Thinking about last week’s Argentinian Quotable, it occurred to me this week that we really ought to look at Denmark – another country just as close to Viggo’s heart. The first quote below sums up Viggo’s love of both the Scandinavian North and the fiery Latin South. As a young man Viggo lived and worked in Denmark holding down a variety of jobs from truck driver to flower seller. At one point he was even going to translate for the Danish Olympic Team. He has always felt at home in Denmark and has very close family ties there. In a 2001 interview with Poul Hoi, Viggo remarked that ‘Someplace, in the back of your mind, you need to have a fix point, a place you call home, and Denmark is that to me'. So here is a selection of all things Danish (except, alas, pastries…. but then we have Viggo!).



©Polfoto/unknown/unknown/Chrissie/Chrissie/B.T.Billedsieri


You were brought up overseas. Do you keep any memories?

I spent all my childhood in Argentina and I feel at home in the Hispanic countries and cultures. In Denmark, I discovered the sense of family and a certain work ethic. I am very close to my uncles, aunts, cousins and I am emotionally very open with them. I am a strange mixture of very methodical North and more chaotic South.

Viggo Mortensen - The Anti-star
translated by Kaijamin
Paris Match
2 October 2008



“There is no doubt that my heart beats heavily for Denmark…”

My Heart Beats For Denmark
By Kim Kastrup - translated by Rosen
Ekstra Bladet
25 September 2007



What is it that fascinates you about Denmark?

"It is a country where I feel at home. I have lots of family here and I feel safe here in Mid-Zealand. But I have also visited Denmark without visiting my family, when I have enjoyed being in Copenhagen, Jutland or on Samsø," says Viggo Mortensen.

Viggo Wants To Live On Samsø
By Kim Kastrup - translated by Estel
Ekstra Bladet
16 October 2008



"I very strongly feel that I share a common past with my family in Denmark. And feel connected to the Scandinavian mythology, when I walk in the forest at Jystrup, where there are many tales told of what has happened. The Danish woods look like Tolkien's, they are the kind that doesn't look dangerous, but if you walk alone by night in the forests of Denmark, you can feel the energies of the past. I felt that already as a child, back then when I played with swords there outside my uncle's farm, played and felt like a Viking.”

Viggo Mortensen
The American Dane
By Susanne Johansson - Translation by Majken Steen Thomassen
BT (Berlingske Tidende)
28 November 2001



“Along with the exhibition, his publishing company Perceval Press is publishing a book called Skovbo, the one that lives in the forest. "I feel good around trees. Where I lived in Denmark there was a forest and there is something in the forest that makes me feel good.”

Margt til lista lagt
Translation by Ragga
Fréttablaðið
Visir.is
6 June 2008



[His] poetry works because Mortensen is Scandinavian (Danish father, American mother), says Manhire, "and there is this Scandinavian myth about how poetry is a mixture of blood and honey - his poetry has that mixture."

Bill Manhire, Victoria University, NZ
"I'm a poet" - Rings star Mortensen
by Josie McNaught
Sunday Star-Times 2003



What do you think of when you think of Denmark?

'I think about a beautiful landscape, I think of a country where I can be myself and meet my family, where my cousin's think of me as Viggo from Ringsted and tease me as they tease everybody else - and teasing is obviously a Danish way to express friendship. In that way Denmark means incredible much to me.'

Viggo from Hollywood
By Poul Hoi
M/S (Danish magazine)
August 2001



"It is nicer to be here with Tulle than to be in Copenhagen with people I don’t know. And I know Ringsted well and am always happy to be here – for the nature, the food and the people. It doesn’t matter whether the sun is shining or not."

Viggo on why the Alatriste Danish premier was in Ringsted
Viggo Mortensen is always happy to be in Ringsted
translated by Åse
Dagbladet
14 July 2007



"I really would like to participate in a Danish movie. But to me it is essential that my first Danish movie is shot in Danish. To me it is a big challenge to shoot and talk Danish in an entire movie, so that it is believable."

My Heart Beats For Denmark
By Kim Kastrup - translated by Rosen
Ekstra Bladet
25 September 2007



"…I met someone last night who showed me a picture of a baby, and they had named the kid Viggo. You know, Viggo is a pretty dorky name in Denmark. It's like Oswald or something. It's a very old Scandinavian name, at least 1,000 years old."

