Since winning the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt," Mads Mikkelsen has been inundated with offers for new projects.
Mikkelson, who also stars in Denmark's entry for the foreign Oscars, "A Royal Affair," has yet to decide what he will do next, according to his representatives. But one of his choices, they say, is "Our Kind of Traitor," the film adaptation of the John le Carre spy novel.
“Our Kind of Traitor, is being put together by a consortium of British producers, including Film4, Potboiler Productions and The Ink Factory.
It will be directed by Justin Kurzel from a screenplay by Hossein Amini. It tells the story of a young English couple who bond with a millionaire Russian businessman after a chance encounter on vacation.
What they don’t know is that the enigmatic Russian is a money launderer seeking to defect to British intelligence before his rivals have a chance to murder him. He has chosen the couple as his lifeline.
The couple’s recruitment by the secret service is followed by a deadly chase, which takes them from the souks of Marrakesh to London, to the French Open Tennis Final in Paris and to a thrilling climax in the Swiss Alps.
Ralph Fiennes name has also come up with the project, as has Jessica Chastain’s, although a rep for the actress says she has yet to receive an offer.
Mikkelsen has lately been busy in Canada filming his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which U.S. writer-producer Bryan Fuller has reinvented for a 13-episode NBC-Gaumont television series, “Hannibal.”
Also read: New 'Hannibal' Is Mads Mikkelsen
Mikkelsen, who got his break in Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's “Pusher” in 1996, has notched up a number of high-profile credits, including the role of the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond movie, “Casino Royale." He also played the composer in “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” and could be seen in “Clash of The Titans” and “The Three Musketeers.”
This summer he filmed Fredrik Bond's “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman,” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and Danish director Asger Leth's “Move On.” The Danish film powerhouse, TrustNordisk is also working on a new project for the actor to film next summer but said that it is keeping the details closely under wraps.
His other upcoming films include the French period piece "Michael Kohlhaas," which tells the story of a well-to-do horse merchant, and an adventure-western called “The Stolen."
The Ink Factory and Potboiler Productions did not return calls to TheWrap for comment on the casting for "Our Kind of Traitor."