8 Things You Didn't Know About Mads Mikkelsen

8. He Was A Professional Dancer For A Decade

Mikkelsen's acting prowess may lead one to assume he's been focused on honing his craft since an incredibly young age, but the reality is very different. In his youth, Mikkelsen trained as a gymnast with the goal of pursuing athletics.

Around this time Mikkelsen began studying dancing at the Balettakademien (the Swedish term of “ballet academy” in Gothenburg. It was here that Mikkelsen himself became fluent in Swedish. Studying went well for Mikkelsen, and he began a professional dancing career at some point in the mid-eighties (during which time he met choreographer Hanne Jacobsen, whom he later married.).

Around 1996, however, after dancing for almost a decade, Mikkelsen decided he wanted to study drama at the Arthur Theatre School in Denmark, beginning his pursuit of acting at the age of thirty.