Q&A Viggo Mortensen
By Sora Song
People
10 October 2005



….I was meant to be a translator for the Danish Olympic Team but nobody showed up. Literally. And they said "Well, can you understand the Swedes?' I said "I probably can. I'm not sure they can understand me.' But it became...what I really got to do was go to a lot of hockey games with drunken Finns and Swedes...'

Rove Live interview
Melbourne
February 28 2006



What is the worst job you've done?

In a factory in Denmark when I was 20. All day long I had to punch a single hole in the centre of a square piece of metal.

Q&A: Viggo Mortensen
By Rosanna Greenstreet
The Guardian
2 January 2010



… this afternoon he presented his photographs at an exhibition at Palæfløjen in Roskilde, dressed in an old, red soccer jersey that the Danish national soccer team used in 1960, when the team won a silver at the Olympic Games in Rome.

Viggo Wants To Live On Samsø
By Kim Kastrup - translated by Estel
Ekstra Bladet
16 October 2008



So who would Viggo side with if, for example, Denmark and Argentina met in the next World Championship final?

“Oh, that’s a very difficult question that I have often asked myself. It’s not unthinkable at all, because both Denmark and Argentina play good football,” Mortensen says, and adds: “But if they really met each other in the World Championship final, I’d buy both countries national team jumpers and cut them through the middle. And then I’d sew them together again to make one jumper. In that way I could cheer both Denmark and Argentina. But I think it would be very difficult as far as I can see if the two teams play against each other.”

I Love Danish Football
By Kim Kastrup - translated by Chrissie
Ekstra Bladet
24 July 2007



There's a long way from Ringsted to Hollywood. But the distance can obviously fit in one person.

Viggo from Hollywood
By Poul Hoi
M/S (Danish magazine)
August 2001

Ah, San Lorenzo. As we all know, this is just the tip of Viggo’s Argentinian iceberg. His childhood spent on farms in Argentina, riding like a gaucho and collecting precious Soccer cards, shaped a life-long love of a country which constantly draws him back. He will be acting in an up-and–coming Argentinian film (Todos tenemos un plan), has published a book promoting Argentinian poetry (Nueva Poesin Argentina), and - while filming A Dangerous Method at Belvedere Castle - posed with the Argentinian Flag and completely threw non-cuervo educated reporters by holding a stuffed-toy that many thought was a penquin. And we haven’t even started on the yerbe mate. His love for Argentina is infectious, so here is a little celebration of all things Viggotinian.



©Fichero./Viennareport /CCEBA/Splash News/Pronto/ Schöndorfer


The Argentinian. The cuervo. The Lord of the Rings. The one who teaches people to drink mate on million dollar sets.

The Habit Of Giving It All
By Juan Manuel Dominguez - translated by Ollie, Sage and Zooey
Perfil
20 June 2010



“It's not lawn clippings, I promise.”

Viggo offering a journalist mate
Return Of The King Press Junket: Viggo Mortensen
By Nazz
Nazz
December 2003



Though he was born in New York City, the Argentine soccer-fan scarf looped around his neck immediately flags Mortensen's affinity for the great elsewhere…

The Great Dane
By Phoebe Eaton
Men's Vogue
March 2008



After the 12-hour shoot Mortensen seemed a little tired, but nonetheless posed with extras and crew-members – the Argentinian flag in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other.

Freud Movie: Shooting in Vienna without Keira Knightley
By - translated by Athelin
TT.com
2 July 2010



It doesn´t matter how many times he changes his hairstyle, modifies his physical build or grows a beard. What surprises the Argentinian listener most about Viggo Mortensen is his way of speaking. What is amazing (no matter how many times you have heard him before) is that the man who portrayed Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, Captain Alatriste in Alatriste or the Russian mobster in Eastern Promises speaks Castillian like any porteño native.

In The Name Of The Father
By Natalia Trzenko - translated by Ollie and Zooey
La Nacion
22 June 2010



When you were a child and rode horses in the Argentinean pampas, did you dream of being a hero? Who were your heroes?

My hero was Martín Fierro, the mythical “gaucho” (cowboy) of Argentina, a mix of Spanish and native Indian who, by the way, also has a few points in common with Alatriste. He wasn’t perfect either but he was brave, noble, avenging and defended his people.

