Starting the week of deep-dives with the most difficult man. I don’t know exactly how this will go, it will most likely just be a long yap so get comfy…
Where do we begin? Originally, his name was Mikkel. After a while, I realised it might be too difficult for an international audience to pronounce, so I went with the more recognisable Mads. His original character description read:
He is known for his brilliant mind and cold demeanor, a loner who only really has his job to fill his life. He is struggling in silence with his mother’s advancing dementia and having to deal with the death of his father.
Who knew that silence was gonna last almost all of three seasons? Not me… I had in mind that the cemetery scene would’ve come much earlier in the final season but alas, it never really seemed to fit in…
Anyway, his character started with Harry Hole, and more specifically with Harry in ‘The Bat’, the first book in the series. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but the very earliest idea was of Ghita as a more established detective with an almost inhuman ability to find missing people, which took her from Denmark to South Korea, to New Zealand, to South Africa and then finally Greenland (representing all the at the time planned ethnic backgrounds of the MC). Mads was meant to be a Korean police inspector who tags along due to some personal issues—Can you imagine Mads as a Korean guy? Weird to think of now (I would have used Lee Dong Wook as inspo!)
When the story had cooked in my head a little longer, Ghita pulled more towards Denmark. I’d been watching episodes of ‘Rejseholdet’, an old Danish show, and been inspired to move the changing scenery closer to home. There’s a character on the show called Jan Boysen, a forensic pathologist played by Michael Falch, and his physical appearance was an inspiration for Mads. I was also influenced by The Snowman (2017) where Michael Fassbender portrays Harry Hole - Fassbender is the right level of sexy-rugged, I think, for a man who seems hellbent on repelling romantic entanglements.
His arc moved slow on purpose, his mind having to catch up with his heart when it came to letting a woman like Ghita, who is naturally reckless, play with his emotions. I wrote in the early documentation:
He and Ghita start off on the wrong foot and this follows them in the first season, until the main character meets him outside of work and a friendly respect/attraction starts to form. [...] He feels isolated and it’s not until he meets Ghita that he starts to see that there’s more to life than work.
I really enjoyed writing his early flirting, because he obviously knows that he’s tall and handsome and has the ability to command a room, but then to see him tense up and fumble so badly when Ghita is doing her thing… delicious, honestly. He plays it cool in season 1 (him winking at her in the season finale when he leaves her after their exchange at the station is like AAARGH, I know he was cringing at himself so bad all the way home, while Ghita genuine didn’t consider it anything but his smartass attitude) but in season 2, he’s had time to pine after her from afar for a few months and now she’s more comfortable with him and it’s torturous. Booking into the hotel and being mistaken for a couple? The discovery on the ship where Ghita presses up against him? The awkward tumble in the backseat of the car??? He was fighting for his life.
By season 3, we’re either established as a couple, or not. I chose to focus on showing them having already reached an equilibrium in their relationship (before all hell breaks loose), but I understand it’s a question of preference. I wrote The Missing like a TV show and for the sake of pacing, it wouldn’t have worked for me to show every first while also gearing up to deal with Hoyer’s death. It would have been too much of a whiplash for me to write. I prefer to show enough, not everything, and I trust people’s own imagination to fill in the gaps. Having Mads established as ‘the boyfriend’ also allowed me to show how utterly lost he is in his affection for Ghita, how dependant he is on her validation and how crippling it is for him to have to express himself emotionally in such a rigid pattern, because he has so much fear residing inside his mind about vulnerability. Which brings me to the next bit…
credit to uoyiiii
…I saw the ‘Waterlily if cast by different authors…’ and I can’t believe I got the kink card when 7B is right there??? I LAUGHED but also, damn… am I a freak? I don’t think I am. I’m sex-positive and I do think a lot of people benefit from expressing their inner lives through sex, but the last thing I would call myself is kinky. I just like diversity! And with the restraint I was building up inside Mads, I knew he would need to release the tension in a unique way. An inspiration was Harry Ambrose from the show The Sinner - I wasn’t a big fan of the first season but 2-4 were really good. I want to add that the "visions" that Ghita experiences—the trolls in the darkness, the qivittoq in the snow—this was inspired by Harry Ambrose. But also, Ambrose likes it rough. He lets a partner choke him until he passes out in season 1, which you shouldn’t do, but it said a lot about him as a character. In contrast, Harry Hole, I believe, accidentally chokes his romantic interest Rakel too hard during a sex scene in one of the later books, which is also an expression of his character.
Making Lauritzen a submissive sexual partner was a very deliberate choice and meant to underline how meaningful it is for him to fall for Ghita, even when he can't articulate it. He so bravely offers his weaknesses as a sign of trust, even when they both don’t really understand what’s going on and he's pretty much risking it all to get the girl.
His journey from their first encounter in Hoyer’s office, to receiving Ghita’s present, butt-naked and on his knees, is truly something, and I will miss this pathetic yearner a lot.
Do you have questions? Leave them in the comments or submit an ask!
