Mads Mikkelsen, the actor who will take the place of Johnny Depp in the role of Gellert Grindelwald in the next film of the Fantastic Beasts saga, he talked about what he expects will be the difficulties of taking on such an important role, also and above all due to the media importance of the "colleague" he will replace. In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, Mikkelsen was asked how his portrayal of the dark wizard would differ from Depp's portrayal. “Well, that's going to be me, so that's a difference,” he joked.
This is the hard part. We are still working on it. There must be a bridge between what Johnny did and what I'll do. And at the same time, I also have to make it mine. But we also need to find some links [to the previous version of the character] and some bridges so that it doesn't completely break away from what it has already masterfully achieved.
Mikkelsen will be, technically speaking, the third actor to play Grindelwald; Colin Farrell played the role for the first film, albeit as "Percival Graves“, An alter ego for Grindelwald obtained through the magic of transfiguration. After being unmasked, Depp played the "real" version of Grindelwald for the second film. It remains to be seen how this Fantastic Beasts 3 will justify the change but the series Wizarding Worldobviously has it on his side the "excuse" of magic with which to plausibly resolve the question. Depp resigned as Grindelwald after losing a libel suit against the newspapers of the News Group on allegations of abuse between him and his ex-wife, Amber Heard. The court found that the allegations of domestic violence committed by him were "substantially true". Following the outcome he stepped down from the role in the Harry Potter prequel series and has since been replaced by Hannibal, Doctor Strange and the star of Casino Royale, Mads Mikkelsen.
