Quotable Viggo

Merry Christmas Viggodom - time for our Festive Quotable (where did the year go?). I'm sure many of us have been traipsing around the shops trying to find lovely Christmas presents for our nearest and dearest. Viggo, a year-round one-man Father Christmas, doesn't need any excuse. He is an incurable gift-giver.



© ITV.


Viggo Mortensen has come bearing pancake mix. We are curbside at the tiny airport in Syracuse, New York, on a truly dreary day (even by Syracuse standards), and within seconds of hopping into his rented Ford Fusion, I learn two things about him: He's the kind of guy who picks you up at the airport, and he's the kind of guy who brings presents. Pancake mix is a delicacy in upstate New York. "Do you like maple syrup?" Because he brought me some of that, too. He's prepared a gift bag.

Why Viggo Mortensen Is Off the Grid
By Lisa DePaulo
Esquire
25 May 2016



"There's rarely a day he doesn't show up bearing gifts of some sort from his different weekend jaunts," says his Appaloosa costar Renée Zellweger, "where he'll go find some really obscure village behind Taos somewhere and visit an artists' colony and bring back some wares to share. And there was never a day that he wasn't plying us with dark chocolate. It was ridiculous. Bags full. Bags full! Bacon–covered truffles. Where was he getting it? He was the chocolate crack dealer."

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



"A favorite moment was seeing Green Book star Viggo Mortensen pulling out a copy of a vintage Don Shirley LP that he had found. "This record is for Mahershala. You can't get it anywhere. It is so rare," he enthused about his gift for Ali, who plays the concert pianist in the film. Well, we know at least one Governors Awards guest got a really cool parting gift last night."

Lovely Moment from The Governor's Awards
Pete Hammond
Deadline
20 November 2018



"Viggo is such an amazing guy. He's the gentlest, kindest person you'll ever meet. All the 'family' members got along but I think the strongest bonds that were made were between the kids and Viggo. He would come on set every day with different books for all the kids to read. I ended up having about 10 books that I've never gotten around to reading. He really is a generous, amazingly kind man."

Nicholas Hamilton
Captain Fantastic and the Sundance Kid
By Matthew Lowe
Filmink.com
20 January 2015



Viggo Mortensen is waiting for me in a parking lot on the Pacific Coast Highway near Topanga Canyon.

He thought it would be nice to walk along the beach, watch the sunset and the deepening pink clouds and the dolphins at play in the surf, and talk, you know, maybe have a drink or two. He is barefoot on the asphalt, in jeans. His hair is sandy-red, floppy-perfect, the provocatively dimpled chin brushed with stubble. He kisses me hello on the cheek. My vision goes blurry for a second, then--steady, steady--rights itself.

"I brought you some things," he says, sitting down on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

He opens a large cardboard box at his feet. There are about a dozen books: one of pictures by a Cuban Santeria practitioner turned photographer; one of poetry that comes with an owl-shaped pewter trinket; one containing sketches by Lola Schnabel, an ex-girlfriend; and then several by Mortensen himself - of paintings, poetry, and photographs. All are published by Perceval, a small press he runs with a partner. Then he pulls out a DVD of The Passion of Joan of Arc, a 1928 silent movie. He informs me that the original negative was destroyed in a fire, and that the filmmaker died believing his masterwork had been obliterated. But a complete version was found in a closet in a Norwegian mental institution in the early 1980s and was restored.

"You published this too?" I ask.

"Nah," he says. "You should just see it."

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



He gave presents every day.....An example of what Viggo Mortensen's participation in this Spanish project has been like is explained by Unax Ugalde: "When he knew about my big childhood fondness for Sugus sweets, one day I found on the floor of my dressing room the shape of my name all made out with sugus."

Unax Ugalde
The Court of Alatriste
By Rocío García - Translated for V-W by Paddy
El País Semanal, 6 August 2006



Before we part, Mortensen insists on buying me Blake's "The Complete Poems," marking the passage he read. A moment later, he's back with Pablo Neruda's "The Book of Questions" and Perceval Press' "Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation." I protest mildly, accepting his presents but telling him, "Please, no mink coat.''

King of the big screen a champion of poetry: Blake's poetry makes an impression on Mortensen
By Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
20 February 2004



Looking tanned and lean and sporting an impressive 'stache, he was soft-spoken and friendly. It didn't hurt that he came bearing gifts -- before I even sat down, he placed a shrink-wrapped copy of Exene Cervenka's book of collage, 666, on the table in front of me.

You Go, I Go, We All Go For Viggo
By Michelle Devereaux
San Francisco Bay Guardian
12 September 2007



To Viggo [Cindy] Sheehan sounded like the kind of person he admires: sincere, courageous, willing to question authority. But on the AM dial, she was getting flayed. Sean Hannity cast her as a nut job, an outcast from her own family, a bad mother. Bill O'Reilly called her 'a radical who does not like her country.'

Viggo has a credo he lies by: Go see for yourself if you can. So he packed a bag, flew from Los Angeles to Dallas, rented a car, and drove ninety miles to Crawford. He came alone and without warning and - as he almost always does when meeting strangers - bearing gifts: fresh vegetables, some bottled water, and a copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

The Appealingly Weird World of Viggo Mortensen
By Amy Wallace
Esquire
March 2006



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



MJ: What's up with you and chocolate?

VM: I love it!

MJ: You also tend to come bearing gifts. Is that a product of the cultures you were raised in?

VM: Maybe. Maybe it's just a product of the way my family is.

Viggo Mortensen, King of The Road
Mother Jones
23 November 2009



A few days later, as evening fell, he returned to Valdeteja bringing with him an enormous bag of goodies for the town's kids who by now know that Viggo never arrives empty-handed. There, in Anabel's bar, he resembled Jesus among the children. Scores of kids cavorted around him, watching eagerly as Viggo pulled out shirts from his bag, then candies, chocolates and caramels that he distributed like Santa Claus to each child, all under the astonished and pleased gazes of the customers who by now consider the 'American friend' as one of their own.

Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno
Diario de León
20 August 2006
Translated for V-W by Margarita

Sometimes, when I’m looking for quotes, a particular word will leap out at me - one that I may have seen coming up many times in interviews. It then sends me off on a rummage to find them all. So, this week we are looking at ‘dreams’. The depths of winter is the time for dreaming, isn't it? Dreams are not only the mishmash of strange events that come to us in the night, but our hopes and desires, our half-formed plans and the stories we tell ourselves and others. Viggo once called himself an ‘optimistic dreamer’ whose dreams are closely bound up with art and story-telling. Films like Jauja, The Reflecting Skin and Gospel According to Harry all have a dream-like quality and the vision sequence near the end of Hidalgo inspired some of Viggo’s most extraordinary, dream-like photography.



© 4L Productions.


“I am an optimistic dreamer who has never been imprisoned by fear.”

Viggo Mortensen, Beautiful Savage
Richard Gianorio
Le Figaro
26 September 2008



“...you know, no one looks at the world like it really is. Everyone looks at the world like they want it to be. When it comes down to it, everyone is in their own 'dream world', we could become crazy if we thought of the world like it really is.”

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



“Often I remember my dreams during the day. When something particular happens, I realize sometimes that I dreamt of that before. For example it happened a few times that I heard about the death of a beloved person or animal and I was irritated by my reaction – I was less shocked or surprised than I should be. Then it came to my mind, that I'd dreamt about it during a recent night.”

I Have A Dream
By Viggo Mortensen - translated by CoCo and Techadmin
Zeit magazine (Germany)
23 July 2015



“I think that plans are not that different from dreams; they are like dreams with another [kind of] will, conscious dreams. People think that a plan fails or works, or comes to nothing, but it's not like that; plans change because we change, circumstances change.”

"We are all artists" - Viggo Mortensen
By Susana Parejas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
7 Dias
2 September 2012



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

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



'Words were everywhere I looked, filling dreams, giving me names for everything. It was all I could do to keep up with them, catch a few as they drifted through me, fell now and then from clouds, from my eyes to the table, onto my lap or became tangled in horses' manes.'

Viggo Mortensen
Introduction to Best American Non-Required Reading
Houghton Mifflin
2004



"Myth-making is a way of dreaming out loud or dreaming in public…"

Viggo Mortensen talking about Hidalgo
A Man of Many Parts
Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post
2004



“There’s a lot of entering and coming out of dreams [in Jauja], a lot of transitions in the movie. It takes seeing it two or three times before you see all of these moments, from the first scene where the daughter grabs my arm once I give her the answer she wants about getting a dog, and she closes her eyes and never opens them again for the rest of the scene. I think that’s the first dream. By the end of the story, you don’t know if we’re being dreamed, or if the characters are all dreamed, or if it’s a dog’s dream or the girl’s dream. In a way, it doesn’t matter. It’s what it stimulates.”

Interview with Actor Viggo Mortensen
Nick Chen
London Calling
7 April 2015



10 o'clock, Thursday morning. Fifth day of shooting [Jauja]. Only a few hours after Lisandro Alonso has swallowed the last of a long series of Fernets with Coke, Viggo Mortensen, along with Fabián Casas, knocks at the director´s door. When the water for the maté is boiling in the kettle, the actor starts the conversation. Tonight Viggo has dreamt. "When the day is over, we talk about the film, then I think about it and I go to bed," he explains, dressed in a threadbare sweater with the colours of the national Danish team. "I dream a lot. Tonight for example, I dreamt about something that could later be useful for our story." Lisandro corroborates it: "He comes every morning before shooting and he tells me `Che, I thought of this for the film.´

Lost in La Pampa
By Pierre Boisson - translated by Ollie
So Film #10 (France)
May 2013



MP: There was a quote on Perceval's website from Edgar Allen Poe that I adore. It's, "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

MORTENSEN: Yeah. I think that's true.

MP: Did you choose to put that up there?

MORTENSEN: Oh yeah. Everything that's up there, I choose.

Viggo Mortensen - For The Good Of The People
By Elliot V Kotek
Moving Pictures
Winter 08-09



“…I have tried to 'capture' the 'ghost dance' as a nebulous memory, an ephemeral dream. It came to me like that, I took my camera and I only shot one roll of film."

Viggo Mortensen talking about Miyelo
A Year in the Life of Viggo Mortensen
by Sophie Benamon
Studio Magazine, 2003



A childhood dream?

He leans his head upon the hand: "Every child dreams of being some important person. You can be in the middle of a city or in a jail and imagine you are the first human being walking in this dark wood. Kids use their imagination this way." He speaks slowly, low voice, long answers.

Viggo Mortensen
By Bernd Volland Translated by JoannaP
Stern Speziel Biografie
April 2003



“This world is a dream we all contribute to, in one way or another. We are part of the dream, if we are aware or not, if we like it or not. These pictures are a part of my dream, of the way I exist and act in the world.”

Viggo Mortensen, The Photographer Of Dreams
By Giovanni Valerio - translated by Cindalea
Panorama First
July 2008



'I wish life was longer. I wish that I didn't have to sleep. I like sleeping, and dreaming especially. But I wish sleep was a luxury, that I could just lie under the covers, listen to the rain but that I didn't have to if I didn't want to.'

The Inner Viggo
By Jenny Ewart
New Zealand's Woman's Weekly
2003

This week I was telling a friend about one of my Junior School craft traumas when a kid stole my knitting and unravelled it in the cloakroom. The teacher blamed me for not looking after it and my mum had to knit it back up for me to stop me crying. School days – they are not all merry and bright, are they? At least I never had to play the 'ass end of a dragon'…



Watertown High School 1976.
© Watertown Daily Times.


As an 8-year-old, Mortensen played "the ass end of a dragon" in a school play…

The Other Side of Viggo Mortensen
By Paul Young
Variety Life
October 2003



What did teachers write on your report cards?

Anything from "very poor" to "good" or "excellent." One thing a teacher did once -- I still have the drawing -- was sort of disturbing. It was an assignment to make a drawing with pencil and crayon and it was pretty complicated. It's in the woods and Little Red Riding Hood is meeting this wolf and there are flowers and different shades of green. ... And it has written on it in red ink, "Very poor." ... To judge any drawing by a kid and say that is not necessary. There are more constructive ways of making your point. Art is a very subjective thing. To deface the piece of work by writing on it is unforgivable.

Viggo on locusts, life and kissing Liv Tyler
By Molly Woulfe
Northwest Indiana Times thetimesonline.com
3 August 2004



When Viggo was 7, his parents sent him to boarding school in Argentina. "It was a strict school, isolated in the foothills of the mountains," he said. "Other than holidays, I really didn't see my parents. The other kids were miserable, always crying or wetting their beds. But I was pretty self-sufficient. So I guess it must have suited me."

Back in the saddle 'Rings' hero Mortensen is riding high with 'Hidalgo'
By Nancy Mills
Daily News
25 February 2004



Did you go to San Lorenzo matches when you lived in Argentina?

No. I would listen on the radio. I was pretty fanatical about it. At the time it was unusual, because we weren't a very good team. We were interesting, but most of the kids in school were Boca Juniors or River Plate or other teams, and then the year before I left, suddenly we won it all. It was the only time that it's ever happened that we had an undefeated season, so that was a big deal. All of a sudden, the day after [that], a kid at school said, "I like San Lorenzo, too," and I said, "Bullshit. You're Boca Junior. Whatever."

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



I was 11 when we moved back to the States. I couldn't believe the swear words, the slang, the music - all the kids were into Blue Oyster Cult and Grand Funk Railroad. I was a closet Carpenters fan. I'd sing 'Top of the World' to myself on the way to school, but when I got close to campus I'd shut up.

The Hot New 39-Year-Old
By Dennis Hensley
Movieline magazine, 1998



I remember my first year of school when my family moved to the United States from Argentina, they had this thing in the morning: a pledge of allegiance to the flag. I didn't know the words and mumbled them. The teacher said: "You - you don't know the words!" That was embarrassing. After a few days I realised it was, "Liberty and justice for all". That's it. I know it now.

Before school started each day, the kids used to gather outside on this grassy sidewalk. At that age, the kids tended to be in groups of girls and boys. It wouldn't do at all for you to be by yourself. I would stand near groups of boys so it seemed to the girls, in particular, like I wasn't standing alone. I hadn't grown up with these kids. I was an alien life-form, that's what it felt like.

Viggo Mortensen - Letter To My Younger Self
By Viggo Mortensen
The Big Issue
3 April 2013



"I was 12 or 13 when a friend of mine encouraged me to be an actor, something that had never crossed my mind. I was then living in New York and didn't know anybody. I went up on stage and read the first paragraph from David Copperfield. The only thing I heard before closing the book and fleeing from that inconceivable torture was 'Louder, louder.' And here I am!"

Viggo Mortensen: "The older I get, the more tired I get of Hollywood."
By Rocío Ayuso
El Pais
8 October 2016



In high school, the shy kid began carrying a camera everywhere he went. Structuring his vistas within a viewfinder was a natural impulse. Already he had hopscotched through many disparate worlds, never lingering long enough on any to burn a permanent image. …..

Viggo Trip
By Liane Bonin
Flaunt magazine #39
November 2002



'A teacher gave me the taste for poetry. I like the discipline it imposes, I like the reign of precision and the perfect word.'

Viggo Mortensen: "Travelling is the best anti-war weapon"
By Yetty Hagendorf - translated by Donna Marie
Le Soir (Belgium)
2 February 2015



At Watertown High School in upstate New York… he was captain of both the swim team and the tennis team…

King Of The Ring
By Melissa J Perenson
Sci Fi magazine
February 2004



Unlike some classmates at Watertown High School in the mid-1970s, Viggo Mortensen wasn't convinced that the meaning of life might be found somewhere in the pages of J R R Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings. "I didn't read it until I got the job… and, in fact, what I'd heard about it and The Hobbit and all that sounded sort of interesting. But I figured it was just a bunch of gnomes and fairies and that kind of story."

On top of all that, "It looked like a pretty thick book."

Ready for Round 2
By David P DeMar, Jr
Watertown Daily Times
15 December 2002



What was a typical Friday night and Saturday when you were [at St Lawrence] as a student?

In the fall, I would like to go out and have fun with my friends. In the winter, I liked to cross country ski. Sometimes I'd go fishing, and I remember taking out canoes on the river. I'd sometimes go home to see my family, because we're not that far from the Watertown area. In the fall especially, I really liked to take a book and go somewhere, like we did today, and read, be by myself. When you're in classes all week, or in the dining halls, you're always around people. And I liked to get away from that and be by myself sometimes, when I had the time, which was on the weekends. And of course, like everybody else, I'd go to hockey games! I remember taking a lot of pictures, too. I would wander around a lot and pick up a lot of information that way. I wasn't in a lot of group activities. The groups I remember being in were mostly classes. I remember during bad weather or walking along the river, or being up late at night, it being very quiet.

Viggo Mortensen ('80) Remembers: A Walk Down Memory Lane (Literally) with the Photographer, Poet and Actor
By Macreena A. Doyle
St. Lawrence University
February 2003



'Now I see things in hindsight and what I learned in those years is what has made me who I am today. And, even though I recognize that I'm a rather strange guy, I don't think the end result has been so bad.'

Viggo Mortensen on growing up in Argentina
"I'm permanently dissatisfied"
By Amelia Enríquez - translated for V-W by Margarita
30 August 2006

A few weeks ago, we took a look back at A Walk on the Moon. This week I thought we'd look at another of Viggo's pre-LOTR films, A Perfect Murder. Like AWOTM, he plays an irresistible lover, and as a bonus we have a heap of original Viggo art thrown in for good measure. When the director wanted to buy in art for David Shaw, Viggo – being Viggo – decided he would do it all himself…



© Warner Brothers.


"Normally I think it's an extreme lack of ideas to make re-makes," Viggo Mortensen says, "but on the other side – when you can make "Hamlet" over and over again why not Hitchcock?"

Nice And Sensitive Movie-Star
By Susanne Johansen - translated by Majken
Berlingske Tidende
10 October 1998



'I played a painter and I needed to have all of this artwork around me, so I asked if I could do some paintings myself. I just went crazy. I couldn't sleep. I did about 45 paintings in two weeks.'

Viggo Mortensen on A Perfect Murder
The Hot New 39-Year-Old
by Dennis Hensley
Movieline magazine, 1998



"If it hadn't been for the role in A Perfect Murder I would have never painted seriously. I used to make some sketches every once in a while, nothing more."

The Painter Hero
By Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan
CIAK
March 2002



'All three of the main characters in A Perfect Murder are ambiguous,' he warns. 'At my first meeting with Gwyneth, I took two photographs of her. I used both of them for the main artwork in Murder. It helped me to believe in my character.'

Versatile Viggo
By Louis B Hobson
Calgary Sun
5 June 1998



'...I'm surprised they let me do that, actually. There was just a little time before we were going to start and I just asked, "What if I did this myself? I showed them a couple of small samples and they said sure if I made this bigger and I said OK. So it was one of those things where you're at a job interview and they say can you speak Chinese? Because if you can speak Chinese you've got the job. And, of course, you go, "Yeah sure. You'll water ski or whatever. Then, you just figure you'll figure out how to speak Chinese between now and next Wednesday. Well maybe it's not that extreme... I like to draw and stuff but the reason they used photography in it was because that was something that I did know and I had a certain stock pile of images I could play with. That helped!'

Viggo Mortensen on doing the paintings in A Perfect Murder
The Fire That Fuels an Artist's Heart
by Carnell, Carpe Noctem magazine #15
1999



Because of his role Mortensen had to face an interesting phenomenon: Would David Shaw's images reflect the artistic feelings of himself, Viggo Mortensen or do they belong to the character of David Shaw? "I think both are right", answered Mortensen, "I didn't have time to occupy myself too much with this duality. I think that the artwork represents on the one hand my own subconsiousness and on the other hand my ideas on who David is."

Warner Brothers German Press Release
Translated by always smiling



"...there's also some other personal belongings in the movie because, as he says, "my movies are a kind of photo album for me. When I look at them some years from now, they'll reflect my feelings and where I was at that time. The pants I wear are some I found in Denmark. Other belongings are some things I got from my aunt in Jystrup. They're just some small things which make me feel at home and more relaxed," Viggo says.

Nice And Sensitive Movie-Star
By Susanne Johansen - translated by Majken
Berlingske Tidende
10 October 1998



"Viggo's ability to go into his part is very special. And his demands on himself are unique. For instance, he lived for a long time in his character's shabby apartment in Brooklyn to identify himself with the character."

Nice and Sensitive Movie-Star
By Susanne Johansen - translated by Majken
Berlingske Tidende
10 October 1998



Interviewer: Is it true that you sang serenades to calm Gwyneth Paltrow before the love scenes in 'A Perfect Murder'?

Viggo: How do you know that?

Interviewer: She has said that herself.

Viggo: That's correct. To calm her and create a certain atmosphere of intimacy I did sing a couple of love songs that I learned in Argentina when I was young. I don't know if that ended up scaring her instead.

Viggo from Hollywood
By Poul Høi
M/S Magazine
August 2001



If you're a woman you will remember the way he slid his hands backward over her cheeks as they made love in his grimy loft.

Talking about 'A Perfect Murder'
Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



In the end, the actor who makes the biggest impression is Viggo Mortensen, whose gentle presence seems to be masking some diabolical undercurrents. He's the only character who keeps us guessing throughout, and he manages to steal every scene he appears in by slyly underplaying the role.

Judge Clark Douglas
DVD Verdict
12 June 2012



Viggo Mortensen undergoes an interesting transformation in his key scene with Douglas; we believe him when he's a nice guy, and we believe him even more when he's not; he doesn't do a big style shift, he simply turns off his people-pleasing face.

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-times
June 5, 1998



But Viggo Mortensen, well heck, now there's an actor with some bite!! If you have yet to hear much about this man, open your ears, and listen wide. This guy can act...and act well goddammit! I have loved almost all of his performances, with his role in THE INDIAN RUNNER (5/10) and last year's G.I. JANE (6/10) standing out in my mind, and certainly a force to reckon for all great future character roles. Watch for him...he's hot!

Berge Garabedian
Joblo.com
2 November 1998



In 'A Perfect Murder' he is - in spite of Michael Douglas's and Gwyneth Paltrow's presence - the star.

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

We quite often have quotes and anecdotes here from actors who have appeared with Viggo. Just to mix things up, this week we are turning the tables with a Quotable of Viggo’s memories of some of the major actors he’s had a chance to work with over the years. Harrison Ford, Omar Sharif, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Nicole Kidman, Ian McKellan, Diane Lane, the list is endless and here are just a few.



© Paramount Pictures.

Harrison Ford in Witness

[Harrison Ford] was most of all professional. Conscientious. Interesting to study. I had the greats before me: Peter Weir, above all, with his calmness and efficiency. In the evening, when I came back from my wandering, they let me watch the rushes. Witness was an idyllic experience.

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002


'He was really into the building-the-barn scene. I was supposed to be handing him tools and he'd say 'Hand me a whatever,' and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He probably built most of that barn himself.'

Viggo Mortensen on working with Harrison Ford in Witness
The Hot New 39-Year-Old
by Dennis Hensley
Movieline magazine, 1998


Charles Bronson in The Indian Runner

"Charles Bronson I didn't get to know extremely well but I liked him; in fact, there's a version of the scene where I go to my parents' house at the beginning of the story. It was a really interesing scene with Charles and Sandy Dennis playing really well. In fact Charles delivered some of the best acting I've ever seen. Shame it didn't make the movie, but I could understand Sean's reasons. He thought my character should be more messed up. But it was a scene that was very awkward; I was high, and was really insulting. It was horrible, but also fascinating."

Viggo Mortensen talking about The Indian Runner
Uncut
November 2007


Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way

"I loved working with Al Pacino. He was unusually generous for someone in his position. He has a very open mind, and a very open heart."

Viggo Mortensen talking about Carlito’s Way
Uncut
November 2007


“He is a very interesting man, with a great sense of humour, very hard working and, above all, very generous and humble. You learn a lot from people like him. I don’t know if he is the greatest. I liked him best during his early stage, in films like Scarface, Serpico or The Godfather.”

Viggo Mortensen
A Multi-talented Hero
Dominical, by J. A. - translated for V-W by NacidaLibre
27 August 2006


Demi Moore in GI Jane

'Demi Moore was probably the biggest shock, because she never asked for any special treatment. She was having to do some amazing things as a girl soldier. She never complained, although I know she was in pain and afraid of certain things. She never said anything, whereas the guys were whining and complaining on some days.'

I've Loved All My Leading Ladies
By Garth Pearce
Now magazine
January 2002


Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide

'Watching Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington was pretty interesting; to be at several scenes when they're arguing in speeches and stuff. I'd say that's fun to watch those actors go at it like a sporting event and I had a front row seat. '

Viggo Mortensen on Crimson Tide
The Fire That Fuels an Artist's Heart
by Carnell
Carpe Noctem magazine #15, 1999


Christopher Walken In The Prophecy

"I accepted, in part because I had always wanted to work with Christopher Walken," the actor says while sitting on the sofa's edge. His face lights up when saying Walken's name. It's evident that Christopher Walken is a cult actor for many young actors nowadays. "I would do any movie with him, no matter what [it was]."

On "The Prophecy'
Viggo Mortensen: A Very Devilish Devil In The Prophecy
by Ferran Viladevall
La Opinión
1995


Nicole Kidman in Portrait of a Lady

'She never stopped working and getting inside her character's head,' he says 'You look at some of these people and wonder why they've done so well. With Nicole,it was clear, she has all the talent, but never lets it get in the way of hard work. She's also down-to-earth and could tell jokes very easily. The film crew fell in love with her.'

I've Loved All My Leading Ladies
By Garth Pearce
Now magazine
January 2002


Michael Douglas in A Perfect Murder

Q: What surprised you about your other costar, Michael Douglas?

A: Just before Christmas, Michael was singing Christmas songs all day long, but he'd change the lyrics and he'd make the crew sing along, too. It was just goofy. You don't think of him as being that kind of a dorky guy.

The Hot New 39-Year-Old
By Dennis Hensley
Movieline magazine
August 1998


Diane Lane A Walk on the Moon

You've worked with many actresses: Demi Moore (GI Jane), Sandra Bullock (28 Days), Nicole Kidman (Portrait of a Lady), Gwyneth Paltrow (A Perfect Murder), Diane Lane (A Walk on the Moon) ... With who did you have the best relationship?

They were all great. But it was one of the lesser stars, Diane Lane, who perhaps impressed me the most. She's been working for years with little recognition in comparison to her talent.

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002


Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings

…it must be said that the casting is inspired. Take Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf. He is very prepared, he knows what he has to do. And he has a good sense of humour and truly enjoys life. I don't know if it's a sign, but Ian came to see one of my plays, long ago, when I was unknown.

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002


"He had more tricks than a bag of merlins and he really used them all."

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


Omar Sharif in Hidalgo

…one of the great things about this experience was working with Omar Sharif, and I think his casting was very important to the movie. It was already a good story, but him playing this part, I mean he's very right for it. The man he plays speaks several languages, he has some curiosity about the West, Omar has one foot in the east and one foot in the west, he lives in France, he's an Egyptian Muslim, and he's a perfect piece of casting.

Also, in terms of cinema history; obviously because of his connection to Lawrence of Arabia. You know, it just lifted the movie to another level, so, personally, it was a lot of fun to be able to sit close to him, not only working, but kind of pestering him with questions about David Lean, Peter O'Toole, and what it was like for an Egyptian actor to have that experience.

Hidalgo - Viggo Mortensen Q&A
By Jack Foley
Indie London
April 2004


Robert Duvall in The Road

It was the very last take, and it was the scene by the campfire, and I knew that Duvall wasn’t satisfied. I knew that there was something, that magic little thing hadn’t happened yet. He said, “If we could do one more take … let’s just do one for ourselves,” and I go, “Yeah, whatever.” Then, suddenly, he says, “I had a boy once,” and the hair just went up on the back of my neck, and I was like, “Wow, that is so right.” I realized that, which happens once in a while, and you are just so happy that it happened. … It’s so simple and beautiful and obvious, and he said it with such feeling that, when we went back to the line from the scene, there was a little pause, so I asked, “What happened to your boy, your son?” And the rest was magic.

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Hits The Road
By Roger Durling
Santa Barbara Independent
22 November 2009

This week I have a tongue-in-cheek look at what it’s like to be a man coming into Viggo’s orbit. The looks, the multi-lingualism, the triple-Oscar nominated acting ability, the thoughtful gift-giving, the poetry, the painting…the… well, I could go on and on. That’s not in the least bit intimidating, especially if you are Omar Sharif… right?



