Mads Mikkelsen said in an interview with GQ that he doesn't take preparing for his roles to a method acting extent, calling the approach "pretentious."
The actor, who has most recently replaced Johnny Depp as dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the upcoming film "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," said that while he can be "fairly annoying to work with" in his dedication to pushing the envelope on films, he doesn't method act.
"It's bullshit," Mikkelsen told GQ.
"Preparation, you can take into insanity," he continued. "What if it's a shit film — what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn't drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning! How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?"
Recently, actors including Jeremy Strong in "Succession," Lady Gaga in "House of Gucci," and Jared Leto in "WeCrashed," "House of Gucci," and "Morbius" have ignited commentary around the method acting approach — or as Leto refers to it, "immersive acting." Other actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, who Mikkelsen discussed with GQ, are also known for their commitment to method acting.
"I would have the time of my life, just breaking down the character constantly," Mikkelsen said, of hypothetically appearing alongside a method actor like Day-Lewis. "'I'm having a cigarette/ This is from 2020, it's not from 1870 — can you live with it?' It's just pretentious. Daniel Day-Lewis is a great actor. But it's got nothing to do with this."
Mikkelsen attributed some of the buzz around method acting to media coverage of actors who pursue it for their roles.
"The media goes, 'Oh my god, he took it so seriously, therefore he must be fantastic; let's give him an award,'" he told GQ. "Then that's the talk, and everybody knows about it, and it becomes a thing."
