Bryan Fuller loves Danish Cinema, Mads Mikkelsen and his wish to do a Dracula film with Mads

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]A dream project for Thomas and I is to do a really bizarre, uniquely kind of um inspired from both of our our our crazy minds version of uh Dracula with Mads Mikkelsen as of course the Dracula.

[00:00:25]Is that enough to kill a monster? What makes you think I kill monsters? You feel like you kill all that things.

[00:00:37]Do you believe in monsters?

[00:00:41]You're a monster. Do you believe in you?

[00:00:49]The monster didn't eat your parents.

[00:00:52]Those were men that came to kill me.

[00:00:59]Are you in Copenhagen or Very near Copenhagen, yes.

[00:01:03]Yeah, have you have you been to Denmark before? I have. I have. I after I've I've gone to visit Mads after we finished filming Dust Bunny and I believe it was uh August, uh late August and it was gorgeous.

[00:01:20]How early in the in the writing process of Dust Bunny did you know that Mads Mikkelsen was playing the neighbor?

[00:01:26]Well, it like it it was originally going to be an Amazing Stories episode of a TV show and I pitched it to Mads at the Rogue One premiere as I we got to the after-party before everybody else and we were just there and I was like, "Hey, there's this thing and while I have your undivided attention, uh what do you think about doing a story about a little girl who hires a hitman to kill the monster under uh her bed and he was like, "Oh, that sounds fun."

[00:02:01]>> [laughter] >> Like, "Yeah, send me the script." And uh so and then 5 years later, like we were able to to make it and it went through so many iterations in terms of is it a television show? And then finally, I wrote it as a movie and it's such a crazy system in in Hollywood as you need someone that financiers are able to put up a lot of money for and it went from different studios that were like you know, they wanted one kind of actor or another kind of actor based on their algorithms and finally, we found somebody who would make it with Mads uh cuz they were like, "He's a European actor. This is an American movie. We're American financiers."

[00:02:57]And I really wanted to make it with Mads because I I know him as a different person than the personas that he usually characterizes in a lot of these movies as villains and he is such an affable, likeable, easy kind of working class guy, family man and we never really get to see that. You know, it we see it in in some of his Danish films and you know, looking at his Danish comedies and his his collaborations with Thomas Anders Jensen >> [gasps] >> uh are incredibly inspirational and I'm always a little bit jealous of them because Thomas gets Mads to go to these insane places that are so endearing and uh heart-wrenching and heartwarming. And did you see The Last Viking? Yes, I love it.

[00:03:57]>> it. I loved it.

[00:03:59]And that I would say that and uh Men & Chicken are a couple of my favorite performances of Mads. And of course, he's just insane in The Green Butchers. So, really it was all about and I think I will be driven to do this again and again and again showing the world more of the Mads Mikkelsen that I know and I see as a friend uh on camera than than the villains.

[00:04:27]>> [laughter] >> Of course, you and Mads previously worked together on Hannibal. How has the relationship evolved since then? How often are you in contact?

[00:04:37]You know, we text fairly regularly.

[00:04:40]Uh usually like, you know, I'm I'm giving him updates about various things and saying hello and he's sending me pictures of of dogs and babies. And uh so, it's it you know, what was surprising to me, you know, this is my first time that I've directed and usually as a showrunner I'm directing the directors. So, it's a little bit of a different experience because I'll go to the stage, I'll give instruction, and then I'll run back to the hotel or the apartment to do more rewrites of what's shooting next.

[00:05:17]And it was really the first time that I got to be 100% present in uh the [clears throat] situation without worrying about my next meeting or the next episode or the next you know, hurdle to be jumped through. And I just got to be there breathing the same air and feeling the same responsibility and immediacy of of of the production in a way that I never had before because I was always running off to the next thing. So, I got to form great relationships with department heads and crew members and the actors in a way that I had just never been afforded to. So, I would say working with Mads on on Dust Bunny, the biggest surprise and it's not really a surprise, but was a comfort was how much Mads had my back.

