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Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo

22 April 2012 12:22:19

Categories: Guido the Cuervo Magazine/Internet Interviews Media Quotable Viggo Soccer Sports Viggo being Viggo

OK - I give in. Although I'd rather pull my own teeth without anaesthetic than watch a football match, I realise that it's time we had another Quotable about San Lorenzo. There are fans and then there's Viggo, proudly carrying that blue and red flag to the ends of the earth for his team...

"I'm not very fond of passports, borders or flags, but [laughing and pointing at the SL flag behind him] for San Lorenzo de Almagro, I do have unconditional love! They can almost do no wrong!

Out of superstition, that flag, or one like it, is everywhere, on a film shoot or wherever..."

Viggo Mortensen
Inside The Dressing Room
By - transcribed by Ollie and translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
El Mundo
15 December 2011

....the Cuervo ambassador to the world.

Jorge Barros
San Lorenzo Supporters Subcommittee interview
Transcribed/translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
SCH tv
20 May 2011

"I'm spreading "the cuervo gospel" all over the world. That's not only my mission, but my career, that's my job. Cinema, poetry and all the rest are hobbies. Spreading the cuervo gospel, that's what I'm dedicated to..."

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

"I like how the San Lorenzo supporter behaves; I like their traditions. They have the best songs and are the most witty, and the other supporters recognize that. And besides, they sing non-stop; it doesn't matter if we're losing 0 to 7. San Lorenzo supporters have a very rich history, of endurance above all, and a special dignity."

El mundo de Viggo Mortensen
By Manuel Martínez - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire Latinoamerica
15 March 2012

"I left when I was eleven years old, at the beginning of the '70s, and only returned in '95. More than twenty years in which I was cut off from Argentina. There was no internet; it was very difficult. Do you know what I had left of those years? All I had were these soccer picture cards of the Carasucias of San Lorenzo, a Martin Fierro, a Don Segundo Sombra, a little San Lorenzo jersey...and nothing more."

Viggo Mortensen: "Writing and acting are like being a kid again"
By Eduardo Bejuk - translated by Zooey
Gente
25 August 2009

"Go San Lorenzo! My membership card says "supporter from another country", but I am not a supporter from another country; that does not describe me properly... I am a "local" supporter, [a supporter] from the bottom of my heart, from a heart that is ours, that belongs to all the "cuervos", in the past, in the present and for ever."

Viggo's speech
100th year San Lorenzo celebration
Buenos Aires
Translated by Silver
2 April 2008

It's almost three o' clock in the morning. He is sitting next to the fire on a wood and leather chair. The "asado" (barbecue) is over. The people he was preparing mate for, two at the same time, have said goodbye. He is wearing a gray San Lorenzo goalkeeper's soccer shirt, and he throws a cigarette butt into the embers. Viggo Mortensen, 49, now has a needle in his hand and he starts sewing his red and blue flag, which suffered a passionate tear in the victory against Lanus: "I like to sew it myself."

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

"We had our chances, but things didn´t turn out for us as we would have liked.
I was furious, very depressed. I watched the match on my laptop, in the restaurant of a gas station near Boston, USA. People were staring at me, sitting there with my San Lorenzo shirt, behaving like a crazy man, talking to the little screen, shouting at the players."

Viggo on watching San Lorenzo lose
Knowing How To Lose
By Viggo Mortensen - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro
5 March 2012

[He]....wears a San Lorenzo shirt like it's tattooed on his skin.

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

"These characters, the father and his son, in spite of seeming to be very cold, in fact, beneath the rags they wear, happen to have San Lorenzo t-shirts," says the actor, and laughs.

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

"To me, soccer is a metaphor for many things, like struggle in life. It's a sport in which someone really little like Messi - who looks like an ordinary guy who could be riding a bike delivering newspapers or sandwiches, whatever - does unforgettable things every time he comes out to play. It's impressive."

El mundo de Viggo Mortensen
By Manuel Martínez - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire Latinoamerica
15 March 2012

"Every time I go to a match I get excited and enjoy myself just as much, no matter what happens soccerwise. As the song says "... it´s a feeling you carry deep inside..""

Viggo, A True Cuervo
La Revista de San Lorenzo
Translated by Ollie, Rio, Sage and Zooey
18 April 2010

How would you define San Lorenzo fans?

Brothers, sisters - forever.

Viggo, A True Cuervo
La Revista de San Lorenzo
Translated by Ollie, Rio, Sage and Zooey
18 April 2010

As always, you will find all previous Quotables here in our Webpages.

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Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo

4 March 2012 11:47:27

Categories: A Dangerous Method Eastern Promises Magazine/Internet Interviews Media Movies News Quotable Viggo Viggo News Viggo being Viggo

This week I've rounded up an eclectic bunch of quotes from recent interviews, many of which caught my eye because they are so typically Viggo. There is a fair amount of Freud, but we also have some impromptu singing, a surprising hobby and what would be my favourite Oscar quote ever if it wasn't for that one about the stubble farm.

