Mads Mikkelsen Quotes

I don't think I would be a good actor! People enjoyed 'Dancing With the Stars' because I was myself, and every time they told me to say something, I would say my own words, so I don't think I could follow a script well!

I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting.

I know there are some actors who are just brilliant at improvising and brilliant at just being in the moment and doing it there and then. I'm not one of those actors.

I'm more interested in knowing my cues than my lines. If you know what your cues are, then you know what your reaction is going to be to them. Acting is about reacting, and if I can kind of purely react, that's easier for me.

Acting is really about showing up that day and telling the writers what you feel like saying.

If the actor doesn't feel it's right, that's when you say, 'OK, let's find something else.' It's then that you get the natural moment.

The strange thing about being an actor is it's almost a little dangerous to invest in an idea. I think once you invest in the idea of where someone is going, then you're not fully open to being able to play the opposite of that if that's what the character is going to do.

As an actor, I go with the flow.

I typically try not to think too hard about what I'm going to do in a certain scene with a certain actor in a certain moment because I think that kind of lends its way to not being as improvisational and sort of carefree as one would hope.

My strength lies in prepping. I'm not someone who can just walk onto the set and perform.

All that acting and all that stuff and emoting and crap will come after you know what you're doing. So when you get - when I get on stage, I don't have to think about it.

For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

With acting, you wanna see if you can get into trouble without knowing how you're gonna get out of it. It's like the exact opposite of war, where you need an exit strategy. When you're acting, you should get all the way into trouble with no exit strategy, and have the cameras rolling.

When you're acting in a scene, you're focused on doing the scene. You can't break character and go, 'Oh my God, I love what you're doing!'

Onstage, there's no hiding; you either can or can't act. There's no second take.

If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.

The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

See, that's the thing: I'm not one of those actors who thinks, 'God, I've got to improvise and make it my own.' No, my first job as an actor is to take what's written and make it work. And then, if they want me to improvise, I'll do that.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer.

As an actress I feel that if you start to impose your own inhibitions, then you are not doing your job.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.