© Touchstone / Buena Vista Pictures.


"Viggo Mortensen is an extraordinary person... I suspect a defect somewhere. It's not possible, I have never met someone who has no defect. He has all: he is kind, he is generous, he is tender, he is a pacifist, he is tolerant - I'm also tolerant, I like that kind of people - and he helps everybody. He writes poetry, he makes photos... it's extraordinary... he is handsome, he acts well... then we say to ourselves it's not possible, people like this do not exist. I did not manage to find it out but there has to be a defect somewhere. One cannot be that perfect!"

Omar Sharif
"Hidalgo": en tête à tête avec Omar Sharif - Trans. by Casablanca
by Peggy Zejgman
allocine.com
24 March 2004



The Empire Icon award this year went to the disgustingly multitalented Viggo Mortensen, who speaks more languages than God, paints, writes poetry and still finds time to do a bit of acting.

Jameson Empire Award Winners Announced!
Helen O’Hara
Empire Online
30 March 2009



“Now, Viggo, you speak seven languages, you write poetry in three languages, Danish, Spanish and English, you ride horses superbly and you’re a great swordsman and all our womenfolk are in love with you… do you understand how annoying you are?”

Radio interview with Richard Glover
ABC Sydney
24 March 2009



Viggo Mortensen isn’t just a celebrity, as you’re probably aware. He isn’t even just a fine actor. He’s also a painter, a poet and a photographer, and he makes records, too, often in collaboration with Buckethead, the masked wizard guitarist. In addition, he’s also conversant in half a dozen languages — yet another body blow to an interviewer’s self-esteem. But I soldiered on.

Viggo Mortensen On ‘The Road,’
By Kurt Loder
MTV.com
25 November 2009




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



Liev Schreiber on heading straight for the gym the minute he knew Viggo had been cast as his wife's lover:

'I had to have some definition in my body if I was going to take my shirt off in the same movie that Viggo runs around naked in. Trust me, that's mighty intimidating.'

Liev Schreiber (the husband)
Calgary Sun, April 1999



Holding a glass of red wine and laughing, Agustín Díaz Yanes asserts, "Viggo is terrifying. He sends you a handwritten letter, all decorated and painted, and when he arrives at your house for dinner he’s an intolerable guy: he cleans the fish and picks up the dishes. My wife is fascinated, and she compares the two of us. Damn, what’s a guy supposed to do? The bar is set very high."

The Lord of Simplicity
By Ernesto Garratt Vines - translated by Margarita
Wikén - El Mercurio
30 March 2007



"He could really earn his keep as a painter, certainly as a photographer," says his Rings co-star John Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli, a dwarf. "He is also a substantially better fisherman than I am. He can catch more fish, and I hate him for that!"

Could Viggo Mortensen Be The Perfect Man?
By Nathan Cooper & Mike Glynn
Star, 2003



Knowing Mortensen (as the William S. Burroughs-inspired Old Bull Lee) was well read, Riley was "terrified during improvisation that he might ask me something about Nietzsche, like, 'What do you think about the Ubermensch?' The night before he arrived, I spent hours Wikipedia-ing Jean-Paul Sartre and others just in case he threw me a curveball." (He didn't.)

Why Kristen Stewart Slashed Her $20 Million Paycheck, Plus More Making 'On the Road' Stories
By Stephen Galloway
Hollywood Reporter
9 May 2012



Viggo Mortensen is a character actor at heart, he's a method, no-restraint genius who looks like a mechanic, crossed with zoo keeper, crossed with a brooding former model turned emotionally-tortured bad boy. I need to stop holding that against him. If not for my own credibility, so he won't steal my girlfriend and kill me with his bare hands in my sleep on his way to winning at least three Oscars before he's done.

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



"He is so brilliant he makes me sick."

Elijah Wood
Talkin' To Me?
By Gunnar Rehlin
Scanorama magazine, 2004



Viggo Mortensen can do anything. Until recently, that wasn’t true. We could all look at him and think, “Yeah sure, but can he speak French?” The answer was no, and our world had a modicum of balance. Now it turns out that answer was yes, and we are all f*****.

Evan Saathoff
Badassdigest.com
25 August 2014



"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



"Oh wow. It's Viggo," says the "Dorian Gray" star. The observation was understated -- no hoots, hollers or autograph mania here. But the surprise was unmistakable as a publicist escorted the handsome British star down a corridor at Toronto's Intercontinental Hotel.

"You sound impressed," the woman comments, hurrying the 28-year-old actor off to another interview.

"Sure I'm impressed," Barnes smiles broadly. "That's Viggo Mortensen!"

Ben Barnes spots Viggo at Toronto
Constance Droganes
CTV.ca
12 September 2009



When the world goes boom, I want Viggo Mortensen to be my dad.

Marshall Fine
Huffington Post
24 November 2009



“Doesn’t everybody want to be Viggo Mortensen? I do!”

Matt Ross
Captain Fantastic: Viggo Mortensen & Family
by Christine Westwood
FilmInk
11 June 2016

For many of us who first discovered Viggo while watching The Lord of the Rings, one of the films that really made our eyes pop when frantically buying every back-catalogue movie we could lay our hands on was A Walk on the Moon. As one of the critics below says, we were hit by full-on ‘paint-peeling smouldering sexuality’. How many of us had the moment when he bites the tag off Pearl’s neck on replay? Oh… and of course it’s also really, really great film with a wonderful performance by Diane Lane.



© Miramax Films / Village Roadshow.


Ask any movie-loving woman to name the sexiest scenes on film and, after ticking off the old standbys - Dennis Quaid getting Ellen Barkin off in The Big Easy, Kevin Costner painting Susan Sarandon's toenails in Bull Durham - chances are good that she'll pull out her well-worn copy of the 1999 indie sleeper A Walk on the Moon.

The Appealingly Weird World of Viggo Mortensen
By Amy Wallace
Esquire
March 2006



The rest of the leads also seemed to just click into place during the auditions. Getting Viggo Mortensen was Goldwyn's only "moment of panic," the director says, because he wanted a free spirit type, but definitely not a hippie, and he had his heart set on the actor from "A Perfect Murder," Gus Van Sant's "Psycho."
"When I saw some of Viggo's work, I thought, that's always who I've had in my head. I realized there is not one other actor anywhere who could play Viggo's part other than Viggo. He has this kind of complexity and mysteriousness to him. He doesn't have to say much and you get a lot."

Tony Goldwyn, Director of A Walk on the Moon
Actor Goldwyn side-stepped cliches for summer of '69 directorial debut
By Robin Blackwelder
SPLICEDwire
24 February 1999



“I knew I wanted him for that role in such a way that I was saying, Please take some of my money and give it to him… because he gives immeasurable depth to what he does, full commitment, full conviction.”

Diane Lane
Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



Mortensen found working with Lane "as good as I'd hoped it would be. She's a good actress and she makes the work really easy. She's very relaxed and very focused on what's right for the scene and not her own vanity."

Talking With Viggo
George magazine
1999



Originally called ''The Blouse Man'' in honor of its traffic-stopping title character, ''A Walk on the Moon'' has its elements of attractive fantasy. The blouse man is one of the peddlers who visit the camp to sell their wares, and it took Ms. Gray many rewrites to turn him into an object of desire. However, as played with silky eroticism by Viggo Mortensen, the gentlemanly Walker Jerome arrives to charm the camp's old ladies and weaken Pearl's knees.

Janet Maslin
New York Times
March 26, 1999



As the guy Pearl falls for, Viggo Mortensen drips with sex appeal.

Robin Dougherty
25 February 1999
Miami New Times



'If Viggo and I convince people we're enjoying every second of that encounter [in the waterfall] we've really done our job as actors. It was freezing in that river. The water was filled with debris and cigarette butts and the rocks were covered in little worms.'

Diane Lane
Calgary Sun
10 April 1999



'I know that some people are describing Walker as a hippie, but he really wasn't. He was a little older than that generation and probably more influenced by jazz and the beat generation, so that made him maybe a little more open to things. It wasn't just about Woodstock for him.'

Viggo Mortensen on A Walk on the Moon
Viggo Artist & Actor
by Jae-Ha Kim
Cleveland Plain Deale
1999



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. Their sexual connection is reinforced by the blazing chemistry between Lane (the adorable child in "A Little Romance'') and Mortensen. While he seems pallid in his solo scenes, Mortensen comes alive when Lane is around. It's clear why Pearl would risk everything for this stranger.

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



'I knew I was up against Viggo Mortensen. Come on, the guy is easy on the eyes, and he doesn't wear a lot of clothes in this movie. If anyone was to believe that I might get the girl, I was going to have to do some work. So I jumped rope, I ran, and I didn't eat.'

Liev Schreiber
People Magazine
26 April 1999



"I think being a conventional leading man is something that gives him a lot of trouble," says Goldwyn, recalling Mortensen's fears that A Walk on the Moon's Blouse Man might become a one-note sex god. "Of course, the success that implies is very attractive, but the trappings of that for someone like Viggo, who has so much to offer, can be very scary."

Viggo Trip
by Liane Bonin
Flaunt magazine #39
2002



As the Blouse Man, Viggo Mortensen is rugged and attractive, but the character is underdeveloped. In a way, this is unimportant, because his primary function is as a catalyst.

....Following its world premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, A Walk on the Moon received a standing ovation from the 1300 viewers in the Eccles Theater - an occurrence that's a testimony to the film's emotional strength and truth. It's easy to make a bad movie about a woman finding herself by cheating on her husband, but difficult to fashion one that hits most of the right notes.

A Walk on the Moon
Reelviews
James Berardinelli
1999



...no man other than Viggo Mortensen could carry the moniker 'Blouse Man' and retain the sort of paint-peeling smoldering sexuality that he wields throughout this film (to say nothing of his nuanced, stunning performance, which I guess I'm saying next to nothing about. But don't we all assume such a performance from Viggo?).

Liz W Garcia
HitFix
13 July 2015

If you like a bonkers and rather bloody B movie then Renny Harlin's Prison is for you, though it's probably only appeared on most of our radars because Viggo is in it channelling 'a James Dean vibe' and… um… taking a shower. What's not to enjoy? The film gathered a new audience and lots of new reviews when it was released on Blu-ray in 2013, bumping up my quotes quota enough to give the film the full Quotable works. It's pretty close to Halloween, after all!



© Empire pictures.


Mortensen shows good leading man chops well before Hollywood took notice of him…

Shlockmania Blu-ray Prison review
18 February 2013



The film, shot on location in a prison in Wyoming, is certainly not a milestone of the genre, but it is entertaining with actors in a good situation - and, for the first time in his career, it gave Mortensen the chance to fully reveal his charisma.

Portrait: Viggo Mortensen - The Actor As Artist
By - translated by Sally
DVD Special (Germany)
June 2008



Before Viggo Mortensen became Aragorn and before Renny Harlin became known for helming such flashily forgettable action fare as The Long Kiss Goodnight and Driven, the two made sweet incarcerated horror music together with the aptly named Prison (1988). Well, not that sweet, but Prison does have the dubious distinction of being one of Harlin's best as well as the finest film to come out of the late '80s trend of the return of the vengeful executed (remember Wes Craven's Shocker?).

Haunted Prison
Independent Film Channel
30 October 2007



"When I was casting this little million-dollar horror movie, I really wanted to get good actors though to make it stand out. We saw something like eighty guys in Hollywood, guys you would know from TV and bit parts in movies, but they all felt like the same old thing and I was really frustrated. After we get done with the eighty guys in comes Viggo who had hardly done anything at that point, I think Witness was his only film but I just looked at him and thought please let him know how to act. My mantra was that I wanted to find the next James Dean and he was awesome, very low key and on the spot I said this is our guy."

Director Renny Harlin
Daily Grindhouse
19 December 2011



"He was definitely somebody that people were keeping an eye on and what have you. He was this striking looking guy and he really was a good guy and still is. He's just a very nice person. But boy he really brought up the smoldering intensity right away. That was terrific."

Screenwriter Courtney Joyner
Late night classics – Prison
Jason Bene
Killerfilm.com
2 June 2010



"There was such a charisma about him. I really thought that this film would make him a household name. Unfortunately, since the film wasn't really released theatrically, it took Viggo a little longer to get there, but he still got there eventually."

Renny Harlin
Review Fix Exclusive: Q & A With "Prison" Director Renny Harlin
Patrick Hickey Jr.
Review Fix
14 February 2013



He… handled almost all of his own stunts, a move that would earn him a stunt team t-shirt by Hodder by the end of production.

Locked Up 30 Years Later: Kane Hodder in 'Prison'
by Meagan Navarro
Bloodydisgusting.com
6 March 2018



"It was a real low budget horror exploitation thing. The cast was a bunch of people [who were] New York stage actors. For that kind of movie, it was a pretty experienced group of actors; good actors got those parts. So, I was surrounded by people who really knew what they were doing, which was nice. It was fun to work with them. I mean, the story was what it was. It was a horror movie and it was on the cheap side and all that, but Renny Hahn had a certain amount of visual flair. Other that,I don't know if it stands out any more than the other movies at this time. I liked the location, I liked Wyoming."

Viggo talking about Prison
The Fire That Fuels an Artist's Heart
By Carnell
March 1999



I know it's cliché to say an actor has intensity but I think Prison is one of [Viggo's] more intense roles. There is a scene in the prison yard when he's going toe-to-toe with a prisoner who's trying to run the yard that is just cool as hell. His performance actually in Eastern Promises kind of reminds me of Prison because in both films he uses his eyes so much.

Prison Review
Daily Grindhouse
19 December 2011



Viggo Mortensen is something of a find as Burke, an inmate apparently bred on James Dean and Montgomery Clift films. All the supporting roles are solid as well. As for the Spirit of Forsythe, he's not just another masked menace or a flesh-rotted presence, but more of a malevolent specter à la The Keep. When his hell breaks loose, it's quite chilling.

Prison Review
Hollibonitos
Starblog.com



It's interesting to watch him here as he channels a James Dean vibe, with his wedge-cut hair and sulky, almost shy delivery.

Prison Review
David Maine
Popmatters.com
20 February 2013



Viggo Mortensen, in an early role before stardom, offers a strong-willed, no-frills performance that suits the character wonderfully.

Martin Liebman
Blu-ray.com
2 February 2013



This was Mortensen's first lead role, too, but he delivers with a calm and extremely cool persona who holds his own against the more traditional thugs.

By Rob Hunter
filmschoolrejects Blu-ray review
16 February 2013



Prison features a strong cast of recognizable actors, many of whom were at the start of their careers. Viggo Mortensen (The Prophecy) has enjoyed the most success and it is easy to recognize his talent in this early piece. His performance is subtle as a short-time convict gradually pushed into the role of reluctant hero.

Horrortalk.com Blu-ray review
19 February 2013

Although we know Viggo has no objection to big Hollywood movies as long as the story is good, very often they aren’t. So Viggo has ploughed his own furrow through the movie world, choosing mainly low budget movies and independent, sometimes inexperienced, Directors. He has produced where necessary to move a much-loved project along and throwing his all into them. Along the way he has garnered a huge amount of respect in the film industry and we love him for it – all those wonderful stories that he has shared with us.



© 4L Productions.


“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



Viggo is his own man. He's not dictated by the Hollywood horseshit machine."

Don Phillips
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



‘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



Here is a handsome, photogenic, intelligent, multi-lingual actor who has simply refused to be typecast in specific kinds of genres and roles and/or to become a bankable Hollywood star, even though he had all the ingredients for that position two decades ago.

Cannes Film Fest 2016: Captain Fantastic–Viggo Mortensen Dominates Eccentric Tale of Nature Vs. Civilization
Emanuellevy.com
8 May 2016



...he did something truly bizarre by Hollywood standards. He had the world by the balls, with his pick of roles—big studio stuff, Clooney kind of stuff, paycheck stuff. He turned all of it down, choosing instead to do what he wanted to do, little of which was lucrative. "I mean, how much ****ing money do you need?" he asks.

Why Viggo Mortensen Is Off the Grid
By Lisa DePaulo
Esquire
25 May 2016



"I'm not trying to be Don Quixote and looking for movies that are impossible to be distributed," Mortensen said. "If I give you my word that I'll shoot a movie, I'll do it. A lot of actors commit to a project that's difficult to get financed and in the meantime get offered something else that's juicier and dump the other one. I stick with it."

Viggo Mortensen: Why Don't Spanish-Language Films Get Any Respect?
By Lucas Shaw
Yahoo Movies
23 March 2013



…it does feel that by living in Spain and avoiding big-budget blockbusters, he’s somehow sticking up a big middle finger to the Hollywood establishment. “I haven’t consciously done that,” he says. “Since the giant success, for everyone involved, of Lord of the Rings… I certainly have had opportunities to just take the money and do whatever, and I just… don’t.”

Viggo Mortensen: intellectual nourishment in a world of artery-clogging culture
By Dan Masoliver
Shortlist.com
20 December 2018



‘He´s an actor who takes risks, as he proves by acting in my film.’

Lisandro Alonso
When Viggo Mortensen Films With Lisandro Alonso
By Lisandro Alonso - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Cahiers du Cinema
January 2013



He's the kind of star directors dream about: professional, playful and eager to make a movie that doesn't wrap itself up in a neat pre-digested bow.

Viggo Mortensen on Everybody Has a Plan, Argentine Popes and His Beloved San Lorenzo
John Lopez
Huffington Post
21 March 2013



“Viggo's … a real artist. He cares about what speaks to him. He doesn't care about how much he's paid, doesn't care where he lives, doesn't care how nice the hotel is.”

Garret Dillahunt
Fred Topel
CraveOnline
20 March 2009



"As an actor, whether you're well-known or not, the only real power you have is to say no, thank you. There are more things to say no, thank you to if you're in a movie that does as well as Lord of the Rings."

Viggo Mortensen, Actor, poet, photographer
Philip Matthews
New Zealand Listener
March 18-24 2006



'I don´t plan it, but I guess that sometimes I´ve made some bewildering career choices. I´ve never made any particular effort to change course with each film.'

Viggo Mortensen: "People don't think of me only as Aragorn."
By Àlex Montoya - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Fotogramas
23 September 2014



'I understand very well that there are consequences and viewers may forget me if I don’t make a blockbuster movie after four or five years. But I gain many more things than I lose in the end. For example, I know that I will be able to watch Far From Men in twenty years, knowing that it’s a good movie that deserved to be made, and of which I can be proud.'

Viggo Mortensen: "I know that I will be able to watch Far From Men again in 20 years and still be proud of it."
By Daniel Leblanc - translated by Donna Marie
Premiere (France
13 January 2015



"I wish only one thing for Viggo: that he continues to cut a path in this medium, because the medium needs actors of his caliber, who make films of course, for the public, but also for themselves, their own personal enlightening."

Elijah Wood on Viggo Mortensen
By Clément Cuyer, Allocine
14 novembre 2007

For a man with so much creative energy it's interesting how often people refer to Viggo's quiet calmness and stillness, especially on screen where he has cornered the market in being the 'strong silent type'. Off screen he can talk the hind-leg off the proverbial donkey, yet he still radiates a calm and self-possession that people who meet him clearly value.



Image Guadalupe de la Vallina.
© Jot Down magazine.


In Viggo Mortensen, Hillcoat is working with one of the current cinema's great quiet everymen…

Kris Tapley
InContention.com
August 2009



A surpassingly quiet and thoughtful actor…

A. O. Scott
New York Times
25 November 2009



He is Hollywood's most appealing man probably because he is Hollywood's least threatening man. He is paternal but not patronizing; he possesses strength without aggression… The women in his movies are drawn to him as if there's a hidden stillness that they need to reach, like finding a pond in the middle of a forest. So much of masculinity on film feels like watching a gift you don't want being unwrapped. But Mortensen's operates on another plane.

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



Few actors can do stillness on screen with as much conviction as Viggo Mortensen. That chiselled face, turned towards a landscape or held in concentration as someone else speaks, can stand in for any amount of narrative exposition: look at any of Mortensen's characters and you know, without having to be told about it, that man's had a hell of a past. When he does speak, of course – in whichever language, given he speaks four and has learned new ones on the hop for several of his films – you're the one paying attention. Quiet as he is, he commands the screen.

Far From Men: Viggo Mortensen saddles up in Albert Camus' short story
by Stephanie Bunbury
Sydney Morning Herald
23 July 2015



'The quality that really stood out to me was his quietness,' says Ridley Scott, who cast Mortensen in GI Jane as the Navy instructor who makes life miserable for aspiring SEALs, including Moore. 'He has a still, modest quality to him that was perfect for these guys. I noticed that in some of the movies I'd seen him in, and he also had it in real life.'

Viggo Mortensen
by Steve Pond
US Magazine #236
1997



...Holding one's body still in front of a movie camera while also giving the sense of a mind in motion is a specialized art, one with few masters. Paul Newman comes to mind, notably in his later career, as does Robert Duvall, a perennial movie cowboy who will surely wish that Appaloosa had come his way. And now, it would seem, there is Mortensen, who steals this film by doing nothing much more than lean against doorways and bar counters.

Chuck Wilson
Village Voice
17 Septmeber 2008



Mortensen again proves to be one of today's few actors who can evoke quiet self-sufficiency and absolute resolution, à la Gary Cooper.

Jonathan Romney
Film Comment
1 May 2015



...while he's clearly driven by a need to express himself via many outlets, he still exudes a sense of some private, fundamentally unknowable core self. It permeates his screen presence, too, and is part of what makes him so intriguing as an actor.

Viggo Mortensen: Still here, still fantastic
The Film Experience
By Nathaniel Rogers
24 April 2016



Viggo has that dark, mysterious, quiet-man quality. He's also very intelligent and private. A lot of people have said these movies are going to make Viggo a big star. I nod and smile, knowing that being a big star is the last thing in the world that Viggo wants.

Peter Jackson
Movieline Magazine



'Everything begins with stillness, with silence. Movies are light and time. Before the movie begins, there is darkness and nothing is happening. When the movie starts, the clock starts, and we see. And, unless it is a silent movie, we hear. From then on, it is all give and take with the initial stillness, the initial darkness, and nothing can ever be entirely unseen, unnoticed or immobile. Trusting that, letting yourself breathe and move in unison with the tension between "nothing is" and "anything could be," allows you to communicate whatever you can imagine communicating, whether you appear to be still or are moving as fast as you can.'

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



"I find peace in Viggo´s eyes. Confronted with the giddiness of the text, you can take risks with him, walk the tightrope."

Carme Elías
Viggo Mortensen And Forgiveness
By Ulises Fuente - translated by Ollie and Rio
La Razón
1 November 2011



He speaks with a gentle yet engaging passion and carries himself with a sense of calm that seems to radiate outwards to anyone in proximity - whether it be the ardent fans he enjoys speaking to while walking up red carpets or the hotel waiter who brings him boiling water so he can brew his cherished maté, a syrupy tea first tasted as a young boy growing up in Argentina.

Viggo Mortensen: "It's my nature to do a lot"
By covermg.com
10 July 2012



"We function very differently, especially in the way we channel our energy. He is always calm, and speaks softly. I have a more brutal side. I learned a lot from knowing him."

Vincent Cassel
Viggo Mortensen the Insatiable
Studio Magazine
By Sophie Benamon
November 2007



"There is something beautiful and quiet about Viggo, but the more I got to know him, the more I realized how insanely brilliant and crazy he is - how he has this insane wild side

Elijah Wood
Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004

It’s that time of the year again – Football Quotable Time – the time when we take comfort in the fact that being a mad fan isn’t exclusive to us at Viggo-Works. When it comes to fandom, Viggo can out-fan us all. Some old favourites here (of course) but plenty of ‘new’ quotes too. New to a Quotable, that is!



"Jauja" Photocall- The 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival
Image Pascal Le Segretain.
© Getty Images.


When he is not filming, he is busy with his publishing house (Perceval Press, a quixotic undertaking that permits him to publish books few would publish). And when he can really do what he likes, he simply talks, thinks, dreams and reflects on San Lorenzo. Inevitable.

Viggo Mortensen - "Above all, I'm a Cuervo... And a greater pride does not exist"
By Eduardo Bejuk - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zooey
Gente
April 2010



Mortensen is not a fan of San Lorenzo in the way that Samuel L Jackson is a fan of Liverpool, or Sylvester Stallone a fan of Everton – photographed at a game for PR purposes. Mortensen’s love of San Lorenzo is life-long, obsessive and encyclopaedic.

Viggo Mortensen: intellectual nourishment in a world of artery-clogging culture
By Dan Masoliver
Shortlist.com
20 December 2018



…when Viggo Mortensen recently presented his film Alatriste at a large screening in Ringsted Kongrescenter, it was definitely emphasized that the actor lives and breathes football at a club level too.

When Viggo walked up on to the stage, he suddenly saw the cinema curtains, which coincidentally were in the same red and blue colours of San Lorenzo from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He went straight over and kissed the curtains in the hope that it would bring luck and happiness to his team next season, and then he pulled out a gigantic flag of the football club and wrapped it around his body.

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



Gulliver: Why San Lorenzo and not River or Boca?

Viggo Mortensen: Because I have blue blood. I went to the doctor for a check-up, and he told me so.

Chat with Viggo Mortensen
By - translated by Margarita
Reforma
18 November 2005



Oh God,no! Viggo Mortensen is wearing the sweatshirt of San Lorenzo, the Argentine soccer team of which he is a big supporter. The effect is what I feared: all male journalists present at the meeting with the actor unleash questions about who will win this game, this season, the derby ... with the result that the first 20 minutes with one of the most fascinating men in the world are wasted with talk about sports!

Viggo Mortensen: "Do I look sexy?"
By Simona Coppa - translated by Ollie
Grazia
9 October 2012



We really seem like two children, both fifteen years old at most. Instead, we make almost ninety years together. I’ve been speaking with Viggo Mortensen for twenty minutes, and the only topic we’ve been able to discuss are old and blessed soccer player picture cards.

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



“[Football] is theatre. Theatre in the sense of watching not so much the winning and the losing, but how people behave, on the pitch and in the stands, when they win and when they lose. It represents the best and the worst of human behaviour.”

Viggo Mortensen: intellectual nourishment in a world of artery-clogging culture
By Dan Masoliver
Shortlist.com
20 December 2018



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.

Viggo Mortensen
The World of Viggo Mortensen
By Manuel Martínez Torres - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire Latinoamerica
March 2012



As a San Lorenzo supporter, I always prefer that the team die with their boots on, that they attack mercilessly, regardless of the opponent's level. That way one respects oneself and the opponent, something very Cuervo historically, very Samurai.

Encounters - Direct Response from Viggo Mortensen
By - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
El Mundo
21 April 2015



I met Maradona once on Susana Giménez' program....

In the last minutes of the program, I took off my boots to give him the San Lorenzo socks I was wearing and I think I told him that he'd have to look for the shorts himself. He also accepted that gift with a lot of dignity and in an extremely generous spirit. If he thought that I was an idiotic Cuervo, he didn't say so.

Viggo Mortensen
In This Heat
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
18 December 2013



If you had become a soccer player...?

"I really wasn't good at it. I can play, but only for fun. I'm a good fan, though, I wear the 'azulgrana' shirt, the one with the San Lorenzo colours, even at the movie premieres."

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



If he'd won his Oscar last year, Mortensen had planned on giving his favourite football team, the Argentine club San Lorenzo, a big plug.

"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 Mortensen Goes From Lord Of The Rings To King Of The Road
By Martyn Palmer
Daily Mail
6 December 2009



"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



Now the thunder and lightning are multiplying and it’s starting to rain. I’m tired, but I think we’ve shot some good scenes today. I put the Cuervo flag in my backpack, next to that of Real Madrid and the Montreal Canadiens, others that I usually hang wherever I travel for work. An old habit, superstitious things.

The Past Is In Everything
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
19 August 2014



…C.A.S.L.A. CHAMPION!!

absolute happiness
absolute happiness absolute happiness
absolute happiness absolute happiness

absolute happiness absolute happiness!!!!!!!!!!

