Appaloosa

" ....I like this one because it's told in a leisurely pace. I enjoyed being in it because Ed didn't try to reinvent the genre or appeal to younger audiences. He said, 'This is how these stories are told, and I'm going to respect the genre.'"

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



"Cole and Hitch are not that far removed from the 'outlaws' that they're up against. There's not much difference between them in some moments; they both have displays of temper and violence."

Viggo Mortensen
Emmanuellevy.com
August 2008



"I think Cole trusts Hitch more than anyone else in the world, specifically because Hitch is very honest with him, even when it's difficult to bring certain things to Cole's attention," says the actor. "That is my definition of a good friend: somebody who is brave enough to tell you the truth even when it's not what you want to hear."

Viggo Mortensen
Emmanuel Levy
Emmanuellevy.com
August 2008



Mortensen said he was hooked by the dynamics between the two men. They love each other, said Harris, even if they might never say those exact words. It's a deep, complex friendship, though don't expect it to unravel like the one between the cowboys in Brokeback Mountain.

Said Mortensen: "They cut those scenes."

Appaloosa: TIFF press conference diaries
by Mark Medley
National Post
September 05, 2008



"It's not a revisionist Western," states Mortensen. "It's not a movie about 1882 seen through our eyes as much as it is a picture that's without judgment of people as they seem to have behaved back then. The standards of behavior were very different. In some ways, there were higher standards of politeness and chivalry, but in other ways, people were much more direct and brutal towards each other. Neither Ed nor I, as the central male characters, are trying to justify the violence that comes with our jobs in this story, or to make our characters seem more heroic than they are."

Viggo Mortensen
Appaloosa: Shooting Ed Harris' Western
Emmanuellevy.com
August 2008



"There are film buffs and story buffs who like the apparent simplicity [of a Western]. Although in a movie like this you can see that, yes, there is silence and there's an easy pace at times punctuated by dramatic tension, but in that silence, if it is well acted, and it is a good Western, which I think this is, then that silence is full of complicated things and a lot of subtext."

Viggo Mortensen Talks 'Appaloosa'
Premier Magazine
By Karl Rozemeyer
19 September 2008