When the cast of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny came to the Cannes Film Festival, Mads Mikkelsen was often placed beside Harrison Ford for press and photos. Mads seemed pleased with everything during Cannes – my interpretation of his energy was “I can’t believe I got to work with Harrison Ford on an Indiana Jones movie!” Maybe that’s just projection, but Harrison’s costars always love him and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Mads was hand-picked by Harrison for the role. Mads plays the Nazi villain in the movie, and Mads covers the latest issue of GQ Hype to promote the film. He doesn’t talk much about Harrison, but he does talk about American films and villains. And smoking. He loves to smoke. Some highlights:

The aging effect of cigarettes: Mikkelsen—who in spite of sucking down cigarettes since the ‘80s, has the ruddy cheeks of a milkmaid—tells me that one of the most successful anti-smoking campaigns in Denmark involved an apple with saggy skin: “They didn’t mind dying brutally, but just getting the skin a little older, that makes them sweat!” He would love to quit, he says, but he is “stuck.”

His Nazi villain has no rich backstory: “The whole idea of the main character is that we will learn bit by bit why the person is how the person is, and that’s not the case with the other characters—the sidekick, or the bad guy. The camera is not telling my story. It is not going to bed with me and waking up with me the next day.”

Danish films do not have “villains” in the same way America does. His approach feels un-American, in a good way. Where American blockbusters, by and large, love to blast a gorge between good guys and bad guys, Danish films are often more ambiguous. Movies about World War II of course depict Nazis, Mikkelsen says, but generally in a hyper-realistic way, and not as wild megalomaniacs. Denmark does have its “rough guys,” he adds—its Marlon Brandos and James Deans—but those roles don’t interest him as much as truer-to-life characters. “To combine it—to do something real and also be a cutie pie—I don’t really find it interesting…I’m not into the ‘hair falling in your eyes, be cute in a corner.’ Not me. The losers are fun. Because we know them. You might have been in that situation yourself sometimes.”

Whether he realizes that he’s a niche heartthrob in America: “Hahtthrob? No, I did not know. I am a niche bad guy. I didn’t know there was that part also.”

Working with Rihanna in the Bitch Better Have My Money” video: “She had seen me in something—something Danish, I remember. I got a phone call asking if I wanted to be part of that, and it was fun and insane.”

His favored shape: He still keeps himself “in a favored shape”—Scandinavian-fit, which is the slightly more shambolic cousin of polo-fit—but otherwise he left dance behind when he went to drama school.

[From GQ Hype]

He also talks about his years as a dancer, which was basically part of his acting training, especially given his physicality in many films. He comes across as pleasantly eccentric, or maybe this is just what Danish men are like. Sort of… sexy without trying, not an egotistical monster but not exactly “humble,” kind of weird and arty. Anyway, I love him. In another part of the profile, Indiana Jones director James Mangold mentions that Mads would wear his full Nazi costume and regalia during his smoke-and-coffee breaks in an alley – can you even imagine??

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of GQ.