Last year it was announced that Mads Mikkelsen was going to take over the role of Gellert Grindelwald in the third Fantastic Beasts movie after Johnny Depp was asked to step down from the franchise by Warner Bros after losing a heated legal battle against the British tabloid, The Sun.
Now, in an interview with Collider, Mikkelsen explained how he is developing his own version of the villainous character as he states that copying Depp would be “creatively stupid.”
“Nobody’s interested in me going in there and trying to copy anything, that would be creative suicide immediately, especially when it’s been done before and masterfully. So everybody’s expecting us to find a different path. Having said that, we need a bridge between what he did and what I’m gonna do, so those bridges you have to find together, whether it’s a certain look, whether it’s a certain attitude in certain situations, but you have to make it your own. Anything else would be plainly just creatively stupid.”
Mikkelsen, when asked what drew him to the project, stated that joining The Wizarding World was an opportunity to do a kind of film that doesn’t get made in Denmark.
“I’m a big fan of the Potter universe, and it’s a kind of genre that you don’t touch upon in my part of the world. You can’t get away with that budget-wise in Denmark, so obviously when it came my way it was a fantastic opportunity.”
SEE ALSO: David Yates is still committed to directing all 5 Fantastic Beasts films, says Katherine Waterston
Fantastic Beasts 3 is being directed by David Yates from a screenplay by franchise creator J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves. Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Katherine Waterston, and Jessica Williams are all set to return to the cast as Newt Scamander, Albus Dumbledore, Credence/Aurelius Dumbledore, Queenie Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Tina Goldstein, and Professor Eulalie Hicks respectively. The film is currently scheduled to debut on July 15th 2022.
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