The Past Is In Everything
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
19 August 2014



"Above all, I'm a Cuervo... And a greater pride does not exist"

Viggo Mortensen
By Eduardo Bejuk - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zooey
Gente
April 2010

Time for another fun Quotable that fits nicely with our 'Viggo and Friends' theme! A few weeks ago, I did a Viggo/Fassbender Quotable that contained one of Viggo's classic wind-ups (see first quote below). It got me thinking about all the other wind-ups he's been involved in over the years, sometimes on the receiving end as he gets as good as he gives, with some stories running and running. Remember the apocryphal goat farm? It all makes for a very long Quotable! I've included my favourite wind-up of all time – the windsurfing reporter – even though it's not long since I posted it here. How could I possibly leave that one out?



© TBD.


Viggo said that on the set Michael would hop around on one leg with a large red eyepatch to prepare for his scenes. What the hell was that about?

Yes, yes, I don't know what that was about. You'll have to talk to Michael about it to get the story. You have to understand that Viggo, being as playful as he is, could totally be making that up.

David Cronenberg
'A Dangerous Method' director David Cronenberg talks white-hot leading man, Michael Fassbender
by Chris Nashawaty
Entertainment Weekly
23 November 2011


Viggo and Kodi

"Thank God for special effects, makeup the voice dubbing and all that. They completely replaced Kodi, thank God! We had Andy Serkis [who played Gollum in "the Lord of the Rings" movies] do it."

Viggo Mortensen sets the record straight about his acting career, 'The Road' and 'The Hobbit'
By Carla Hay
Examiner.com
25November 2009



Reporter: You both had to go to some tough emotional places in this movie. How did you turn that off once the take was done?

Mortensen: He'd tell me I sucked.

Smit-McPhee: Then he went back to his room and had a cry.

Viggo and Kodi joking around at the Toronto Film Festival
Where 'Road' takes them
By Jen Chaney
The Washington Post
22 November 2009



"It is a Norwegian ghost story. It is called 'The Road to Resurrection.' I come back as a Viking ghost and he's in the Italian mob,"

Viggo plans a sequel to The Road with Kodi
'The Road' premieres at Venice
By Colleen Barry
Associated Press
3 September 2009


Viggo and Cronenberg

What was it that got you interested in A Dangerous Method? Was it mostly working again with Cronenberg, or the psychological theme ? Or both?

Firstly, working with David Cronenberg again. Secondly, the bait that David threw my way, in the form of an elaborate system of undergarments that Sigmund Freud was reputed to have employed on some of his summer excursions deep into the Alps. They included an elaborate system of miniaturised pulleys and wires that assisted in muscular stimulation for the steeper climbs. I was allowed to wear these undergarments in all scenes whether I was climbing or not.

Viggo Mortensen
Empire On-line Web Chat
31 January 2012



When I read interviews about History of Violence, the interviews really emphasized the degree to which you two collaborate. Tell me, how do you two work together?

DC: It's a total lie. I do everything, Viggo does nothing. I do all the work. But he pays me to say that he does a lot of stuff.

VM: Also to say that I'm thoughtful and considerate.

Talking Eastern Promises with David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen
By Sara Maria Vizcarrondo
Rotten Tomatoes
12 September 2007



Asked about his preparation for the [fight] scene, Mortensen said, "I was paid a great deal of money."

Added Cronenberg: "When we started to shoot the scene we were surprised to discover that Viggo has no genitals so we had to CG [computer-generate] them in."

"I had to give some of the money back," said Mortensen.

"It was very expensive CG," Cronenberg explained.

Viggo and Cronenberg's double act
Tiff Press Conference
By Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
8 Sept 2007


Maria Bello and something fishy

To Maria Bello the enigmatic Viggo Mortensen's still waters don't just run deep - they're rife with wildlife. "Viggo is obsessed with fish," says Bello, 38, of her A History of Violence co-star. No word, though, on if he loved the piscine-themed decor a secret interior designer created for him. Says Bello: "I'm happy to say, on the last day of shooting he walked into his trailer and saw a three-foot dead fish hanging from his chandelier. I'm not at liberty to say how it got there. But I'm very proud of it."

Fishy Behaviour
By Danielle Anderson
People
3 October 2005


Viggo, Dominic Monaghan and the LOTR gang

He's known as a practical joker on set. "There's no sense in doing something, especially if it's a hard job, if you can't have a little fun," he says.

"On Lord Of The Rings we had these little people who were stand-ins for the hobbits. One time Dominic (Monaghan, who played the hobbit Merry) and I mimicked this one particular guy who had a really distinctive voice and rang the producers to say that all the little people were stranded on (New Zealand's) South Island with nothing to eat and no water. It became this big crisis and the producers sent everyone scrambling.

"Another time I called Elijah Wood every day for six weeks pretending to be a long-lost German friend. Most of the calls were in the middle of the night. Fortunately he thought it was funny..."

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



For the past two years, Viggo and I have been involved in trying to sabotage each other in the media by giving each other s***. For the second DVD of The Two Towers, the extended cut, there's a documentary of the actors just giving each other hassles, and there's HUGE stuff going on with Viggo and me, where we're just making up rumors about each other, and makin' out that things happened that actually didn't happen.

IGN Interviews Dominic Monaghan
December 2003



…I would say probably 95% of the work that you see as Viggo onscreen is completely computer generated, because he has a wooden leg and he can't run.

IGN Interviews Dominic Monaghan
December 2003



"…six weeks ago I'm in Spain and I'm doing press for Dredd and I see that Viggo's got a film coming out as well called, 'Un Plan' and my press day is happening the day before his, so with every single journalist that I talk to, I do my interview and as they're walking out, I'm like, 'Oh I got a day off tomorrow' and they're like, 'Oh really?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go to Viggo's farm; he's just bought a goat farm in Segovia, he's got a thousand goats! He's making goat cheese!'…well, it was reported on the national news! It was published in newspapers! And the next day, every single interview that Viggo went into, they asked about the ******* goat farm. A thousand goats! So I get this email from Viggo. It starts: 'You bastard.' It turns out he got so ******* sick of having to defend this goat story that he just started going with it and saying, 'Yes, I like the spotted goats because they fart less and their cheese tastes sweeter.'"

Karl Urban pranks Viggo Mortensen
@LOTRHobbitBlog
8 December 2010


Reporters

'Ridley Scott's filming George Orwell's Animal Farm and I'm playing the goat...'

Viggo on being asked if he's grown his beard for a new role
BBC Breakfast Television
13 May 2014



Mortensen sports some cool-looking facial hair in Appaloosa. But Viggo got his sarcasm on when asked "did you grow it yourself or was it a piece?"
"No, I had someone grow it for me," he replied. "There's a beard stubble farm, as it happens, just north of Sante Fe where they grow the best beard stubble in the world.... They use a rare ... kind of mountain goat turd they put on it and when it was ready, they knocked me out with some kind of weird peyote stuff and sewed it on."

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



Following the press Q&A, as he left the stage, he paused, looked at the huge 'Viggo Mortensen' image on the screen behind him, and said, 'You spelled my name wrong…' There was a horrified moment as the organisers checked in panic – then he smiled, 'No, just kidding….'

Viggo after accepting the Coolidge Award in Boston

Greendragon posting on TORn
6 March 2012



I order a margarita. He orders a whiskey and a beer. The waiter sees a notepad on the table and his celebrity antennae pop up like Ray Walston's extraterrestrial ones in My Favorite Martian.

"So just who is interviewing who?" the waiter asks us. This is a formality. He's pretty sure that this is the guy from The Lord of the Rings. I start to reply, but Mortensen holds up his hand. "She has just set the world record for the longest distance windsurfed by a human being," he says, tilting his head in my direction.

"No!" the waiter gasps.

"She windsurfed from Hawaii to the mainland," he continues. "Sure, there was a boat that followed her, and she slept at night, but still. That's what, how many miles?" He looks at me.

"Um, thirty-seven hundred?" I say. I have no idea.

"And not even a man has done that yet," Mortensen tells the waiter. "Isn't that cool?"

The waiter asks me to sign a menu.

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
January 2004
Source: Vanity Fair magazine



One highly regarded website claims that Mortensen has a clause in his movie contracts that he doesn't have to film on Halloween - a sacred day which he shares with his son. Repeat this to him and the intense eyes gleam with mischief: Seriously? That's too funny! Can you imagine? A film company saying, "Yeah, of course you don't have to work on Halloween!'? ....But just for the record, no, Halloween isn't special to me. You know what? I made that story up when I was bored in an interview once and it's come back to bite me ever since. I guess it goes to show that people will pretty much believe anything.'

Partners in Crime
By Gill Pringle
Filmink Magazine
31 March 2006



When I ask him for his favourite joke he responds with a rare one-word answer: "Me".

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

Aging more gracefully than most (well… more than everybody actually), Viggo just never ceases to be gorgeous. About time we had another Quotable about just how heart stoppingly head-turning he is. Well… now normal service is restored we’ve earned a treat!!!



© Getty.


His hair is a flinty silver, closely cropped. His mien is reminiscent of the American West, his skin weathered by the sun like a ’40s-era cowboy. At 59, a certain arresting majesty remains. A waitress walks past him twice, staring unapologetically.

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



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.

‘The Road’ Review
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



The fiery passion that blazes in his eyes can do what no extra-large popcorn can: sustain a grown woman through six-plus hours of viewing pleasure for the past two years. It has been a torrid, if one-sided, affair, though I suspect many others have fallen for his unwashed charms.

On Viggo as Aragorn
It's Good to be "King"
by Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today, 2003



Viggo Mortensen, a one-man publicity machine for “Captain Fantastic,” walked his handsome self into the crowd, the focal point for many a woman’s — and man’s — glad eyes.

Viggo at the pre-Golden Globes Bafta Tea
By Cara Buckley
NY Times
8 January 2017



...he has a defiantly-handsome face, with a jaw so well-defined you could carve a roast with it.

Viggo Mortensen talks Jauja
By Philip Bagnal
Scannia
11 March 2015



He will always be Aragorn to us, but the 'Lord of the Rings' actor has been in over 30 films spanning three decades and seems to get more handsome with every rugged wrinkle.

Celebuzz
June 2012



Viggo Mortensen is an extraordinarily beautiful man. But his handsome features are merely a suggestion of the tremendous sensitivity and resonant spirit that inform his inner self. He speaks with a gentle yet engaging passion and carries himself with a sense of calm that seems to radiate outwards to anyone in proximity - whether it be the ardent fans he enjoys speaking to while walking up red carpets or the hotel waiter who brings him boiling water so he can brew his cherished maté, a syrupy tea first tasted as a young boy growing up in Argentina.

Viggo Mortensen: "It's my nature to do a lot"
By covermg.com
10 July 2012



There's been a lot of good-looking men at this year's 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, but none of them can compare to the sexy beast that is Viggo Mortensen.

The Huffington Post
9 September 2014



His features were as clean and untrammelled as a new field of wheat and his eyes were so wide apart you could have driven an Amish buggy between them.

‘Witness’
Man Power
By Katherine Mitchell
Movieline
September 2002



…we would not be displeased that Viggo Mortensen is the last Adam on earth. More than a lady would certainly follow HIM to the end of the road ...

A la mort, à la vie
By Laurence Haloche
Translated by Chrissiejane
Le Figaro Magazine
27 November 2009



…he has a chin dimple that would make Tom Brady weep.

Mortensen Fan Fiction
By Gabriella Paiella
New York Magazine
25 May 2016



He's the ideal Cronenberg anti-hero: gentle and macho at the same time, as charismatic as Steve McQueen and as beautiful as a saint in a master painting.

Dana Stevens
Slate.com
13 Sept 2007



His face is strangely feline in its geometry, heart shaped, the sharp lines of his cheekbones framing his blue eyes. Even when he is covered in dirt or sweat or blood (or sometimes all three), he’s still in possession of a dignity that few other actors can rival.

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



Viggo Mortensen visited the Coolidge Corner Theatre yesterday to receive the 2012 Coolidge Award, which honors a film artist whose work “advances the spirit of original and challenging cinema.” I would have just given him an award for being a total hot piece, but whatever.

Let’s Get Viggo’d at The Coolidge
by Megan Johnson
Boston Herald Blog
6 March 2012



Casually dropping his name into conversations with the girls over the past 48 hours has produced more gasps, heaving bosoms and sighs of jealousy than a Lotto win.

"I'm a poet" - Rings star Mortensen
By Josie McNaught
Sunday Star-Times 2003



’I have just left the Ryerson Theatre, where I fear I have contracted a serious case of Viggomania — a condition characterized by fever, light-headedness, and general idiocy when Ultimate Man Viggo Mortensen is in the vicinity.’

Viggo, we love you, yeah yeah yeah
By Michelle Devereaux
Totonto International Film Festival
September 2006



You looked sexy in The Lord Of The Rings...what's your favourite costume?

My birthday suit.

Now that is sexy, no wonder women love you...

If you say so.

60 Seconds With...Viggo Mortensen
Elle
December 2005

Cosmic Book News reported last week that Viggo was being ‘eyed’ by Marvel for their supervillain Doctor Doom. If you ever follow all the google alerts you will have realised by now the endless wishful thinking that casts Viggo in a part in seemingly every comic book film adaption, ever. Sometimes as a Super Hero, sometimes - much more interesting - as a Super Villain. Remember General Zod? That one took a long time to go away… Viggo has expressed a liking for some comic book characters, but being one himself? Hmmmm. The fact that Captain Fantastic doesn't involve tights must be a huge disappointment for some. So just for fun…



© Bleecker Street.


Viggo Mortensen has been on Marvel's radar for years…

Viggo Mortensen Rumored For Doctor Doom In MCU
Matt McGloin
Cosmicbook.news.
12 September 2019



Viggo Mortensen is the spitting image of a hero.

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



‘One day when I was about 6 years old, I read my first comic without help. I was in sick in bed one stormy Buenos Aires afternoon. There alone, while the rain ticked against the window, I browsed my little treasure, admiring the drawings thoroughly, when suddenly I realized that I understood, more or less, what those “little balloons” were saying. I went back to the first page and began to read. It took a tremendous amount of effort and I don’t know how much time - an hour or more, I suppose - but I read and understood the whole comic. When I got to the end, I was surprised and proud. And then I got angry because I knew that it wasn't the end of the story. It never is the end with comics. Like the story of this world; things never end. That comic was a copy of Batman from 1964 in which "The Green Lantern" appeared.’

Viggo Mortensen
Sobrevuelos Column
CASLA
Translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
5 January 2013



'When I was very young, we travelled very often, and we stayed there for a couple of weeks during the summer. Yet, I remember being shocked when I moved to the US and saw that all the TV shows that I used to watch in Argentina in Spanish were the same, but they were in English! I thought that Batman and all the cartoons were in Spanish...'

Viggo Mortensen Under The Spotlight
By Gabriel de Lerma - translated by Graciela
Selecciones
March 2009



Viggo Mortensen, who has both the looks (the piercing blue eyes and jutting Kirk Douglas chin) and the buff physique of a Marvel type, but would probably prefer slow death to putting on a cape and tights.

Viggo Mortensen Goes Off the Grid With ‘Captain Fantastic’
Charles McGrath
New York Times
28 June 2016



It has always helped that he looks like a Round Table knight; parts abound for the handsome hero-rescuer waving a literal or metaphorical sword. In the business, he's that worldly poetic soul who can do credible justice to gangland Russian, Sioux, or Elvish dialects. That guy who looks great on a horse. That guy who never kills anyone who doesn't need killing.

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



The [Cash] clan’s father isn’t a superhero, but because he’s played by Viggo Mortensen he’s the next best thing. Mr. Mortensen, whose intensity has the sting of possession, has a way of making you believe his characters can do whatever they set their minds to: fly, leap over buildings, save the world.

Captain Fantastic
Manohla Dargis
New York Times
7 July 2016



Speculating on Viggo Mortensen as Batman: As I said before, this really isn't the Batman that we know, love, and secretly wish we were. He is not the Bruce Wayne figure with flaunted wealth. He's a beleaguered soul ruined by the loss of his parents, a figure of revolution and destruction, a terrorist. I'd like to throw out the name Viggo Mortensen for no other reason than it's Viggo. I don't see a need to justify it beyond that. The guy is a genius.

By Cole Abaius
FilmSchoolRejects.com
6 February 2010



After his star-making turn as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo Mortensen was unwilling to continue with unwieldy Hollywood behemoths and “make something like Superman 12”, as he puts it.

When war forges an unlikely bond
The West Australian
23 July 2015



Films like Todos tenemos un plan or Cronenberg's don't stand much of a chance against superhero movies at the box office.

Those films bore me. Cronenberg, in fact, recently got into a controversy about that. They took him out of context, but I understand what he meant. And I agree. Totally. He didn't say that a film based on a comic bores him, but that the infantilization of cinema bores him. And I must say that as fun, creative and artistic as Christopher Nolan's Batman series can be, it reaches a point - even in the second one, The Joker one, I like how that one is acted and filmed - where the explosions, the car accidents bore me. Like a casino, it's boring. Nolan has been and continues to be a great director, but as an adult, I'm bored.

Viggo Mortensen
"They brand me as a traitor, a communist"
By Juan Manuel Dominguez - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Perfil
26 August 2012



Some of the comic book characters I find interesting, in no particular order of preference, are 'Asterix', 'Felix the Cat', 'Vladek' (from "Maus"), 'Ogami Itto' (from the "Lone Wolf and Cub" series), 'Patoruzu', 'Condorito', 'Aquaman', 'Korak, Son of Tarzan', 'Dr. Manhattan' (from "The Watchmen" series), 'The Green Lantern' (first comic book i ever read from cover to cover, as a little boy in Argentina), 'Ren' (from "Ren and Stimpy"), 'Maggie Chascarrillo' (from "Love and Rockets"), 'Lucifer' (from "The Sandman" series), 'Corto Maltese', 'Morpheus' (from "The Sandman"), 'Enid Coleslaw' (from "Ghost World"), 'The Pink Panther', and... I can't think of any others at the moment.

A Minute with Viggo
By Viggo-Works and Viggo Mortensen
Viggo-Works
30 December 2015



Right now there is a resurgence of the hero but invested with those qualities we are most devoid of. Quite often, most of the time, they are fictional characters that have been wrongly embellished with those things we wanted to see. But at other times, occasionally, the flesh-and-blood hero emerges, stationed on a corner, wandering the streets or simply sharing fragments of his existence. Viggo Mortensen occupies that place of the ultimate present hero.

Reunion with Alatriste in Uclés
Diario de León
by Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno - translated by Paddy
26 June 2005

While filming Alatriste Viggo immersed himself in all things Spanish to the point where Arturo Pérez Reverte said he had transformed himself into a 'Spaniard down to the bone'. In all he has made five films either completely in Spanish, or which have some Spanish dialogue, he has done a play in Spanish, he now writes all of his poetry in Spanish and has given poetry readings in Spain. Of course, a lot of this love-affair with the language has come from his upbringing in Argentina, but he has also fallen completely for Spain, for Spanish Actress Ariadna Gil, for Madrid where they have been living together for many years now and for León where he found the roots of his Captain Alatriste.



"Ramas para un nido" poetry reading
© Silvia Susana Flores.


"Most of the time Viggo lives in Spain. And in airplanes."

Viggo Mortensen - "Above all, I'm a Cuervo... And a greater pride does not exist"
By Eduardo Bejuk - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zooey
Gente
April 2010



"…Viggo filled himself with Spain; with our history, with the light and the shadow that made us who we are. And, in that way, in an astonishing process of assimilation, he finished transforming himself into a Spaniard, down to the bone. '

Arturo Pérez Reverte
El Semanal,
Translated by Elessars Queen
July 2005



The most curious thing about this charismatic actor's personality is that he not only shows his pride of "being" from León in León, something very usual among those who want to boast about this title over here but seem to be ashamed of it in other places, but also in Asturias, Madrid, Salamanca, El Álamo or Tarifa he was seen signing autographs and wearing a black T-shirt in which you could read the name of León in big letters. Not even Fitur (important tourist industry exhibition) has done so much for this land... his presence over here has been a great help for the name of León to appear at every website in the five continents, thanks to pictures such as this one. Not even the UPL (regionalist party of León) ever dreamt of a better ambassador!

With León In His Heart
By Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno
Diario de León - translated by Paddy
18 April 2005



In order to thank him, the people of Valdeteja, the village that, in his own words, had had a deeper effect on this American bohemian, will give him the title of Honorary Citizen and in a time to come, he will be given such distinction in a ceremony that the inhabitants will hold at the village. A small gesture for the one who also was kind to them.

Viggo Mortensen finds Alatriste in Curueño
By Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno
Diario de León
20 March 2005



'When you are used to filming in the U.S., the way things are done in Spain may feel like a great chaos, because there is a more relaxed atmosphere. But you soon realize that it is something that has to do with the culture, and I loved it!'

Viggo Mortensen
Top Men - Viggo Mortensen
Glamour Magazine,
Translated for V-W by Graciela
August 2006



"Sometimes, I can express my feelings and access my emotions much better in Spanish than I can in English."

Viggo in Tokyo for the Alatriste premier
Chris Betros
Japantoday.com
5 December 2008



"I learned Spanish and English at the same time as a child, growing up in Buenos Aires. My brothers have told me that when I speak Spanish I'm slightly more relaxed. When I speak English I'm a little more careful. It has to do with the sound, with the language...."

Viggo Mortensen
The Lord of Simplicity
By Ernesto Garratt Vines - translated by Margarita
Wikén - El Mercurio
30 March 2007



"I always kept writing in Spanish. But I realized that my language was out of date. It was my parent's language. Then, with the long trips to Argentina and Spain, close contact with the language allowed me to enter a new stage, more up to date and rich."

Viggo Mortensen, The Poet
By Valeria Melon - translated by Ollie, Rio, Sage and Zoe
La Nacion
19 December 2010



"I sometimes gravitate toward one language or another or a certain structure for a poem or short story. In the past year or so, I've been writing mostly in Spanish for some reason. Whatever I was feeling, I felt like I've got to express it in Spanish. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's because I've been hanging around Spanish-speaking people or Spanish-speaking countries a lot recently."

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



'In Denmark, I dine at 6 pm and I'm Danish. In Spain, where I live now, I dine at 10 pm and I'm Latin.'

Viggo Mortensen: "Travelling is the best anti-war weapon"
By Yetty Hagendorf - translated by Donna Marie
Le Soir (Belgium)
2 February 2015



Can you be Aragorn again for a few days and bash the Spanish politicians like the orcs that they are?

I think that among the Spanish citizenry there already are a whole lot of Aragorns.

Web Chat with Viggo Mortensen
20 Minutos
Translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
6 September 2012



"My heart is Spanish and I'm experiencing a very pleasurable stage of my life, with much joy," said Mortensen in the interview… I feel fulfilled and I´m living to the fullest. I´m serious, I already feel Spanish, although I will never abandon my roots, or my maté or my Danish pastry, or my New Yorker hustle and bustle."

My Heart is Spanish: Viggo Mortensen
By Juan Carlos García - translated by Ollie and Zoe
El Golfo
12 September 2014



"There's a saying in Spanish: Without risk there's no glory," Mortensen explained. "You can live a safe little life, but if you don't take a chance once in a while you'll imprison yourself."

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen's New Plan
By Constance Droganes
WWD.com
26 March 2013

This has been 'The Many Faces of Viggo' week, so I just had to do a Quotable about how he morphs from one unlikely role (Lucifer, Aragorn, Freud, Tony Lip… really?) to another, while giving the impression he was somehow born to play it because he never appears to 'act'. The man really is awesome and the quotes below say it all…



New Line/Warner Brothers/Hanway/2929/Dimension Films/Good Films/Focus Features/
Estudios Picasso/Origen Producctiones


He's like a Stateside version of Alec Guinness – a chameleon who never plays the same role twice.

There's a special pleasure in giving in to being a fan
by Tony Earnshaw
The Yorkshire Post
16 May 2014



Terrific as a Tolkien hero, a Russian gangster, or a dying father in a post-apocalyptic science-fiction universe, there's nothing he can't do.

Viggo Mortensen's Charm Is as Big as His Belly in One of the Best Films of the Decade
Rex Reed
Observer
17 November 2018



The thing about Mortensen is that, no matter what the background or nationality of his characters, he always comes off as authentic. Not showy authentic, either. Without making a big to-do about it, he manages to be so convincing that you find it hard to believe his real background or nationality isn't similar to that of his character.

Ed Johnson-Ott
Nuvo
26 Sept 2007



...Mortensen, who looks like he'd be perfectly at home playing Jesus Christ or Charles Manson....

Owen Gleiberman
Variety
13 July 2016



As impressed as I've been with his ability to disappear into roles, he's never delivered such a fully realized character as this. There isn't a moment in the entire film where you remember it's an actor playing a part. He IS Tony Lip.

Green Book – One of the Best Films of the Year and a Career High for the Shape Shifter that is Viggo Mortensen
By Sasha Stone
Awards Daily
20 September 2018



When he appears, caked in mud, looking like a kind of eco-Rambo, splashing barefoot through a river and cutting the heart out of a deer, you'll be thinking: Well, that's just Viggo Mortensen's life, isn't it?

Wild man Viggo Mortensen lets it all hang out in Captain Fantastic
Neala Johnson
Herald Sun
8 September 2016



Viggo Mortensen is the champ. Hands down. Of all the "say what?" performances some of us first heard about at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival — and which characterized 2011 as a hugely surprising year for film — none of them surprised me more than Mortensen playing Sigmund Freud in David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method."

In other words, not even the bracing successes of Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover or Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe shocked me the way Mortensen did playing Freud in Cronenberg's elegant, altogether surprising film.

Freud, for most of us, is a wild guess in speech and manner. Which is why Mortensen's cool, slow, contemplative version of Freud is — for the purpose of a movie anyway — brilliantly credible.

A Dangerous Method
Jeff Simon
Buffalo News
26 January 2012



Mortensen's performance is astounding. Looking a lot more like Gollum than Aragorn, he's shaggily bearded, smeared in grime and shockingly thin, with cheekbones like lemon juicers and teeth like the visual aids in a school anti-smoking lecture…Viggo Mortensen gives a three-dimensional performance in 'The Road' that needs no 3D glasses.

The Road
Nicholas Barber
The Independent
10 January 2010



Indeed Mortensen, one of the few Danes who can get away with a cowboy hat (in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Hidalgo), looks so much like a man from the Golden West, it's a wonder he isn't attached to remakes of everything from High Noon to Carry On Cowboy.

A History of Violence is David Cronenberg's Western
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
March 2006



Mortensen is nothing less than a revelation in the role of Nikolai, the Siberian bruiser, thanks to his physical performance that captures the full swagger and subtle deference of the mobster's reality.

Eastern Promises
Katherine Monk
The Ottawa Citizen
21 Sept 2007



I had always thought he had a very Russian, Slavic look. And when I read the script I thought, "This is a role made in heaven for Viggo."'

Eastern Promises
David Cronenberg
Q+A : David Cronenberg, Film Festival Preview
nowtoronto.com
30 Aug 2007



Mortensen, best known for playing forces of nature ("A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises"), is here all mild manners, spectacles and fawning body language. His Halder is a character who lacks character, and Mortensen subtly turns him into a pitiful, pitiable villain.

Good
Rafer Guzman
Newsday
31 December 2008



Mortensen… chose a performance that is far from the usual portrayal of how one imagines the Prince of Lies should be. Mortensen, with long hair and full beard - his outward appearance reminding one more of Jesus Christ - played Lucifer with an impressiveness that was burnt into the audience's mind forever.

The Prophecy
Portrait: Viggo Mortensen - The Actor As Artist
Translated by Sally
DVD Special (Germany)
June 2008



'It's like he had always been Alatriste! And the truth is that I think that Alatriste has made Viggo a Spaniard."

Pérez-Reverte
A Look of His Own
By Juan Cruz, El País Semanal, 6 August 2006
Translated for V-W by Paddy



Viggo Mortensen has one of the most incredible faces in the world, striking and amazingly versatile. His rough-hewn, chiseled visage allows him to inhabit any character he wants to, regardless of background or ethnicity, and we buy into it unconditionally.

Andrew Smith
Charleston Gazette
29 Sept 2007

Emmanuel Levy said back in 2009 that “When the elements, the weather and the terrain get tough, Viggo gets going”. It’s certainly true that he’s struggled through more extreme weather conditions while filming than most. He’s crossed searing deserts on horseback, fought battles in the crushing heat of Spain, filmed The Road in the kind of miserable conditions that would have had most of us running for our padded waterproofs and a large hot coffee. In LOTR they shot for fourteen weeks at night in the cold and pouring rain. But, do you know what? He seems to thrive on hard conditions and the way the elements can bring focus to his character. As he said about the whole Helm’s Deep experience: “I felt like it was true.”



