Why Captain Anderson From Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein Looks So Familiar

Like Mary Shelley's novel, Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" starts at the end, on a frozen ship in the cold Arctic North. The details, however, are a bit different. The novel's Captain Robert Walton, who finds Victor nearly frozen to death in his pursuit of the creature he created, and relays the tale to his sister via letters, is replaced by a Danish captain named Anderson. The film also features a more violent encounter with the Creature on the ice, which certainly makes for an exciting opening sequence, even as it alters the source material.

Covered as he is in a matted beard and heavy arctic explorer gear, you might not have been able to recognize Captain Anderson, though his face and distinctive voice surely rang a bell. The character is played by Lars Mikkelsen, brother of Danish film and TV star Mads Mikkelsen, and a phenomenal talent in his own right.

As the audience stand-in for del Toro's version of the story, Anderson hears both sides of the sad tale — first from Victor (Oscar Isaac), and then from the Creature himself (Jacob Elordi). Mikkelsen plays the part to perfection, balancing the hardness of an arctic captain with an emerging empathy that grows as the movie plays out. While many of Mikkelsen's most famous roles are in movies and shows from his native Denmark, he's appeared increasingly in American and global productions — everything from "The Witcher" and "House of Cards" to a recent, major role in the "Star Wars" universe.

Lars Mikkelsen began his screen-acting career in the late '90s, appearing in a number of Danish films and TV series. While many of those will be unknown to American audiences, one key series for Mikkelsen was later adapted in the U.S. to great success. In 2007, Mikkelsen played Troels Hartmann on "Forbrydelsen," a crime drama known internationally as "The Killing," which was adapted into an AMC series of the same name in 2011.

By 2014, Mikkelsen had taken his talent internationally, with major roles on both the BBC hit series "Sherlock" and the early Netflix original political thriller "House of Cards." In the former, Mikkelsen played the villainous role of Charles Augustus Magnussen, the primary antagonist of the show's third season, who nearly matches Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) in terms of intellect and strategy. In "House of Cards," Mikkelsen had a recurring role as Russian President Viktor Petrov.

These prominent recurring roles in the mid-2010s led to more international work, including the role of the powerful sorcerer Stregobor in Netflix's "The Witcher." During this time, Mikkelsen has also continued working in Denmark, appearing on shows like "The Kingdom" and "Seaside Hotel." However, his most high-profile role to date on the global stage may be the one he's played for several years now in the Star Wars franchise: Grand Admiral Thrawn.

When you get cast in a recurring role in a multimedia franchise, your profile tends to rise. That's doubly true when it's a franchise with the level of attention that Star Wars gets.

Lars Mikkelsen's admittance to the Star Wars universe came about without much fanfare, as it began simply as a voice role. Grand Admiral Thrawn, a legendary villain from Timothy Zahn's Expanded Universe novels in the 1990s, was brought back into the Disney canon with "Star Wars Rebels." But when that story eventually spilled out into the live-action Star Wars universe with the Disney+ "Ahsoka" series, Mikkelsen was brought back to reprise the role, this time in person.

He looks a good deal different in the trim imperial uniform and blue alien skin than he does as the grizzled Captain Anderson in "Frankenstein," but it is indeed the same man. With Thrawn likely to have a larger role in Dave Filoni's growing "Mandalorian"-era storyline, and "Ahsoka" season 2 on the way, people may stop having so much trouble recognizing Lars Mikkelsen pretty soon.