Two weeks ago I attended the Doctor Strange Press Junket, or rather #DoctorStrangeEvent, I was one of 25 bloggers there for Walt Disney Studios (Disclosure: All-Expenses Paid). We interviewed many people but the one that nearly broke my Twitter feed was Mads Mikkelsen. I posted a few days before the trip that I would be interviewing him. People came out of the woodwork to ask all sorts of questions, profess their love and so much more. The day I put up that tweet I looked at my phone and there were 36 responding tweets within the first half hour. I had no idea that Mads had such an active and excited fanbase. This was a guy I needed to learn more about. So, I got rather excited about the upcoming interview.

As with the Tilda Swinton interview, Mads noticed the Doctor Strange toys immediately. I probably should have put my Kaecilius Pop on the table for him but the thing just kept falling over. I figured it would probably be too much of a distraction, especially if he tried to make it stand up. That’s okay because he knocked over the Doctor Strange Pop and said, “I guess he wasn’t strong enough.”

Then he was asked if he would be getting his action figure he replied, “I’ve been waiting 51 years for that. So I think yes.. The interview was an excellent one and I got in a really good question that had an interesting answer. Read on for the rest of the interview.

Question: Do you prefer the villain or the superhero? What’s your favorite?

Mads Mikkelsen: In terms of playing characters, I think that any good hero, or any good villain has to be interesting, having both sides of the coin. I think that’s exactly what Marvel always does right.

Question: Which was your favorite scene to shoot?

Mads Mikkelsen: It was quite a few scenes that I loved shooting, but the great encounter I have with Benedict, which starts out with a long fight, and ends up with me making the speech that makes a lot of sense. He’s onto something. He has a point. I thought that, that was a brilliant sequence to do.

Question: What was it like the first time you saw yourself in makeup, costume, everything?

Mads Mikkelsen: It, it was fantastic. We were doing the makeup, and I insisted bringing the costume and have it on when we do the makeup. Just to see how it looks together. They were spot on. We were sitting in there for hours trying out this makeup, and I was like, “Oh god, do I really wanna do this every day?” Then it turned out so fantastic, I was like, “Yeah, that’s it. Three hours every day, we’ll do it. It’s worth it.”

Question: What is it like removing all that makeup?

Mads Mikkelsen: It didn’t feel as if you couldn’t move your skin. It didn’t feel restricted in any way. Our skin was not super happy with it when you took it off. Luckily sometimes we had a day break, and restore the skin a little. Working with it was fantastic because it looked fantastic, and then there was no restrictions in it.

Question: How does it feel to not only have your name cemented in Marvel universe, but also the Star Wars Universe?

Mads Mikkelsen: It seems appropriate.

Mads Mikkelsen: No, it feels fantastic. As a Dane who started out acting 20 years ago back home. A late starter. I never imagined that I would work in America at all, little less that I would work in a Marvel film. So, it feels as if I’m a very fortunate person.

Question: Do you feel like you’re being typecast as a villain due to your phenomenal performance in Hannibal?

Mads Mikkelsen : Well, I am to a degree over here. I mean, but if the alternative is not to work over here, I’ll take the villain. Luckily I do a lot of different things back home in Europe, so I’m not starving in the sense of like, why am I always the villain? If it’s this kind of villain, I’ll take it any day.

Question: How do you tap into being a villain?

Mads Mikkelsen: Well, obviously it’s in the script somewhere. You lean into the script. For me the script is always the most important tool, and from there I’ll develop the character with the director, of course.

Question: Is there anyone particularly who has influenced you in your villainous roles? You have more than one.

Mads Mikkelsen: I think that, not to compare at all, but some of my favorite actors have been playing villains as well. Christopher Walken is a hero of mine, and I think he has the ability to somehow make the villains likeable. Whether it’s his personality, or whether it’s that he chose a part that was dualistic written so it makes sense. Some of the great actors can, can do that. The joker is a fantastic example. We love to hate him.

Question : What’s the most challenging scene emotionally and physically?

Mads Mikkelsen: Well, that would be the one I mentioned before. I think we did that fight sequence for three weeks. It’s not two hours, it’ probably eight or 10 hours fighting each other every day. And you do hurt the next day.

