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ComingSoon spoke with Dust Bunny director Bryan Fuller and star Mads Mikkelsen about the new fantasy horror movie. The duo discussed reuniting for the project, its mix of genres, and more. It is now playing in theaters.
“Ten-year-old Aurora has a mysterious neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen) who kills real-life monsters. He’s a hit man for hire. So, when Aurora needs help killing the monster she believes ate her entire family, she procures his services. Suspecting that her parents may have fallen victim to assassins gunning for him, Aurora’s neighbor guiltily takes the job. Now, to protect her, he’ll need to battle an onslaught of assassins ― and accept that some monsters are real,” says the official synopsis.
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Tyler Treese: Mads, Dust Bunny is such an inventive mix of fantasy, horror, and thriller genres. What about that mix of different types of movies really appealed to you about this project?
Mads Mikkelsen: Well, all of it. I think that most of us who love films also love horror films. I do for sure. Brian Fuller’s tone is super unique, and we talked about it before, but that’s when you can pull off something grotesque and at the same time make it sweet because there’s something sweet happening between two characters. I think that’s quite an achievement. I just love to dive into a universe like that. It’s rare that you meet them.
Bryan, you obviously had such remarkable runs on television, so what was the biggest challenge in crafting an original story for film where you don’t have that episodic nature, and you’re dealing with a smaller runtime?
Bryan Fuller: It was an interesting experience to kind of move from TV into film. It’s so much more intimate making a movie. And because television is always about the next thing that comes right after the one that you’re working on, there’s no time to really be present with that experience. Because you’re constantly looking forward. Yoda would criticize for not living in the moment and where you are, but film actually allows you that opportunity to have a much more intimate experience with the cast and department heads and be present in a way that I was never really afforded on the schedule of a television show.
So, that to me was probably my favorite part of the experience. It was just being able to have a greater relationship and a sense of the world-building that is often dissipated through different department heads as a showrunner, but as a director, you get to have a direct experience with all of those people, and it’s just much more intimate.
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Mads, you both worked on Hannibal together, and you have that creative relationship, but you’ve never been directed by Bryan until this movie. So, how has that experience of having that one-on-one closer experience throughout Dust Bunny?
Mads Mikkelsen: It’s about time. You’ve done stuff before, right?
Bryan Fuller: I hadn’t directed. I directed the directors, but never [actors].
Mikkelsen: What’s that to say is it’s his creation. There were splendid, great directors on the Hannibal show, but it was still Bryan’s creation. There were still things in there that they almost got or maybe got and here it’s his, and he’s there telling us what this means. So, it’s a full package. I think it would’ve been really strange for me if it wasn’t you directing it. I got used to it on the TV show, but here I think it would’ve been really weird. Yeah. I think it would.