A Multi-talented Hero
By J. A. - translated by NacidaLibre
Dominical
27 August 2006



'I've never really owned horses. We had horses in South America where I learned to ride. The classic Argentinian style is not too different from Western riding. You're using your legs and a loose rein. I learned on tough little horses like TJ. I hadn't ridden for a long time since I was a kid.'

A Visit With Viggo
By Marianne Love
Sandpoint magazine Winter Edition
2004



‘I left Argentina when I was eleven, in ’69, and there was no cable TV, no Internet, nothing. I was in the northern United States with my picture cards, my little t-shirt, my flag, and nothing else.’

Viggo Mortensen on Soccer withdrawal
"I feel honored to be able to give a hand to poets"
By - translated by Zooey and Sage
Pagina 12
14 August 2009



"I had the club's flag folded up and tucked inside my vest. If I'd won I was going to take it out during the speech."

Viggo on San Lorenzo
Viggo Mortensen Goes From Lord Of The Rings To King Of The Road
By Martyn Palmer
Daily Mail
6 December 2009



Apart from mate and soccer, in what other aspects did your childhood in Argentina leave an impression on you?

I learned horse riding, the language, the culture and history, food, tango… I like it a lot. I can’t dance tango… I’d like to learn, but I like to sing tangos every now and then, in private… I don’t want to bother other people; I bother them enough with my movies.

Viggo talking about his Argentinian Childhood on Radio Cooperativa, Chile
By - transcribed/translated by Graciela
Radio Cooperativa
27 March 2007



What epic character from Argentine history would you like to play? And looking at the world today, who would Alatriste be?

VM: I’ll suggest two and you choose: San Filipo or El loco Dobal (soccer players) (laughs)

Alatriste Press Conference - Argentina
By - transcribed by Graciela
28 March 2007



Can this New Yorker lend importance to Argentine poetry? Casas has his point of view: "Argentine poetry does not exist; what exists is a mestiza poetry, a mixture of voices from all sides that intersect at times in this soil that some call their native land. Viggo is a mestizo like us and, because of that, we are proud that he is the publisher."

Casas presenting Perceval Press’s Nueva Poesin Argentina
Viggo Mortensen Is Now A Champion Of Argentine Poetry
By Matías Repar - translated by Zooey
Clarin
12 August 2009



“When the same project did not work out with a Mexican publishing house, a British friend told me: ‘I’m going to tell Viggo, he will be interested.’ I had no idea who that gentleman was. One morning, I got a call in my house: ‘I’m Viggo and I’m calling about the anthology,’ he introduced himself. I told him I had to go to work and that we could talk at another time, and he accepted. ‘What's your last name?’ I asked. ‘I’m Viggo Mortensen’ he said. ‘Oh, and what do you do for a living?’ Fortunately he has zero diva attitude. So he explained who he was and we started working on the book that has just been published.”

Gustavo López, who selected the Argentinian poets for the book
The Lord Of The Books
By Diego Rojas
El Argentino
19 June 2009



"Last month I bumped into Orlando Bloom in a Los Angeles club, 'Now where are you off to, Viggo?'. 'Mexico, Chile and Argentina.' 'Argentina?! It’s so beautiful,' he cried, 'You were holding out on me! It has the most beautiful women on the planet. The city center is a jewel,' he exclaimed!

'Now you see that you should listen when I speak, elf?' I replied."

Viggo Mortensen
"Now Even My Son Wants To Get To Know Argentina"
Translated for V-W- by Margarita
Gente, 3 April 2007



Would you like to return to your childhood?

Who knows? Let's see if I end up in Argentina, like a farmer. I think I would like that.

"I'd like to film in Argentina"
By Fernanda Iglesias - translated by Margarita
Clarín
15 November 2005

As we are finally seeing Good DVD’s and Blu-Rays coming out in new markets, I thought now would be a good time to take a retrospective look at this film and see the experience through Viggo’s eyes. There are thoughts on how he prepared for the role of Halder, on his character and on the challenges that face everyone who might find themselves in situations where every decision has unimaginable consequences.



Screencap by Paradise.
© Good Films.


“I like the title. It's intelligent. It lets the audience think for itself a bit. If you wanted to be really obvious, it would be Good?, or "Good" in quotation marks. The movie doesn't steer you that much. It shows you some lives, parts of some lives, and I think it leaves a certain amount open to debate, I like that there's something to talk about afterwards.”

