Mads Mikkelsen, the man who played rope-a-dope with James Bond's double-Os in Casino Royale, recently turned up in a new trailer for Hideo Kojima's next game, Death Stranding. You've probably already seen it, but did you understand it? I sure didn't. But I don't feel too badly about that, and neither should you—because neither does Mikkelsen.
The actor said in an interview with Birth, Movies, Death that he can't talk about the plot, "but it's very intricate. I mean, you know [Kojima]. He's a very brilliant man. I mean, the stuff he told me? I only understood some of it," he said. "There was a lot of, 'What?' I have to see it before I understand. Because with Death Stranding, he's creating something completely new."
Mikkelsen wasn't familiar with Kojima's work prior to his involvement with Death Stranding, but he described the earlier trailer with Norman Reedus as "spectacular just from the standpoint of an actor. The emotion, the feeling of it, the sensuality in what he does. Without even being a gamer, I was like, this is crazy, what he's doing. I loved it."
Despite his non-gamer status, he does have some experience with motion capture, thanks to recent roles in Rogue One and Doctor Strange, which is how he'll be performing in Death Stranding. And even though this role will be his first in a videogame (aside from some voice work in Quantum of Solace, nearly ten years ago), he seems to see a lot of crossover between the two media. "In a way, he is making films. He's creating his own worlds," Mikkelsen said. "And he's letting us be the director, in a way."
I hope that clears things up for you! Death Stranding does not have a release date, but is expected to be out sometime before 2019, arriving first on PS4, and then likely arriving on PC at a later point.