© New Line Productions Inc.


'I like the elements - whatever the weather is, I don't feel that any moment is wasted at all.'

Viggo Mortensen: "It's my nature to do a lot"
By covermg.com
10 July 2012



"When we needed more wind, and after a long dead calm, Viggo sniffed and said: "This afternoon it's going to rain.' And so it was.'

Agustín Díaz Yanes
Reunion with Alatriste in Uclés
Diario de León
by Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno - translated by Paddy
26 June 2005



'The sequence where Pippin was talking about breakfast and it's snowing - that was real snow. And [after] about an hour of that snow coming down, we were in danger of being snowed in, so they canceled the shoot, and we drove back in a blizzard, the cars skidding all over. We got back and sat in Viggo's room and drank a bottle of whiskey, and Viggo took some photos of us. And then we went out and had a huge snowball fight around town. We got thrown out of a couple of pubs "cause we were having snowball fights in the pubs.'

Dominic Monaghan
Unsung Moments & Unseen Heroes of
The Lord of the Rings
Premiere, November 2004



During the filming of the pivotal Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, he said, "We shot for three and half months straight of night shoots in the cold, wet weather. And that was pretty tough for everybody concerned.

"But it kind of drew everyone together at the same time. It created kind of a special bond with people who went through that together."

Viggo talking about The Two Towers
Ready for Round 2
By David P DeMar, Jr
Watertown Daily Times
15 December 2002



'We were dirty, freezing cold or dying of heat. We were really uncomfortable. That was the beauty of the project. I felt like it was true.'

Viggo Mortensen
The Lord of the Rings: The Untold Story
By Ian Nathan, Empire
December 2004



As the film crew of The Road prepared to shoot on one of the production's final days, the weather turned unexpectedly foul. It was early spring in Oregon, but the air was unseasonably bitter. The blue sky had been replaced by a blanket of gray haze. A light mist hung in the air. Miserable. In other words, perfect. While other productions pray for nice weather, the folks walking were busy praying for hell. Overcast skies were a must. Cold rain was a bonus. Snow was worth slapping fives over.

"We needed it to look grim and do a lot of [the atmosphere] in camera, as opposed to a lot of other movies that rely on special effects for that kind of thing," says Viggo Mortensen, who plays the unnamed father character. "We had to count on the sky and everything looking right. We had mostly miserable, freezing, snowy weather, so we were lucky."

'The Road' To Hellville
By Reed Tucker
New York Post
22 November 2009



"Different actors have different processes that they use. What I’ve seen with Viggo is that he is able to use the environment more so than any other actor I’ve worked with before to put him where he needs to be emotionally….And maybe it’s pouring down rain, and he’ll walk away from umbrellas, raincoats. He’ll walk away from any tent that’s being offered or any blanket to be intentionally cold and wet, and it seems to take him to a place that’s quite remarkable. I’ve seen it happen over and over again in the snow, the rain, cold, the fog – anything that he is able to use that puts him in the world of the character. He’s a very physical actor as well, and it’s been a remarkable process to watch that. I would imagine it takes an enormous amount of concentration to be able to not let the cold ground or the rocks on the road or whatever it may be break your concentration, but it’s taken him to a place that is pretty amazing over and over and over again."

Rudd Simmons (Producer - The Road)
Interview with Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Contender
Emmanuellevy.com
3 September 2009



How was it to jump in the ocean?

It was very cold. I asked for another take, but they were terrified. They didn’t want me to. They had ambulances. The water was 41 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind was just really blowing. The air temperature was the same, but because there was howling wind, I was practically frozen. I think the air was probably freezing. It was so extreme. They had an ambulance and they had all these heaters on, and I just sat in there with a bathrobe and said, “Just tell me when you’re rolling. I’m just going to run out and go.”

Interview: Viggo Mortensen Travels THE ROAD
Christina Radish
IESB.net
9 November 2009



Among clouds of dust and in the middle of a group of officers I see the Captain's gallant figure, leant on the musket fork, without the hat on his head, while smoking with pleasure his umpteenth cigarette of the morning. He doesn't speak. He looks at the crowd with half-closed eyes, and stays imperturbable exhaling puffs of smoke. Heat is crushing.

Reunion with Alatriste in Uclés
Diario de León
by Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno - translated by Paddy
26 June 2005



You made some pretty radical climate shifts during the filming [of Hidalgo], from midwinter South Dakota to the sand-blown heat of the Sahara Desert, and all while sitting on top of a whole lot of unpredictable horseflesh. Was the shooting of Hidalgo as gruelling as it looks?

I wasn't suffering as much as an endurance rider is going to. But you're in the saddle a lot of days, all day long. And you've got your hat and that's about it. And there's dust storms and the elements and just the tiredness, but it's also really interesting.

'King' Star Returns To The Screen, Riding High
By Todd Camp
Star Telegram
6 March 2004



'The crew was a little surpised by the climatic conditions. I remember one time when we were trying to shoot in the Sahara, where you get these atrocious winds; it was hot, there was sand in the cameras. I heard everywhere: 'this is hell!' and, deep down in my heart, I thought 'this is a giggle compared to Lord...'."

Viggo Mortensen on Hidalgo
A Year in the Life of Viggo Mortensen
by Sophie Benamon
Studio Magazine, 2003



[Chester’s] very dapper. Was it tough spending all day in smart suits when you were filming in serious heat?

The stuff we started filming at first was the stuff where Chester was starting to unravel – he was starting to drink more, he was sweaty and kind of all over the place. So it was helpful, because it was still hot in Crete at that time – it worked well for that crumpled, dishevelled look.

Viggo talks about The Two Faces of January
ShortList.
7 May 2014



“One of the first things we did, where it still had to be kind of neat and tidy, we were filming in a bus that travels around Crete,” he said. “It was a vintage bus, a 1959 Mercedes bus, and the seats were red leather, beautiful seats. But it was so hot, and we were sweating so much that when I stood up, all the dye from the seats got on it, so I had this big red ass.”

Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst Experienced the Downside of Wearing Vintage Costumes in The Two Faces of January
By Bennett Marcus
Vanity Fair
17 September 2014



Myself, I love the rain, especially falling asleep to its music, ideally sounding on a metal roof, and I with a book in my hands and/or an old movie on TV, but I´m actually seduced by the rain´s melody on any surface. The sound of cars and buses passing by on half-flooded streets quiets me; it´s something that makes me remember with absolute clarity my childhood in Buenos Aires and long afternoons in the countryside. Muddy paths, the grey rampart that advances relentlessly and swallows the sky, the threat of something big, powerful, unstoppable. Rain is the universal music - along with the contribution of the wind through a forest or punishing an open window, the roar of the rivers, the sea.

Viggo Mortensen
If The Rain Gets Here
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
9 October 2014



He seems to gravitate towards films that involve wet, cold and physical privation. ''I suppose I must thrive on it,'' he agrees, recalling shooting The Road under heavy cloud, sometimes in snow, always in the cold. ''Sometimes it's tiring or annoying but there is a certain satisfaction, especially when you're going through it with the crew and everyone is wet and cold with you, when you go and have a drink together at the end of the day and say: 'Well, we got that done.'''

Walking at world’s end
By Stephanie Bunbury
TheAge.com
14 January 2010

This week’s look back at A Dangerous Method on 25YE contained high praise for Viggo and Michael Fassbender ‘two of the finest actors of this generation’. Not only was it great for the audience to see two such accomplished actors together, but, hey, they are both very good-looking men. So here is a Mortensen/Fassbender Quotable for you all. All that Freud/Jung psychology, it’s pretty serious stuff… er… isn’t it?



© Liam Daniel.


A Dangerous Method is blessed with two of the finest actors of this generation (who also happen to be two of my top three favorite actors ever, currently) as Jung and Freud. If you went into this movie blind, knowing nothing about it, but I told you the leading actors would be Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender, I guarantee you’d have bought a ticket, sight unseen.

Cronenberg’s Psychoanalytical Menage a Trois: A Dangerous Method
Will Johnson
25YE
19 August 2019



If Hampton's literate script provides the essential language, Mortensen and Fassbender do such a splendid job of turning iconic figures such as Freud and Jung into compelling people that it is a shock to hear that others (Christoph Waltz for Freud, Christian Bale for Jung) almost got the parts.

Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times
23 November 2011



'Viggo Mortensen -- he is the most beautiful man in the world! He is! He's just like, wow! He's such a special dude. And Cronenberg is so funny, and obviously brilliant. That was a special experience.’

Michael Fassbender, future superstar
By Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
8 March 2011



'First of all, I was nervous. I’m about to meet Viggo Mortensen. Then, very quickly we just got along. It was just like that. He’s very supportive and generous. Obviously, he’s very well prepared. Nobody knows when Viggo is going to arrive, that’s the thing [laughs]. It was like, “Viggo will be here one of these days.” They started filming with Keira and I first. He arrives, there’s nobody at the airport to meet him because nobody knows when he’s going to be there [laughs]. He gets a rental car and turns up on the set. And slowly his trailer starts to get all this character. It was the World Cup at the time, so he’s a massive football fan, so all these flags started going in his trailer. He had a picture of the Queen of Denmark up. I was watching him from my trailer, “What’s he doing today?” [Laughs] He’s a very interesting guy. He writes poetry. He takes photographs. He’s very artistically rich. I just tried to watch him and learn as much as I could.'

Michael Fassbender on meeting Viggo
Michael Fassbender Explores A Dangerous Method with Movie Fanatic
by Joel D Amos
Moviefanatic.com
25 November 2011



"I think it's the same with every film… That's his process. These things add texture to his characters. I was never overwhelmed, because there was a real lightness and easiness to it. Viggo is a very independent soul, and a very gentle one."

Michael Fassbender
Viggo Mortensen shows his independent side
by Demetrios Matheou
Herald Scotland
4 March 2015



“Michael likes to have a good time. He likes to sing and play around, but it's all about staying relaxed and staying loose and I'm all for that. Otherwise, he's quite well prepared. His approach is different to mine. He's script-based and he likes to read the script again and again, just to be at home with the words. I also try to do that but I tend to go off the beaten path a little bit and read things I don't have to read.”

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen talks The Two Faces Of January, singing with Fassbender and throwing a nappy at Al Pacino
GQ
17 May 2014



“Well, you know the scenes between Freud and Jung in Freud’s home office? That space was amazing, full of all these set details which tried to approximate Freud’s actual office. It’s all wood and cigars, you know? While we were shooting this one scene, where Freud’s sitting behind his desk and I’m sitting right in front of him, and we’re having this really deep conversation which turns out to last like 13 hours or something.

And in between takes—at first I don’t notice—Viggo keeps pushing these penises, no, what do you call them? Phalluses? Freud’s desk had all of these little statutes and things, and some of them were phallus sculptures from different cultures around the world. And Viggo kept pushing them towards my end of the desk. I didn’t notice at first until I looked down and saw them all, inching ever-forward, with Viggo smirking, really a prankster, dressed up as Freud. It was surreal!”

Michael Fassbender
Jung and the Restless: On Michael Fassbender's Role as Carl Jung in 'A Dangerous Method'
By Christopher Sweetapple
Pop Matters
23 November 2011



“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



What [other] songs did he and Viggo sing? “Anything really,” said Michael, “like ‘Young Girl’” (by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap). He was told that the song’s refrain, “Young girl, get out of my mind,” was a fitting one for his characters in both “Shame” and “A Dangerous…”

“I remember Viggo and I came bursting into the makeup room and singing. Keira (Knightley) was getting her hair done. We made her and the makeup artist jump out of their skin,” said Michael.

Michael Fassbender
No ‘Shame’ in Michael Fassbender’s sex-addict role
By: Ruben V. Nepales
The Inquirer
5 January 2012



Viggo said that on the set Michael would hop around on one leg with a large red eyepatch to prepare for his scenes. What the hell was that about?

Yes, yes, I don’t know what that was about. You’ll have to talk to Michael about it to get the story. You have to understand that Viggo, being as playful as he is, could totally be making that up.

David Cronenberg
'A Dangerous Method' director David Cronenberg talks white-hot leading man, Michael Fassbender
by Chris Nashawaty
Entertainment Weekly
23 November 2011



'Viggo and I tried to find the comedy in it, as much as possible. That was fun. I’ve always been a massive fan of him. He’s an impressive human being.'

Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender Explores A Dangerous Method with Movie Fanatic
by Joel D Amos
Moviefanatic.com
25 November 2011



'Viggo Mortensen is an absolute joy really, he has his work very methodically put together, he’s very precise. But he’s also got a great sense of humour, we had a lot of fun, a lot of fun doing our scene’s together. The more we did the more fun we had (laughs). It’s important as well I think when you’re dealing with very heavy material and serious material, that you keep a lightness in-between takes. So when you come to the scene a bit more loose and a bit more relaxed. That helps you find the little nuances within it.'

Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender Interview For David Cronenberg’s ‘A Dangerous Method’
Flicks and Bits
21 November 2011



The richly gifted Fassbender is steely, restrained, and flat-out magnificent as the ambitious Jung who places science and family before love. And as the cigar-smoking Freud, Mortensen -- sporting a nose prosthesis -- all but steals the picture with his knowing gaze and wry insights. In fact, his character injects an unexpected and delicious humor. This duo will surely be mentioned come Oscar time.

Erica Abeel
Huffington Post
11 September 2011



Mortensen and Fassbender are topnotch in their less showy but more nuanced, controlled parts and the crackling dialogue they spout at each other (courtesy of screenwriter Christopher Hampton) is convincing and compelling.

Chris Alexander
Fangoria
13 September 2010



Mortensen is so silkily persuasive an argumentative foil for Fassbender in the scenes they share that the narrative seems more a head-to-head than it structurally is.

Guy Lodge
In Contention
2 September 2011



‘Working with Viggo was really special, he’s an amazing human being, and obviously a brilliant actor…’

Michael Fassbender
Sam Adams
AVClub.com
8 March 2011

In last week’s Quotable I had a quote from Lisandro Alonso where he called Viggo ‘a worker, you know, a machine, all the time thinking good things for the project.’ Viggo always seems to have boundless energy, nothing is too much for him if it will improve his performance, the film, or the experience of his fellow actors. Even his energy must have its limits, and yet if there is more that he feels he can give, he will give it. No wonder so many actors and directors are in awe of his work ethic!



© 2929/Dimension Films/MGM.


“He's a horse. I feel like he could go all day, work all day and he's polite and creative and generous. That made it easy. Not only is he physically gifted, he’s graceful and tough.”

Garret Dillahunt
Fred Topel
CraveOnline
20 March 2009



In a world of paste reproductions Viggo Mortensen is a rare gem of creative energy. His work as an actor goes far beyond the normal level of effort exerted by a conventional leading man which results in his performances being elevated into works of art as unique as his poems and pictures.

Viggo Mortensen: An Artist For All Seasons
by Richard Marcus
BNN Blogger News Networ
6 May 2005



"Viggo's a leader, just by sheer dint of his personality. He's an example to us all. He's a massive work-horse, like a massive multiplex."

Bernard Hill
Viggo Mortensen
by Desmond Sampson
Pavement #62, 2003



Viggo Mortensen is an actor who doesn’t do things by half measures. I have never seen anyone who surrenders himself to his character with such passion. I can assure you that his only limits are those of his own life. His physical ability as well as the world of his emotions. Viggo emptied himself out, always. He’d be exhausted at the end of a hard day. He gives everything.

Javier Aguirresarobe
Diary of The Road's Shooting
Translated by Ollie, Remolina, Rio, Sage and Zooey
Esquire (Spain)
January 2010



'…you know, I've had a few leads in indies since I worked on "The Road," and it's become an adjective when you do something: to "Viggo up." The guy is a mule -- he seems tireless. But he's kind and focused too.'

Garett Dillahunt
By Paul Gaita
The Envelope
17 December 2009



“He’s very intense. He’s very Method. There’s no stopping him.”

John Hillcoat
John Hillcoat Hits The Road
By Edward Douglas
Comingsoon.net
19 November 2009



We get into a long, boozy discussion about why he does so much stuff, why he is so bursting with creative energy that he can't just be an actor.

"People who are creators create," he says. "People say to me all the time, 'Why don't you just focus on one thing?' And I say, 'Why? Why just one thing? Why can't I do more? Who makes up these rules?"

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair
January 2004



"[The Battle of Helm's Deep] takes place mostly at night, and it was so complex that we filmed for about four months of nights," Jackson continues, "Viggo was fantastic. He just threw himself into it tirelessly. Every night he'd come along and just fight some more."

Michael Helms
"Awesome Towers"
Fangora Magazine #217
October, 2002



"He is methodical, exacting in his work, he carries out meticulous labors to do something that looks true, and projects it. He is like Robert Mitchum or William Holden, the class of actors whose work seems effortless."

Ray Loriga
Chiaroscuro: Viggo, Light And Dark
By Rocio Garcia - translated by Graciela, Remolina, Sage and Zooey
El Pais
26 June 2009



Filmmaker: What did you learn working with Viggo Mortensen?

Oelhoffen: I like to give space to the actors. I learned a lot because I had the opportunity to see how he worked. Viggo is amazing. He’s a very hard worker. He prepares himself a lot and for me it was a chance, a gift, because we really prepared the character together.

“I Don’t Know If Camus Would Have Approved”: Five Questions for Far From Men Director David Oelhoffen
By Ariston Anderson
Filmmaker Magazine
23 December 2014



“Viggo's energy is endless. He knows no limit."

Orlando Bloom
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere
January 2003



He gives, unsparingly, indiscriminately, ceaselessly. What's good for him is good for everyone.

Premier Magazine
By Gérard Delorme
June 2008
Translated by Chrissiejane



'...and yet, in his many careers, ego has no place...and if ego has no place in his career, apathy has no place in his life. Viggo Mortensen has earned a reputation for having endless energy, for being consummately curious. He drives himself hard in all aspects of his life... He is a connector, the agent who brings people and ideas and feelings together in ways that transcend customary forms of expression and measures of success. We have known Viggo Mortensen through his work on film, and we have been privileged in recent weeks to know him more fully through his photography and poetry. St. Lawrence University is honored to welcome home from the class of 1980, to share some of his poetry with us, Viggo Mortensen.'

Daniel F. Sullivan
St. Lawrence University Honorary Doctorate Address
March 1, 2003



"He is a very multifaceted and slightly compulsive individual, constantly creating in every medium. His creative energy is boundless; I assume acting is another extension of that."

Robert Mann, New York Gallerist
In the Spotlight But Shining On Its Own - Celebrity Art
by Lisa Crawford Watson
Art Business News, 2001

This week I thought we'd take a retrospective look at Jauja – a film that for ages and ages had no name, just the tantalising promise of something new and strange. Viggo relished working with Lisandro Alonso on this low budget adventure in the Patagonian Desert and the end result was so mesmerising it took Cannes by storm. And Viggo gave an outstanding performance as Dineson, melting, as one critic described it, 'into the environment, the boundaries of Dineson's self slowly eroding into the Patagonian dirt'.



© 4L Productions


Few stars of his stature would consider such a low-budget arthouse film in a foreign language - let alone co-produce it, be able to act in both Spanish and Danish, and be prepared to sport such spectacularly awful whiskers.

Viggo Mortensen shows his independent side
by Demetrios Matheou
Herald Scotland
4 March 2015



'Jauja is not a place, it's more than that, it's an idea. It's an impossible idea or feeling of contentment, satisfaction, tranquillity. It could be anything...'

Viggo Mortensen
Jauja: Interview with Viggo Mortensen
by Pamela Jahn
Electric Sheep
16 October 2014



"My character is in the same position of the audience -- trying to figure out what is happening."

Viggo Mortensen
A Conversation with Viggo Mortensen at Cannes
Karin Luisa
Huffington Post
21 May 2014



What past did you invent for this Captain Dinesen?

I took things from another Dinesen. A writer and adventurer who also went to the New World at the end of the 19th century. A hunter, he was the father of Isak Dinesen whose real name was Karen Blixen. I took things from my grandfather, my father's accent and since I know something about the history of Denmark and Argentina, I could link them.

Viggo Mortensen: Film and Soccer Activist
By Horacio Bilbao - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Clarín.com
27 November 2014



'Sometimes it was quite awkward and tiring to tramp around in that heavy greatcoat, wearing those slippery-soled riding boots, tripping over that saber. But I found that all of that helped me construct a sort of Danish Don Quixote, a man who has no idea how clumsy he seems in those landscapes, once he is off his horse.'

Mortensen plays a Danish engineer in Patagonia
by Pam Grady
San Francisco Chronicle
14 May 2015



"[Dinesen's] so obtuse, even when he doesn't know where he's going or why he's going or who he is, he still keeps moving forward. It's his stubbornness which I find both pathetic and endearing and, as I say, admirable."

Interview: Viggo Mortensen
Tobias Grey
The Financial Times
27 March 2015



'He's a great actor and I'm a new guy, in terms of actor's stuff, so I think I had to sit down and learn from him. I didn't speak that much, and I think Viggo knows 100 percent how to interpret this guy.'

Lisandro Alonso
Lisandro Alonso On "Jauja," Viggo Mortensen, and Narrative Mysteries
By Luke Goodsell
Movie Mezzanine
17 March 2015



'We didn't have much film. We were shooting it on real film and we had a limited amount, so in the latter stages of the shoot we were down to short ends and that was clear. I'd ask, "Well, how much [film] do you have left?" And [Alonso] would say, "Well I have a piece about a minute or less, and one that's about 39 seconds." And I'd tell him, "Well, at a quick trot to cross that piece of ground, 39 seconds would be cutting it a little close so save that longer bit for the next scene."'

Viggo Mortensen Tells Us Why He Hasn't Done Blockbusters Since 'Lord Of The Rings'
LAist.com
By Carman Tse
19 March 2015



The actor acknowledges that working with a director known for his off-the-grid methods – such as using primarily with non-professional actors – was a bit of an adjustment. "It took a little getting used to," he says. "For one scene I asked Lisandro who was doing the continuity on the set, and he asked me, 'What's that?' The way he works, he's never had to worry about things like that before."

Adam Nayman
Globe and Mail
9 September 2014



[Viggo's] a worker, you know, a machine, all the time thinking good things for the project. Sometimes he was too much for me, because I was not used to that. I was used to working with people who don't know how to read or write, you just organized a little bit of the frame, and that was it. But with Viggo, you have to talk about why you wanna do that, in terms of where to put the camera and the lights, you know.'

Lisandro Alonso
Lisandro Alonso On "Jauja," Viggo Mortensen, and Narrative Mysteries
By Luke Goodsell
Movie Mezzanine
17 March 2015



We didn't have any money in the budget to buy music, but I told him, "I know a brilliant guitar player and we've recorded together." I sent him 10 tracks to see what he's interested in, and he picked "Moonset". He was right—it was perfect.'

Viggo Mortensen Tells Us Why He Hasn't Done Blockbusters Since 'Lord Of The Rings'
LAist.com
By Carman Tse
19 March 2015



[Lisandro] had intended to have a more panoramic look, and when he got the first footage back from the lab and wanted to start editing, he was just like 'send it to me raw, I just wanna look at the whole thing so I can decide where to start and end this sequence.' And then they sent that back and when he saw that format he said, that's the movie. He was smart enough and open-minded enough to realise that even though that wasn't his idea originally, that was perfect, that's the way that the movie should look.

Interview: Viggo Mortensen
Charlotte Pick
The National Student
6 April 2015



"What I think is special about Lisandro is that he's able to make a truly original movie, remarkably original, without referencing other filmmakers or other movies, without drawing attention to what he's doing, without showing off. My feeling is that the film is not in any way pretentious, and yet it stands out from all other movies. That's a hard thing to do."

Viggo Mortensen talks Jauja
By Philip Bagnal
Scannia
11 March 2015



...finding myself with a small team in the middle of nowhere, in the superb landscape I knew because I spent my childhood there, it made me happy. And it was liberating.

Viggo Mortensen: "If The Lord of the Rings can win 12 Oscars, I don't see why Avatar wouldn't win the Oscar for best film."
By Eric Vernay - translated by Donna Marie
Premiere (France
21 May 2014



"It was a crew of about ten people walking over the rocks. We were all tired but we had a lot of fun. By nightfall, since we were 150 km from the internet and telephones, we made a little fire, an asado [grilled meat], we talked... It was a family experience."

Viggo Mortensen
The Lord of the Roles
By Pamela Biénzobas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
In-LAN
August 2014

With The Reflecting Skin being released on Blu-ray and DVD in the US soon, it's time to look back over the two films Viggo made with Philip Ridley, Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon. From the start Viggo and Ridley found they were kindred spirits – creative and highly imaginative – the perfect partnership for Ridley's complex 'adult fairy-tales'. Ridley knew he was looking at a superstar before anyone else did and felt he'd found an actor who understood his unique work perfectly. And where else can you find a review that eulogises Viggo's butt?



© Miramax/Zenith.


The Reflecting Skin


His voice is such a growl that you find yourself leaning toward the screen to catch the words. His features are well defined but suggest a curious amalgam of Kirk Douglas' and Burt Lancaster's. His credits include Swing Shift, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Young Guns II, but his onscreen time is so limited that you still may not know who Viggo Mortensen is. In his latest film, The Reflecting Skin, British writer-director Philip Ridley's disturbing tale of repression and decay in the American heartland, Mortensen doesn't appear until an hour has passed - but when he does he immediately marks himself as one of those actors who doesn't need fancy lighting to be incandescent. Cast as a young man returning from the Pacific (where he dropped bombs on sleepy atolls), he displays surly, distant passion that's at odds, yet perfectly in step, with a small town that is seething beneath its bucolic veneer. Word is that he fires up the screen in Sean Penn's directorial debut, The Indian Runner, a film about a good brother and a bad brother that is due for release in September. It's not hard to figure out which brother Mortensen plays.

Viggo Mortensen Interview
by Martha Frankel
June 1991



The Reflecting Skin is one of Viggo Mortensen's first films. Talk about casting and working with him.

"My memory of this is probably wrong, but the way that I remember it is I'd known [casting director] Vicky Thomas for a while so she knew what I was after. Viggo came in initially as someone that I should meet: 'He's an interesting actor, he's your kind of actor. You should meet him.'

"We sent him some of the scenes, and my memory of it was 'this guy is fantastic.' I knew we were going to get on because I do other things – write poetry and take photographs - and Viggo does the same thing. I was staying in a hotel in Los Angeles, and Viggo came around to see me. And we got on like a house on fire from the moment he walked in the door. We couldn't stop talking, we had so much in common. Luckily that's happened to me three or four times: someone has walked through my door and I know I'm looking at a superstar. It hasn't happened for them yet, but you know they've got something very, very special. The star charisma was just overwhelming. By the time we finished talking, he had to play Cameron."

Philip Ridley
hmv.com talks to Reflecting Skin director Philip Ridley
HMV.com
10 March 2016



Viggo shows up well into the film, and we see an early example of his willingness to be both vulnerable and venomous. Naturally, too, we see his buttocks, surely at least part of the appeal for some audience members. It's a beautifully realized scene of vulnerability (echoing perhaps the famous photo of Lennon/Ono by Leibovitz) and it's one of the film's most striking moments.

Jason Gorber
Twitchfilm
23 July 2015



Mortensen also gets to shine in a smaller than expected role but one which is typically interesting of the actor. This is an early role for the actor but one which really begins to show the brilliant talent that would emerge post Lord of the Rings.

David Bishop
Suite 101
16 June 2010



For some, the early lead performance by Viggo Mortensen (who also shows up in Darkly Noon) will be a draw; the then-31-year-old weighs in with a cloaked, edgy turn later elaborated on in Sean Penn's essential The Indian Runner.

Mortensen fits right into the curdled nostalgia of the piece.

Rob Gonsalves
E Film
27 July 2019


The Passion of Darkly Noon


....his reputation for dwelling deep within his characters was established long before Rings. For his role as a mute in 1995's The Passion of Darkly Noon, Mortensen remained silent throughout filming. "I only heard him speak after the shoot was over, and then only to say, 'Thanks everybody, so long.' He'd make clicking noises in the back of his throat to communicate," recalls costar Brendan Fraser. Mortensen refused to break character even to settle his hotel bill. "The concierge probably didn't speak English, and here's Viggo gesturing with his hands and pointing, scribbling on a pad. And I think Viggo eventually got 50% off the bill. If you know Viggo, it makes perfect sense. In a way, he transcends the acting."