[00:06:18]And how much support he was showing for me at any given time and far and how far he would go just to it sounds strange, but to protect and support. So, it was something that I was both not surprised by, but incredibly surprised by because I just had never experienced that level of of fraternity with him and it really felt like a brotherhood and a friendship that got deeper because of that experience.

[00:06:56]Wow, that's very lovely to hear.

[00:06:58]Yeah, yeah, it was wonderful. Yeah, and and and as a Dane watching the film, I you get get surprised because Mads is not the only Dane in this film. Now, it's raining Danes. Yes. Could you talk about how Lena Cruse and Casper Phillipson ended up playing here the parents?

[00:07:16]Well, Lena I met at the Rogue One premiere.

[00:07:20]>> [laughter] >> Uh I sat next to her and we just got on like a house on fire. And she's she really is one of my favorite people and so it I had told her about the story and and she knew that I wanted to cast Mads in it and she of course famously is a well-known child actor and as you know an adult now.

[00:07:49]And she gave me some really sage advice on how to support and navigate a child actor in a way that was so rudimentary and kind of structural and that was basically uh hire someone as a concierge that is essentially an acting coach that can also create a bubble protection around a child in an adult environment that allows them to remain a child, that allows them to be a professional and and lets them have that experience without trying to navigate the pressures of the adult system and worry about like, "Okay, if a director is giving me adjustments, that doesn't mean that he hates what I'm doing or she hates what I'm doing. It just means that we're finding the story together." So, there was all of these things that, you know, I don't have children.

[00:08:56]Lena has kids. Maz has kids and they were both instrumental in in helping me create a great environment for this young actor to be a child. Uh and so, she was like, "If if you don't hire me, hire someone like me that can do that."

[00:09:16]And I was like, "Great, are you available?" And she was like, "Yes."

[00:09:21]Um and I was like, "Do you want to also be in the movie?" And you know, there's this role. It's very brief and you meet a horrible fate. And she was like, At first, she was like, "Well, I want to be able to be there 100% for Sophie. And I was like, but you would be. You would be in all of those scenes.

[00:09:45]And I had met Casper uh, years ago when he played JFK and uh, the Jackie movie with Natalie Portman. And another friend of mine was in that, Beth Grant, and she introduced us. And he's just such a lovely soul.

[00:10:12]And such a sweet man.

[00:10:15]Uh, and I met him and his daughter there, and we kept in touch. So whenever he came to Los Angeles, we would go have lunch and we would talk about crazy projects. So these people were in my life and they were also a stone's throw away from Budapest where we were filming. So uh, it was kind of a no uh, to just um, call people that you like and want to work with. And that's kind of the wonder of this industry is that you get to have those opportunities afforded to from time to time where you just get to hire qualified people that are lovely and you can just make a phone call and say, come play with us. So Casper and Lena came and played with us.

[00:11:02]That's perfect. And the So three Danes in this movie, do you have a special affection for Danish cinema or anything like that? Yes, I do.

[00:11:11]Um, and really it is you my my favorite Danish filmmaker and my like probably my favorite actor director uh, collaboration.

[00:11:27]You know, a lot of people will say like, oh, it's Scorsese and De Niro or it's Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, but mine is Thomas Anders Jensen and Mads Mikkelsen. I love their collaborations.

[00:11:37]I am always surprised at what they do together. And it's always moving. It's always emotional. It's always insane.

[00:11:48]And you know, I would say Riders of Justice maybe my favorite collaboration of theirs just because it's probably one of their more mainstream collaborations.

[00:12:06]Uh, but it's also so strange and uniquely Thomas. Uh, and I have the big Danish coffee book uh, Thomas that they got me for Christmas that Thomas got me for Christmas.

[00:12:27]Okay.

[00:12:28]So, um, there's something about Danish cinema that is, you know, every culture and country has specificities of their their own cinematic styles. And what I love about Thomas's work with with Mads is that it's just his. It has no kind of country of origin or stylistic, you know, derivations. It is uniquely Thomas and uniquely Thomas's point of view.

