Fantastic Beasts 3's Mads Mikkelsen Thinks Method Acting Is "Bulls***"

Method acting has had a recent resurgence among actors, for good, bad, or the very bad, and one actor is voicing his thoughts on the trend. Mads Mikkelsen, a recent BAFTA nominee and stepping in the role of Grindelwald in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore thinks the technique is passe.

Throughout his career, Mikkelsen has learned new skills in preparation for new roles including how to speak different languages and staged combat with swords, and he takes pride that he's never taken it that far.

"It’s bulls---,” Mikkelsen told GQ UK when asked about the form of acting. "But preparation, you can take into insanity. What if it’s a s--- film...what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn't drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning! How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?"

Mikkelsen spent three seasons as the famous fictional cannibalistic serial killer, so he's talking from experience, but also the lengths that some actors go to and why he disagrees with that train of thought, and how it's consistently rewarded.

"The media goes, 'Oh my god, he took it so seriously, therefore he must be fantastic; let's give him an award,'" Mikkelsen said. "Then that's the talk, and everybody knows about it, and it becomes a thing."

Famous instances of using the Method and earning award nominations or winning them are Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, Christian Bale in Vice (who also used the Method during The Dark Knight trilogy), Robert DeNiro, and probably most famously Marlon Brando, who was a huge proponent of the Method.

You can see Mikkelsen not use the Method as he battles Jude Law's Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, out April 15.