Viggo Trip
by Liane Bonin
Flaunt magazine #39
2002



"We were on location in what used to be East Germany, on the Czech border. I was there on my own, I didn't have anybody that I needed to talk to on the phone, so I thought I'd try to warm up because I didn't have a rehearsal period. I literally worked the day after I got there. When I stepped off the plane I decided not to say anything. I thought 'I'll just do this today' and then I just kept doing it. I did it the whole month I was there, which was really interesting because I did hear more what was being said, and I did watch people's reactions more closely."

Viggo's Box
By Craig Clevenger
Fond Affexxions #5
Winter Thaw 1995



'Viggo is one of the few people I've worked with who, I feel, is a true kindred spirit. From the moment we first met - when I was casting The Reflecting Skin in Los Angeles - it was as if we'd known each other all our lives. He understands my work totally. By the time we were doing Darkly Noon I hardly had to give him a word of direction. He knew instinctively what I wanted. Just as well really. Because Viggo - being Viggo - decided that, as he was playing a mute, he wouldn't speak at all for the duration of making the film.'

Philip Ridley at the Tokyo International Film Festival
From "The American Dreams: Two Screenplays by Philip Ridley'
Methuen 1997



…Fraser isn't the only person who shines here. Mortensen is quite the revelation as well. Although he has no dialogue throughout as Clay is a mute, his silent actions are evidence that this actor is not one who doesn't need lines to act the role of his career. To a lesser-talented actor, this restriction might have resulted in a poor performance but does not.

"The Passion of Darkly Noon" Review
By Russell Hill
WILDsound


…Mortensen does his usual fine work here, getting across the depth and intensity of his feelings without the use of speech.

Fangoria
Issue 295
September 2010



'Many actors tend to think of their work in terms of career - this strange sort of concept that acting is like climbing up a mountain, that they get bigger with each job - and art doesn't move like that. Viggo knows that instinctively.'

Philip Ridley
Super Natural
by Anna David
Daily Telegraph 2002



What has caused him to race down from his suite, probably giving several PR assistants heart attacks in the process, is the urge to impress upon me that one director has inspired him more than any other he has worked with - Philip Ridley, the British film-maker who cast Mortensen in his Lynchian adult fairy-tales, The Reflecting Skin (1990) and The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995).

"That man will never sell out," he enthuses, "because his vision is unique."

Viggo Mortensen: A Method Actor in Middle-Earth
by Ryan Gilbey
The Independent.uk
2001

As this is Aragorn week (like every week in our hearts, of course) I thought we'd stay in Middle-earth a wee while longer. We have become used, over the years, to reading stunning reviews of Viggo's performances. Critics get very excited when a new film with Viggo comes out. But when Fellowship of the Ring premiered, he had been mostly under-the-radar for some time. Then suddenly his performance as Aragorn burst onto the screens like a supernova and the critics saw the light. So, here is a round-up of his reviews across the whole Trilogy. Yup - Return of the King indeed.



© New Line Productions Inc.


Fellowship of the Ring

Mortensen, in the film's best performance, brings heroic stature to Aragorn, befitting a man descended from kings. Aragorn's conflict with Boromir, given haunting complexity by Bean, strikes at the essence of brotherhood and roots the film in emotion. It's emotion that makes Fellowship stick hard in the memory.

Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
Jan. 17, 2002



…Billy Boyd and Sean Astin nearly steal the picture as the accident prone comic relief. Nearly, but not quite. That is left to Viggo Mortensen as mysterious warrior Aragorn. Brooding, intense, and handy with a blade, Mortensen is the film's greatest strength - Han Solo to Wood's Luke Skywalker.

Nev Pierce
11 December 2001
BBC. co.uk



Viggo Mortensen, I predict, will become a heart-throb after his romantic and brooding turn as heroic warrior Aragorn.

Henry Fitzherbert
The Express on Sunday
December 16, 2001



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. (Let's just hope he doesn't inspire a resurgence in Renaissance Faire fashion.)

Tor Thorsen
Reel.com 2001



The real champ of the film, even over Sir Ian... is Viggo Mortensen… Picture Han Solo without the wisecracks mixed with and Indian scout mixed with Sir Lancelot stirred together with the leadership and loyalty of a leader we all wish we had. In the dictionary under the term "Star making performance" there should be a photo of Viggo as Aragorn. The only thing keeping him from becoming the next HUGE leading man is if he decides he doesn't want to be. Women will love him and men will too. To top it off, he has a terrific (but brief) scene of incredible romance.

Nick Nunziata
CHUD
December 2001



The Two Towers

As Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen's weathered face brings his character an intensity and life that the book's extensive backgrounding never did; his threadbare regality is more eloquent than any exposition.

Russel Swensen
LA Weekly
December 20-26 2002



Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn carries himself with the perfect air of strength, compassion, and quiet nobility that you expect from someone who you would be willing to follow into battle.

efilmcritic.com
Brian McKay
22 December 2002



Towers belongs to Mortensen, an actor of considerable range who makes Aragorn's moral and romantic dilemmas seems amazingly plausible and immediate.

Louise B. Hobson
Calgary Sun
December 18th, 2002



Mortensen as much mobilizes this cast of thousands externally as he does within the narrative, and plays the true-hearted hero with enough gravity to make Aragon believable without slipping into parody Prince Valiant clichés.

Todd Gilchrist
FilmStew.com
18 December 2002



It's crucial that the film, like the journeys it narrates, is straggly. I spent the duller sections thinking about how flaxen-haired Legolas looks like a Milky Bar hippy as he pings his egg-slicer-strong arrows at the barbarous monsters. I also drifted off looking at Viggo Mortensen: has a more virile, dynamic actor ever appeared on the silver screen?

Sukhdev Sandhu
The Daily Telegraph
December 18, 2002



Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn easily dons the mantle of epic hero that used to be worn by Charlton Heston, and he's a lot sexier.

Christopher Tookey
The Daily Mail
December 20, 2002



Viggo Mortensen finds an astonishing stillness and poise at the heart of Aragorn.

Suzi Feay
The Independent on Sunday
December 15, 2002


Return of the King

Aragorn has the slinky swagger and dreamy stubble that make him look like a legend created by Tolkien, Sam Shepard and Ralph Lauren. Fortunately Mr. Mortensen also has a touch of modesty as an actor, which allows him to take up space as if he belongs in the center of the frame rather than battling the other performers for it.

The New York Times
Triumph Tinged With Regret in Middle Earth
Elvis Mitchell
December 16, 2003



This is Return of the King though, and Viggo is that king… Viggo is noble, Viggo is powerful, Viggo is resplendent. He's a young Sean Connery but with a grittier style. More than anyone else, this is Aragorn's film.

Film Hobbit
Cinemablend.com
16 December 3003



The dashing Mortensen never lets his audience down…

Diana Saenger
Reeltalkreviews.com
December 2003



Subtly, Mortensen suggests that gradually Aragorn is growing into the stature of a king. The scene in which he walks into a cave filled with evil spirits, all of them transparent and angry, is dramatically and technically brilliant, a metaphor made real.

Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
December 16, 2003



As the capstone to one of the single greatest achievements of modern motion-picture history, The Return of the King is generally peerless - Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, the King of the title, is inescapably Shakespearean in the meaty thrust and parry of his role...

Marc Savlov
The Austin Chronicle
19 December 2003



...Viggo Mortensen takes his final step towards stardom…

Scott Weinberg
Efilmcritic.com
17 December 2003

It's a long time since we had a Lord of the Rings Quotable and I was thinking – what would the films have been without Viggo? A bit like the book without Aragorn, I imagine. Ignoring the fact that no one else could have embodied Aragorn the way Viggo did, can you imagine the shoot without Viggo's extraordinary work ethic, his friendship and care for all those around him, his deep research into all things Tolkien? In the same way that Aragon did his best to look after and inspire the Fellowship, Viggo became the natural leader of the cast, his energy, thoughtfulness and sheer grit taking them all gracefully through very difficult shooting conditions.



© New Line Productions Inc.


'Viggo came late to the project, but he brought a dedication and an understanding of the role that became an example, particularly to the younger cast members. You have to remember that this was Orlando Bloom's first movie. Not only was Viggo valuable in his performance, but he was valuable as a leader of the cast.'

Barrie Osborne
The Lord of the Rings: The Untold Story
By Ian Nathan, Empire
December 2004



"It's interesting, because Viggo is such a humble individual...We sort of viewed him as our king and as an inspiration, and I think that he certainly wouldn't see himself as that. There is quiet leadership to him, and it's not intentional, and I think it's simply because he takes care of the people around him."

Elijah Wood
The Rebel King
By Chris Heath
GQ magazine, 2004



"Viggo's a leader, just by sheer dint of his personality. He's an example to us all."

Bernard Hill
Viggo Mortensen
by Desmond Sampson
Pavement #62, 2003



'Viggo is just the coolest guy, it's hard to say too much about how cool he is. If you spend enough time with people they will do something to piss you off, or that shows them to be just a normal human being, but I think Viggo does like to push himself to be just the best person he can, and that comes across. If you believe in reincarnation, he does seem to be quite far along his line. He does seem to have learned a lot of lessons, and seems quite old and wise. But he's not a serious fuddy-duddy. He'll go surfing with us, and he likes to go out at night and have some drinks.'

Billy Boyd
Lone Star
By Peter Ross
Sunday Herald, 2004



Instead of the standard luxury lodging demanded by most stars on set, Viggo and co-star Orlando Bloom shared a converted bus while filming Rings. Viggo stocked the bus with a wine cellar and wallpapered the inside with candid behind-the-scenes photos. A source on the set said the bus was the site of frequent cast parties, with the motto, "Everyone is welcome, but when it's time to go, get out!"

Could Viggo Mortensen Be The Perfect Man?
By Nathan Cooper & Mike Glynn
Star
23 December 2003



"Watching the dedication of Viggo Mortensen is really inspiring. He is Aragorn. One time I wanted to film the sunrise and sunset for a Fellowship scene. Viggo said, "I'll just camp out," and pretty soon, we had everyone there--the makeup crew, Orlando Bloom and other cast members who weren't in the shot, like Miranda Otto and Bernard Hill. We made a big fire, camped out, filmed our early sunrise shot and went fishing. It was great!"

Barrie Osborne
Source Unknown
2003



Mortensen's humility and generosity turned his Rings co-stars into some of his biggest fans. They tell you of the time when a snowstorm shut down production. The cast was being transported to safety when Mortensen seized a four-wheel drive vehicle and drove back to the set in order to save the hobbits' four-feet-tall scale doubles from getting snowbound.

The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere
January 2003



"At the end of shooting one day, we went out and had a drink and Viggo was just so encouraging of everybody he'd worked with, including the extras. He always had a kind word to say to everyone. And I don't know anyone who has a bad word to say about him. He bought flowers for all the extras on one incredibly rainy day. He was just really generous with his time but he never talked himself up. He's quite shy about talking about his own achievements. They were really lucky they got him for this. He kind of makes the film for me."

Jed Brophy
Viggo Mortensen
by Desmond Sampson
Pavement #62, 2003



"It's funny: you look back on these things 10 years later and ask yourself, 'Who had a major impact on me?' As an actor, it was Viggo. I was unpacking a load of boxes recently, recounting old memories, and I remembered how lucky I was that he was around me at that time."

Orlando Bloom
April 2011
Shortlist.com



"I read an article that said, 'Finally, someone's found the niche for Viggo Mortensen: the rugged hero who has a deep intellect and a great humanity. That's what Aragorn is, because Viggo has brought that to it. He's very like that as a human being."

Bernard Hill
It's Good to be "King"
by Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today, 2003



"After the end of a long day's shooting, when all the other cast would be either in bed or in the bar, [partner and co-screenwriter Fran Walsh] and I would be home grappling with the script for the next week's shooting. At midnight, a nine-page handwritten memo would come rattling through the fax from Viggo, outlining his thoughts about that day's work and the next few days to come. He would suggest passages from the book we should look at. This wasn't an exception - over 15 months it became the rule. In the small hours, it was actually comforting to know there was somebody else out there grappling with the same nightmare that we were."

Peter Jackson
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



He hadn't read 'Lord of the Rings' at all when he came to the project. By the end of it all I think Viggo knew more about Tolkien and his context than anybody else on the whole production. He read absolutely everything there was - every critical book there was to lay hands on. He doesn't do things by halves!

Jude Fisher
Q&A at Book Signing
The Science Museum, London
November 8, 2003
Published with permission from Ian Smith



'In many ways I realized no matter how much I researched and drew from that, in the end my best resource and closest thing to what we were going through as characters was what we were going through as people."

Viggo Mortensen
Good Fellow
by Jamie Painter Young
Backstage West
5 January 2004



'Ultimately, you create your own luck. Fate does step in. When we ended up with Viggo, fate was dealing us a very kind hand. Viggo, in hindsight, was the one person who was perfect for this film.'

Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Untold Story
By Ian Nathan, Empire
December 2004



"For me, Viggo is one of the heroes of the film and a personal hero, in that he's a great friend and someone I admire in his approach to making the film.'

Barrie Osborne (Producer)
Viggo Mortensen
by Desmond Sampson
Pavement #62, 2003



"In a story like Lord of the Rings, whether the Ring and Sauron are evil is incidental to me. Even if we were not to get the Ring anywhere near Mount Doom. Even if we all died. It doesn't really matter," Mortensen says. "It's the fact that everybody got together and decided to go on this trip. That's the thing. That's the miracle."

Viggo Mortensen
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



"I felt I had to do other things than just act,' he says. 'That's why The Lord of The Rings answered my desires. There was art, poetry and acting all in one role. Even if I live to be 100, I'll never forget the thrill and the memory."

Viggo Mortensen
I've Loved All My Leading Ladies
by Garth Pearce,
Now magazine, 2002

Viggo is now deep into editing ‘Falling’. Finally he has complete control of the finished look and performances of a film he is in after years of submitting ‘unfinished pictures’, as he described the actor’s lot in 2002. So I was thinking - which films and performances does Viggo like to watch? We know that going to the cinema as a young man nudged him towards acting because he wanted to discover just how cinema magic was woven. But it's not all Dreyer, Bergman and Pasolini...



Image Emma McIntyre.
© Getty Images.


'….I went to see films with my mother when I was a child. Towards twenty, I lived for a year close to London, and I went to a cinema which only showed classics. I discovered Bergman, Ozu, Pasolini, Dreyer ... It was a revelation.'

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002



"I started thinking about acting about a year before I actually tried it," he says. "I just started watching movies in a different way, not just as entertainment. I started to really think about the ones that got to me, the ones that transported me so that, when I walked out of the theater, I'd be surprised. I'm really not in the desert? Or the 18th century? And I started to wonder what's the trick, how does a movie do that to you, technically? I wanted to try and figure that out."

Viggo Mortensen on 'Two Faces of January,' LOTR and what his movies teach him
By Stephen Whitty
The Star-Ledger
21 September 2014



'I discovered [The Passion of Joan of Arc] when I was 20. I didn't know very much about movies, I wasn't even an actor: I wasn't yet measuring all of Dreyer's esthetic innovation and radicalism, but it still had a crazy effect on me. The story, the way it's told, but especially her, Falconetti: her modern way of acting, her immediacy. Whatever moment you're watching the film, she's there.'

Viggo talking about Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc
"It's women who made me want to be an actor."
By Clélia Cohen - translated by Donna Marie
Vanity Fair (France)
June 2014



He opens a large cardboard box at his feet. There are about a dozen books... all are published by Perceval, a small press he runs with a partner. Then he pulls out a DVD of The Passion of Joan of Arc, a 1928 silent movie. He informs me that the original negative was destroyed in a fire, and that the filmmaker died believing his masterwork had been obliterated. But a complete version was found in a closet in a Norwegian mental institution in the early 1980s and was restored.

"You published this too?" I ask.

"Nah," he says. "You should just see it."

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



"The real trigger for me was the film that everyone was talking about when I was twenty: The Deer Hunter, particularly Meryl Streep. What an inspiration! All the actors in that movie are amazing, no doubt; but there's something about Meryl Streep in that movie that makes me identify with her. I don't know why, something mysterious that you can't put your finger on, but which haunts you deeply, and for a long time..."

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002



'Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Jessica Lange in Frances, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman in Autumn Sonata, Anna Magnani... All of these roles have something indiscreet, indecent. You don't necessarily need to go through a series of tearful or hysterical scenes, it can be very sober and minimal, but this impression of seeing "inside" the person remains. This exposing of emotions touched me and inspired me very much.'

"It's women who made me want to be an actor."
By Clélia Cohen - translated by Donna Marie
Vanity Fair (France)
June 2014



"When I saw Death in Venice, by Visconti, I had a big shock. It is one of the movies that has really inspired me. I saw it again recently, it's a little dated, especially the flashbacks, but still ... That mixture of beauty and sadness ... And also the performance of Dirk Bogarde is so extraordinary! Its impact on me has been enormous."

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002



It should come as no surprise to learn that Mortensen is an admirer of Greta Garbo, the "I vant to be alone" diva, and also John "The Duke" Wayne, star of Howard Hawks' Red River, a classic western and one of Mortensen's favourites.

"I just think John Wayne was wonderful, and I'm not looking at him as just this icon," said the chisel-jawed actor, a study in seriousness behind innocent blue eyes.

A New John Wayne: Viggo Mortensen Saddles Up for Hidalgo
By Peter Howell
Toronto Star
5 March 2004



"I like Missouri Breaks. And Red River, a case, as in this movie, where most of the main actors are not known as "western" actors. Montgomery Clift had basically never done a movie, much less a western, and he's an urban easterner. He comes out stepping smack in the middle of John Wayne's turf, and working for Howard Hawks, he must have been a little nervous, I'm sure. But he did a great job. I think he pushed Wayne into giving my favorite Wayne performance."

An Actor Lured By Western Promise
By Ty Burr
Boston Globe
28 September 2008



'I think I insulted [Warren Robertson] one time, unintentionally, but he knew what I meant. The teacher had talked about a certain movie, I think it was a movie with Montgomery Clift... I can't remember. But anyway, I went to see it, and I remember saying, you know, "I learned as much from that movie as probably a month of going to class..."'

Viggo talking about his time at the Warren Robertson Theatre Workshop
Viggo's Box
By Craig Clevenger
Fond Affexxions #5
Winter Thaw 1995



'I'd call my mom, and she'd say, "How are you doing?" "Oh, fine." "What have you guys been doing?" "Well, Henry and I watched all three Godfather films. He didn't care for the third one, but he liked the first two." And she'd say, "Isn't he a little young for that?" "No, he can handle it.'

Viggo Mortensen: Grilled
By Steve Pond
The Wrap
25 November 2009



"I am an old romantic, and I love costume movies. Elizabeth is my favourite."

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



Are there special actors or movies that influenced you as a lad/young man?

(to do interview via email is a classic horror scenario because of the often very short answers, for example to a question like this. But Viggo Mortensen begins his answer with "Among others" and then mentions 88 movies and 63 actors. Very kindly he points out that nothing must be edited away. All mentioned, nobody forgot. )

Euroman Interview
11 August 2015



He tries... never to watch the same film twice. "You can spend your whole life looking at movies made outside the United States [alone] and never see them all," he marvels. There is at least one exception to this rule, however: Adam Sandler's 1996 comedy Happy Gilmore, which he will watch any day, any time. The very mention of it makes him launch into his own Sandler imitation, which isn't half bad. "It's just one of those charmed movies," he says.

History Teacher
By Missy Schwartz
Entertainment Weekly
19 August 2005

A friend recently described Viggo to me as ‘seductive’ and they weren’t just talking about how he looks. In films he’s been described as seductive playing everything from Satan to Freud, so what is it about Viggo that really draws everyone in? His looks certainly do, as does his extraordinary acting but there is something more. Viggo’s interesting take on it is that the most seductive characteristic anyone can have is honesty and there is a deep truthfulness and authenticity in everything he does which really resonates with people. I think Diane Lane hits the nail on the head in the last quote when she says that “he has a quality of self-knowing that challenges everyone that he meets”.



© Libertad Digital.


Are you are aware of being very seductive?

"Only when I get into a character. And only if I believe in it myself."

By Simona Coppa - translated by Ollie
Grazia
9 October 2012



[In Captain Fantastic] Mortensen infuses Ben with his own seductive temperament, while giving him a steely, patriarchal edge.

Ann Hornaday
The Washington Post
3 June 2016



"There are actors whose performances come as light emanating from the screen. Then there's Mortensen. His effect is gravitational. It draws you closer, inward."

Actor Geoffrey Rush after seeing the film at Tiff
Naked Viggo Mortensen: artist at work
By Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post Film Critic



He is Hollywood’s most appealing man probably because he is Hollywood’s least threatening man. He is paternal but not patronizing; he possesses strength without aggression. Even in his most violent scenes, the tension builds but Mortensen rarely acts on it until necessary — like a judo master, he seems able to take another’s energy and flip it to his advantage. You desire him, but he doesn’t set out to seduce. He is one of the few actors for whom the female gaze has been possible (the shock of seeing a naked man on the screen only exists because it is still so rare). The women in his movies are drawn to him as if there’s a hidden stillness that they need to reach, like finding a pond in the middle of a forest. So much of masculinity on film feels like watching a gift you don’t want being unwrapped. But Mortensen’s operates on another plane.

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



Viggo Mortensen, however, is that rare American actor who is both muscular and humane, tough and sensitive, fighter and lover. He seduces us with a threat of danger, his chiseled Nordic physique and stunning blue eyes.

Viggo Mortensen Talks The Road
By Anne Thompson
Indie Wire
13 September 2004



Viggo Mortensen is an extraordinarily beautiful man. But his handsome features are merely a suggestion of the tremendous sensitivity and resonant spirit that inform his inner self. He speaks with a gentle yet engaging passion and carries himself with a sense of calm that seems to radiate outwards to anyone in proximity - whether it be the ardent fans he enjoys speaking to while walking up red carpets or the hotel waiter who brings him boiling water so he can brew his cherished maté, a syrupy tea first tasted as a young boy growing up in Argentina.

Viggo Mortensen: "It's my nature to do a lot"
By covermg.com
10 July 2012



He’s a star who doesn’t act like a star, yet everyone in his orbit feels his power.

Joe Morgenstern
Wallstreet Journal
7 July 2016



As for Viggo Mortensen, whilst one always appreciates the power from his eyes and his physical presence, here, his capacity to invest total honesty into this impressive man who tries never to lie to his child even as he feels his life-force disappearing, is prodigious.

The Road
Hervé Deplasse
Brazil Magazine (French)
December Issue 2009



Is Viggo Mortensen the most interesting man in the world?

Viggo Mortensen: Still here, still fantastic
The Film Experience
By Nathaniel Rogers
24 April 2016



...while he’s clearly driven by a need to express himself via many outlets, he still exudes a sense of some private, fundamentally unknowable core self. It permeates his screen presence, too, and is part of what makes him so intriguing as an actor.

Viggo Mortensen: Still here, still fantastic
The Film Experience
By Nathaniel Rogers
24 April 2016



David Cronenberg said that when he first met you to talk about A History Of Violence, his goal was "to seduce Viggo". How did he go about it?

He was honest. I think the most seductive or interesting thing is when people are honest.

In Conversation With Viggo Mortensen
Dorian Lynskey
Empire
March 2008
Empire



All great artists reveal themselves more in their work than in interviews. Every time Viggo's in front of the camera or picks up a pen or a canvas or a camera, he's opening the door to his heart. This is where he's telling you the secrets of his life . . . Viggo cannot strike a fake note. I say with absolute experience that if he doesn't believe it, he won't do it.

Philip Ridley, Director
The Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon
The Telegraph



"...as an actor you can't wish to work with anyone more truthful and more honest than him. He brings an incredible pathos to the role, and I was so pleased to be doing scenes with him."

Sean Bean
A Fantastic Leap of Faith
by Brent Simon
Entertainment Today, 2001



"I think he has a quality of self-knowing that challenges everyone that he meets - perhaps unwittingly. But the electrical charge of that challenge of 'How well do you know yourself? Cause I know myself real well.' You know, that's kind of the unspoken Viggo experience. He's also fascinated by other people. And when you combine those elements, it's very charismatic. It can definitely be interpreted as sexy."

Diane Lane
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003

Watching Green Book last night, now the Blu-ray has finally been released in the UK (yay!), I found myself wondering at some point what my favourite review quote was. There is always one that lodges itself permanently in my memory for every film because I read through them so often. They are usually full of stonking great praise for Viggo’s acting, but they really stick in my mind because are clever, quirky and sometimes downright funny. Though Mark Kermode’s makes the list just because it is probably the best thing anyone said about Viggo ever. I know you will enjoy reading them again and maybe some of them are your favourites too?



© Universal.


Green Book

Mortensen, plump as a mortadella, doesn’t so much transcend the ethnic clichés of the role as chew through them, emerging into a zone of vaudevillian poetry.

By A O Scott
New York Times
15 November 2018


Captain Fantastic

He looks like the kind of guy who, yes, would worship Noam Chomsky, but he also looks like the kind of guy who would eat him for breakfast. It’s the ruggedly paradoxical, gentle-but-brute presence of Viggo Mortensen, more than anything else, that makes “Captain Fantastic” a twisting Rubik’s Cube of blue and red.

Owen Gleiberman
Variety
13 July 2016


Jauja

“Jauja” is also thrillingly beautiful, and graced with Mortensen, who seizes the imagination even when he’s sniffing horse manure.

Farran Smith Nehme
New York Post
18 March 2015



Two Faces of January

Viggo Mortensen surely wasn't just cast because he's a great actor; it's because no one can rock a 1960s cream linen suit quite like him.

Leigh Singer
IGN.com
19 May 2014


Todos Tenemos Un Plan

If you, for some reason, want to watch Viggo Mortensen watching Viggo Mortensen take a bath, then, my friend, your luck is in – as the renowned star of The Lord of the Rings franchise turns in one of the finest performances of his career, taking on the role(s) of identical twins in Ana Piterbarg’s intense, if somewhat unfulfilling drama Everybody Has a Plan.

Stefan Pape
Heyuguys.co.uk
28 May 2013


On the Road

Viggo Mortensen, priceless in Old Bull Lee / William Burroughs, highly intelligent and completely smoky.

Norbert Creutz
Le Temps
26 May 2012


A Dangerous Method

Viggo Mortensen has so much on-screen magnetism, he'll probably destroy the credit cards of anyone sitting in the first 10 rows.

Wallace Bain
Santa Cruz Sentinel
25 January 2012


The Road

When the world goes boom, I want Viggo Mortensen to be my dad.

Marshall Fine
Huffington Post
24 November 2009


Appaloosa

Mortensen, who steals this film by doing nothing much more than lean against doorways and bar counters.

Chuck Wilson
Village Voice
17 Septmeber 2008


Good

There’s a new Viggo Mortensen movie out and all is right with the world. It’s called Good and, as usual, he gives a mesmerising performance.

Jeffrey Lyons
Reel Talk
December 2008


Eastern Promises

Mortensen, with his slicked back pile of steely dark grey hair making his violin-like face look even longer, provides an unassailable core of authenticity and empathy throughout this often ludicrous film. He’s a master of minimalism – what most actors need a monologue to express, Mortensen can convey in one wordless close-up, from behind sunglasses. But a long, naked fight sequence? You’ve got to admire his balls. And now you can.

Ryan Gilbey
New Statesman
18 October 2007


Alatriste

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.

Kaori Shoji
Japan Times
11 December 2008


A History of Violence

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.

Mark Kermode
BBC Radio Five Live
30 September 2005


Hidalgo

It takes a thoroughbred star like Mortensen to make the bond between man and horses believable, and to keep Hidalgo from straying too far into fields of corn.

From hobbits to horses
Jennie Punter
The Globe and Mail
5 March 2004


The Lord of the Rings

This is Return of the King though, and Viggo is that king… Viggo is noble, Viggo is powerful, Viggo is resplendent. He's a young Sean Connery but with a grittier style. More than anyone else, this is Aragorn's film.

ROTK
Film Hobbit
Cinemablend.com
16 December 3003

After last week’s Loin Des Hommes Quotable I’ve been musing about Viggo’s ability to make a film in just about any language on earth, including one that isn’t actually spoken by humans (elvish). Is there no end to his talents? Well, no, much to the consternation of every journalist on the planet.



