“Fantastic Beasts 3” has to do without Johnny Depp. Instead, Mads Mikkelsen becomes the new Grindelwald and wants to make the figure his own.
At the end of 2020 was Johnny Depp announced that “Fantastic Beasts 3” in the future will be without him. Studio Warner Bros. had asked the actor to leave the “Harry Potter” spin-off series. A new actor for the role of Gellert Grindelwald was quickly found: Mads Mikkelsen (“Hannibal”)
The new Grindelwald will be quite different from Depp’s version of the character. The Danish actor told Collider that he had no plans to copy Depp’s play:
“Nobody is interested in me going in there and trying to copy something. That would be instant creative suicide. Especially if it has been done before and masterfully. So everyone expects us to find another way. ”
New Grindelwald shouldn’t be completely different.
Specifically, Mikkelsen wants to build bridges between his and Depp’s version of Grindelwald so that he doesn’t feel like a completely new character in “Fantastic Beasts 3”:
“Besides that, we need a bridge between what he [Depp] did and what I’m going to do. You have to find these bridges together, regardless of whether it is a certain look or a certain behavior in certain situations, but you have to make it your own. Anything else would be just creatively stupid. ”
“Harry Potter” fans can look forward to a slightly different Grindelwald in the next film, but who essentially remains the familiar character. Shortly after receiving the role, Mikkelsen said that he wanted to try to strike a balance between the versions. He also highly praised Depp’s work in the “Fantastic Beasts” films.
Mikkelsen has already gained experience with large universes. After all, he was already in “Doctor Strange” and in “Star Wars: Rogue One” to see. He accepted the offer to play Grindelwald because he is a fan of the world himself:
“I’m a huge fan of the Potter universe and it’s a kind of genre that you don’t touch in my part of the world. In Denmark, you can’t get away with it in terms of budget. So of course it was a fantastic opportunity when I ran into her.”
After several delays due to positive corona cases onset and the departure of Johnny Depp, fans can finally remember a start date that will hopefully not be postponed again. On July 14, 2022 “Fantastic Beasts 3” will hit theaters.