Perhaps it is fitting that the FANTASTIC BEASTS villain Gellert Grindelwald cannot keep his face straight. After all, when we first met him, he was played by Colin Farrell. While that was more of a plot twist necessity (so Johnny Depp could be revealed as the real Grindelwald actor by film’s end), it did set audiences up to accept that Grindelwald might look different from one film to the next.

All of which is a long way of saying that, in THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE, aka FANTASTIC BEASTS 3, the actor who plays Grindelwald has changed. Johnny Depp is out, and the new Grindelwald is Mads Mikkelsen.

Depp has fans who are no doubt sad to see him go, but it's exciting to see Mikkelsen get his chance to wear the robe. Few other actors have more experience playing suave villains than Mikkelsen. To prove it, before you see Mads Mikkelsen as Grindelwald, let’s take a look at some of his most evil roles so far.

When it comes to playing villains, nailing a James Bond baddie is kind of the top of the mountain. Not only did Mads Mikkelsen climb that mountain, but he did so in arguably the best James Bond movie ever made. His Le Chiffre is a more grounded Bond villain than usual, out to make money more than anything. But he is very suave. And he tortures James Bond more than most Bond villains get to enjoy. On top of all that, he cries tears made of blood. Beat that, Hugo Drax!

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly who (or what) Mikkelsen is playing in VALHALLA RISING. Is he a really tough guy? Is he supernatural? Is he the Devil himself in human form? All we really know for sure is that this man knows how to dish out violence, which he does over and over and over again in this wild movie by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. (Who also gave Mikkelsen one of his greatest and most sympathetic roles in PUSHER and PUSHER II.)  A lot of people try to bring One Eye down over the course of this film; it doesn’t end well for them.

If you can’t be a Bond villain, getting to be a Marvel villain is quickly becoming the next best thing. And Mads has done both! In DOCTOR STRANGE, he plays Kaecilius, an ex-student of The Ancient One who believes The Ancient One is trying to keep her own power strong by limiting his larger ambition. So he aims to kill her and anyone who gets in his way, which of course includes Doctor Strange.

While Mikkelsen has not had the pleasure of playing notorious cannibal and serial killer Hannibal Lecter on the big screen (yet), he had a good run with the iconic character on television, totally making the role his own, which is not an easy thing to do with Anthony Hopkins’ take so baked into pop culture. And being on television certainly didn’t stop Mikkelsen’s Lecter from getting down and dirty with his kills. This show is unbelievably dark and gory, and Mikkelsen provides a Lecter to match those ambitions.

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE opens on April 15.

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