What brought you to theatre?

"Fear. I've done theatre because it frightens me. I'm attracted to everything that frightens me. It's not like in film, where you do a take and then you can do another and another. Theatre is just one live take that lasts an hour and 40 minutes, depending on the performance. It's a new adventure every night. If you get off track, you have to see how to get back."

Viggo Mortensen: "I'm attracted to what scares me"
By Roció García - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
El País
24 November 2011

"When I read the book, the last person I'd have seen myself playing would have been the Burroughs character," Mortensen says. "I was a little surprised. But it was just when I was finishing A Dangerous Method, and I thought, 'Don't forget, you were surprised at David's idea of you playing Freud too.'"

Viggo Mortensen on 'On the Road'
Mortensen slipped into Freud role
By Jim Slotek
Toronto Sun
6 January 2012

"He's an unbelievable man. He brings chocolates to the set, expensive haute cuisine chocolates, and he hands it out in plastic bags. He writes music and he's painting and doing poems; you feel pathetic around him."

Jason Isaacs
Jason Isaacs Loved Working With Chocolate Man Mortensen
ContactMusic.com
1 March 2012

"We also had a lot of fun singing duets. In Belvedere Gardens where Freud did take his walks, and then you see him in the end, in his morning walk, we were singing at the top of our lungs, which surprised the public and some of the journalists. He has a good singing voice and I did harmony. In Belvedere, we sang that song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," including all the high notes, which Michael hit really well."

Viggo Mortensen talking about filming with Fassbender
Viggo Mortensen Reveals How He Became Freud in 'A Dangerous Method'
by Thelma Adams
Yahoo Movies
16 December 2011

...when he writes a letter on screen, the penmanship is Mortensen's, the actor having learnt to write in German in Freud's handwriting style.

'A Dangerous Method' Interview: Viggo Mortensen, actor
Scotsman.com
9 February 2012

He studied Freud's work, and -- because he wanted to know "what Freud read for pleasure" -- he researched the work of contemporary Austrian and German playwrights and humorists. (He can now talk authoritatively and at length about the oeuvres of Johann Nestroy and Wilhelm Busch.)

Viggo Talks and Talks
By Zoe Heller
T Magazine
2 December 2011

"I guess in some sense I tend to agree with Freud's idea that everyone is flawed and it's better to - rather than bury our insecurities and our fears and our desires - it's better to acknowledge them.

Not because you're going to eradicate your imperfections but you're going to accept them and find a way to be able to live with them, y'know?"

On the couch with the former King Of Gondor
By Matt Maytum
Total Film
9 February 2012

Anyone familiar with Mortensen's career will know that he tends not to be a big talker. Instead, he makes his presence felt on screen by way of a steely, periodically murderous intensity. In the flesh, he's not short of intensity either. His pale blue eyes stare at you unblinking, while at the same time a deep vertical groove runs down his forehead.

Viggo Mortensen on 'A Dangerous Method'
By John Preston
Seven Magazine
The Telegraph
11 February 2012

The brevity of life and the importance of grasping the day are, one quickly learns, big themes for Mortensen. The sound of time's winged chariot is very loud in his ear, it seems, and the imperative to "use time well" crops up repeatedly in his conversation...

Viggo Talks and Talks
By Zoe Heller
T Magazine
2 December 2011

...does he worry that people will just dismiss his eclectic works as mere half-arsed nixers of an over-indulged Hollywood star?

"I was drawing and painting and writing poems before I did acting, but people are going to make up their own minds about you anyway," he replies. "I feel it's personally a waste of time and inevitably a frustrating exercise to try to accommodate others all the time, or to try to please everyone.

Analysis of dream career
by Declan Cashin
Irish Examiner
15 February 2012

"I like to write and paint and make music and go walking on my own and garden. In fact, gardening is probably what I enjoy doing more than anything else."

Really? Anything else?

He looks at me, his gaze is quite level. "I like gardening a lot."

Viggo Mortensen on 'A Dangerous Method'
By John Preston
Seven Magazine
The Telegraph
11 February 2012

I ask if he got to know Freud well enough to guess what the psychotherapist would have made of Mortensen. He cracks his knuckles and gives his first short answer.

"I have no idea."

Viggo Mortensen
By Lucy Kellaway
Financial Times
10 February 2012

Not to be forgotten in the supporting category is Mortensen, whose Oscar-nominated thug in "Eastern Promises" was as vividly physical as his Freud is wittily cerebral.

Contender: 'A Dangerous Method'
The Contenders 2011
By Bob Verini
The Vote
12 November 2011

Have you ever thought what you would say if you won an Oscar?

Thank you.

