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Mads Mikkelsen knew taking over Grindelwald from Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts 3 wouldn’t be easy, but he wasn’t about to copy Depp. Mikkelsen was all about making the role uniquely his own.
“It was quite chaotic,” Mikkelsen admitted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, recalling the rush of being offered the role. He had only two days to make his decision — talk about pressure. But the real kicker? He wasn’t about to copy Depp’s portrayal. “You don’t want to copy anything [Depp was] doing — that would be creative suicide. Even if [a role has] been done to perfection, you want to make it your own. But you still have to build some sort of bridge between what came before.”
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Mikkelsen’s Grindelwald had to be fresh, unique, and, most importantly, his own. Director David Yates was on the same page, making it clear that Mikkelsen’s version of the dark wizard would be a departure from Depp’s. “Mads has an extraordinary range, he can be terrifying as well as vulnerable, and he’s sexy,” Yates told THR. “I wanted Mads to explore a version of Grindelwald that suited his strengths as an actor — and that inevitably meant a departure from what Johnny brought to the role.”
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This wasn’t the first time Mikkelsen had to step into someone else’s shoes. Fans may remember him taking on the iconic role of Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal, a character previously made famous by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. But once again, Mikkelsen crushed it, making Lecter his own and even earning a cult following in the process. So when it came to Grindelwald, he wasn’t about to back down.
The result? Well, critics seemed to be on the same page. While the reviews for The Secrets of Dumbledore were a bit mixed, Mikkelsen’s performance was almost universally praised. Many fans and critics agreed: Mikkelsen didn’t try to out-Depp Depp. Instead, he brought his own twist to the character, making Grindelwald just as complex, captivating, and, let’s be real, creepy as before.
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In the end, Mikkelsen didn’t just want to step into Depp’s version of Grindelwald. He wanted to create something that was unmistakably his. After all, there’s no point in trying to copy perfection when you can build your own masterpiece. And that’s exactly what Mikkelsen did – no chaos, no copying, just pure Grindelwald greatness.
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