Viggo Mortensen - For The Good Of The People
By Elliot V Kotek
Moving Pictures
Winter 2008-2009



"I was starting out in acting 25 years ago, and was in London on what was only my second audition," he recalls. "I didn't get the part, but while I was there I saw a play Good with Alan Howard, and it made a strong impression. When the opportunity to play the role on film came along, I thought it an interesting way to make a circle out of the experience some quarter century later."

Emmanuel Levy
Emmanuel Levy.com
24 November 2008



‘I brought [from Germany and Poland] a lot of books, editions that would have been from that time. Poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, and Scandinavian writers. And my glasses; I found some frames that were made back then. My pocket watch. Little things. I like collaborating with the props and set designers, to feel like I'm involved in the character's life.’

Q&A with Viggo Mortensen
Sara Stewart
New York Post
December 2008



“He’s maddening at times. He goes from being very passive and stumbling, and thinking it doesn’t seem a big deal, until finally he’s got the uniform on and denial kicks in. It’s an accumulation of all of these compromises. He can’t run away from it any more and then he crumbles. And at the root of it he has been seduced by flattery.”

Viggo Mortensen talking about Halder
Sympathy for the devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009



“We thought about the period of history, and the choice was made that everyone would speak with a neutral British accent, so that once the story starts you’re just paying attention to what is happening and not the combination of strange accents.”

Viggo Mortensen
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009



“My goal was not to think about history, and what we know about this period, but to think about this situation and each moment. Why does John Halder do the things that he does? He’s not one thing or the other. He’s not good or bad. He’s somewhere in between, we all are.”

Viggo Mortensen
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009



"I listened to music, looked at paintings, trying to find my face in those pictures. Walking down streets that you wouldn't have walked down. And you never know where that's going to take you. You're lost. I didn't have people with me smoothing the way, because then I wouldn't have learned anything."

Viggo doing research for Good in Germany
The happy trails of Viggo Mortensen
Xan Brooks
The Guardian
18 April 2009



It was spring, there were flowers, and the sky was blue. You sit on the grass and yes, you’re moved by all these things and the ghosts that you can feel. I was thinking about the guards, the prisoners, the kids... but there were things that I didn’t expect. It’s hard to explain, but it just keeps opening and opening, and you can never stop learning.”

Viggo Mortensen on visiting the concentration camps
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009



"I did not like it, I felt uncomfortable. The first time I tried it on, I told the costume designer: “Is the hat that tight, are the boots that stiff?” I realized I felt bad because of the meaning I assigned to that uniform."

Viggo on wearing the SS uniform
The Dark Side Of The Hero
By Walder & Castro - translated by Graciela, Remolina and Zooey
Marie Claire (Spain)
June 2009



"…there is a point, as he's building this new persona for himself and buying into his new status, that he becomes less distracted, flustered, stuttery. And it's this edifice that he's constructing that at the end is probably going to crumble."

Viggo Mortensen
Things are getting 'Good' for Mortensen
By John Clark
SF Gate-San Francisco Chronicle
23 January 2009



"He imagines that people are singing-on the street, and wherever he is, in parks, or in buildings, at work-and they're not really. The music's being played, and then he takes a second look, and they're not. He's, like, feeling like he's losing his mind, you know? For him, the escape isn't alcohol, or drugs, or whatever-it's music.”

Viggo Mortensen
VIGGOOOOOAL!
Scott Feinberg's awards season analysis
andthewinneris.blog.com
20 December 2007



“I think there's calm descent to the horror that doesn't happen all at once. It happens on a daily basis in a very normal, quiet way. That's more disturbing than the usual dramatic heroic gesture, tragic gesture, horror moment you usually see in Holocaust-related movies with the Nazis. The audience here can't have that distance to just judge it or say, "Wow. That thing is different than me." This is a lot like you, unfortunately, whether you wanna deal with it or not.”

Viggo Mortensen - For The Good Of The People
By Elliot V Kotek
Moving Pictures
Winter 2008-2009



"When we put the frog in hot water, it will jump out of it; but if we put it in cold water and heat it up slowly, the frog will be cooked before it notices. This is what happens to Halder; and it could happen to all of us if we don't pay attention,"

Viggo Mortensen
Kulturpart
17 December 2008



"Good…. is the story of a man and his friend. It’s not a movie about Hitler and Nazism; it’s about the people living in Germany day by day.”