Question: Do all the scenes take that long generally?

Mads Mikkelsen : No. This is a big sequence. I mean, one thing is to do stunts. We can do that in a certain amount of time. If you have things crashing it takes time to set it up, and make sure that there’s no risk, and everybody’s fine. So it takes time.

Question: How do you prepare for your role?

Mads Mikkelsen: We had a lot of preparation from the very beginning with the stunt guys. The stunts we were taught some basic martial arts moves that will go again and again in the film. Having fairly small people teaching us bigger people to do things on the floor like that, we felt like clowns. We did our best, and so it was a long preparation period.

Question: Why did you want to take on this role?

Mads Mikkelsen: It’s Marvel. He was pitching on the phone the story, and then I remember Scott said, “It’s a lot of Kung Fu stuff, flying, but don’t worry, we got stunt guys for that.” I was like, “Whoa, hold on, what’d you say?” “We’ve got st-.” “No, no, no, rewind back, Kung Fu, I’m on.” So, it’s like Marvel and flying Kung Fu, I was like, I think that could be a yes. I’ve always wanted to be Bruce Lee when I was a kid.

Question: So he approached you for the role? Or did you audition?

Mads Mikkelsen: Yeah. They approached me.

Question: When you found out you were cast for the role, what did you do? Who did you tell? What was your reaction?

Mads Mikkelsen: I called my agent, obviously he knew I had the phone call. He knows me very well. I said, “This is basically what I did as a kid when I was 14 years old.” I was running around doing what this character is doing. I was like, “So I think we should say yes.”

Then I got to ask my question. I also had to tell him how flooded I got with tweets from his fans, it was incredible. I tried to make that part of my question as quick as possible. He had a great response to it and it was very insightful on the character and motivations of his character.

Question: When researching the character and creating the character, what were your motivations, what were your influences there? Also, my Twitter feed is flooded with fans who love you. They all want to say they love you.

Mads Mikkelsen: Thanks a lot. I love them as well. As I said before, the script is the bible. This is where the character – he is in there somewhere, together with the director we can approach it different ways. I think inspiration wise, like all good demagogues in the world. Like all good, religious leaders, or political leaders, they have an ability to speak to the people in the way that they understand.

Let’s take Jonestown, right? But if you look at Jonestown today, you go, “Wow, that’s bad karma. That’s just terrible. How could people buy into that?” Right? If you look at this character with his mask on, you would also say that. But he has a point. He has a point. He’s saying stuff that makes sense, to a degree. He wants to make the world a better place. Different means to get there. But he still has the goal of making the world a better place.

So I think that was the approach. To have a certain kind of religious leader. Obviously he’s not only talking, he’s also being quite physical. But, as all good dictators, it takes some sacrifices, right?

Question: Your costume itself seemed like it was pretty heavy with a lot layers, did that cause any difficulties?

Mads Mikkelsen: It was quite heavy. Not crazy heavy, but it was not light. Obviously, we just got in shape every day. The more you were wearing it, the stronger you got. It felt featherlight in the end. But in the beginning it was like, serious? Am I gonna jump up there now in this? Like, wow. But, the more we, we worked out with it, the, the more it makes sense.

Question: Is there anything you kept from the set?

Mads Mikkelsen: I did. I always keep something, right? I always nick something. Yes there is, but I can’t tell you because they’d want it back, so yeah.

Mads does an amazing job as Kaecilius in Doctor Strange. I enjoyed the interview with him very much. He was very passionate about his craft. I would have liked to have seen some more backstory on his character but the interview gave me a little more on his motivations especially on how he approached the character. I’ll be paying more attention to his performance when I see Doctor Strange again.

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DOCTOR STRANGE opens in theatres everywhere on November 4th!

I also wanted to direct you to a brand-new website MarvelStudiosHeroActs.com. Fans will be able to visit the site to upload their photo and choose from a selection of custom Marvel-themed overlays. They will then be able to post their photo directly to the Hero Acts gallery and to their other social channels using the hashtags #marvelstudios #heroacts.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Marvel Studios Invite Fans to Help Launch “Hero Acts” and Raise Funds for Save the Children

Marvel Studios to donate up to $1 million in recognition of new charitable initiative