© 4L Productions.


Is there a language Viggo Mortensen doesn't speak?

Jill Lawless
Associated Press
2 September 2014



Viggo Mortensen can do anything. Until recently, that wasn't true. We could all look at him and think, "Yeah sure, but can he speak French?" The answer was no, and our world had a modicum of balance. Now it turns out that answer was yes, and we are all ****ed.

Evan Saathoff
Badassdigest.com
25 August 2014



Viggo Mortensen is one of those people. You probably sat near one in high school, or have one on your floor at work. Good looking, effortlessly talented across a range of fields, just so perfect at everything you want to run them down with your car.

Because he probably had time between art exhibitions, dashing off a book of poetry and ridding Middle Earth of Sauron, the man has managed to become fluent in more than a half-dozen languages.

Viggo entertains in evil twin role
Cris Kennedy
29 June 2013



He's like a one-man United Nations. As well as speaking about eleventy billion languages, Mortensen has made films all over the world and unites the film industries of Spain, the US and Middle-earth.

The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars
Empire Magazine
October 2013



Kateb and Mortensen put in utterly convincing performances, the latter showing that he can act in about five different languages.

Loin des Hommes review
Jo-Ann Titmarsh
Hey U Guys
1 September 2014



Whereas some actors have yet to master their native tongue, in this touchingly humane performance, Mortensen convincingly adds French to the already impressive list of languages he can speak onscreen — a list that includes English, Elvish ("The Lord of the Rings"), Danish ("Jauja"), Spanish ("Alatriste") and Lakota ("Hidalgo"), for those keeping track.

Loin Des Hommes review
Peter Debruge
Variety
30 August 2014



"...he has a musical ear for languages."

David Cronenberg
Mortensen, director discuss their noirish Eastern Promises
By Dixie Reid, Sacramento Bee,
12 September 2007



"I had days where I was only speaking Russian, and David was like, 'Jesus I didn't realize I was making a foreign film!'

Viggo Mortensen
Ties that bind
by Melora Koepke, Hour CA
13 Sept 2007



So how many tongues has he used onscreen?

"Lakota, Elvish -- two kinds of Elvish -- Dwarvish, Arabic, French, Danish, Russian," he listed. "I think I spoke Swedish one time, German, Spanish."

It's possible he may have left out one or two.

Jill Lawless
Associated Press
2 September 2014



"For our love scenes, he would come to me the night before and say he wanted to change all the lines to the Elvish language. He was trying to make that connection stronger, and I thought it was beautiful that they'd speak Elvish to each other because it adds a layer to their history that you wouldn't otherwise see."

Liv Tyler
Mellow Warrior
By Anthony Breznican
South Coast Today
15 December 2003



The Empire Icon award this year went to the disgustingly multitalented Viggo Mortensen, who speaks more languages than God...

Jameson Empire Award Winners Announced!
Helen O'Hara
Empire Online
30 March 2009



Viggo Mortensen isn't just a celebrity, as you're probably aware. He isn't even just a fine actor. He's also a painter, a poet and a photographer, and he makes records, too, often in collaboration with Buckethead, the masked wizard guitarist. In addition, he's also conversant in half a dozen languages — yet another body blow to an interviewer's self-esteem. But I soldiered on.

Viggo Mortensen On 'The Road,'
By Kurt Loder
MTV.com
25 November 2009



"Now, Viggo, you speak seven languages, you write poetry in three languages, Danish, Spanish and English, you ride horses superbly and you're a great swordsman and all our womenfolk are in love with you… do you understand how annoying you are?"

Radio interview with Richard Glover
ABC Sydney
24 March 2009



Viggo, I heard you're fluent in English, Danish and Spanish, conversational in French and Italian AND you can also understand some Norwegian and Swedish. That's seven languages with which I can woo your beard, and I like those odds because your beard makes me want to write sonnets.

Be Mine Beard: Viggo Mortensen Edition
Sarah Dawley
fora.mtv.ca
19 February 2014

This week I’m looking back at a film which, alas, I still haven’t seen because there is no version with English subtitles for Region 2 (and why not?) – Loin Des Hommes. This is a film which Viggo was very eager to make. It’s also one for which he requested a long preparation time, so determined was he to deliver convincing French and Arabic. Arabic, of course, was a new language for Viggo and he worked hard to create the correct regional dialect. Although fluent in French he then had to take the Québécois edge off it. Unsurprisingly it was David Oelhoffen who came up with one of my favourite quotes about Viggo: ‘...it’s difficult for things to go wrong when you work with Viggo Mortensen.’



© One World Films.


In “Far From Men,” Viggo Mortensen, his sharply planed face weathered and solemn, plays a man who looks as if he were quarried right out of the hard red-rock earth.

Manohla Dargis
New York Times
30 April 2015



…it’s a face that paints a thousand unknown memories)...

filmuforia
1 September 2014



‘I had dreamed of bringing Viggo Mortensen on board; his singularity made him the perfect fit for the role.’

Director David Oelhoffen
labiennale.org
21 August 2014



‘I’d seen him in a Spanish film called Captain Alatriste and I knew he could speak perfect Spanish. I didn’t know he could speak any language on earth, but I always had his face in my mind for this character, it actually helped me to write the script.’

2015 Tribeca Film Festival Interview: David Oelhoffen
By Lia Fietza
Indiwood
25 April 2015



‘It was one of the easiest decisions I ever had as far as accepting a part. I felt fortunate that it had been offered to me.’

Viggo Mortensen
More Than a Movie: ‘Far from Men’ Tells Important Human Story
By David Onda
Xfinity
24 April 2015



How long did it take you to master the French and Arabic?

I think I worked a lot. I worked for months and in Spain, where I live, I found someone who was from North Africa, and he helped me a lot. I looked at the whole script, and I made sure I could say it all in Arabic and made sure it was Arabic from that region.

Venice: Viggo Mortensen Talks Mastering New Languages
by Ariston Anderson
Hollywood Reporter
2 September 2014



…Is there nothing he cannot do?

Paul Byrnes
Sydney Morning Herald
31 July 2015



‘Sometimes I asked people I met on the street [in Algiers] or in the cafes about things that could help me to finish building the character in the film we are soon going to shoot in the Atlas mountains. Specific things about phrases or historical references in our script - trying out my very limited Arabic vocabulary, mixed with the French that I'm refining for the shoot - but in general just seeking out human contact, to go along touching, even if it was only ephemeral brushing against, the history of the many cultures that have passed through this city.’

Viggo on preparing to film while in Algiers
For It To Rain
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
19 October 2013



We always thought with Viggo Mortensen that Daru’s character was very close to Camus himself, a Camus who would have stayed in Algeria, with no Nobel prize and literary success, a Camus who would have become a teacher.

Interview: ‘Far From Men’ Director David Oelhoffen
Fliks
by Steve Newall
13 October 2015



‘[Daru’s] lived with the ugly side of people and has decided to distance himself from everything - violence, corruption, conflict, the evil side of things. He wants to do good, teaching Arab children to read. I understand that impulse, but no one can flee forever because life is finally going to seek us out.’

Viggo Mortensen: "Camus has the ability to plunge into the grey areas"
By José Manuel Cuéllar - translated by Ollie and Zoe
ABC.es - Hoy Cinema
2 October 2015



“...the landscape pushed us together, and we're really small... I like that David chose to do several shots where we're so small, that you really have to look, even on a big screen -- we're that tiny -- when we're leaving the school...”

Viggo Mortensen
TIFF Q&A – transcribed by Topaz
14 September 2014



Nobody moseys like Viggo Mortensen. In The Road, Appaloosa, Jauja, and the new French Western Far From Men, the erstwhile Aragorn masters the tricky art of being a figure in the landscape. When it comes to traipsing either purposefully or desperately across the widescreen frame, he’s several lengths ahead of the competition...

Adam Nayman
AV Club
30 April 2015



Viggo Mortensen is terrific as Daru. He shows the conflicts of a principled man living in an unprincipled time, almost exclusively through minor shifts of his face and eyes. Few actors can say as much as he can by saying little.

Dana Lemaste
Thinking Cinema
25 April 2015



Mortensen has a heroic presence but he is also unafraid of conveying an almost feline grace. There are moments in this film when he reminded me of the young Gary Cooper, and of Steve McQueen, two other actors who convincingly integrated sensuality and masculinity. These are qualities he shares with Kateb, and when they are together on screen their interaction is absolutely riveting.

Christos Tsiolkas
The Saturday Paper
31 July 2015



“It’s the kind of story that you can transpose to many places in the world right now,” says Mortensen. “These two people seem so different and so unlikely to be able to carry on a conversation, much less become friends, but it is possible, only it takes a certain amount of patience and a degree of forgetting oneself, and to really, really listen to someone else.”

Interview: Viggo Mortensen
Tobias Grey
The Financial Times
27 March 2015

This week's Quotable is a round-up of reporters' first encounters with Viggo. Some are thoughtful, some quirky and witty, all giving their impressions of meeting a man who is just as likely to turn up with a gift of chocolates and talk about the latest book he's read, as actually get down to answering their questions directly. Some are clearly awed by the encounter, and maybe more than a little seduced…



© Hey U Guys.


Meeting the Madrid-based poet, actor, photographer, editor and publisher in this place and under these circumstances feels something akin to encountering an albino bison in a veal pen. He seems to be a soul meant to wander the earth in search of universal truth, not discuss Hobbit movies over canapés with journalists.

On interviewing Viggo in a posh hotel
Dr. No: Viggo Mortensen Has Made Turning Down Roles Into an Art Form
By Oliver Jones
The Observer
6 July 2016



Viggo Mortensen is pressing me to eat a croissant from a large basket sitting on a table in front of him. It is certainly the right hour for them – most actors would draw the line at 8.30am interviews – but whoever imagined that arthouse cinema's most visibly rugged outdoors man would start his day with effete French pastries? This is the man whose chosen set souvenir from Lord of the Rings was his horse! He looks relieved when I take one; nobody need now be embarrassed.

Viggo Mortensen gets dirty to play a 'wolf dad' in Captain Fantastic
By Stephanie Bunbury
Sydney Morning Herald
2 September 2016



Viggo Mortensen has come bearing pancake mix. We are curbside at the tiny airport in Syracuse, New York, on a truly dreary day (even by Syracuse standards), and within seconds of hopping into his rented Ford Fusion, I learn two things about him: He's the kind of guy who picks you up at the airport, and he's the kind of guy who brings presents. Pancake mix is a delicacy in upstate New York. "Do you like maple syrup?" Because he brought me some of that, too. He's prepared a gift bag.

Why Viggo Mortensen Is Off the Grid
By Lisa DePaulo
Esquire
25 May 2016



In the flesh, his inscrutability gives off an electric hum. He is soberly dressed - grey suit, sensible shirt - and speaks in hushed, gravelly tones. If you didn't know, and of course you do, you might mistake Mortensen for a visiting academic or a writer.

Understated A-lister Viggo Mortensen tells our reporter about his new cult hit 'Captain Fantastic' - and why it's impossible to be the perfect parent
by Ed Power
Irish Independent
31 August 2016



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



Barefoot and clad in a pair of sweats that have seen better days, Viggo Mortensen walks over to introduce himself. His hands and arms are covered with names and phone numbers he has scribbled on himself after checking his answering machine. And his hair is tousled and flecked with tiny bits of paint. None of this can hide Mortensen's deadly good looks.

Viggo Artist & Actor
By Jae-Ha Kim
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Los Angeles, CA 1 April 1999



'Viggo! Viggo! I chant in my head, my heart racing faster, fever burning, face flushed with anticipation. Then it dawns on me. I'm a freakin' journalist, for Chrissakes…

Viggo, we love you, yeah yeah yeah
By Michelle Devereaux
Totonto International Film Festival
September 2006



I'm a middle-aged father of two and I'm sitting in Wellington's Duxton Hotel eyeing Viggo Mortensen's bum. If a man's wife tells him often enough what a privilege it is to meet Mortensen, what physical perfection he is, what a sex god, this is what happens.

To thine own self be true
By Guy Somerset
NZ Listener
6-12 June 2009



Barefoot, carrying a coffee plunger of water and sporting a United Nations badge on his jacket, Hollywood star Viggo Mortensen wandered into his own press conference as though he were planning to sit on the back lawn.

A Barefoot Viggo Lords It Over The Fans
By James Gardiner
New Zealand Herald
29 November 2003



Viggo Mortensen stacks his case and suit protector neatly in the corner of the room. The precision of the movement is entirely in keeping with an angular formation of razor cheekbones and sharp suit. We probably shouldn't be surprised the Danish-American-Argentine has this travelling thing down.

The Mad Men
Tara Brady
The Irish Times
10 February 2012



If you were to analyse a Mortensen interview, you might conclude that Viggo is keen on deflection. He's certainly happier asking questions rather than answering them, and talking about his friends rather than his work in A Dangerous Method

Interview: Viggo Mortensen, actor
Scotsman.com
9 February 2012



Here's the thing about Viggo Mortensen: I could listen to this man speak on just about any topic for hours. His voice is both passionate and hypnotic. It's impossible not to be engaged when he's speaking because he presents himself with, somehow, both a welcome calmness and a focused intensity at the exact same time. It might be magic. I suspect it is magic.

Viggo Mortensen Will Hypnotize You With His Intensity As He Dissects What's Wrong With Our Polarized Country
By Mike Ryan
Uproxx
7 November 2016



An encounter with Viggo is sitting on a porch, drinking a bombilla of mate and watching time pass in such a way that every now and then new reflections, inquiries, ways of looking at things arise. It can take a whole season. Watching many skies pass by.

River Mortensen
By Ramón Raboiras - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire
September 2012



Following the press Q&A, as he left the stage, he paused, looked at the huge 'Viggo Mortensen' image on the screen behind him, and said, 'You spelled my name wrong…' There was a horrified moment as the organisers checked in panic – then he smiled, 'No, just kidding….'

Viggo after accepting the Coolidge Award in Boston
Greendragon posting on TORn
6 March 2012

One thing I admire about Viggo (amongst several hundred others) is that he really does try to live in the moment. Maybe it’s his insatiable curiosity, maybe it’s the fact that he’s always been aware that life it short, but paying attention to the moment, enjoying it or learning from it, maybe recording it, has always been his way. It’s the springboard of his creativity but it’s also why he is such a present and powerful force, influencing and drawing in everyone who meets him.



© Getty Images.


“We may not know why we’re here, or where we’re going after we die, but if you’re here, you might as well be here. And being here means paying attention, I think.”

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



Mortensen likes sotto voce details; he gives his attention to instants that would otherwise have passed by unobserved, or more significantly, unregistered - things that in a literal sense were simply there for him because he was there for them - things that would have easily passed by as all else passes by, as we ourselves finally do.

Kevin Power
Viggo Mortensen: A Life Tracking Itself
Singlanguage 2002



"I think five minutes can be an eternity if it's well used, you know."

Viggo Mortensen
The Rebel King
By Chris Heath
GQ magazine, 2004



Where are you from?

At the moment I’m from here.

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



Viggo extracts a big moleskin notebook from his backpack, like a naturalist's notebook, a logbook, in which he notes down his thoughts and everything that passes through his mind with a big, tangled handwriting like the rigging of a schooner.

River Mortensen
By Ramón Raboiras - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire
September 2012



‘In October, I got caught in a snowstorm in Lapland. I lost the trail and had to find some place to hide. I was out there on my own for a couple of days. I was worried but managed to find shelter and make a fire. It’s really not about where you are, but how you are. I can get annoyed or say, “OK, this is where I am. I don’t have any choice at the moment. Let’s make the most of it.”’

Viggo Mortensen’s Travelling Life
By Nick McGrath
The Telegraph
10 April 2015



“People today are much less present in spite of being hyper-connected. You see people in the street absorbed in their cell-phone; there’s plenty of time for that message. What’s more important than now?”

Viggo Mortensen: "The feeling of the absurd is something that's constant with me"
By Ima Sanchis - translated by Ollie and Zoe
La Vanguardia
8 October 2015



“Life is so short! I tell myself frequently to “Go slow to go fast”, to remind me to take my time in order to sample as many things as possible.”

Viggo Mortensen, Charming Free-spirit
by Manon Chevalier
ELLE Quebec
Translated for V-W by Chrissiejane
December 2008



“A photo, a painting, a poem or music that we use to express our experience is not the main thing, but what you are expressing. How you sense the world around you is art in its own form. To stop for one silent moment and just see what happens.”

Viggo Mortensen
Margt til lista lagt article from Fréttablaðið
visir-is
Translated by Ragga
June 2008



“Even though many people seem to be not interested in art or in things like nature or life itself, we must force ourselves to remember, we must force ourselves to be deep in life."

Viggo Mortensen, The Photographer Of Dreams
By Giovanni Valerio - translated by Cindalea
July 2008
Source: Panorama First



What keeps you awake at night?

Yesterday and tomorrow, but I eventually fall asleep because neither exists.

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


"Great artists," writes critic Kevin Powers, "tell us the task is to train and polish the attention within the brilliance of our small shipwrecks. Viggo does that both insistently and obsessively."

The Other Side of Viggo Mortensen
By Paul Young
Variety Life, 2003



How long would he like to live?

"Forever." Without hesitation.

Really? Wouldn't you get bored?

"There's no excuse to be bored," Mortensen says. "Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there is no excuse for boredom, ever."

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine, January 2004

Last week's Captain Fantastic Quotable got me thinking about Viggo's own childhood, which was also unusual and adventurous in its own way. And despite all the roving around and the rootlessness we can say, along with Viggo, that 'the end result hasn't been so bad'.



Viggo aged 8 with his father.
© unknown


One of my first memories as a boy was realizing that animals die and therefore people do. It seemed very unfair to me and I'm sure that I traumatized my parents with these questions.

Viggo Mortensen: Film and Soccer Activist
By Horacio Bilbao - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Clarín.com
27 November 2014



As a child he was a loner, which is unsurprising considering his peripatetic lifestyle. "I wrote stories and did a lot of drawing," he says. "It's why I'm comfortable being by myself and why I yearn for it at times.

Viggo Mortensen is lord of all things
Chitra Ramaswamy
The Scotsman
24 May 2013



When Viggo was 7, his parents sent him to boarding school in Argentina. "It was a strict school, isolated in the foothills of the mountains," he said. "Other than holidays, I really didn't see my parents. The other kids were miserable, always crying or wetting their beds. But I was pretty self-sufficient. So I guess it must have suited me."

Back in the saddle 'Rings' hero Mortensen is riding high with 'Hidalgo'
By Nancy Mills
Daily News
25 February 2004



"…I was always running away. I did that a lot. [Another time] when I was a child, about two-and-a-half, I crawled out of bed and across the road and crawled into someone's house on a Sunday morning. I was in the kitchen playing with all the pots and pans, and they called my parents, who had been calling the police. I think they said: 'You are missing someone, and he is here playing with our kitchen knives.'"

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



'According to my mother I never went anywhere as a child without a pencil, and I drew all the time. Recently she gave me a notebook with some of my old drawings. I especially noticed one I drew when I was 7 - it was rather wild. On the top it said: 'Little Red Riding Hood', and then there were a lot of oil colours mixed together, almost abstract. I really liked it. But across the drawing it said with a red pen - and underlined: VERY BAD! Some teachers still think that is motivating...'

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



'One day when I was about 6 years old, I read my first comic without help. I was in sick in bed one stormy Buenos Aires afternoon. There alone, while the rain ticked against the window, I browsed my little treasure, admiring the drawings thoroughly, when suddenly I realized that I understood, more or less, what those "little balloons" were saying. I went back to the first page and began to read. It took a tremendous amount of effort and I don't know how much time - an hour or more, I suppose - but I read and understood the whole comic. When I got to the end, I was surprised and proud. And then I got angry because I knew that it wasn't the end of the story. It never is the end with comics. Like the story of this world; things never end. That comic was a copy of Batman from 1964 in which "The Green Lantern" appeared.'

Viggo Mortensen
Sobrevuelos Column
CASLA
Translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
5 January 2013



The sound of cars and buses passing by on half-flooded streets quiets me; it´s something that makes me remember with absolute clarity my childhood in Buenos Aires and long afternoons in the countryside. Muddy paths, the grey rampart that advances relentlessly and swallows the sky, the threat of something big, powerful, unstoppable. Rain is the universal music - along with the contribution of the wind through a forest or punishing an open window, the roar of the rivers, the sea.

Viggo Mortensen
If The Rain Gets Here
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
9 October 2014



"I climbed this sort of cliff—I am sure it wasn't really very high, I was just clambering up. I thought it was really fun. Then I got to the top and I realized how high I was. I freaked out and I was, like, screaming and crying for my dad. He woke up and had to come and get me down. It was probably not very high but it seemed very big to me then."

Dr. No: Viggo Mortensen Has Made Turning Down Roles Into an Art Form
By Oliver Jones
The Observer
6 July 2016



"Every once in a while you do something really dumb when you're a kid and you realize when you're an adult that that's dangerous, but.. you know.. There was one time when I was coming home at the end of the day, going through the paddocks, and you open the gates from horseback, and the last gate I was about to grab the latch and there was this beautiful, beautiful snake wrapped around it..it was orange and black and white stripes. And I thought 'I'm going to take this home and show it to my family'. And I tried to grab it and he tried to get me. And I like whacked it just to stun it and I grabbed it by the neck and opened the gate and got through, closed it and said "Dad, dad, look what I got." And he freaked out, cos it was a Coral snake, which if you get bit I think two minutes, three minutes, you're dead."

Viggo Mortensen
David Letterman Show
2004



When he was 11 his parents divorced, and he moved with his mother and two younger brothers to upstate New York, near the border with Canada.... "my brothers and I spoke only Spanish. But you quickly adapt. I somewhat replaced it with French. We were not that far from Quebec, so I [replaced] my football team with the Montreal Canadians hockey team, which has the same colours".

Viggo Mortensen's grand plan
Telegraph Men's Style Magazine
By Sheryl Garratt
26 March 2013



"We arrived in Northern New York near the Canadian border, and there were no Spanish-speaking people at all, one black person in the whole county, some French-Canadians, and no tradition of football. It was just completely different. But when you're kids, you adapt very quickly. Within a month or two, I knew all the swear words."

Viggo Mortensen on leaving South America
I've taken on too much...
By James Mottram, The Independent / UK.
23 October 2007



…as an adolescent, he felt comfortable behind the lens of a camera. Mortensen says he started taking pictures as a teenager, although he wasn't "really serious about it." For him, the camera not only offered a sense of control over his surroundings but a kind of veil to help him feel invisible from a world he found both intimidating and inspiring.

The Other Side of Viggo Mortensen
By Paul Young
Variety Life
October 2003



"I was 12 or 13 when a friend of mine encouraged me to be an actor, something that had never crossed my mind. I was then living in New York and didn't know anybody. I went up on stage and read the first paragraph from David Copperfield. The only thing I heard before closing the book and fleeing from that inconceivable torture was 'Louder, louder.' And here I am!"

Viggo Mortensen: "The older I get, the more tired I get of Hollywood."
By Rocío Ayuso
El Pais
8 October 2016



"I didn't have friends when I was little that I know now - there wasn't any sense of continuity like that," Mortensen says. "But I got to see a lot of things and learn a lot of things. And I learned to rely on my imagination, and on myself."

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



'Now I see things in hindsight and what I learned in those years is what has made me who I am today. And, even though I recognize that I'm a rather strange guy, I don't think the end result has been so bad.'

Viggo Mortensen on growing up in Argentina
"I'm permanently dissatisfied"
By Amelia Enríquez - translated for V-W by Margarita
30 August 2006

Captain Fantastic is being broadcast on BBC 2 in the UK tomorrow night and although I have it on Blu-ray, I won’t be able to resist watching. Which is just the excuse I need for some my favourite Fantastic quotes!



Image Wilson Webb.
© Bleecker Street.


The clan’s father isn’t a superhero, but because he’s played by Viggo Mortensen he’s the next best thing.

Manohla Dargis
New York Times
7 July 2016



‘Viggo demonstrates the aspirations of the movie, what kind of movie are you hoping to make, and for me, I can have no better faith than in Viggo Mortensen.’

Matt Ross
Captain Fantastic: Viggo Mortensen and Matt Ross Interview
Jason Gorber
Dorkshelf.com
14 July 2016



“Getting to collaborate with him on Captain Fantastic is quite literally the best thing that’s happened to me since my wife asked me to marry her.”

Matt Ross
Viggo Mortensen To Star In Electric City’s ‘Captain Fantastic’
By Mike Fleming Jnr
Deadline.com
20 February 2014



Viggo Mortensen gets the role he may well have been born to play, not as a superhero, but as a super-dad determined to raise his kids on his own terms.... The inspired choice of casting Mortensen — a natural Papa Bear, who taps into both his physical strength and spiritual gentleness…

Peter Debruge
Variety
23 January 2016



Mortensen, looking his most mountain-man handsome, is winning and charismatic, walking on the knife’s edge between principled and unhinged.

Brian Moylan
The Guardian
31 January 2016



The director sent Mortensen a huge box of books of recommended reading, including texts by Tom Brown, the renowned naturalist and author of ‘Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival; linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky; and Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist and writer Jared Diamond, all of which he felt Ben would be intimately familiar with. “I thought that was a great way to frame some of the knowledge that this family would have,” Ross says. “It turned out Viggo had read all the books already.”

Cannes Press Kit
May 2016



“...we had this two-day, one-night wilderness survival camp, with just the six of us kids and a guide,” she said. “We each were given a knife and had to figure out how to survive. We had to track down our food, purify water, build a shelter. I love being outdoors, but this was pretty extreme.”

“We were building fires because in the forest it was so incredibly dark,” Isler said. “All of a sudden, we heard these sounds and saw this shape coming toward us through the forest. It was Viggo, who said he wanted to bring us beef jerky and dried cherries. And we were all like, ‘How in the world did you find us?’ ”

Tulsa teen actress Samantha Isler talks about her role in 'Captain Fantastic'
By James D Watts Jnr
Tulsa World
29 July 2016



‘I like gardening and I grow my own vegetables... I could say to Matt, “If it’s this time of year, this is how big the vegetables would be. This is what would grow in such a small clearing.” All those things you only see in passing, but it was important to him and to me that the way this family lives be completely credible.’

Viggo Mortensen goes 'extreme' in 'Captain Fantastic'
Josh Rottenberg
LA Times
30 June 2016



‘For Ben, you can alternate between what a great father and this guy's a maniac.’

Viggo Mortensen Goes Green: ‘I Trust Hillary About as Much as I Trust Donald Trump’
Marlo Stern
The Daily Beast
16 July 2016



He looks like the kind of guy who, yes, would worship Noam Chomsky, but he also looks like the kind of guy who would eat him for breakfast. It’s the ruggedly paradoxical, gentle-but-brute presence of Viggo Mortensen, more than anything else, that makes “Captain Fantastic” a twisting Rubik’s Cube of blue and red.

Owen Gleiberman
Variety
13 July 2016



Making it endlessly watchable is Viggo Mortensen, here in his fully bearded, hippie-Viking mode.

Stephen Whitty
NJ.com
8 July 2016



“We rented a hotel room for him, but he never stayed there. We just knew he was in the forest somewhere. That kind of commitment really shows in his work.”

Producer Lynette Howell Taylor
Viggo Mortensen
Cannes Press Kit
May 2016



When he appears, caked in mud, looking like a kind of eco-Rambo, splashing barefoot through a river and cutting the heart out of a deer, you’ll be thinking: Well, that’s just Viggo Mortensen’s life, isn’t it?

Wild man Viggo Mortensen lets it all hang out in Captain Fantastic
Neala Johnson
Herald Sun
8 September 2016



“Just because it’s not possible to be a perfect dad or to be Captain Fantastic, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

In ‘Captain Fantstic,’ Viggo Mortensen found more than a modern-day ‘Mr. Mom’
By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post
15 July 2016



…the movie truly belongs to Mortensen; fierce and tender and tremendously flawed, he’s fantastic.

Leah Greenblatt
Entertainment Weekly
7 July 2016

As a little Easter Treat, this week is Anecdote Week. Nothing short or pithy (or new) here! All of these are stories about encounters with Viggo and they are all longstanding favourites of mine.



