikkelsen, adding, “She puts aside that they are magicians and they are just two grown people with a painful and beautiful past. Their past obviously meant the world to them, but it was also full of disappointments . We wanted to build that warmth before we tackle the dilemma of the scene.”
Describing Mikkelsen’s performance, director David Yates said, “I wanted Mads to explore a version of Grindelwald that reflected his strengths as an actor – and that inevitably meant a departure from what Johnny brought to the role.” Mikkelsen hasn’t spoken to his predecessor before: “It would have been great to exchange ideas, to ‘clean up the room’ in a way. Maybe I’ll see him in the future,” said Mikkelsen.
But what the future holds is uncertain. A recent report by “VarietyAccording to Warner Bros., they want to evaluate the performance of Secrets of Dumbledore before embarking on another film. Five films were originally planned, but all signs are that the franchise is losing interest among fans. Mikkelsen hopes eager to do more than just this one film, and fans and critics are at least praising him in his role.
Sources: “The Hollywood Reporters“, “colliders“, “Variety“