Looking back on his career with Variety, Mads Mikkelsen spoke about his experience working on the 2016 Star Wars prequel Rogue One, saying that the script was “shockingly unfinished” during filming.
“It kept changing,” he explained. “Some people would think it was already done. I don’t think they ever locked in a draft. I think they kept working, improvising, reworking, going back and reshooting, and came up with better ideas for characters like me. That’s kind of easy to do. I mean, I knew what it was, but it was obviously difficult for the two young heroes to carry it into the luggage room.”
Mikkelsen played Galen Erso in the film. He co-starred with actors such as Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic, and Donnie Yen as Chirrut Amwe. The Star Wars anthology film, directed by Gareth Edwards, follows a group of Resistance fighters as they embark on a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star.
He also said that reshooting the scene in which the character “must be destroyed” while water is pouring down on him was particularly difficult because the story changes one after another.
“I can say it was a rough day, but it was only a few days because there were a lot of changes in the story,” the actor said. “We went back and forth, and it was raining. When you make rain artificially, it’s almost impossible to make it rain for long scenes without ice-cold water. So I was lying there, freezing to death, trying to keep my eyes open.”
Mikkelsen also reflected on other acclaimed roles in Variety, including Casino Royale, revealing that he and co-star Daniel Craig were asked to stop improvising during filming, and that Craig was the only cast member who didn’t know how to play poker.
“He was the only person in that movie who didn’t know how to play poker, and he ran away with $150 million of my money,” Mikkelsen said.
Most recently, Mikkelsen starred in Bryan Fuller’s feature film debut, Dust Bunny, which was released on December 12th.
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