Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has a reputation as the scrappy outlier of the long-running sci-fi franchise. It’s darker and more openly tragic than most modern, breezy Star Wars films and for years, fans have chalked that up to reshoots, behind-the-scenes shakeups and a creative process that clearly wasn’t smooth. Now, Mads Mikkelsen is more or less confirming all of that. According to him, he's not even sure there ever was a locked draft of the script.
While appearing on Variety’s YouTube series Does Mads Mikkelsen Know His Lines?, Mikkelsen revisited several projects from across his career, including Rogue One. When the conversation turned to Galen Erso and the film’s pivotal rain-soaked confrontation with his daughter, the Danish actor didn’t just reminisce about the scene's emotional weight. He got surprisingly candid about how fluid and unfinished the movie felt while they were making it. In his words:
There was a lot of changes in the story… For a Star Wars film, it was surprisingly unfinished in the script. It kept changing, and one would think that was already done. I don’t think they ever locked a draft. I think they kept working on it, and improvised, and went back and reshot stuff, and then came up with a better idea. [It] is kind of livable for a character like mine. I had my mission. I knew what it was. But, it was obviously tricky for the two young heroes not knowing exactly what they were carrying into a room of baggage. But I think it turned out to be a really nice film.
For Mikkelsen’s character, a fluid script was probably fine but, as he points out, the film’s younger heroes, who lacked a locked narrative, made things much harder.
That context reframes a lot of Rogue One. The film’s characters often feel like they’re reacting to events rather than driving them, and the story unfolds with an urgency that borders on chaos. Hearing that the script itself was evolving in real time makes me wonder if the tone was a stylistic choice or a byproduct of the process.
Mikkelsen also described the physical difficulty of shooting his key scene, which involved artificial rain, freezing temperatures and an emotionally heavy monologue delivered while lying on the ground. Despite all of that, he doesn’t look back on the experience with regret. And that’s a good thing, because all things considered, Rogue One turned out pretty damn good, cementing itself as one of the best Star Wars movies and a fan favorite.
Rogue One is still widely considered one of the strongest Disney-era Star Wars movies because it feels raw, grounded and weirdly emotional in a way the franchise doesn’t always allow. Mads Mikkelsen’s comments don’t take anything away from that. If anything, they make the end result even more impressive, because sometimes a script that never fully “locks” leaves just enough room for the unexpected stuff to sneak through and stick.
Also, speaking of Mikkelsen not doing anything the easy way, he’s also closing out the 2025 movie schedule without letting up. He’s ending the year with Dust Bunny, Bryan Fuller’s long-gestating fantasy-horror hybrid that finally hit theaters on December 12. The project is its own full-circle story, too, since Fuller first pitched it to him at the Rogue One premiere nearly a decade ago, and it gives the Hannibal star another chance to show off the range that keeps directors calling.
Between anchoring an offbeat genre movie, being candid about his Star Wars experience, and continuing to bounce between blockbusters and passion projects, Mads Mikkelsen ends 2025 doing exactly what he wants, which is precisely why I’m already curious what he’ll pop up in as we head into the 2026 movie release schedule.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is available to stream with a Disney+ subscription.
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