Over the course of his27-year acting career,Mads Mikkelsenhas portrayed a lot of different characters, but he always seems to be cast in roles that showcase him as the bad guy. From Le Chiffre in 2006’sCasino Royale, to Kaecilius in 2016’sDoctor Strange, Mikkelsen is known for his antagonistic parts. Recently, the award-winning 58-year-old actor gave some insight into what he thinks the reasoning is behind the trend.
Asper Deadline, Mikkelsen made an appearance at the Marrakech Film Festival on July 07, 2025, in Morocco, and took part in a masterclass session which saw him being quizzed on a number of topics by hopeful actors and filmmakers. When the subject of Mikkelsen always being cast as the bad guy in Hollywood films came up, he gave his thoughts on why that is.
“It’s quite simple. It’s the funny accent. It’s as simple as that. It used to be Germans, then it was Brits; then the Russians, and then for some reason they fell in love with the Danish accent. That’s definitely part of it.”
Mikkelsen, who made his film debut in 1996 portraying a drug dealer in the Danish crime thriller,Pusher, has builtquite a name for himselfin recent years. He appeared in the hit NBC showHannibalas Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a role that garnered him mainstream attention, and would then parlay that success into roles in theMCU, and theStar Warsuniverse. More recently, he appeared as Jürgen Voller inIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Gellert Grindelwald inFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, also portraying antagonists.
Mikkelsen says he’s lucky to have appeared in so many iconic franchises, but also mentioned how his native Denmark differs from Hollywood.
“I’ve been lucky enough to do different villains in different universes. There’s a big difference between Marvel and James Bond… but I never think about it too much. In Denmark, we don’t divide it into bad guys and good guys, we tend to look at more complex characters.”
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Mads Mikkelsen Will Reunite with Bryan Fuller for Dust Bunny
Though Bryan Fuller has a lot of television credits to his name, including work onDead Like Me,Heroes,American Gods, and variousStar Trekprojects, the writer and producer has yet to direct a feature film. That will soon change with the upcoming horror movie,Dust Bunny, which will see Fuller reunite with Mads Mikkelsen. The pair worked together onHannibalfrom 2013 to 2015, which Fuller developed and executive produced, and featured Mikkelsen deliciously portraying the role of Hannibal Lecter.Dust Bunnywill also star Signourney Weaver, and revolves around an eight-year-old girl who asks her neighbor (Mikkelsen) for help to kill the monster under her bed who ate her family.
As to whether Mads Mikkselsen will return to the MCU, it’s been rumored that the actor is one of the stars being considered for the role of Doctor Doom in the upcomingFantastic Fourreboot, along with Pedro Pascal, who isreportedly set to portray Reed Richards, and possibly Javier Bardem, who is being eyeballed for the role of Galactus. However, confirmed casting for the movie is still a heavily guarded secret, although that could change in the coming weeks.