[00:13:04]And and Mads and he are are perfect collaborators and perfect friends. And they're like the wrestling scene in not wrestling, but the the hallway fight scene in Dust Bunny where Mads uses two fingers to choke out an assassin. Um, he pulled that move on Thomas when they were drunken kids and that's how that came to be in the movie and there are a lot of references in Dust Bunny to Men & Chicken because it it probably really is my favorite Mads Mikkelsen performance. So his chicken lamp and the chicken nunchucks and those types of things were all kind of A chickens are funny and B I have a strong association of chickens with Mads.

[00:13:58]That's amazing. That's amazing. I love it. I really love it. Um yeah, could you see you you and Anders Thomas doing a movie together at some point writing a script together? Are you already working on something? Yeah, yeah, we have been texting back and forth sort of like a story break like we a dream project for Thomas and I is to do a really bizarre uniquely kind of um inspired from both of our our our crazy minds version of Dracula with Mads Mikkelsen of course as Dracula.

[00:14:42]So that I mean that's that's our dream project and there's so many Draculas but not like the one that we're talking about and you know, we want Stellan Skarsgård to play Satan and you know, it's it's that's our that's our dream. So yes, we are we are like that is our dream project is to do a Dracula with Mads that nobody has ever seen anything like it before.

[00:15:08]We we need to manifest that. Yes, let's manifest it and if there are any Danish financiers reading this interview or watching this interview, give us some money and we'll we'll give you a Dracula with Mads Mikkelsen.

[00:15:22]Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

[00:15:24]Um let's dig into the the the world of Dust Bunny. It it it's so incredibly rich and detailed. How did you approach building this fantasy world and where did the idea for Dust Bunny the Dust Bunny creature come from in the first place?

[00:15:39]Well, the I one of the the wonderful things about doing a monster movie is that you get to make a monster.

[00:15:48]And so it I was like, "Should it look like a bunny?"

[00:15:54]>> [laughter] >> I mean, it's called it's it's a Dust Bunny and the movie's called Dust Bunny.

[00:15:58]Should it look like a bunny?

[00:15:59]And >> [clears throat] >> uh there's a wonderful comic book artist that I've worked with before named John Wasylyk who has this insane mental uh style to his characterizations. And so my first thought when I was like, "Okay, we have to make a monster." was I'm going to reach out to John because everything through his his his pencil comes off as crazy.

[00:16:25]Uh and if you don't know his work, look uh please look it up. It's J O N and last name is Wasylyk, W A Y S H A K.

[00:16:34]And he was like, "Well, what what does it look like?" And I said, "Well, it's it's uh part Highland cow and part hippopotamus and part piranha and all bunny."

[00:16:49]And uh he gave it immediately a sweetness to its menace. And that was so important because I I knew I I wanted something that you would want to cuddle when you see, but also that you'd want to be standing behind and not in front of when it attacks. So, uh I think John really nailed the style and the look of of a bunny that feels like it's a bunny, but it's not quite a bunny that we've seen before and is unique to a child's manifestation of what terror uh should feel like to those who would oppress that child and and uh be her enemy. So, um then the fantastic people at uh at Legacy Effects built this amazing puppet that was I don't know if it was 12 ft tall with its ears and that was just the head and the ears.

[00:17:57]And so, it was a blast to have that bunny on the set and I love using practical puppetry. It goes back to my obsession with the works of uh Brian Henson and Jim Henson and Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and and those films. So, I wish we had more of that. I wish we had more time in our schedule to really have a lot more fun with the bunny puppet because it was so elaborate and if you see just the head and the hands, it's the puppet. If you see the full body, it's it's CG and uh so, it's uh I'm excited to do another monster movie because this one has just wet my appetite.

[00:18:50]What did you see?

[00:18:52]A monster.

[00:18:56]Under my bed.

[00:18:58]What do your parents think about monsters?

