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by Molly Schoemann-McCann

Not only is actor Viggo Mortensen starring in the highly anticipated film adaptation of author Patricia Highsmith's novel The Two Faces of January, but he's also a self-proclaimed book-hoarder—who's not afraid to write in the margins. We sat down with Mr. Mortensen to talk about books, movies, and everything in between. Below is our conversation, slightly abridged.

MS: Where do you think your love of reading came from?

VM: I always read as a little boy. I just did a movie called Loin des hommes, which means Far From Men, which has just come out, it was in at the Toronto Film Festival, based on an Albert Camus short story. And he's someone who was inspired by a particular grade school teacher whom he acknowledged and thanked and praised in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. And for me, too, there were a couple teachers I remember having when I was really little, who encouraged me to read and to be into mythology and literature at the same time. That was important. It's always been one of the great pleasures. I love books. I also love the feeling, the tactile aspect of books—their smell…and I like writing in the margins, which horrifies some people.

We have a debate on our blog about that.

I wouldn't do it in a library book, certainly, and I wouldn't do it in a book that I borrowed from somebody. But my own books, I don't mind doing it. The only books—there are some really old collectible books that I've either been given or that I've found, and those I haven't. I've made notes aside. But it's fun to pull a book off the shelf and open it and find notes I made maybe twenty years ago. It's interesting, it tells me where I was at then. Of course I could do it in notebooks, but it's fun. There's something about the immediacy of the note and the underlining of the phrase, and maybe there's a little stain, a tea stain or something. There's something alive about the tangible book, as opposed to the fantastic world of digital reading that you can do now. I like them. And I am a publisher also, Perceval Press, and I like making books. I like getting it right, as far as the vision of the author. It's much easier to edit and work on someone else's book than my own. In a sense, I think that's what directors do when they work properly with actors. You're helping people solve problems and trying to get the most, the best out of them.

What's your favorite part of publishing other people's books and photographs?

I'm there at the printer's for every book, and I like to make sure (especially when it's photographs or artwork reproductions) the colors and contrast and everything is right. I've never sold the company, as often happens with smaller presses that do have some success, and they sell to bigger companies. But I like to be hands on, which means selecting the paper and the font and everything else.

So you're running a publishing company. How do you find time to read and write on your own?

It takes away from that, but what takes away from it the most is the movie business. I do read a lot in connection; my reading is guided a lot of times by what I'm doing. And I like that—I like that it takes me off the beaten track to read certain biographies or histories or subject matter that I wouldn't normally take an interest in. And all of a sudden I'm reading a whole bunch on psychoanalysis or a certain historical period or a certain country or part of the world, and I think that's interesting. But it does take time to do the movies, and then once you're shooting you don't read as much as you'd like, and when you're promoting, hardly at all, because you kind of use up your energy and time. But it's an okay trade-off because movies can be a very complete universe as far as art is concerned—writing, photography, music, dance in some cases, fashion, sculpture in a sense. It's pretty all-inclusive.

Do you consider yourself a book hoarder?

I am. It's terrible. I take too many books with me everywhere. I often, well, definitely when I'm shooting a movie, end up sending boxes home because they won't fit in my suitcase, books that I pick up or find. And the longer the shoot, the more I accumulate. Like during The Lord of the Rings, which was a very long shoot, we were there a year and a half, I found tons of books—also because we traveled around a lot. I would go into lots of old secondhand book stores in little towns and everywhere. I found incredible things in New Zealand. But yeah, I am a book hoarder. I have a lot of books. I do love giving away books that I love, though, so that's a fun thing.

As an actor, do you like watching movies? Or is it hard to get into it?

No, I do like watching movies. Like the movies I'm in?

Any movies.

Yeah, I look at it as entertainment, as I imagine you do. Or as an audience member, if it's an adaptation of a book, or does it resemble something else, or is it in line of what genre, you know. I judge it—try to—on it's own merits. And I do, since it is my profession, I will watch how the actors do their work. If they seem like they're really listening to the other characters. The best thing is when you're just sort of engaged. That means someone's doing their job in a seamless way, the same way you don't really pay much attention to the music but later you realize you like the score. You'd have to hear it again just to remember all of it because it was so part of the story.

Is there something in particular that you look for in a book that makes you interested in being in its adaptation?

I do like stories where men—men or women—are pitted against nature or the natural environment, I find that interesting, and I've been in movies like that. But if it's a good story or if it's something that challenges your preconceived ideas about the world or about human nature, I think that's always not only a worthwhile read but could be a good movie. Making you stop and question most things that you take for granted is always good—doesn't always happen, but every once in a while a story will do that.

Can you tell us about a book you've read over the last year or two that you really enjoyed?

Many. I often go back and reread books I've liked. As regards relatively new ones, I really learned a lot from reading Michel Onfray's biographical study of Albert Camus as philosopher and activist, L'ordre Libertaire. This book rights many wrongs done to Camus by people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, among other French intelligentsia figures on the left who have consistently misrepresented his political positions and activism—not to mention lying shamelessly about their own contributions to the Resistance during World War II as well as their postwar contributions to left-wing activism. On a sociocultural level, it is as important a book about post-war Europe as Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday is with respect to early twentieth-century Europe.

What (if any) advice would you offer to someone who is not a fan of reading?

Read a book, a comic book, a poem, an old letter, a recipe, anything. Just do it. Listen to books on tape/CD/your computer device. Take in the words, try to consider a point of view different from your own. Just do it.

As a writer, do you ever find yourself looking at film scripts with a writer's eye and thinking of different ways you might have approached them?

Sure, although I try to give the script a chance to work on its own terms, taking in and considering its ideas and character depictions, before thinking of anything I might have written differently.

Is there a type of book that you'd probably NOT be interested in being in a film adaptation of?

Probably the majority of books would not make riveting movies. It all depends on your gift for envisioning an adaptation. Few can do what Hossein Amini did with Patricia Highsmith's fairly routine thriller The Two Faces of January. Hossein is a master at adapting the work of other writers. His screenplay version of Highsmith's novel is superior to the original in terms of character depictions, pace, structure, tone, and dramatic tension—an improvement in almost every way imaginable.

What do you think is the mark of a good/successful film adaptation? What do you think is the goal of a film adaptation?

To tell a good story that leaves people asking themselves questions and reconsidering their own lives when they leave the movie theater.

You have also starred in film remakes, particularly of Hitchcock movies—do you take a different approach to starring in a film remake rather than a new film or adaptation?

No. The work is always the same, generally speaking. Find a way to present a point of view specific to the character and contribute to telling the overall story in any way possible—that's always the goal.

Do you feel that starring in film adaptations is a way to bring increased recognition to books that deserve a wider readership?

Sure, when it's well done, as was the case with Highsmith's The Two Faces of January and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, to name two book adaptations I've been involved with.

If you start reading a book and you're not that into it, do you put it down and start another book, or do you make yourself finish it?

I am fairly stubborn about finishing books, even mediocre ones, just as I am about watching movies right to the end. I do often have two or more books going simultaneously, though.