El Mundo Webchat With Viggo Mortensen
By - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
El Mundo
21 November 2011

As always, you will find all previous Quotables here in our Webpages.

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Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo

21 January 2012 20:39:56

Categories: Media News Quotable Viggo Viggo News Viggo being Viggo Viggo on Life

'Icy', 'ocean-blue', 'frost-bite blue', 'peaceful', 'piercing', 'melancholy', 'bright', 'intense'.... you already know what I'm talking about, don't you? Last week's Quotable was all about revealing the soul of a character through the eyes alone. This week I thought I'd follow it up with some reactions to Viggo's amazing peepers when he's just being Viggo.

Viggo Mortensen was bare-footed, with loose dark pants and a large shirt that makes him look both small and newly awakened. His left hand is decorated with stuff to remember and phone numbers all the way up his arm and a stubborn bit of tape has attached itself to his sleeve.

The bright eyes are at the same time quick and thoughtful and it is as if he exists in a parallel reality, with a different rhythm, speed and profundity. And yet he is present.

Caught In His Own Picture
By Trine Ross - translated by Rebekka
Politiken
28 June 2003

It is difficult to recognize the sexy star because of the mighty moustache that fills a lot of his face. But the ocean blue eyes shine through as usual.

Viggo On His Way To Denmark
Billed-Bladet #24 - translated by Westfold
June 2005

He seduces us with a threat of danger, his chiseled Nordic physique and stunning blue eyes. Never over the top, for Mortensen, less is more. His performances are slow reveals of hidden information and emotion.

Viggo Mortensen Talks The Road
By Anne Thompson
Indie Wire
13 September 2009

Mr. Mortensen has bladelike, Slavic cheekbones, the most jutting movie chin since Kirk Douglas's and icy blue eyes that can seem soulful one minute and menacing the next. He also has a compact, chiseled physique that looks great adorned with Russian mob tattoos.

Big Gun Takes on the Apocalypse
Charles McGrath
New York Times
10 September 2009

Though blond and chiselled, Mortensen isn't your typical Hollywood actor. His intense features and sly eyes convey an edge that eludes your Brads, Leonardos and Matts. The actor also exudes intelligence, whether he's playing a magnetically sadistic Navy SEALS officer in "G.I. Jane" or a genteel suitor in "The Portrait of a Lady."

Sensitive Side of Psycho
by Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun Times, 1998

The planes of his face bespeak both peril and sensitivity -- a romantic who could be caddish with your heart but rueful about it. His cleft chin, pale, almost milky, eyes, soft-spoken tone, and laidback manner complete the picture but he's more than matinee idol handsome. He has that incurable, unbearable, enigmatic eroticism of a three in the morning dream you've just awakened from.

Talking With Viggo
George magazine
1999

Viggo Mortensen is a smolderer. He opens those intense, I-know-how-to-build-my-own-kitchen eyes, and he wins my girlfriend over every time. Obviously, I want to hate him because anyone that ruggedly handsome has to be despised on principal alone, but like Paul Newman and his absurdly delicious salad dressing, there comes a day when you just have to admit a dude's alright.

20 Actors Who Deserve Your Support
By Josh
Cinema Blend
22 August 2010

"There was only one boy that recognised me the whole two weeks I was wandering around [Russia]. And that was my last day there. It was just a freak thing. He looked at my eyes, and I think he'd seen Lord of the Rings 500 times, and, even though I didn't have the long hair and the beard, he was sure."

Viggo on being recognised in Russia
Q&A with Viggo Mortensen
By Neala Johnson
Melbourne Herald Sun
8 March 2007

...the first impression that you get from the New York actor with cosmopolitan roots (his father is Danish and his mother is American), is very different from that of the vigorous and strong hero that we have always seen on the big screen. Instead, Mortensen is a calm, serene, and very reflective man. His blue eyes reflect the inner peace that he has managed to maintain in spite of the Hollywood craziness...

Top Men - Viggo Mortensen
By - translated by Graciela
Glamour
September 2006

The frostbite-blue eyes snap onto mine for a split second. If the brow is a two-way mirror to the soul, his is cracked in several places by Despair and Inner Torment. Mortensen is justly celebrated in Hollywood for how he telegraphs both, which are reading in his face right now. A face rendered (almost) unrecognizable with that distracting droop of a Wild West moustache, the familiar starburst cleft in his chin forested over by a neat beard.