[00:19:00]Do they believe in them?

[00:19:03]They do now.

[00:19:05]>> [screaming] >> There is also a scene where Mads Mikkelsen's character dismembers a body, which >> Yes.

[00:19:16]which many viewers are probably associated with your work on on Hannibal.

[00:19:21]Could you talk a little bit about that that connection? Was that intentional?

[00:19:24]It was part of kind of a total land grab for the movie that there was going to be this uh dismemberment of of a body and how do you make that okay for a child? And it probably is not okay for most children, but uniquely in this situation, it was good for Aurora and the neighbor and it it felt like it was an opportunity to sort of demystify adult situations for a child so that they're not traumatized by them and the fact that he's not bothered by it and she's not bothered by it it was one of the things that I was like okay, I haven't seen this scene before. You know, I I haven't seen uh a a child and an adult dismembering a body and uh wrapping up the pieces. So that felt like it was something that was like I said a tonal land grab of this is the spirit of this movie.

[00:20:35]Uh come on in, the water's fine.

[00:20:38]Yeah, totally and we just talked a lot about Anders Thomas Jensen and I also think there is a little bit of that in that scene because that could be a little >> Yeah, that could be a mess in that one of those scenes actually asking a child to to help him do integrate the pictures or something like that.

[00:20:54]>> [laughter] >> Well, and all like also it's you know, right out of the last Viking. You know, and I think the last Viking and Dust Bunny are sibling movies in many ways.

[00:21:06]They're about how children adapt to circumstances in their lives and take actions and become their own heroes in ways, but are also broken by their heroism. That I think is deeply relatable and that's why I'm so drawn to so so many of of Thomas's movies uh because we we have a similar sensibility on the absurdity of childhood, the absurdity of what it is to be human and kind of bulk at uh any kind of restrictions that the world would put on us.

[00:21:47]So, [clears throat] it's it was interesting to see The Last Viking in a double feature uh with Dust Bunny at at the TIFF Festival um last year because they played at 5:00, we played at midnight and uh it was great to see a double feature and also a double feature made by not only friends, but like friends that I have so much respect for and I remember when Mads introduced me to Thomas and it was, you know, he he he kept on telling Lena, "We have to get these two guys together because they're I've they're both such weirdos and I've never met anyone like either of them except each other, so they have to be in each other's lives."

[00:22:41]And and Thomas is is very much uh you know, he's a brat in a way that he is just naughty. He's like a he's a naughty boy and uh I'm a bit of a naughty boy and we just giggle or stare at at each other while saying the most offensive, bizarre things just to get a reaction out of each other and I and I love him like a brother.

[00:23:13]Oh, that's so that's so cool. That's so I'm very very excited. I hope you get to do something in the future together. Me too. Uh you know, I think there's uh it's fun to to to story break with him on text. We have a text chain of story ideas and story you know, movements that is always fun to go back to but he's uh he's one of my favorite filmmakers and I'm I'm so honored that he's a friend.

[00:23:45]Now it's coming to the Danish cinemas.

[00:23:47]Is it wasn't Yes, yes, I'm so excited about that. You can thank Lena Cruz for being the champion and calling everybody that she knew to get into theaters because we we were in acquisition. So we started with one studio and then that studio went belly up and then a financier stepped in to complete the project and then another studio bought the the first studio and that studio very likely would have never have made this movie.

[00:24:21]So we were a little lost and rudderless for a while and the kind of process of being you know, acquired and uh moved along a chain of acquisitions and >> [clears throat] >> so there weren't a lot of plans for for releases in a lot of places.

[00:24:48]Roadside Attractions thankfully picked us up and gave us a small theatrical window in in the US and uh you know places here and there and I was shocked that there was no plan for a Danish release and Lena was like that's I'm going to fix it.

[00:25:11]>> [laughter] >> And did as is her want as she usually does so she she dug in there and she made a lot of phone calls and harassed a lot of people and got us in theaters so you can thank Lena Cruz for that.