Viggo Mortensen
In The Clothes Of A Nazi
By Gabriele Niola
My Movies
29 October 2008

There have been some interesting reviews of Viggo’s old films coming out lately, which got me thinking of all the reviews I’ve gathered over the years and especially the ones that have now got stuck fast in my memory like a forest of old Post-its. It’s usually because they are witty, surprising, very astute or just plain daft. These are all favourites, and I’ve posted a bumper crop to make up for the fact that 'Quotables' will be taking a holiday break for Post-it clearance purposes next week. Enjoy!



© New Line Cinema/Warner Brothers.


At least we can take solace knowing that in this parched desolate land populated by filthy, unshaven vagrants that Viggo Mortensen is still the sexiest man alive.

In fact, you could say he looks good enough to eat, which might explain why so many of his fellow survivors are licking their chops in anticipation of incorporating him into their next batch of stew.

The Road
Movie review: Father and son take a harrowing, honest journey through a post-apocalyptic world in ‘The Road’
By Al Alexander
Echo Pilot
25 November 2009



…as weathered and craggily handsome as any butte in Monument Valley.

Appaloosa
Richard Corliss on Mortensen and Harris
Time
19 September 2008



Are there two more stronger, silenter types in modern movies than Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen? Each of these actors are a throw back to the days when cowboy stars were manly men who mean what they say and only say what they mean and nothing else.

Appaloosa
Richard Crouse
CTV.ca
6 September 2008



…But the audience's longest glimpse of Viggo's zero-fat bod, man-bits and all, comes in a scene that can be watched only from between clenched fingers: Nikolai's climactic battle with two Chechen gangsters in a steam bath. If you saw A History of Violence, you know Mortensen can f*** up a guy something fierce, but till you've seen him do it buck naked and covered in mob tattoos, you haven't lived.

Eastern Promises
Dana Stevens
Slate.com
13 Sept 2007



…..keep your eyes on Mortensen. You could make an entire movie about the way that guy just stands in a room and quietly scans the atmosphere for even the slightest molecular disturbance.

Come to think of it, Eastern Promises may be that movie.

By Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
6 Sept 2007



Just seeing him stand there, his face half-obscured by a tattered black hat, his sculpted frame offset by a long cloak worn over the shoulders — it's no wonder Maria looks as though she's ready for cardiac arrest every time he appears.

Alatriste
Kaori Shoji
Japan Times
11 December 2008



Viggo, speaking vintage Castillian Spanish with his own voice, dominates the film as a kind of Medieval Clint Eastwood…

Viggo Mortensen - Heroic On And Off Screen
By Alex Deleon
Fest21
16 October 2006



Fantastic performance from Viggo Mortensen.....he is absolutely a brilliant actor, he is the Robert de Niro of his generation, the Marlon Brando of his generation, the man is a genius.

A History of Violence
Mark Kermode
BBC Radio Five Live
30 September 2005



...Viggo Mortensen plays a small-town American paterfamilias, equal parts Marlboro Man and Terminator...

A Nice Place to Film, but Heavens, Not to Live
Manohla Dargis
New York Times
11Sept 2005



Viggo Mortensen nails the archetypal cowboy… As one woman at a preview screening said to her girlfriend looking up at the big screen: 'What's not to like about a forty-foot tall Viggo Mortensen?'

Hidalgo
Cowboy and Mustang Meet Arabian Nights
John P. McCarthy
reeltalkreviews.com 2004



When it comes to playing disillusioned veterans of anti-Indian atrocities, it's Viggo Mortensen over Tom Cruise by a nose.

Hidalgo
Hot to Trot
Steve Schneider
Orlando Weekly



Viggo Mortensen stuns as the tormented, destiny-shucking warrior Aragorn, exuding a bravery that will make men admire him and an intensity that will make women want to hop into his leather jerkin.

FOTR
Tor Thorsen
Reel.com 2001



Viggo is noble, Viggo is powerful, Viggo is resplendent.

ROTK
Film Hobbit
Cinemablend.com
16 December 3003



Walker is no mindless hippie going with the flow. He cares about Pearl. Certainly, he cares about pleasing her sexually. She gets her own flight to the moon at the same time as Neil Armstrong. And what Walker does to her under a waterfall should be bottled.