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

Later, during a break in filming, I shake hands with Viggo, stained with special effects blood. We chatted for a while and then went to eat underneath the tent that protected us from the sun, while I observed his soldier's moustache, his scars, his doublet covered with dust and blood, his light and engrossing eyes that looked only like those of veterans, more beyond life and death. He wasn't an actor, I suddenly thought. He was the rigorous image of the tired hero

Viggo, The Captain
By Arturo Pérez-Reverte - translated by Elessars Queen and Astarloa
El Semanal, Diario de León
20 July 2005

Before we meet, in London, I see him in the street, outside the Charlotte Street Hotel. He's crouched over his phone. He's wearing the navy and red football shirt of his team, San Lorenzo, from Argentina. He grew up there. "So these are my heroes. The one group of people or thing I support unconditionally. They can do no wrong," he says with a half-smile and sits down in the cosy-chaired library. His hair is long. His eyes are piercing, kind. Full of fun, full of melancholy.

Sympathy For The Devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009

'You know, for me to look each person in the eye and listen to their question and answer them, and get their name right and be respectful---that takes a certain amount of energy for complete concentration. Unless you're just someone who doesn't look at somebody, who doesn't deal with it. At the end of the day you don't have anything left, sometimes, for yourself. You have to find ways to hide out, that's all.'

Viggo Mortensen on meeting fans
Native Voice Interview with Viggo
By Lise Balk King,
Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota
December 2003

As always, you will find all previous Quotables here in our Webpages.

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Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo

10 December 2011 17:15:16

Categories: Media Quotable Viggo Viggo being Viggo Viggo on Life

Several recent interviews have once again highlighted Viggo's maverick film career, one that goes forward without a plan, following what interests him and what he believes will interest others. His care for his craft and the roles that he's taken have earned respect throughout the industry, and it's an attitude that has served him well over the years, making him - despite his refusal to pursue what others would regard as a 'career' - 'one of the last great leading men standing' (Men's Journal 2009).

He never had Champagne dreams and caviar wishes...

Viggo Talks and Talks
By Zoe Heller
T Magazine
2December 2011

...arguably the most unconventional, maverick A-list actor around.

Five Things We Learned In Toronto From The 'A Dangerous Method' Star
Oliver Lyttelton
The Playlist
14 September 2011

" .....my goals aren't the same goals that other people have that are perfectly justifiable on their own terms: wanting to be famous, wanting to make lots of money, wanting to win Oscars or something. It's not my main reason for doing it. My main reason for doing it is because I am drawn to it."

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

'I don't really have a game plan. I've never really had one. Some people say, "Hollywood prefers this now," and I always go, "What is Hollywood? I really don't know what that is." I don't plan to do big or small movies.'

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen: 'A Dangerous Method' Taught Me How to Talk in a Movie
By Michael Hogan
Moviefone
23 November 2011

"To find a good story, you're generally going to find it in independent or lower budget movies... I wouldn't mind doing a big budget movie if it had a great story."

Viggo Mortensen
Five Things We Learned In Toronto From The 'A Dangerous Method' Star
Oliver Lyttelton
The Playlist
14 September 2011

The thought about Viggo Mortensen not feeling home in this city is not far away. He is at the same time too much and too little for Hollywood.

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

"If he chose to be a movie star, he could've done it a long time ago. . . . He's in control. That's the bottom line."

Joe Johnston
A Man of Many Parts
Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post, 2004

"Viggo's turned down quite a few things that might have made a difference in his life because he just didn't connect with them creatively. Viggo is his own man. He's not dictated by the Hollywood horseshit machine."

Don Phillips
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003

Not for him the quick cash-in roles, the wham-bam-thank-you-mam blaze of multiplex fodder that would have no doubt made him a very wealthy man.

Long Live the King
by Paul Byrne
Wow.ie, 2004

'I haven't done the biggest movies I could find one after another, which was an option after Lord of the Rings. But when you choose to go with your heart rather than career ambition, then your star tends to wane a little bit.'

Viggo Mortensen
Q&A with Viggo Mortensen
by Neala Johnson
Herald Sun (Australia), March 8 2007

"I don't have a five year plan or a five minute plan. For some people that does work. That's a safer way to do it, it's maybe more remunerative. You can make a fortune and be on the cover of every magazine or whatever, but that's probably a type of prison."

Viggo Mortensen
A Fantastic Leap of Faith
by Brent Simon
Entertainment Today, 2001

'I don't care about being famous. I don't care about having my face on posters. It doesn't massage my ego. It's nice to have a poster, but in the end it's about the movie. Nobody walks around saying "The movie stunk, but the poster was awesome'.'

Viggo Mortensen while promoting Hidalgo
A Reluctant Star
By Barry Koltnow, Orange County Register
7 March 2004

Have you ever asked yourself what you're doing in the world of movies?

Many times, but I always come to the conclusion that I'm in the right profession, one that permits me to share what I have inside and, by chance, allows me to explore other means of artistic expression.

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

Despite his quirkiness, or maybe because of it, Mortensen, a 50 year old who has stubbornly resisted the formula for modern movie stardom, finds himself one of the last great leading men standing.

A History of Defiance
Daniel Mirth
Men's Journal
October 2009

As always, you will find all previous Quotables here in our Webpages.

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