‘Another Round’ Director Thomas Vinterberg Has “Hope And Curiosity” For The Leonardo DiCaprio-Led Remake
It’s the fate of nearly every successful foreign-language film — to be remade in English by Hollywood. But the turnaround came remarkably fast forAnother Round, the stellar comedy-drama from directorThomas Vinterbergthat walked away with the Best International Film Oscar on Sunday night. And less than 24 hours later, Hollywood struck with the news that aremake was in the workswith Leonardo DiCaprio potentially taking the role played by Mads Mikkelsen. Naturally, the internet didn’t respond well. But Vinterberg is holding out a little more hope for theAnother Roundremake than the rest of us.
In an interview withIndieWire, Vinterberg said that he is “full of hope and curiosity” about the upcomingAnother Roundremake from DiCaprio’s Appian Way, citing previous English-language adaptations of his own works for the stage:
“I’ve seen various interpretations of my work before. It’s an interesting artistic thing to see something grow into different versions. Now it’s in the hands of the finest actor you can get and besides being a brilliant actor, he’s made very intelligent choices throughout his career. I feel there’s a lot of integrity in the choices he’s made. I’m full of hope and curiosity about what they’re up to.”
Vinterberg’s 1998 filmThe Celebrationhas been adapted into a stage play in multiple languages, while an English version of his 2012 dramaThe Hunt, also starring Mikkelsen, opened at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2019. But it’s hard to imagineAnother Roundwithout its very specific portrayal of Danish drinking culture, and without Mikkelsen’s tidal wave of a performance in the lead role as a washed-up teacher who finds a new lease on life through a doomed drinking experiment. But Vinterberg dismissed the likelihood that Mikkelsen would want to reprise the role in a remake, despite the Danish actor fairly big profile in the States for his roles inHannibal, Star Wars, and more. Vinterberg said:
“I’ll leave those kind of decisions to Appian Way and the dialogue I’ll have with them. I don’t know if Mads would do such a thing. My first thought would be to make a different interpretation. Asking the same actor to do a different interpretation could be a little bit confusing. But I won’t be the main creative force in this. That would have to be up to the people who end up doing it.”
While Vinterberg enjoys “the fact that there are more and more readers of subtitles in the United States,” he told IndieWire that “it’s still very limited. I don’t think this is only about trying to make this understandable to people who can’t read subtitles. I see this as an artistic project where someone is using the text as a starting point and developing it into something else. It’s a different culture; it’s not only a different language.”