A Walk on the Woon
A Steamy 'Walk on The Moon'
Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, April 2, 1999



He… manages the tricky balance of being horrible and seductive enough to slip you out of your soul, a balance few Lord of Darknesses achieve. Plus, he manages it in a mullet.

The Prophey
Stars in Rewind: Viggo Mortensen in ‘The Prophecy’
by Elisabeth Rappe
Cinematical
12 October 2009



Viggo Mortensen, in a small role, manages to steal a scene from Pacino without ever getting out of his chair.

Carlito’s Way
Ken Dubois Ultimate Edition DVD Review
Reel.com
October 2005



…if there is in recent cinema a more convincing scene of psychological torture than the moment when Mortensen rages against a teeny-weeny Patricia Arquette, spattering her with mouthfuls of food, I'd really rather not see it, thank you.

The Indian Runner
On Viggo Mortensen
By Ryan Gilbey
Filminfocus.com
4 December 2007

'The greatest traveller and huntsman in this age of the world' is how Gandalf described Aragorn. Viggo’s travels might not be quite as dangerous or arduous as Aragorn’s but he certainly gets about a bit. Jetting around the world has its own pitfalls with suspicious passport officers, different time zones and a succession of strange hotel rooms. So, how do you make yourself feel at home? How do manage to keep creating when you are hardly still? Most of all how do you stop your luggage being mistaken for modern art?



© New Line Productions Inc.


Where are you from?

At the moment I’m from here.

Viggo Mortensen - Man of the Week
By Einar Falur - translated by Ragga
30 May 2008
Source: Morgunblaðið



There's a UN patch on his sweatshirt and if you ask him where he's based, he says, hippyishly, "Planet Earth, mostly."

By Harriet Lane
The Guardian
February 22, 2008



'I have travelled a lot my entire life. As a child I lived in five-six different countries - from Denmark to USA, from Argentine to Egypt - and as a grown up I have travelled half around the globe myself. The movie business is a very vagrant business.’

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo from Hollywood
by Poul Hoi
M/S (Danish magazine), 2001



Viggo Mortensen loves rituals. He never changes his habits, no matter where he goes. For example, he enters the villa in Deauville – made available by the French top jeweller Cartier – in bare feet, as if he is in his own living room.

In his right hand, he is holding a cup with his favorite beverage: maté – an herbal drink from Argentina, the country where he spent the majority of his childhood. He also remembered to bring a silver straw, the bombilla.

The actor explains why he always behaves the same way, no matter where he is in the world. “In this business you’re travelling half the time. Sometimes I feel like a world traveller who doesn’t know where he’ll sleep the next day. I am exaggerating a little, but I do value my habits, so I can quickly feel at home. If I don’t, it takes me too long to adapt to strange surroundings. That’s very important for an actor. That way he can more quickly concentrate on his role."

Viggo Mortensen Goes To Bed With A Shotgun
By - translated by Airwin
Algemeen Dagblad
27 April 2009



Viggo Mortensen's temporary headquarters during the Toronto Film Festival were bare except for one corner, where there was a sculpture assembled from a plastic grocery-store bag draped over a tripod.....While Mortensen used the restroom, I tried to decide if the bag-on-tripod sculpture was a comment on our throwaway culture or a meditation on the relationship between art and reality. Turns out it was his luggage.

"Want to see my luggage?" Mortensen asked, emerging from his hand-washing and following my gaze to the "sculpture." "Let's see what's in here," he added, removing underwear, several T-shirts - one with fishing records on it, another emblazoned with "Bring Our Troops Home" - and a United Nations flag from the bag. "I travel light."

Renaissance man jousts with career-changing role
by Chris Hewitt,
Twin Cities
28 September 2005



The typical Hollywood leading man travels with an entourage between his palatial homes, five-star hotel suites and luxury trailers. He does not disappear alone for two weeks to meet the Russian mafia in the name of research.

