Denmark's most popular star Mads Mikkelsen and Swedish veteran Stellan Skarsgaard have joined the cast of Antoine Fuqua's upcoming epic King Arthur which is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Disney.

Mikkelsen has already gone off to bootcamp in Ireland to prepare for his role as one of the knights of the round table - his biggest international role to date. Skarsgaard is donning the armour of the film's chief villain Cedric.

Clive Owen is playing Arthur, Stephen Dillane is Merlin, Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot and Keira Knightley (who stars in Bruckheimer's production Pirates Of The Caribbean) is Guinevere.

The film aims to demystify the tale of King Arthur by portraying a realistic version of the history and politics of the time. It shoots this summer from a script by David Franzoni (Gladiator) and John Lee Hancock (Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil).

Most recently Mikkelsen acted on stage in Copenhagen in Ole Bornedal's Maend Uden Noget and on screen in Anders Thomas Jensen's The Green Butchers.

His previous film credits include Shake It All About and Open Hearts as well as smaller English-language parts in I Am Dina and Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself.

Mikkelsen is represented by Ulrich Moller-Jorgensen's Art Management, which handles high-profile Danish acting talents like Paprika Steen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sonja Richter, Zlatko Buric and Dejan Cukic.

As a result, Mikkelsen will not now star in the Norwegian thriller A Cry In The Woods as previously reported on Screen Daily.

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