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Waiting for the new Bond villain
Mads Mikkelsen, the sexiest man in Germany, is all set to play the new Bond villain, writes Saibal Chatterjee.
By the end of November, Mads Mikkelsen could well have the entire world talking animatedly about him.
But who the hell is Mads Mikkelsen? He is Denmark’s greatest contemporary movie star, a man who is repeatedly voted in his country as “the sexiest man in the world”.
Now, what has that got to do with the end of November? Mikkelsen plays the villainous Le Chiffre in the 21st official James Bond flick, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig and Eva Green, and the film is scheduled to open across the globe on November 17.
Even as he gears up mentally for a burst of international stardom, the dashing 40-year-old Dane has his usual spread of dramatic films on his plate. He was at the just-concluded 31st Toronto International Film Festival to promote two such new films from back home – Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding and Ole Christian Madsen’s Prague.
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| Mads Mikkelsen, voted as the sexiest man in Germany, is all set to play the new bond villian. |
He was not really worried about what life will be like after
Casino Royale
, he told the press in Toronto, but it would certainly be a bonus if the film brought him international fame.
Don’t be surprised if it does. Going by his performances to date, Mikkelsen is charismatic enough to be a prime candidate for mass adulation, and the new James Bond clearly has a fight on his hands – as much off the screen as on it.
In After the Wedding and Prague, Mikkelsen plays two distinct characters with such remarkable élan that one immediately realises why he is such hot property. He has a natural ability to fill up the screen with his brooding presence, and both films exploit that to the hilt.
In After the Wedding, Mikkelsen plays Jacob, who runs an orphanage in Mumbai. He is a man who arrived in India as a callow youth, experimented wildly with a hippie way of life before finding true meaning in his social work.
His cash-strapped orphanage in India is threatened with closure, so he is compelled to take up the offer of a potential sponsor to make a trip to Denmark and attend the wedding of the latter’s daughter. There he stumbles upon a secret from the past that alters his life forever.