© Cinematografo.


In the diner, he asks for the time. (He doesn't wear a watch says. Ninety minutes later, we pull up to the departure gates at the airport. I begin to say goodbye. But no, Mortensen is coming in with me. Way earlier in the day, in our first ten minutes together, I mentioned that I forgot my driver's license and that some drama ensued at LaGuardia Airport. He's coming in with me to make sure I get on my flight. He thinks maybe he'll know one of the TSA agents, but when we get to security, he knows no one. Nor do they know him.

The TSA cop wants to know what I was doing in Syracuse for just eight hours. She thinks I'm a drug dealer. At this, Viggo starts to laugh. I tell her I'm a writer and had to interview someone. "Huh." She looks Mortensen up and down. "Are you famous or something?"

On the other side of the security rope, Mortensen couldn't be happier
Why Viggo Mortensen Is Off the Grid
By Lisa DePaulo
Esquire
25 May 2016



A really nice box-office clerk (I’m not naming names) at a downtown Madrid theater discovers that Viggo Mortensen, whose girlfriend, a famous Spanish film star, was acting in a version (very poor, to be sure) of a famous play which was playing right there, has come to buy a ticket.

Quite possibly, Mortensen could have asked his partner for an invitation and that would have been that. Instead, he insisted on paying like any regular guy. The box-office clerk recognised him, and smiling, gave him a guest ticket. “How much do I owe you?” said Mortensen in his cheerful Argentinian accent. “No, no, nothing, you are invited,” answered the box-office clerk. The Hollywood star thanks her cordially, goes, and ten minutes later returns with an ice cream for the box-office clerk! He insisted that she should take it, although she said she was on a diet, so he sweetened her afternoon. Anyway, when I grow up, I want to be Viggo Mortensen.

Where I said Viggo (Mortensen), I say Diego (Alatriste)
By Juan Luis Sánchez - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Decine21.com
25 November 2011



An interesting photo made by Viggo Mortensen. We were shooting a very rarely photographed "Ghost Dance" by our amazing tribe members who participated in the film. Viggo, a renowned still photographer, had forgotten his camera that day and asked our unit stills photographer, Richard Cartwright, if he might borrow a camera and some color neg film. The unit photographer gave Viggo his Hasselblad panoramic camera... the 15 perf 35mm version. Viggo snaked around the set with the shutter open and he was amazing to watch. His movements were very similar to that of the Native American Ghost Dancers and he captured these incredible handheld abstract time exposures. Absolutely amazing. Fast-forward about 6 months and my phone rings. Viggo is on the other end and invites me to a gallery show featuring some Native American photos, music and poetry that he has authored during the making of "Hidalgo". When I arrive at the gallery, I see the show is entirely composed of marvelously printed images from the ghost dance... amazingly saturated and 8 feet wide. Stunning! At the show, I run into Richard, who loaned Viggo his camera to shoot these same stills. I ask him; "Did Viggo borrow only one roll of film?" Yes... only a single roll. Well, the show was comprised of 16 photographs that were double wide (15 perfs instead of 7) which meant that the collection represented nearly every photo that Viggo shot that day. 16 of the 18 total exposures from the single film roll. Mind blowing.

Shelly Johnson, Hidalgo cinematographer
Instagram
23 March 2017



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



Even Mortensen's memories of early childhood are deeply spiritual. He tells me about the time he crawled into the woods and fell asleep. "I was sleeping under a tree, and it was very peaceful," he says. "And then a dog started barking, and that's how my parents found me."

You are always escaping, I say.

Yeah, he says. He calls his mother - on my cell phone, because he doesn't have one - to double-check his recollection. "Hi, it's Viggo. Sorry to be calling so late," he says. "Oh shit. You're in the middle of it? That's funny. Is it the tape? [She was watching a tape of The Two Towers.] O.K., sorry, it's just a quick question and then I'll let you get back to what you're doing. Remember there were a couple of times I ran away? And the time the dog came and found me in the woods? How old was I then? About one and a half. O.K. But, anyway, the dog came and found me and I was sitting under a tree? Happy? Sleeping, right?"

Big look of consternation.

"I was sitting in the middle of the woods crying? I thought I was sleeping. Are you sure?"

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



Bloom tells a story that occurred when the Rings crew returned to New Zealand in the summer of 2002 for sound dubbing and pickups for The Two Towers. "I flew over just to visit Viggo," says Bloom, who had heard that Mortensen was organising a reunion dinner. He, Mortensen and Henry, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler (who plays Arwen), and members of the crew took a bus to the countryside. After dinner, Bloom and Henry went for a walk and noticed how beautifully the moon was shining on a nearby river.

"We ran back and said, 'Everyone's got to see this.'" Bloom recalls. "I was having a Viggo moment - running out, getting people to come and check out the moon." Some decided to wade into the river, but Mortensen suggested the more perilous task of crossing the river. "I'm like, 'F*** off,' and he says, 'Come on.' So were barefoot, waist-high in water, walking on these little rocks to get to the other side and I'm doing it because I'm an idiot and I'm following his lead. Because he's an idiot. And because he's amazing," Bloom laughs. "I can't believe how much this is going to make it sound like I'm in love with the guy."

Orlando Bloom
The Hero Returns
by Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



One last thing that I wish to report is a small anecdote concerning someone. One of my charming girlfriends, attached to the press core assisting all of the DVDrama personel, yesterday was herself helped by a hero and not the least of which since it was Mr. Viggo Mortensen, alias the sensual Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings, about whom we are still having numerous fantasies since the first showing of Peter Jackson's trilogy. Present in Cannes to support David Cronenberg's film, A History of Violence, in which he proves once again his immensity talent, he went to the private evening gathering that followed the premiere screening, which was exactly where my girlfriend was, whose dress suddenly caught fire as she walked down the centre of an avenue edged with small candles. An accident which could have transformed itself very quickly into a catastrophe if the courageous Viggo hadn't intervened immediately, gently throwing himself on her to help extinguish the first flames that could have become a conflagration. Reassuring and concerned he next took lengthy care of her. After this summer the King of Tolkien, Viggo, is today the King of Cannes…

Viggo the Hero
DVDrama, Cannes Film Festival Report
17 May 2005



I order a margarita. He orders a whiskey and a beer. The waiter sees a notepad on the table and his celebrity antennae pop up like Ray Walston’s extraterrestrial ones in My Favorite Martian.

”So just who is interviewing who?” the waiter asks us. This is a formality. He’s pretty sure that this is the guy from The Lord of the Rings. I start to reply, but Mortensen holds up his hand. “She has just set the world record for the longest distance windsurfed by a human being,” he says, tilting his head in my direction.

”No!” the waiter gasps.

”She windsurfed from Hawaii to the mainland,” he continues. “Sure, there was a boat that followed her, and she slept at night, but still. That’s what, how many miles?” He looks at me.

”Um, thirty-seven hundred?” I say. I have no idea.

”And not even a man has done that yet,” Mortensen tells the waiter. “Isn’t that cool?”

The waiter asks me to sign a menu.

Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004



We wander our way to the Japanese garden, where the cherry blossoms bloom and sit on a steep grass bank. As is his wont wherever and whenever possible, Viggo wears no shoes. He spots an oval-headed balding man, with wisps of gray hair, walking with two younger women.

"Is that Arthur Miller?" he whispers. "Wait till we see his face."

We watch, and even before we see his face, we agree that there is something about the way this man walks that is not the way we somehow know Arthur Miller would walk. And the women are somehow not the women Arthur Miller would walk with in a Japanese garden.

"Let's just say it was," Viggo says, and by this I don't think for a moment he is suggesting that we should conspire to lie about it. Just that, with some willpower and a creative refusal to join the dots and draw a line we will no longer be able to cross, we can delay even this small disappointment and keep alive our moment in the park with Arthur Miller a little while longer.

The Rebel King
By Chris Heath
GQ magazine, 2004

As this is still Sword Week (Sword Fortnight?) I thought we’d stay with the swash and buckle and go into battle with Aragorn. Helm’s Deep, Pelennor Fields, The Black Gate – shooting was often grim but Viggo gave it his all, doing everything the stunt guys did and losing a tooth along the way. When The Two Towers hit the movie screens I don’t think I breathed during the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Audiences had never seen anything like it. The stunt work was incredible and Viggo’s convincing performance was the magic that made it all so real. And who could ever forget him, single-handed, turning a rearing horse at the Black Gate while holding up a five foot sword?



© New Line Productions Inc.


'Viggo was working on this battle sequence,' recalls Elijah Wood of the film's ostensible action hero. 'He got hit in the mouth and broke his front tooth. It was literally gone, and he found it on the floor. He was like, 'Get me some superglue, we've got to keep going.' That clearly describes Viggo. Everyone was like, 'No, no, we have to get you to a dentist.' And he was actually angry that they stopped filming to take him to a dentist.'

Ringleader - Viggo Mortensen
By Ian Nathan
Empire
January 2002



Is it physically and emotionally draining doing such grand and elaborate battle sequences?

You kind of get withered, but you're doing it with a team so everyone's going for it. If everyone was sitting on their ass in the background, that would be one thing. But the way this movie was made, every button, every bit of embroidery, sword, knife, shoe, horse, and every bit of choreography appear 100 per cent. I've never seen that and I'm not sure I ever will again, to that degree. If you do get really tired, somebody will come lend you a hand. It was definitely a team job.

The One King
By Bryan Cairns
Film Review Yearbook (Special #49)
2004



“…when we did the charge of the Elves at Helm's Deep… it reminded me a lot of Kurosawa. In fact, I wanted to use Elvish commands. Using that language, and some of those fighting styles, made it feel a little like a Samurai movie. It was a hodgepodge of different fighting styles, and total mayhem.”

Hail To The King
By Lawrence French
Starburst #305
December 2003



[The Battle of Helm's Deep] takes place mostly at night, and it was so complex that we filmed for about four months of nights," Jackson continues, "Viggo was fantastic. He just threw himself into it tirelessly. Every night he'd come along and just fight some more.”

Michael Helms
"Awesome Towers"
Fangora Magazine #217
October, 2002



"He had no knuckles," laughs make-up man Perez. "He'd been virtually slaughtered by everyone because he would not let anyone do his rehearsals. All his knuckles were completely bruised and cut and God knows what else. Every time that he had a scene, I said, 'Okay, now where did they hit you?'"

Jose Perez
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



“I wanted to do as many stunts as possible myself. Luckily, over time, I became very friendly with the stuntmen. By knowing each other well, we could go faster and faster without hurting ourselves.”

Viggo Mortensen: The Soul of a Warrior
By Juliette Michaud
Studio Magazine
December 2002


“…the amazing stunt team played the enemy at all times. The battle scenes are very elaborate, people going berserk night and day. Even in the background, thousands of people going completely nuts.”

Viggo Mortensen
By Simon Braund
Australian Empire magazine
January 2002



"We shot for three and half months straight of night shoots in the cold, wet weather. And that was pretty tough for everybody concerned. But it kind of drew everyone together at the same time. It created kind of a special bond with people who went through that together."

Viggo talking about The Two Towers
Ready for Round 2
By David P DeMar, Jr
Watertown Daily Times
15 December 2002



Were those battle sequences [for The Return Of The King] harder to shoot?

Yes, because I had to wear armour and chain skirts and the horse made it harder, too. The sword is heavy when you're riding a horse holding it. But it shouldn't be like Errol Flynn, it should be hard and look hard.

Viggo Mortensen
Total Film magazine
January 2004



In Return of the King, the sword Mortensen uses is different from what we've seen before. "It's a different kind of sword, since some of the fighting is different," explains Mortensen of the switch in weapons. "It's heavier. It's bigger, so it's a little harder to handle. It's mostly a two-handed sword and fighting one-handed is a little different than fighting with the other one, which is lighter, and moves through the air a little bit faster. But the advantage when you're going for broke with that slightly more massive sword is that once you get going with it, it does a lot of damage."

King Of The Ring
By Melissa J Perenson
Sci Fi magazine
February 2004



“As big a battle as the Black Gate is, or coming in with those reinforcements at the Pelennor Fields, is the conclusion of his psychological battle, when he confronts the dead. That is, in a way, his biggest struggle.”

Viggo Mortensen
By Jeffrey Overstreet, Steven D Greydanus, Bob Smithouser & Jeremy Landes
Looking Closer
5 December 2003



'I don't think Aragorn is naturally prone to fighting in the same sense that maybe Boromir was in the first story or Eomer is in this. He isn't, by nature, warlike.

The Elvish name his mother gives him at birth is Estel, which means hope. I think he basically has a sunny disposition, but it has been dampened over the years by what he has seen in the world. He is a skilled fighter who has taken on the fighting styles of the different places he has lived and fought in, but it's by virtue of necessity that he does it.'

Aragorn Explains the Whole Good-Evil Thing
By A. J.
E! Features
15 December 2002



On the very last day of shooting Aragorn fighting the orcs, Peter quietly gave Viggo an Uzi, loaded with blanks, for the last take.

Dan Hennah
Unsung Moments & Unseen Heroes of
The Lord of the Rings
Premiere
November 2004

How about a bit of ‘swash and buckle’ this week from the ‘King of Swords’? Twice he’s swashed his way across the screen, as Aragorn and Alatriste. He even carried a sword through Jauja and took part in Daniel McNicoll’s documentary ‘Reclaiming the Blade’. I confess that I would have loved to have seen him in many more… so I’m nominating our coming Viggodom week as sword week!



© Estudios Piccaso / Origen Producciones.


Bob Anderson once called Mortensen as good a fencing student as he'd ever instructed.

A History Of Defiance
By Daniel Mirth
Men's Journal
October 2009



…the first day [on LOTR] I met the fight choreographer, Bob Anderson, who's been around a long time - he taught Errol Flynn to fence and represented the UK at the Olympics. I went into this room and there were all these stunt people standing there and screaming and yelling. He had them all pumped-up and he stood me in front of them and said "Okay, go!" And they all started running at me, and I was like, "Holy shit!" He said "stop" and they all stopped. Then he told me: "This is what you're going to be dealing with so let's get to work..." He gave me a sword and it was just, like, crazy for two days. The first thing I did on camera was swordplay and I liked it. It was fun.

The Ranger - Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn
by Martyn Palmer
Total Film magazine, 2002



Even before I spoke a single word of dialogue, I was forced to confront the physicality of my character. It was probably helpful to do something physical before speaking. More than for any other character, Aragorn's actions speak for him. His choices, the decisions he makes, his physicality, his body, tell you a lot about him. He's a man who throws himself into situations. Which is why it was good to begin my work with a swordfight.

Viggo Mortensen
Official Movie Guide



Mortensen's facility with the sword became immediately apparent. "The people who were teaching him said that he was insanely talented," says Miranda Otto, who plays the Lady Eowyn, who falls for Aragorn. "There's one scene [at the end of] the first film where a knife is thrown at Aragorn, who clocks it with his sword. One of the stunt guys who was meant to be his double said, 'I've been practicing that and I've never been able to [hit the knife] once, and Viggo hits it on the first take. I hate him.'"

Miranda Otto
The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



"He got this reputation as an eccentric because he would carry his sword around, but I found it quite inspiring. There was a glimmer in his eye - he was aware of how other people were perceiving him - but he really reawakened in me a sense of the possibilities of what it can be as an actor enjoying a role."

Sean Astin
A Fantastic Leap of Faith
by Brent Simon
Entertainment Today, 2001



"I remember one time a cop in New Zealand, where we were filming, stopped me because I was walking out of my apartment in the middle of the night carrying a huge sword. I guess it was an alarming sight, but I was just walking to work. "

Viggo Mortensen
Rings Actor Lives Warrior Role
Chicago Sun Times, 2001



"It was very important to me to make everything as believable as possible. That's why, even when I was exhausted, I always fought with the [heavy] steel sword rather than the lighter one," he explains. "I wanted to make sure the fight scenes were realistic. I shouldn't be able to just throw my sword around like Errol Flynn did, especially when I'm really tired. It should be hard to fight with it! Even when I was just walking around, I'd still wear the steel sword because it was heavier and it affected the way I moved."

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen
by Desmond Sampson
Pavement #62, 2003



One day he suggests we go to a beautiful place he knows, Huntington Botanical Gardens, in Pasadena. He picks me up in his hybrid, clearing a scattering of CDs and a small ornamental dagger of Henry's from the passenger seat. Only later, when we park, do I notice the full-size fencing sabre across the shelf by the back window.

The Rebel King
By Chris Heath
GQ magazine
April 2004



It is the return to the big screen of the king of swords in modern cinema in a film that summarizes the five novels published on the character.

Alatriste
The Soul of Viggo (El Alama de Viggo)
By Miguel Juan Payan, Accion magazine, April 2005
translated by Chrissie



In the darkness, Alatriste's sword glows like Luke Skywalker's lightsabre. By day, his steel blade would be the envy of The Three Musketeers.

Alatriste: The Great Spanish Hero
By Carlos Maranon - translated by Margarita
Cinemania
September 2006



I remember a practice session with Bob [Anderson] which was attended by several highly experienced fencers who were my opponents, including one who was internationally ranked. This man was attacking me with some ferocity when Bob suddenly halted the practice. He asked him to come closer, that he wanted to ask him something. Bob wasn't feeling well at that time; he had a lot of problems with his health, and was seated in a chair. He wasn't able to fight with us to show us how he wanted to put the sequences together. He remained seated, watching the practice, occasionally giving us instructions with absolute calmness and authority. He didn't miss a single detail. He asked the fencer if he felt comfortable. He said yes. Bob asked him if he wouldn't feel a little more comfortable if he slightly changed the way he held the sword, a matter of a centimeter. The swordsman said it wasn't necessary, that he'd done it that way for many years, and quite successfully. So Bob grabbed a sword that he had on the table beside him and asked the guy to put himself en garde. "Are you ready, sir?" asked the master fencer. "Yes, always," said the swordsman with a small smile, probably thinking that Bob was joking. "Are you really ready?" "Yes, sir." With a light but very quick movement of his wrist, Bob struck the man's sword, and it flew some 10 meters. The swordsman stood there amazed and a little upset. We were very still, amazed..

Warrior Geniuses Sought For 2012
By Viggo Mortensen - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Sobrevuelos
Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro
17 January 2012



'Enrico Lo Verso was there, a great discovery for this film, a tall guy who plays the baddie, and Unax Ugalde and Viggo. They were rehearsing and I saw it: they were sweating like pigs, he insulted them and beat them with a stick..."You're a sissy, this isn't done like that! You would have been killed already, you son of a bitch! Come on, do it again!!, Do you want to kill?. You can't kill s**t!!. You're a mug!!' Do not expect "ornate postures" in the duel scenes, because you're looking for the right moment to move in (for the kill), because if you make your move too early you'll lose. That's what Bob Anderson transmitted to the actors, that's how it was done in the Golden Century.'

Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Talk About Alatriste at the Alatriste y su mundo exposition
By Luthien 66 (transcription) - translation by Paddy
4 April 2006



'I was behind the cameras, a privileged spectator watching hundreds of riders charge again and again against the loyal Spanish infantry and Viggo in the front line, his head uncovered and sword in hand, defending his life and that of his comrades… Even on the days when he is not filming, he dresses [for the role] and stays away, with his sword in his hands, thinking. And that's how he is, the bastard. Immense.'

Arturo Pérez Reverte
El Semanal, July 2005-08-04
Translated by Elessars Queen



... Mortensen... has already entered into cinematic folklore as one of the great screen swordsmen of our time.

The Reluctant Hero,
by Douglas Andrews
Sunday Express 2002



“Now, Viggo, you speak seven languages, you write poetry in three languages, Danish, Spanish and English, you ride horses superbly and you’re a great swordsman and all our womenfolk are in love with you… do you understand how annoying you are?”

Radio interview with Richard Glover
ABC Sydney
24 March 2009

So – ‘Falling’ is underway. Viggo finally creating a story for us on film instead of in a photograph, or in a poem, or in paint. Finally creating in a medium that combines everything both written and visual. Because Viggo is an artist through and through, an intense observer of the world with a seemingly unending interest in everything, and because he has the ability to assimilate and produce new creative insights from his experiences, the only surprise is that it’s taken so long.



© Victoria Looseleaf.


This man must know something, a man who walks round the forbidden forests of the human nature with impunity, stirring up the bowels of everyday life with his curious eyes and his restless hands; who transforms everything he experiences, everything he sees, into a complex art, neither bad nor good, just different and universal at the same time.

He lives his way and gets entangled in whatever he finds in his path. Then, he gives it back transformed into a sort of abstract personal experience that he quietly shares with those who want to get closer.

Viggo's Other Look
Diario de León
by María Dolores García - translated by Paddy
26 June 2005



...Viggo extracts a big moleskin notebook from his backpack, like a naturalist's notebook, a logbook, in which he notes down his thoughts and everything that passes through his mind with a big, tangled handwriting like the rigging of a schooner.

River Mortensen
By Ramón Raboiras - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire
September 2012



An encounter with Viggo is sitting on a porch, drinking a bombilla of mate and watching time pass in such a way that every now and then new reflections, inquiries, ways of looking at things arise. It can take a whole season. Watching many skies pass by.

River Mortensen
By Ramón Raboiras - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zoe
Esquire
September 2012



Mortensen has a disposition towards an archaeology of emotions, of things that are buried, weathered but surviving along with the rest of us

Kevin Power
Viggo Mortensen: A Life Tracking Itself
Singlanguage 2002



I'm an observer. An artist. But I think that all people are artists. You go walking down the street and hear something that a person says and already you're imagining something about the life of that person. Then, someone is speaking on their phone in the line at the bank and he says, "No mom, that's not going to fall down" and hangs up. And you've already invented a complete story about who he's speaking to, who or what is going to fall down. The way you pay attention is already an artistic activity..

"We are all artists" - Viggo Mortensen
By Susana Parejas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
7 Dias
2 September 2012



How you sense the world around you is art in its own form. To stop for one silent moment and just see what happens.

Viggo Mortensen
Margt til lista lagt article from Fréttablaðið
visir-is
Translated by Ragga
June 2008



'Inspiration is a notion, an impulse that has its own shape, before you stumble onto it. If you're in too much of a hurry, you try to tell it what it is, instead of having it tell you what it is. And I think if you do that, you're gonna miss out.'

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen ('80) Remembers
By Macreena A. Doyle
St. Lawrence University, 2003



Like all writers, I write many different things, but you always create using your own life, even if everything is imaginary on the page. As much as you invent a totally distinct world, there’s always something of yourself, even if you don’t realize it. I contribute my experiences as a person who’s travelled all over and has had a somewhat unusual bond with language. Canciones de invierno [Winter Songs], for example, has things that seem to be very true and very much mine, and they aren’t. Maybe the writings where I hide or invent myself are more my own than those that are directly autobiographical.

Viggo Mortensen - All of Us are Mestizos
by Carlos Shilling – translated by Ollie, Remolina, Rio and Zoe
LaVoz
November 2010



“All great artists reveal themselves more in their work than in interviews. Every time Viggo's in front of the camera or picks up a pen or a canvas or a camera, he's opening the door to his heart. This is where he's telling you the secrets of his life . . . Viggo cannot strike a fake note. I say with absolute experience that if he doesn't believe it, he won't do it.”

Philip Ridley, Director
The Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon
The Telegraph



His work is a trace of his own adventure, lived openly and exploratively, with curiosity and a constant sense of surprise.

Kevin Power
Viggo Mortensen: A Life Tracking Itself
Singlanguage 2002



“He is a connector, the agent who brings people and ideas and feelings together in ways that transcend customary forms of expression and measures of success.”

Daniel F. Sullivan
St. Lawrence University
March 1, 2003



“He allows the art to move through him like a vessel…”

Robert Galarza
Find 4 Change and AMFM Fest co-director talking about Viggo being awarded the 4th Dennis Lee Hopper Award
The Wrap
23 May 2013



"To me the movies that I'm in or a painting or a drawing or a poem that I've made, a photograph, they are all journals in a way, a living diary," said Mortensen. "Everything's about that, valuing what's been and where I am now based on the accumulation of those experiences."

Viggo Mortensen On 'The Road' And The Importance Of Human Connections
By Todd Hill
Staten Island Advance
27 November 2009

Along with all the multitude of other things that he does, Viggo has written several movie scripts over the last few years and now, finally, one is going into production with him directing, acting and producing. It's going to be an exciting year for us at V-W watching Falling coming to fruition! In his career, Viggo has had the experience of working with three with fellow actor/directors: Sean Penn, Ed Harris and Matt Ross. So how did Falling come into being, how does he feel about directing and what does he think an actor/director needs to succeed?



© Hanway/Lago/Sony.


Given his interest in visual art, it is no surprise that Mortensen is also planning to direct… 'I would like to try it. I like photography, and I like actors, and I like the process, the collaborative aspect of it.'

The Telegraph Interview with Viggo
The Telegraph.
26 March 2013



"Viggo is a person who always thinks in terms of the scene. He pays a lot of attention to the take and to what goes on. He also thinks about the film from an outside point of view. It´s incredible how much work he does."

Jauja actor Esteban Bigliardi
Lost in La Pampa
By Pierre Boisson - translated by Ollie
So Film #10
May 2013



"I think that directing, when I see people who do it well, like David Cronenberg or Matt Ross, is a full-on job. I'd like to try directing a movie. I've been a photographer for a long time, and a writer, and I like storytelling. That's my main attraction to working in the movies, I'm looking for stories that I wanna see in a movie theater. If I'd read Captain Fantastic and for whatever reason had not been available, I still would've been anxious to see the movie. It's a complete artistic universe, telling stories in the movies and I like actors. There's a lot of directors that I think aren't particularly interested in actors or their process, but I'm, I'm fascinated by the different ways that actors approach their work."

Oscar Nominee Viggo Mortensen Credits Actresses Like Meryl Streep with Making Him Want to be an Actor
By Lynn Hirschberg
W Magazine
25 January 2017



"It can be beneficial to be directed by an actor, as was the case with Matt Ross, but the mere fact that your director is also an actor does not guarantee that he or she will be especially sensitive to your needs as a performer or be more able to guide you more efficiently than non-actor directors will. It goes back to what kind of actor you are. Actors who are accustomed to paying attention to other actors, and to adjusting their performance to what their fellow actors bring to the scene, tend to be very good at directing other actors, at finding just the right way to put them at ease and get the most out of their abilities. Actors who do not really show much interest in other actors, and are unlikely to adjust their performance according to what other actors contribute, are not likely to be that helpful when they are directing them."

Q&A: Viggo Mortensen on 'Captain Fantastic,' acting with kids, and finding happiness in North Idaho
The Spokesman-Review
13 January 2017



Trying to get a handful of films off the ground as a director since the mid-'90s, and learning from all the great writers and directors he's worked with, Mortensen finally succeeded with Falling. A contemporary portrait of a father in his 80s, in the early stages of dementia, and his son, in his 50s, the film will employ flashbacks to examine "a lifetime of not really seeing eye to eye," in the characters' conflicted relationship, with Mortensen playing the son.

Viggo Mortensen Reflects On The Twists & Turns Of His 'Green Book' Journey As He Preps His Directorial Debut
By Matt Grober
Deadline
26 January 2019



The idea for FALLING came to me as I was flying across the Atlantic after my mother's funeral. I couldn't sleep; my mind was flooded with echoes and images of her and our family at different stages of our shared lives. Feeling a need to describe them, I began to write down down a series of incidents and snippets of dialogue I recalled from my childhood. The more I wrote about my mother, the more I thought of my father. By the time we landed, the impressions I'd been writing down had evolved to include conversations and moments that had not actually happened, parallel story lines that felt right somehow, that widened my perspective. It seemed as though these invented sequences allowed me to get closer to the truth of my feelings for my mother and father than any straightforward enumeration of specific memories could. What I ended up with was a father-son story called 'Falling', about a fictional family that shares some traits with ours. I had the basic structure of what eventually became the present screenplay.

Viggo Mortensen
Perceval Pictures



"Every filming experience shows you how to make a movie and, at times, how not to make a movie. Every movie story-telling effort can teach you things if you pay attention… Both David Oelhoffen and Lisandro Alonso are meticulous and resourceful artists. It was a pleasure and an education to work for them, and I found both stories to be admirably original. If I ever do direct a movie, I hope I'll be able to do it as well as David and Lisandro have.

