2006’s Casino Royale witnessed a more grounder and grittier approach to the British Icon, with a tougher and ruggeder Daniel Craig taking the mantle with Martin Campbell behind the lens.

But apart from Campbell’s direction and Craig’s brilliance, another highlight of Casino Royale, which reinvented James Bond for the modern audience, remains Mads Mikkelsen’s sadistic Le Chiffre.

While Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre might not be the smartest villain in the decades-long franchise, he is certainly up there with the all-time greats.

He also succeeds in putting Bond through the wringer, especially in the torture sequence, and interestingly, the Hannibal Star revealed he had many more ideas for the scene, only to be shut down by the director.
Mads Mikkelsen | Casino Royale
Mads Mikkelsen Had Several Creepier Ideas On His Mind For The Torture Scene

The 2006 entry takes James Bond to the basics, bringing in lesser-known faces to tackle the pivotal roles, which pushed Mikkelsen and Craig’s career to the top.

And considering they both were coming from the Indie circuit, it didn’t take long for Mads Mikkelsen and Daniel Craig to get along, especially during the torture scenea

Daniel Craig and Mads Mikkelsen | Casino Royale
While the brutal sequence, involving Le Chiffre stripping down Bond and continuously beating his t-sticles with a knotted rope, is painful for the viewers, the two actors were having a blast behind the scenes.

This resulted in them coming up with several crazy ideas, only to be hilariously rejected by Martin Campbell.

During his appearance at the Zurich Film Festival (via Variety), Mikkelsen said,

“I have seen the ones with Daniel Craig. [Back then] he was the new Bond and everything about him was ‘wrong.’ His height, his nose, his hair.

I think he was glad I also came from indie films. He had a partner in crime.

There was this scene where I tickled his balls with a rope. We had so many ideas and the director just looked at us: ‘Guys, come back. It’s a Bond movie’.

Despite their crazy ideas not being greenlit by the GoldenEye director, the end result became a hit among fans and critics, kickstarting the Knives Out Star’s iconic Bond run.

Casino Royale (2006)
Losing to Daniel Craig Was Frustrating for Mads Mikkelsen

Losing to Daniel Craig’s James Bond in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro was pretty frustrating for Mads Mikkelsen, considering Craig lacked poker knowledge in real life.

Joking about the matter, the Death Stranding Star told GQ:

“Everybody knew how to play poker around that table, except for one: Daniel. He had no clue.

He sucked. And it was the worst thing ever that he, of all people, had to beat me and win all my money.

It was like, ‘This is wrong.’ Well, I got him back with the rope, so that’s good.”

Mads Mikkelsen
Since then, both Craig and Mikklesen have gone on to tackle several acclaimed projects throughout their careers, becoming some of the most prominent A-listers in the game.