Mads Mikkelsen Quotes

If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story.

I do read some of the scripts from America and, even though the themes or subject of the film is very interesting, and some of the scenes are very interesting, there is a tendency that they have to explain everything. There will be no dilemma.

Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work.

I've never been a fan of whimsical or confusing storytelling.

Sometimes there is more exploration in the character for a villain.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.

Well, I don't know. It's long, it's longer than both of the other books put together, so it's more ambitious. I think I get under the skin of the people a lot more than in the other books.

I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.

I totally respond to complex characters, and I'm not interested in anything too simple.

I'm not a big fan of introducing a bunch of new mysteries into a story without really knowing where they're going because you just end up struggling at the end to make sense of them and make it all seem like you planned it all along.

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

If you don't spend the time you need on developing characters and finding stories, complicated stories, the audience gets tired because they think they're seeing the same thing again and again.

I'm just interested in all of the different ways that a woman can be. We don't have enough, when it comes to American film, that shows all of the different complexities and ways that a woman is interesting and mysterious and dynamic and really complicated.

It gets harder and harder to make movies about human beings. These movies are like an endangered species. Everything is 'simplify, simplify' now. How many movies have sub-plots anymore?

Sometimes it's great when, you know, you're sitting down to watch a straightforward story, and you know how it's going to go, and you know how it's going to end. That's a fairy tale.

In the case of 'Fantastic Woman,' I wanted to make it a more complex animal than just a 'cause' film. Even though I was sympathizing with the character's struggle, I didn't want to be trapped at that level - it's important, but it can be quite basic.

I suppose what I aspire to do is to make it easy for the audience to connect with a story.

Broadchurch' was all about shades of grey, both in characters and storytelling, and I wanted to see that through to the end.

People always want narratives to be clean and easy.

I kind of started with this foundation, and tried to do all the research I could do for Alice [Cullen], and then every time a [new] director would come in, they have their own artistic take on things and add in new elements. And a lot of times they would ask, "What did you love that you portrayed, and what do you wish that you could show?" So I felt, with each installment, I got the opportunity to add on something. I think she was very - you know, really sweet, [laughs] a little odd in the first installment.

My favorite films are the ones that I walk away from and I know I saw a story. I saw the core part of the plot. But if I ever take another look at it then I can see that there was some more stuff going on in there that I didn't realize.

Love stories that are too simple don't deserve to have films made about them.

I don't tell a story unless I have a very deep bench. If you tell an idiosyncratic story, there's no resonance. People read it and say, "I don't see anyone like that." So I tell a story only when I have many stories behind it.

Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That's why stories appeal to us. They give is the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.