Martin is a history teacher with the listless, oblique attitude of a comma. He walks slowly, as if every step ignites a shock of pain. His work is uninspiring; his marriage crumbled. “Did I get bored?” he asked his wife. “Do you find me boring?”
Her answer seems to confirm what he already knows: “You’re not the same Martin I first met.”
In the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round”, a film about breaking the rules and thus escaping, Martin is one of four high school teachers who decide to test a theory about alcohol: as long as they have a consistent level of it in their blood, will improve their lives.
The experiment has its problems. But in the end, Martin, played by Mads Mikkelsen, finds release, which goes through in a dance at the end of the film. The dance, a little drunk, shows Mikkelsen’s skillful ability to balance daring and control. It is fitting: he was once a professional dancer.
The dance begins after Martin, who in his past took jazz ballet lessons, attended a friend’s funeral and received text messages from his wife suggesting he could reunite; he and his friends greet graduate students in the harbor while playing the song ‘What a Life’ by the Danish band Scarlet Pleasure. Initially, his movement is a bit tentative, full of stops and starts. But as soon as he gets going, he throws himself into it, takes wide cross-steps, swings and turns with a silky force to the ground and jumps up – even as he takes sips from a can of beer.
As his body melts to the beat of the song, it’s clearly more than a dance: Martin’s got another chance – or a round – in life, and he’s taking it. Unhindered and robust, Mikkelsen (55), right through the space, hits the air and jumps with force before taking off with a spectacular jump over the water. The film ends with him in the air.
In collaboration with Mikkelsen, choreographer Olivia Anselmo said: ‘He started the whole rehearsal and said:’ Well, I’m not like I used to be, I’m not young anymore and blah, blah, blah. And then the first thing he does is go into a slide and roll on the floor and jump up and do it where he wraps his leg around the other leg – like a yoga posture. He just done that.”
Mikkelsen started as an acrobat before discovering dance, although he made his name as an actor. He was the Bond villain in ‘Casino Royale’ and dr. Hannibal Lecter in the television series ‘Hannibal’. He won an award for best actor in Cannes for his role in Vinterberg’s film “The Hunt” (2012). But for Anselmo he is something else. “When I was in the studio with him, I did not think it was this world-famous actor,” she said. “It was so cozy and chilly. I just thought, this is just another dancer. ‘
Recently, Mikkelsen talked about dance and his professional dance years, which lasted about nine years. He switched to drama, he said, “to pull out another drawer and find something new,” he said. “I was also always more in love with the drama of dance than the aesthetics of dance.”
Following is an excerpt from a recent conversation.
How did you feel about dancing in the movie?
I thought it would be a difficult thing to get away in a realistic movie – to really dance. So in my world it was more like a drunken dream or a drunken image or fantasy, but in Thomas’ world it was literally a man dancing while surrounded by very young people. [Laughs]
He wanted the ending to be a balance between a man flying and a man falling, and of course the dance was perfect for that.
How did you start dancing in the first place?
I started as a gymnast, and there was a choreographer who came to our club. She wanted some acrobats in the background who could do flips and she wanted us to do some steps too. She thought I had a certain amount of talent and she asked me if I wanted to learn the subject, and I had absolutely nothing else to do.
I did a few shows with her, kind of musical stuff, and then it felt like I had to honor dance. I really had to learn it from scratch.
Where did you study?
I applied for a scholarship and I am two summers to New York to Martha Graham. Then I joined a contemporary ballet troupe in Denmark and I did a bunch of musicals like ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ and ‘Chicago’. “West Side story.” But I was trained as a contemporary Martha Graham dancer.
Was Martha in the area? She must have been pretty old.
Yes. I had the opportunity to meet her. It was a miracle time. She was obviously not a teacher [anymore], but she once came with her arthritis as the guru she was. She was helped out of the car. She was amazing. She had this enormous hair. She sat down on the floor and watched us. And all of a sudden she just made one of her movements – her spine just got completely straight and she put her nose on the floor.
This is magic.
We were all just like, what? And then she let all the boys get really close because she does not speak out loud. She said, “The boys have to jump in the air.” And so we went in there and jumped and jumped and jumped, and then we looked at her, and she fell asleep. [Laughs] But it was fantastic, fantastic to meet her.
When did you start gymnastics?
I was probably in first or second grade. You have to understand, gymnastics in Denmark was on a whole different level than the rest of the world in the sense that we sucked. I remember a Russian club came to us as a friendship club, and it was just insane how good they were. It was just like, Jesus, we’re wasting our time.
How old were you when you switched to dance?
I think it was about 17 or 18 when it happened. So I was a little boy of the working class – almost like a story by Billy Elliot. I could not really tell my friends what I started doing. It’s just like you’m a working class, but when they finally found out, I told them to do the math, “How many girls, how many boys?” They were all like, “Yeah, I want to be a dancer too.”
What was it like dancing again for “Another Round”?
It was like saying hello to an old friend. I’m the kind of dancer who does not dance when I’m out with friends at a club. I’ve always been a little reluctant to do that because I think that was my profession. I knew this character was rusty and that he was not a professional dancer like me, but he did it as a young man as a child. At the same time, I got a little ambitious.
Did you injure yourself?
No not at all. It was all good. But it was all adrenaline. I felt very young again, but the next week I felt really old.
Because you were hurt?
I was super sore. I do a lot of sports. I ride a bike and I play tennis and do all sorts of things, but they are not the same muscles.
What did you think of in the final dance?
We wanted it not to be about the dance, but about what is inside the character. More than it’s a performance, it’s an internal journey. It’s almost like a close-up.