Actor joins the underworld's shadowy cast
Ben Hoyle
The Times
October 17, 2007



'I have to tell you...what an awful combination it is to have a US passport and a Buenos Aires accent when you arrive at the Chile airport. A pretty long delay… my friends that had Spanish passports had already gone through (customs), and they were waiting… and the guy kept checking, very kindly, but he wasn’t letting me go anywhere, and he talks to me in a pretty tortured English, and so I tell him: “I speak Spanish, you can talk to me in Spanish”. And so he gave me a long look, and then I realized I had f***** up, really, because the combination of the accent and the passport… I was going straight to jail, or so it looked. And so another customs officer comes and says, “No, no, he is the Lord of the Rings”, and so...“Welcome to Chile” and (pam, pam – sound of passport getting stamped) “Here you go…go ahead”'.

Viggo on Radio Cooperativa, Chile
By - transcribed/translated by Graciela
Radio Cooperativa
27 March 2007



"He is so kind and playful and funny off set. He's almost like a hippie. We picked him up at the airport one time, and he wasn't wearing shoes. I still have no idea how he got through the airport barefoot."

Fran Walsh
On 'The Road' And Off, Viggo Mortensen Walks The Walk
By Scott Bowles
USA Today
3 December 2009



He… presents me with two large chocolate squares, one wrapped in pink paper that has a handwritten “Venezuela” on it, and another in orange paper that has a handwritten “Indonesia”.

I am not sure whether he handwrapped them himself or whether they came from a hand-wrapped chocolate shop. I imagine him travelling the world with a suitcase of wrapped chocolates.

Sympathy for the devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009



'You know, they have nice beds in this hotel. It's a nice change once in a while. Just like TV. I don't watch TV at home, but when I come to the hotel, it's like, all these pillows and TV! And it's like, this is great! God, why didn't I do this before, but every time, it lasts about 15 minutes before I get bored and switch off the TV.'

Viggo Mortensen
A Sense of Finality
by Markus Tschiedert
Green Cine, 2003



'As an individual, I try to take care of the places I go to whether it's where I live or hide. It's a cliche, but leave the place looking better than you found it---pack it in and pack it out. I try to do that-always.'

Viggo Mortensen
A Visit With Viggo
by Marianne Love
Sandpoint magazine, 2004



The following morning he flew towards Buenos Aires. At night, he left for the USA; he had to start working on the character of his next movie. “I’ll come back,” he said before taking the airport escalator. I began to lose sight of him. He had a bombilla in his back pocket, a white plastic bag, and a San Lorenzo flag wrapped around his shoulders.

A Trip With Viggo Mortensen Through The Heart Of The Province
By Robustiano Pinedo - translated by Graciela
El Tribuno Salta
14 May 2007



“If you're going to prepare your role as an actor or as a director properly that takes quite a lot of time and focus and energy.....But you know, I manage to get off a few pictures, take a few pictures, write a few things down late at night in hotel rooms as I bounce around the world.”

Viggo Mortensen
Air America Radio Interview
Transcribed for V-W by Zooey
12 September 2007

Although known and respected for years as a character actor, Viggo only became ‘famous’ when fate thrust him into Middle-earth. Suddenly he was in the centre of a very bright spotlight and things have never been quite the same since. Fame, like everything in life, has its ups and downs. You have to try and stay sane when you are recognised nearly everywhere you go, but you are also in a privileged position, able to chose the roles you want, support causes and disappear when you need to. For the man who would rather paint than party there are few places left where you might not be recognised….



Miami Int'l Film Festival 3.5.07.
Image provided by Sachie.
© Akiyo. Used by permission


If fame came with a report card, Viggo’s would say can do better.

The Man Who Would Be King
By Nick Dent
December 2001
Black & White magazine, #58


His Middle-earth exploits made him a planet-sized star, so what does shy, ungodly handsome Viggo Mortensen do with his shiny new fame? What he doesn't do is cut big deals then hit the clubs. Mortensen would rather work on offbeat art projects and hang out with David Cronenberg.

Viggo Get 'Em
21 September 2005
E!



"If I have a day off, I'm not at a Hollywood party. I'm not the type of actor who lives in the press. I'd rather be home in shorts and a T-shirt surrounded by paint brushes, a blank canvas and have a few candles burning as the day fades into the night."

Superstar Viggo's a serious soul at heart
by Cindy Pearlman,
Chicago Sun Times
9 Sept 2007



"I am what I am and there is nothing I can do. But I have never changed a bit of myself because of my work or, worse, because of the success I have reached."

