Star Wars

Stars Wars' Secret Weapon

            It's getting dark out, but even in the dusk, yoda's silhoutte is unmistakable. Cast in bronze, his ears spread wide as wings, luke skywalker life coach stands atop a burbling fountain within lucasfilm's sprawling San Francisco campus. In a building behind him, actors from the new STAR WARS movie, Rogue one , navigate the lobby- Riz Ahmed one moment, Felicity Jones the next.

            In a lounge a few floors up, their co-star Mads Mikkelsen settels into a big leather armchair, gazing out at the Golden Gate Bridge and noshing on trail mix. Like his fellow actors Mikkelsen is here to promote Rogue One, and he isn't above geeking out about his surrondings. Georgeus vintage movie posters for classics like the man who shot liberty valance hang everywhere. Life-size replicas of stormtroopers and darth vader stand sentinel in the halls. "isn't this place incridible?" Mikelsen asks. "I could never bring Nicolas Winding Refn here - he would defenitely try and steal something."

            Refn- the director of art house thrillers like drive and the neon demon is like Mikkelsen, a dane, and the two men began their movie careers together, back in nineties era Copenhagen, with  a micro budget gangster flick called pusher in which Mikkelsen played an unhinged would be tough called tonny. As Mikkelsen's current locale illustrates, though, he's coming a long way since then. In Rogue one, the events of which predate 1977 episode IV, he plays Galen Erso, a briliant scientist instrumental in creating the planet obliterating Death star. "He's a man of the empire," Mikkelsen says. "And, belive it or not, they have love and fammilies in the empire as well. He knows there's the possibility of his invention being used in the destrucrtive way, but it doesnt stop him."

            The carracters occopies a thick moral murk, in other words and thick moral murk is where Mikkelsen feels most comfortable as an actor. American audience know him best, after all, from his turns playing the ominous terrorist financier Le Chiffer in the 2006 James Bond reboot Casino Royale- a character who, thanks to a "derangement of the tear ducts," as he puts it, literally cries blood; the lung-muching, mind-fucking Hannibal Lecter on the fantastic, woefully short-lived NBC gorefest Hannibal; and, most recently, the nefarious Kaecilius, battling Benedict Cumberbatch and doing aerial martial arts in  Doctor Strange.

            The key to portraying extreme villainy, Mikkelsen says, is to muster  an empathy for the villain that can be jarring to hear him discuss. For instance - he's an elaborate, complex person. He's not evil. He just loves beautiful things and tries to make everything beautiful. "I raise my eyebrows - we're talking about the same guy who murders and eats people, right? "Obviously, seeing beauty on the threshold of death is a little bizarre," Mikkelsen concedes. then he shurgs. "But that's what he sees. we divide characters into good guys and bad guys, but even when they're the bad guys, we have to find something that we identify with." he adds that not only actors but all of us share an ingrained infatuation with darkness: "We have been fascinated with evil since the dawn.  two minutes after we inveted God, we inveted Satan." Mikkelsen grins. "We needed him."

Main idea Paragraf 1 : It's getting dark out, but even in the dusk, yoda's silhoutte is unmistakable.

Main idea Paragraf 2 : In a lounge a few floors up, their co-star Mads Mikkelsen settels into a big leather armchair, gazing out at the Golden Gate Bridge and noshing on trail mix.

Main idea Paragraf 3 : Refn- the director of art house thrillers like drive and the neon demon is like Mikkelsen, a dane, and the two men began their movie careers together, back in nineties era Copenhagen, with  a micro budget gangster flick called pusher in which Mikkelsen played an unhinged would be tough called tonny.

Main idea Paragraf 4 : The carracters occopies a thick moral murk, in other words and thick moral murk is where Mikkelsen feels most comfortable as an actor.

Main idea Paragraf 5 : The key to portraying extreme villainy, Mikkelsen says, is to muster  an empathy for the villain that can be jarring to hear him discuss. For instance - he's an elaborate, complex person. He's not evil. He just loves beautiful things and tries to make everything beautiful.

SUBJECT	VERB
It's	Getting
His ears	Spread wide
Mikkelsen	Promote
Mikkelsen	Asks
Mikkelsen	Played
He	Plays
Mikkelsen	Fells
He	Puts
Mikkelsen	Says
Him	Discuss
He	Adds
He	Sees
We	Inveted