Mads Mikkelsen on His Indiana Jones De-Aging: “I Sense a Smell of Plastic”

At the red carpet gala premiere for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in Cannes, Mads Mikkelsen seemed right at home, which is no surprise since he’s a Cannes veteran. But just because he seemed to be the one guiding the other members of his cast — which includes Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge — doesn’t mean he wasn’t overwhelmed by it all.

“You’re standing this way doing photos and [the photographers] keep screaming, it’s just fucking insane,” he tells me. “And it has also a fraction of it that’s just embarrassment.” 

Mikkelsen has been to Cannes multiple times, with films like Another Round in 2020, The Salvation in 2014, Michael Kohlhaas in 2013 and Casino Royale in 2012. He was a member of the jury in 2016 and won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award in 2012 for his work in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt.

Even so, The Dial of Destiny has been something special. “Everybody loves Indiana Jones, and for good reason,” he says. “The charm of it, the skill of the filmmaking, Harrison himself, the music. It’s everything. It’s just the full package.”

With his special abilities at playing villains (he’s done so in a James Bond film (Casino Royale), a Star Wars film (Rogue One) and a Harry Potter film (replacing Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore), playing the baddie in an Indiana Jones film — a genius Nazi scientist named Jürgen Voller — was a major check on his bucket list.

Vanity Fair caught up with Mikkelsen the day after the Cannes premiere of the James Mangold film to talk about how he crafted his villainous character, what it was like working with Ford, and what he and Depp said to each other when they ran into each other on opening night.

Vanity Fair: Were you an Indiana Jones fan growing up?

Mads Mikkelsen:  I grew up with it. I was just 15 years old, rented the movie box, watched them all with my brother. We watched Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark 10 times. It had a mind-blowing effect on us. We’d never seen anything like it. I’ve been fans of other things, like Bruce Lee, but as a film, it was just out of this world. We wanted to be up there on the screen, finding artifacts. It had an enormous impact. 

How did this project first come to you?

I have a funny story because the week before, a friend of mine was just listing the franchises I’ve been in as a baddie. He was like, “surreal.” I’ve been in that and that and that. And I’m Danish, it doesn’t make sense. What the fuck? How did that happen? And then he said, “So now all you need to do now is Indiana Jones,” and he laughed. And then a week later, I got that call, so I couldn’t wait to hang up to tell him.

Your friend is psychic, apparently. 

It’s really funny. I did read the script, but on the first instinct, it was like, “Yeah, you want to be part of that.” Then I read it and then I thought that the adventure was there, the charm was there. And they took into consideration his age in really appropriate ways. They didn’t step on it constantly. They just bumped into it occasionally, which I thought was great because if it was too much, it would be annoying. And then the ending was just beautiful. I was like, “That’s interesting. This is quite touching for an Indiana Jones film.”

Portraying a Nazi in film can be difficult as they can often come off as cliched. How did you shape this character?

I think that obviously there’s a story to be told about somebody who’s just draped in ideology, but that’s not the story we’re telling. We’re telling a story about a man who is a scientist in the 30s and 40s in Germany. He’s German, and so obviously he will be part of that party. There’s no way around that. But his love and his dreams are in the scientific department. But if the ideology can be part of it, it’s a good day at the office. But first and foremost, he is not unlike Indy: He’s driven by his passion for his science.