Mads Mikkelsen on His Video Game Roles in HITMAN and DEATH STRANDING: “I Had No Idea What Was Going On”

The Death Stranding and Hitman star opens up about being delightfully lost while working on these video games.

Mads Mikkelsen has a certain way of stealing every scene he’s in, whether it’s on the big screen or a wild world set in a video game. So when he showed up at this weekend’s Summer Game Fest to announce he’s joining the Hitman franchise, fans were excited because he’s reprising hit villain role from the James Bond franchise.

During IO Interactive’s presentation, Mikkelsen reflected on stepping into his latest role: a celebrity assassination target in Hitman: World of Assassination. He will be playing none other than Le Chiffre, his iconic villain from Casino Royale.

It’s a return to gaming for him after his unforgettable performance as Clifford Unger in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. When asked if the process this time around felt any different, Mads gave a perfectly candid, Mads-style answer:

“I had no idea what was going on.”

He elaborated that during Death Stranding, the performance capture work, complete with “green tights” and “dots on our faces”, felt completely foreign to him. “It was like being on a set with nothing,” he said.

Despite the oddity of it all, his performance as Unger was a standout in the game, and now, in Hitman, he’s stepping back into more familiar territor. It’s a move that ties his gaming persona back to one of his most recognizable film roles. Still, even with that connection, Mikkelsen said:

“There was a difference for sure,”

before circling back to the one common thread again:

“I had no idea what was going on.”

I guess you don’t have to understand the whole picture to help make something great. You just have to commit to whatever they creators want you to do and act out the dialogue.

Of course, Mads Mikkelsen can walk blindly into two crazy gaming projects and still kill it.