A Latin Man Comes From The North
By Riccardo Romani - translated by Cindalea
GQ (Italy), May 2007



“Dreams about becoming famous wasn’t what got me into acting to begin with, but the dream about telling stories.”

Viggo Mortensen
Dreaming About Telling Stories
By Einar Fal Ingolfsson - translated by Rosen and Ragga
Morgunblaðið
29 May 2008



When I mention how incredible it must be when as a result of starring in Lord of the Rings, his face is on the side of an Air New Zealand plane, Mortensen shakes his head as though he's bewildered by it all.

"I know, it's scary," he says of the rush of fame that has come with such global success. "It is a little weird but this will pass. As you can probably guess neither my ego nor my sense of worth is tied to all that's happening. So if it goes away it's not going to be hugely depressing to me at all."

Comes A Horseman
By John Millar
Film Review (Special #51) Summer
2004



"If Aragorn hadn't became well known," he smiles, "and I hadn't got that visibility in The Lord of the Rings, there's no way that any production company would let me play Nikolai in Eastern Promises or Tom Stall in A History of Violence, or star in [Spanish movie] Alatriste. I simply wouldn't have got that chance.”

My painful decision to fight in the nude
By Will Lawrence
The Daily Telegraph
19 October 2007



“… Now I'm more well-known and I have to be a little more careful when I go out. But I see it as something positive. Because I also have a publishing house and sell more books thanks to the fame. I publish books by authors that aren't well known, but people see them because they know me from the movies.”

Viggo Mortensen
"I'd like to film in Argentina"
By Fernanda Iglesias - translated by Margarita
Clarín
15 November 2005



“The success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy changed the deal a little. Before then, when I put on a poetry reading, there would just be a circle of my friends around me. Now there are hundreds of inquisitive strangers. If fame can make an under-appreciated art better known, it’s perfect!

Viggo Mortensen
Grazia Magazine
Translated by Chrissiejane
December 2009



What’s the oddest place you’ve ever been recognized?

I was in Iceland with my son [Henry, 19] once in the thermal pools south of Reykjavik. We were floating, and, all of a sudden, this man wearing no clothes comes out of the mist with a soggy piece of paper and asks for an autograph.

That’s scary.

We drifted over to some rock so I could write. Strange.

Viggo Mortensen - Brooding Star of Eastern Promises
By Natasha Stoynoff
People
1 October 2007



How do you deal with fame?

It’s like everything else, if you take it too seriously… It’s part of the job. And if people go to the theater to watch one of your movies, and they like it and applaud… I’m not going to complain! The red carpet and the pictures is weird, and sometimes, blinding. If you don’t take it too seriously, you can be a part of it without buying it.

"I like to observe the world from an artistic point of view"
By J Fiestras - translated by Graciela
La Verdad
5 October 2007



He's… probably the most unlikely star ever to have been made into a fast-food action figure. Although Mortensen now sees LOTR as an unexpected gift, the fame it has afforded him can be "stressful and a little weird."

"Maybe I should go hide myself for a couple of years in Middle Earth."

The King and I
By Julie Hosking
Sunday Telegraph
23 November 2003



To research his role in Eastern Promises, Mortensen went alone on a two-week trip through Moscow, St. Petersburg and country villages, riding public transit and hanging out in coffee shops to photograph, record and study ordinary Russians.

It wasn't until the last day of his research trip, he says, that his cover was blown:

"A little boy started staring at me, then he pointed and whispered, 'Aragorn?' "

The Promise of Viggo Mortensen
By Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
10 September 2007



'If I were walking down the street without being famous, I assure you that nobody would turn and look.'

Viggo Mortensen
"I'm permanently dissatisfied," by Amelia Enríquez, Lecturas Magazine
30 August 2006
Translated for V-W by Margarita



“If you go out with a big bunch of people, in a big fancy car, then you’re essentially still the face on the side of the bus and you’re inviting attention. But I try to stay low-profile and keep moving. You just have to be more nimble.”

Viggo on avoiding recognition
The happy trails of Viggo Mortensen
Xan Brooks
The Guardian
18 April 2009



No matter how outstanding his work, or how successful his films, it's impossible to imagine Mortensen without that customary reticence that makes him such a fine actor and such a reluctant star. Long may he stay off the radar.

On Viggo Mortensen
By Ryan Gilbey
Filminfocus.com
4 December 2007