Viggo-Works Interview
A Minute with Viggo Mortensen
30 January 2015



You have worked with many different directors, from Peter Jackson and David Cronenberg to Jane Campion and Gus Van Sant. In your opinion, what does it take to make a good director?

In my first movie, Witness, I was amazed by the organized and calm way that Peter Weir shot the film and how he listened to his actors' opinions. I really had fun. Since then I've realized that most of the time it's not like that.

Inside Viggo Mortensen's Mind
By V Vergou - translated by Iraeth
Athinorama
5 April 2007



"There is an ease and a relaxed atmosphere on the set with David [Cronenberg]. He knows that that is a good atmosphere to have. It's good to have someone who is an ally. If a director shows that he too is puzzling his way through it, that helps you feel like a collaborator, like an ally."

Viggo Mortensen
Cannes Film Festival 2005 Press Kit



For Mortensen, the idea of directing is "an unknown, a big challenge—probably even more of a stretch than playing Tony Vallelonga was."

Viggo Mortensen Reflects On The Twists & Turns Of His 'Green Book' Journey As He Preps His Directorial Debut
By Matt Grober
Deadline
26 January 2019



"Viggo has such a confident and assured vision for his debut as a writer-director, that he has the full support of the market. We are delighted to have such great partners for the film."

Gabrielle Stewart, Hanway Films
Viggo Mortensen's directorial debut 'Falling' sparks deals for HanWay
by Tom Grater
Screen Daily
11 February 2018

With the Oscars taking place tomorrow, I thought it would be interesting to go back through all the reviews I've collected down the years and see how often awards and Oscars are mentioned, which makes for a bumper Quotable! Here are just a few of them and, most interesting of all are the pictures like The Road, A Dangerous Method and even one mention for Appaloosa, where critics thought nominations were certain but, alas, were wrong. Give that man an Oscar already! But Oscar or not, we at V-W know Viggo is 'the premier actor in the business' (Dan Olsen, below).



Image Frazer Harrison.
© Getty.


Power to Viggo, stick it to the Oscars!

Why Viggo Mortensen Deserves to Win the Oscar for Best Actor
By Zack Sharf
Indiewire
16 February 2017



With any luck, Mortensen will get an Oscar nomination for his wonderfully soulful performance. As a real-life renaissance man (Mortensen is also a painter, author, photographer, and musician) with an intellectually rebellious streak, it's a role he was born to play, and it's hard to imagine any other actor who could pull it off with his level of sincerity and authenticity.

Green Book
Jonathan Kim
Huffington Post
15 July 2016



It's a powerful and moving performance, the kind that lands an Oscar nomination, which could happen for the actor next January if enough people see this enjoyable film.

Green Book
John H Foote
Thecinemaholic.com
2 August 2016



Mortensen, in particular, is absolutely incredible here, completely disappearing into the role and making a very, very strong play for the Lead Actor prizes come awards season. It's the best he's been since probably Eastern Promises, bringing Tony to nuanced, three-dimensional life.

Green Book
Jack Blackwell
One Room With A View
15 October 2018



...a career best turn by Viggo Mortensen... I really can't say enough about the work Viggo Mortensen… In a perfect world, he would be in the Best Actor conversation for the Oscars.

Captain Fantastic
Joey Magidson
awardscircuit.com
7 July 2016



By most accounts, the race has boiled down to "Manchester By the Sea" star Casey Affleck, winner of over 30 awards this season, and Denzel Washington, a last-minute threat for "Fences" who most recently won the SAG Award.

But Viggo doesn't just deserve to be in the frontrunner conversation with them — he deserves to win. With Ben Cash, he finds a way to undercut our expectations of him as an actor, and he becomes more vulnerable on screen than we've ever seen him before.

Captain Fantastic
Why Viggo Mortensen Deserves to Win the Oscar for Best Actor
By Zack Sharf
Indiewire
16 February 2017



This is a Viggo you don't think of when you think of Viggo. I will be very surprised if I don't see his name among the Best Supporting Actor nominatees next year (unless the studio decides to bump him to Best Actor and kinda f**k Fassbender). There should also be an honorary Oscar involved for Best Cigar Smoking, for his ever-present stogies.

A Dangerous Method
Joshua Miller
Chud.com
21 October 2011



Potential Oscar nods are in order for a jaw-dropping Keira Knightley and the ever-flawless Viggo Mortensen.

A Dangerous Method
Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
San Francisco Bay Guardian
26 September 2011



The richly gifted Fassbender is steely, restrained, and flat-out magnificent as the ambitious Jung who places science and family before love. And as the cigar-smoking Freud, Mortensen -- sporting a nose prosthesis -- all but steals the picture with his knowing gaze and wry insights. In fact, his character injects an unexpected and delicious humor. This duo will surely be mentioned come Oscar time.

A Dangerous Method
Erica Abeel
Huffington Post
11 September 2011



Knowing the Academy voters' conservative tastes, I don't think "Dangerous Method" is Oscar-caliber as Best Picture, but its three main actors should receive nominations for their work: Fassbender and Keira Knightley in the lead categories and Viggo Mortensen in the supporting one.

A Dangerous Method
Emanuel Levy
Emanuellevy.com
3 September 20011



Mortensen caps off a trilogy of perfect performances for Cronenberg (and is the film's best bet for award nods, we imagine).

A Dangerous Method
The Playlist
2 September 2011



Mortensen is long overdue for an Oscar win and if this film doesn't earn him that honor, there really is little justice (or sense) in the Academy voting system. Hearing the cast and crew talk about the actor's strict dedication to the part is downright inspiring.

The Road
Kofi Outlaw
Screenrant
24 November 2009



When I left the Sala de Proyección after seeing this marvel, I did it with the conviction that this film would be one of the Hollywood Academy's important options for this year's Oscars. But the nominations announced this week make no sense to me when faced with a handful of films that in all cases don't even come close to surpassing the merits of The Road. The ways of Hollywood are inscrutable, leaving a great Viggo Mortensen out of the running in an especially unjust way.

The Road
Javier Lacomba Tamarit
Il Multicine
2 February 2010



Mortensen's performance as the lead is simply unforgettable and a sure lock for an Oscar nomination.

The Road
Filmblogger
TheFilmBlogger.com
19 October 2009



Viggo Mortensen delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as a man whose humanity and strength of will must outlast the end of civilization.

The Road
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
13 September 2009



The look in Viggo's eyes secures his nomination, I feel confident. It's going to take a lot of wry grins, curmudgeonly scowls, and other baked ham recipes for any other actor to match the depths this role fathoms.

The Road
Ryan Adams
Awards Daily
October 2009



It may be premature, but I think that Viggo Mortensen's work in this tough, relentlessly grim but ultimately humanistic picture should get a serious consideration comes Oscar time.

The Road
Emmanuel Levy
Interview with Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Contender
Emmanuellevy.com
3 September 2009



If Mortensen fails to win an Academy Award nomination, voters should be censured. He embodies all the prerequisites: loving but strict father, terrified traveler, warrior by necessity. And he plays them with such conviction, you want him watching your back if the apocalypse should ever occur.

Joan Vadeboncoeur
Syracuse.com
1 December 2009



Just look at how skinny and dirty Viggo is in the picture -- give that man an award, 30 seconds of acceptance speech time and a sandwich.

The Road
IFC.com comment about the publicity photos
19 August 2008



Mortensen's Oscar-class performance as Everett Hitch was masterful as a poetic yet fierce officer of the law. He "spoke softly," but his big stick was an 8-gauge shotgun……Playing Hitch, Mortensen is horrifically convincing as a cool customer who is not only intelligent but quick on the gun and knows when to pick his battles.

Appaloosa
Parimal M. Rohit
Buzzine.com
19 September 2008



Here is my personal take on the Oscar-nominated performances I believe will survive the "test" of time:

As driver/hitman Nikolai Luzhin, Viggo Mortensen not only mastered the Russian accent and dare to bare much more than his soul… Mortensen played Nikolai as a real person (living in a very raw London, thanks to David Cronenberg's direction) and his idealization of this character other actors have similarly played to over-the-top results in many crime stories is among the best in the genre, ever.

Eastern Promises
The top 10 opinions: Performances that won't won Oscars...
Johnny Alba
The Oscar Igloo
7 February 2008



From the way his shoulders are set to the way he lights and smokes his cigarette, everything about Mortensen's Nikolai is convincing. Any clip from the bath house scene would make the best darned Oscar clip ever.

Eastern Promises
Daniel Feinberg
zap2it.com
23 December 2007



It may very well be the best performance of his career thus far, topping even his recent work in another Cronenberg thriller, A History of Violence. Someone, nominate this man for an Oscar already!

Eastern Promises
Jason Turer
Cornell Daily Sun
14 Sept 2007



Most noticeably, Viggo Mortensen as the quietly timid yet dangerously terrifying mob driver Nikolai, gives an Oscar caliber performance of both restrained humility and fear. When you look into Mortensen's eyes, you're convinced that he's come to terms with the fact that he's condemned to eternal damnation and is living his life accordingly. His performance is chilling and mesmerizing, perhaps the greatest of his career.

Eastern Promises
Jake Hamilton
That movie guy Blog
10 Sept 2007



The beating pulse of the movie comes from Bello and Mortensen, both of whom are award worthy. Viggo might have had a haircut since his middle-earth days, but he's lost none of his power. Look into his eyes, you'll see his soul.

A History of Violence
Paul Greenwood
Future Movies
29 September 2005



'Viggo Mortensen probably gave the best performance I have seen in a motion picture in as long as I can remember in A History of Violence .... Bill Hurt got a nomination for a rather bizarre, overly done performance in that film, but Viggo Mortensen is probably the premier actor in the business.'

A History of Violence
Dale Olson, publicist
Oscar, You Insensitive Lout
by Sara Vilkomerson, New York Observer,
February 2006

I loved Vicky Roach’s comment in the Sunday Telegraph (first quote below). With Viggo at the wheel (in a car as in life) you can sit back and relax. Like Nikolai he’s not just a ‘driver’. It’s not about getting from A to B, it’s about the journey, the scenery and coming across the unexpected so that you just have to stop and capture the moment in a photograph. He’s been in more road movies than most, been a Driver three times (in Eastern Promises, Green Book and Vanishing Point) driven buses in Captain Fantastic and in A Walk on the Moon. Heck, he’s even worked as a truck driver in real life. So, what’s it like to be on the road with Viggo and does he make a good back-seat driver?



Image Julian Broad.
© 2006 by the Hearst Corporation.


A road movie with Viggo Mortensen at the wheel? Even at this early point, you know you can sit back and relax.

Vicky Roach
The Sunday Telegraph
19 January 2019



Tell me if this is right: do you still drive the car you bought 20 years ago?

"It's a truck and it works very well."

Mortensen Code
By Sol Alonso - translated by Remolina
Vanity Fair (Spain)
November 2008



"I'd like to learn more about how to fix engines," he says. "I have a 1948 pickup truck, and that's a very simple engine. But today, I think you need to be some kind of specialist."

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



As a grown up [Viggo] returned to Denmark and he has lived there several times and among other things worked as a carpenter and lorry driver in Copenhagen and as a waiter at 'Jan Hurtigkarl', and for a short period of time he also earned his living as a truck driver in Esbjerg Harbour.

In Esbjerg?

'I had a girlfriend, a really nice girl, who I wanted to live close to. She lived in Outrup.'

Viggo from Hollywood
By Poul Hoi
M/S Magazine
August 2001



Before, you were saying you are an optimist by nature. What are you doing to protect the environment and prevent the planet from becoming what it is in the movie?

Everything that's in my hands. I have a hybrid car, the first Prius that came out on the market; it still works great. My son shares it with me. I recycle everything I can. I try not to waste natural resources or to pollute. Small things that if done every day, serve to make a better world.

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen Interview: "This film has made me feel closer to my father"
By Laura Sacksville - translated by Ollie, Rio and Sage
Cuore
13 February 2010



Two years ago, I spent a few days in Montana with Viggo while he was shooting Hidalgo, and I swear he was never without a camera. One moment he was slamming on the brakes to photograph a horse on a hill, and the next, he was slowing down to take a picture of a cloud.

Editorial
Premiere
November 2004



Viggo Mortensen is one of those few people who doesn't hesitate whether to stop his car or not when passing through an interesting place, or in order to see a friend, or to help anyone in need. "If you are in New Zealand -- he says -- and you are filming a movie, and you drive your car, and you pass through an interesting place and say ' well, I have to come back one day to see it'. NO. You should stop your car at that moment and see it now, although you are a bit late to work, because maybe you are not going to have another chance to see it. As human beings we think so much of 'we'll do it later', or ' I'll call you tomorrow', 'I'll visit you another day', ' I'll read this book next year'. But maybe you don't read it. Maybe you are not interested in reading it the next year. Maybe you are dead ".

Viggo Mortensen finds Alatriste in Curueño
By Miguel Ángel Nepomuceno - translated by Paddy
Diario de León
20 March 2005




VM: Rabbits sometimes run out in front of your car, right? Well, I hit this rabbit on this lonely road in the South Island and I wanted to make sure it was dead. If it wasn't, I'd put it out of its misery. And it was quite dead, so I thought, 'Well, why waste it?' And so I made a little fire and ate it.

Q: Is this something that you thought Aragorn would have done?

VM: As he was driving down the road and if he hit a rabbit? Yeah, he might. If he was hungry, I guess.

The Hero Returns
By Tom Roston
Premiere 2003



'The sound of cars and buses passing by on half-flooded streets quiets me; it´s something that makes me remember with absolute clarity my childhood in Buenos Aires and long afternoons in the countryside.'

Viggo Mortensen
If The Rain Gets Here
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
9 October 2014



"When I returned [to Argentina], at age 37, I got off the plane and I went downtown to look for my places. The little park where I played soccer with my friends, for example. I found different things: there was a McDonald's, new immigrants. But the sounds, the smells were the same. I rented a car and took off for everywhere. I went as far as La Pampa, I don't know…It was a lot of fun to stop in any location, take photos, talk to people. I came back because I had unfinished business."

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



‘[Henry’s] learning to drive now, and I've been trying to teach him to drive, but as soon as he learned a little bit about it and got out the manual he started being very critical of me. And now I feel really nervous around him. I mean, in the car, he's like "Turn signal!", you know. And I'll park and he'll look out and he'll measure it, "You're a foot and a half away from the curb." It's really nerve racking: I'm bumping into cars. It's horrible. But then when he drives - he's got his permit - I'm even worse off. I'm a terrible passenger. So I'm sitting there all the time thinking he's going to hit the parked car and all that. I'm just..I dunno..I never knew that cars were so dangerous. But he'll be alright. He's good. He's much more careful than I am and he's really a good kid.’

Late Night with David Letterman
David Letterman Show
New York
March 2004



Some Sundays, if he's not trout fishing, he'll just get in the car and drive, which is a thing to do in New Mexico, with its jagged, primeval landscapes and pendulum-swing microclimates…

The road is something of a comfort zone. His son was fixated on all things Nordic, and so he indulged them both with a winter trip around Iceland in what felt like one never-ending snowstorm, intrigued by the steaming volcanic landscape. "It was like, it could blow any time!" says Mortensen, laughing.

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



We break up; collect nicely all our stuff, all orange peelings, bottle tops, and plastic glasses, and head back to his car, a Dodge Ram 2.500 pick-up diesel. On the dashboard lies dried flowers and what seems to be an Indian rosary, in the CD player is fusion music (new age and jazz), and Viggo Mortensen puts on a classic ranger hat. He seems to be very much at ease, as he sits here well above the driving lane and like a pinball navigates us through the brutal traffic.

'I love driving. Just to drive and drive and drive out of the road. Suddenly you can think again. Like when you are wandering in a hardwood or in the mountains or stand in a big, cold, mirroring lake, fishing. Then you are close to being happy - and what more can a man want.'

Viggo from Hollywood
By Poul Hoi
M/S Magazine
August 2001



In Mortensen’s view, the journey is always more entertaining than the destination anyway.

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

I thought that this week we'd take a look at what Viggo loves about movies and acting. Despite all the rigors of promoting films and the endless interviews (Green Book is proving an exceptionally long haul), despite the fact he could pursue at least four other successful careers as an artist, he is still an actor, still looking for great stories, still looking for the magic. And soon he'll be telling another great story as Writer, Director and Actor.



© John Harris.


'My goal is just to make movies, whether they're big or small, that I'd like to see 10 years from now. That's sort of the way I gauge it.'

Viggo Mortensen: Lay off the pope
By Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
20 March 2013



"I started thinking about acting about a year before I actually tried it," he says. "I just started watching movies in a different way, not just as entertainment. I started to really think about the ones that got to me, the ones that transported me so that, when I walked out of the theater, I'd be surprised. I'm really not in the desert? Or the 18th century? And I started to wonder what's the trick, how does a movie do that to you, technically? I wanted to try and figure that out."

Viggo Mortensen on 'Two Faces of January,' LOTR and what his movies teach him
By Stephen Whitty
The Star-Ledger
21 September 2014



"I'm sort of old-fashioned in that I don't think a movie is fully realized until people have paid a few bucks to go into a room and sit down together, with strangers," he said. "I think there's something about that that's different. You can sort of simulate that in your house, but there's something about the movie house, the movie theater, that I think is valuable. I hope it never completely goes away."

How Viggo Mortensen learned to be captain of 6 kids onscreen
Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times
8 July 2016



"Everything begins with stillness, with silence. Movies are light and time. Before the movie begins, there is darkness and nothing is happening. When the movie starts, the clock starts, and we see."

Viggo Mortensen, the Unlikely Leading Man
New York Times
By Thessaly La Force
15 October 2018



"I could have done one big-studio movie after another if the goal was to stay as visible as possible, to make as much money as possible. I guess, because of my temperament, I didn't want to. I wouldn't have been telling good stories. The challenge would have always been to try not to make a total ass of myself, even though I knew the story was really stupid."

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



"I think, any good story, the dramatic part of the story, what makes it interesting, why you'd want to go see it, why you'd want to talk about it afterwards--comes from those moments or periods of time, whether it suddenly happens or it's a gradual realization, that things are not what they seem."

Viggo Mortensen
Capone has a GOOD chat with Viggo Mortensen about politics, THE ROAD, APPALOOSA, and THE HOBBIT!!!
Ain't it Cool News
3 December 2008



"Every film capable of "seducing" me… represents a stage in my development as an actor", says the actor. "But also as writer, painter, editor, poet and photographer. Although I can no longer separate my interests one from the other. Nowadays I need to have strong motivations to accept a new film project. I look for fascinating stories to tell."

Viggo Mortensen: Interpreting the soul of Freud
By Giovanna Grassi
Sette Magazine – translated by Ollie
September 2011



"You put it out there, you promote it, but I can't predict what you or anyone else is going to think of it. I just know if it's a story I want to tell. And, maybe this sounds selfish, but however it turns out, I've still had the great experience of researching it, and studying it, and doing it, and that's the most valuable thing to me. Because that knowledge I've gained — that's something I keep. That's mine."

Viggo Mortensen on 'Two Faces of January,' LOTR and what his movies teach him
By Stephen Whitty
The Star-Ledger
21 September 2014



"I can always count on the benefits of asking the question: "What happened between the cradle and page one for this character?" And that answer is endless, you know? It's as big an answer and as complicated and layered an answer as you want it to be. And I never stop working at that."

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



'There are many talented individuals in this art form, but if there is one thing I have learned during the thirty years that I have been working as an actor in the movies it is that there is always a surprise around the corner. Stories and performances you would not expect to work, full of moments of rare beauty, humor, and inspiration. As an audience member, every time the lights go down and the images begin to dance in front of me, I am hoping for that kind of story, those sorts of moments.'

Viggo Mortensen
One-on-one interview with 'On the Road's' Viggo Mortensen
By Steven Lebowitz
Examiner.com
6 April 2013



"…when I was watching the reel of clips, going back to the mid-eighties, I just went on a journey personally about where I was at the time. I'd look at Patricia Arquette [in 'The Indian Runner'] or Diane Lane [in 'A Walk on the Moon'] or how Al Pacino was in that moment [in 'Carlito's Way'], and just the things that happened that are beyond technical explanations, that magical thing that has to do with a leap of faith. And people go, 'How did you get to that place?'

And honestly, in some cases you don't know, we were lucky it happened. You just hope those things happen once in a while."

Viggo talking about the Telluride Film Festival Tribute
Viggo Mortensen: 'A Grown Man in an Era of Boys'
Jay A. Fernandez
Risky Biz
12 September 2009



"…it's like an invocation, an invitation to magic, to the unexplained, to let the unexpected to enter into our lives."

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



"That's a perfect universe, movies. It has everything."

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

Now we're once again in Awards Season, I thought it would be great to take another look at why Viggo received so many nominations in 2016-17 when his performance took a small budget, under-the-radar film into the Oscar spotlight with Matthew Ross's wonderful Captain Fantastic. Could Ben Cash possibly be further from Tony Lip?



Image Wilson Webb © Bleecker Street.


Viggo Mortensen overcomes every intrusion of doubt with a performance that is informed, inspired, ideological and overwhelming. He's so sensational that he makes the film's title come true with no strings attached.

Super-Dad: 'Captain Fantastic' Enthralls the Senses and Engages the Mind
By Rex Reed
The Observer
5 July 2016



The clan's father isn't a superhero, but because he's played by Viggo Mortensen he's the next best thing.

Manohla Dargis
New York Times
7 July 2016



Mortensen is outstanding in the film giving one of those rare performances that deserve the term breathtaking.

John H Foote
Thecinemaholic.com
2 August 2016



...The beauty of the film lies in its refusal to paint Ben as a deluded tyrant or principled pioneer. He doesn't have two faces — thanks to the script, as well as Mortensen's squirrely brilliance, he has hundreds.

Charlotte O'Sullivan
Evening Standard
9 September 2016



Mortensen sets about captaining this ship so well, with such fine shadings of distant grief, self-reproach, humility when it's necessary, defiance when it's not, that you can't imagine anyone else in the role, and wouldn't want anyone else near it.

Tim Robey
The Telegraph
8 September 2016



I really can't say enough about the work Viggo Mortensen. He's able to give this character so much life that you're under his spell; whether you agree or disagree with Ben's view of the world and outlook on raising his children. We see the best and worst of him, with Mortensen showcasing that brilliantly.

Joey Magidson
awardscircuit.com
7 July 2016



Viggo Mortensen gets the role he may well have been born to play, not as a superhero, but as a super-dad determined to raise his kids on his own terms.... The inspired choice of casting Mortensen — a natural Papa Bear, who taps into both his physical strength and spiritual gentleness — shows through best when interacting with the kids, though the actor also shines when forced to defend his choices to others.

Peter Debruge
Variety
23 January 2016



Every now and then, a movie comes along that plays out almost entirely on a gifted actor's face; you feel as if you could watch the whole thing in quiet close-up, and catch every nuance of the story. I think of Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine," Brie Larson in "Room," Denzel Washington in "Flight," to name just a few — and now, Viggo Mortensen in "Captain Fantastic."

Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times
14 July 2016



Mortensen gives the performance of his life in the film's final act, visibly aching, filled with callously crushed desires and a deep well of sorrow.

James Robins
The Listener (NZ)
3 October 2016



At the heart of it all is the ever-brilliant Viggo Mortensen. Ben is a complex character that has every fragment of thought etched into Mortensen's expression. He's taken a hold of this character unlike any since Aragon. He embodies Ben perfectly, and the film can't be imagined without him.

By Amie Cranswick
Flickeringmyth.com
9 September 2016



Mortensen imbues Ben with such an easy, thoughtful, virile confidence that it is easy to see why his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) and children would think that hiding in the forest with him seems like the best possible option.

John Lui
Straits Times
12 July 2016



Mortensen, a spellbinding leading man who's got as firm a grip on the audience as his character does on his brood. He sells and sells and sells, and we buy, buy, buy; every idea Ben projects onto his kids, even the zany ones, sound perfectly logical when spoken by a voice so even and wise and alluring. He's so convincing that when he finally comes to the realization that he may actually be a much bigger threat to his children's health and safety than capitalism, smartphones or even Kanye West and the Kardashians, our hearts break for him.

Bernard Boo
wegothiscovered.com
11 July 2016



With any luck, Mortensen will get an Oscar nomination for his wonderfully soulful performance. As a real-life renaissance man (Mortensen is also a painter, author, photographer, and musician) with an intellectually rebellious streak, it's a role he was born to play…

Jonathan Kim
Huffington Post
15 July 2016



It's the ruggedly paradoxical, gentle-but-brute presence of Viggo Mortensen, more than anything else, that makes "Captain Fantastic" a twisting Rubik's Cube of blue and red.

Owen Gleiberman
Variety
13 July 2016

All I’m going to say is, BAFTA voters and Academy Members, please take note…



© Universal.


Viggo Mortensen, as far as I’m concerned, could do a Rubix cube on screen for two hours and I’d still want to watch him, the guy is that good.

Metal Gear Solid Movie: Eight Actors Who Could Play Solid Snake
By Liam Hoofe
Flickering Myth
15 September 2017



Viggo Mortensen is one of the greatest actors working today. Of that, I have no doubt.

Talking with Viggo Mortensen and Matt Ross of CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
Silverscreenriot.com
Matt Oakes
22 June 2016



Philip Seymour Hoffman, certainly one of the great actors of our time, told us in a Venetian hallway of the Hotel Excelsior how he regarded Viggo Mortensen as one of the masters of the profession. A point of view that is totally shared.

Viggo Mortensen in the Shoes of Dr. Freud
By Nicolas Crousse
Le Soir – translated by Dom
4 September 2011



Mortensen, perhaps the only actor alive who could play Sigmund Freud, William Burroughs and a Middle-earth king...

Uday Bhatia
Live Mint
11 September 2015



He's the kind of star directors dream about: professional, playful and eager to make a movie that doesn't wrap itself up in a neat pre-digested bow.

Viggo Mortensen on Everybody Has a Plan, Argentine Popes and His Beloved San Lorenzo
John Lopez
Huffington Post
21 March 2013



Viggo Mortensen is one of the most fascinating stars in contemporary cinema. The image of his penetrating gaze and wide jaw seems to have traversed all the corners of the globe and of Planet Cinema.

Manu Yáñez
Fotograma
13 August 2014



“...what was surprising to me about working with him is that I could never catch him acting. He doesn't have any false moments."

Matt Ross
Dr. No: Viggo Mortensen Has Made Turning Down Roles Into an Art Form
By Oliver Jones
The Observer
6 July 2016



When it comes to cutting an effortless master like Viggo Mortensen, what can I say besides you’re just trying to pick the best of the best and make sure it all hangs together in the right way. He makes it look easy.

Interview with Joseph Krings, Editor of "Captain Fantastic"
Manhatten Edit Workshop blog
20 July 2016



Good acting isn’t just about showboating speeches, about also about tiny vocal inflections and precise body language. Mortensen’s got it nailed.

Robert Horton
Seattle Weekly
27 November 2018



Viggo Mortensen has so much on-screen magnetism, he'll probably destroy the credit cards of anyone sitting in the first 10 rows.

Wallace Bain
Santa Cruz Sentinel
25 January 2012



"He is methodical, exacting in his work, he carries out meticulous labors to do something that looks true, and projects it. He is like Robert Mitchum or William Holden, the class of actors whose work seems effortless."

Ray Loriga
Chiaroscuro: Viggo, Light And Dark
By Rocio Garcia - translated by Graciela, Remolina, Sage and Zooey
El Pais
26 June 2009



Mortensen is one of the most diverse, least mannered but most overlooked actors working in Hollywood.

Emanuel Levy
emanuellevy.com
1 Sept 2007



“Viggo's … a real artist. He cares about what speaks to him. He doesn't care about how much he's paid, doesn't care where he lives, doesn't care how nice the hotel is. He's a horse. I feel like he could go all day, work all day and he's polite and creative and generous. That made it easy. Not only is he physically gifted, he’s graceful and tough.”

Garret Dillahunt
Fred Topel
CraveOnline
20 March 2009



Mortensen, who radically rejects any clichés and stereotypes, has become one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic actors of his generation. And incidentally, so to speak, a world star of cinema.

Venniale Tribute publicity
August 2014



‘I would want to watch Viggo Mortensen in any language.

Sanford Panitch, President of Fox International
Fox International Acquires Worldwide Rights To Viggo Mortensen-Starrer 'Everybody Has A Plan'
By Mike Fleming
Deadline.com
5 May 2011