Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is
an American-Danish theater and movie actor, poet, musician,
photographer and painter. He is known for his role as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings
film trilogy.
Biography
Personal life
Mortensen was born in New York City. His Danish father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. (a
farm manager who worked in business), and American mother, Grace Gamble (née
Atkinson), met in Norway.[1][2] His maternal grandfather was
Canadian.[3] His family moved to Venezuela, Argentina and Denmark, settling
in Argentina, where his father managed chicken farms and ranches.[4] They remained there until Viggo was age eleven, when his parents divorced and his mother moved
back to New York. He moved with his father to Copenhagen,
Denmark. Viggo and his father eventually went back to the United
States where Viggo graduated from Watertown High School. After high school,
he returned to Denmark, and became a truckdriver in Esbjerg, Denmark, before, again, returning to the United States to pursue an
acting career. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a bachelor's degree in Spanish. He chose that subject because he
could get good grades without a lot of study, leaving him free to be in a lot of plays. At his commencement, he refused to wear
an academic gown because they were made by sweatshop workers. However, after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when he was
granted an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, he did appear in the appropriate robes.
Mortensen has a son, Henry Mortensen, with ex-wife Exene Cervenka of the band X. Henry and Viggo have done public
father/son poetry reading together as recently as April 2006. Mortensen is fluent in English, Danish, and Spanish, and conversant in Norwegian. He also speaks
French, Italian, and Swedish reasonably well. Mortensen has dual citizenship
in the US and Denmark.
Mortensen is an ice hockey fan, particularly of the Montreal Canadiens. He also loves football, and is a big
fan of all time Argentinean star Diego Maradona and both the Argentine and Danish national
teams, as well as Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro.[5] In 1993, Mortensen went to Ireland during a break in shooting without the consent of the production company, to watch Denmark play in an important match. He is also a fan of the New York Mets.
He has spoken out against militarism and U.S. foreign policy.
In continuing with his opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy he
participated in a series of fundraisers for the Northern New York Congressional candidate from the Watertown, New York area, Bob Johnson, in September
2006. In Denmark Mortensen is known for his support for the Freetown Christiania
and criticism against the Danish participation in the Iraq war.
Acting career
After several years of experience in live theater, he made his first movie appearance playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness. (Mortensen had actually been cast in two prior films — Swing Shift and The Purple Rose of Cairo
— but his scenes in both of these films were deleted from the final cuts.) Also in 1985, he was cast in the role of Bragg on
Search For Tomorrow.
Prior to his casting in The Lord of the Rings, Mortensen appeared in Jane
Campion's The Portrait of a Lady, Young Guns II, Prison, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Sean
Penn's The Indian Runner, Brian
DePalma's Carlito's Way, Tony Scott's
Crimson Tide, Ridley Scott's
G.I. Jane, Rob Cohen's Daylight, Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon, Frank A. Cappello's American Yakuza, Charles Robert Carner's
Vanishing Point (remake), Philip Ridley's two films The Reflecting Skin and The Passion
of Darkly Noon, Andrew Davis's A Perfect Murder, Betty Thomas's 28 Days and The Prophecy with Christopher Walken.
Prior to playing Aragorn, Mortensen was probably best known for playing Master Chief John Urgayle in G.I. Jane.[6]
Mortensen's 1987 performance in Bent at the Coast Playhouse, Los Angeles, won him a Dramalogue Critics' Award. Coincidentally, the play, about
homosexual concentration camp prisoners, was
originally brought to prominence by Sir Ian McKellen, with whom Mortensen later co-starred
in The Lord of the Rings. According to the Special Extended Edition DVD of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Mortensen
was a last-minute replacement for Stuart Townsend, and wouldn't have taken the part of
Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien trilogy. In
the Two Towers DVD extras, the film's swordmaster Bob Anderson described
Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained".
In 2004, he starred as Frank Hopkins in Hidalgo, the story of an ex-army courier who travels to Arabia
to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous race for a massive contest prize. In 2005, Mortensen starred in
David Cronenberg's A History of
Violence. He was nominated for a Satellite Award for Outstanding Actor in a
Motion Picture for this role.
In the DVD extras for A History of Violence, David Cronenberg relates that
Mortensen is the only actor he'd come across who would come back from weekends with his family having bought items to use as
props on the set.
In 2006, he starred as Captain Diego Alatriste in Alatriste, the most expensive
Spanish-language film ever made, based on the series of novels The Adventures of Captain
Alatriste written by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
In September 2007 the film Eastern Promises, directed by David Cronenberg, was released to critical acclaim for the film itself and for Mortensen's
performance (see Roger Ebert's review among others). Viggo plays a Russian gangster
on the rise in London. His nude fight scene in a steam room brought this comment by Roger Ebert: "Years from now, it will be
referred to as a benchmark."[citation needed] Also in September 2007, either Mortensen himself or a like-alike appeared
on an episode of The Colbert Report wherein Stephen considers running for President. As Colbert asks for a sign, Viggo appears in
costume, offering Stephen his sword as would a knight.
Bibliography
Mortensen is also an author, with various books of poetry, photography, and painting published. His bibliography includes:
- Ten Last Night - (1993), his first collection of poetry.
- Recent Forgeries - (1998), ISBN, 5th Edition, documents Viggo's first solo
exhibition and includes a CD with music and spoken-word poetry. Introduction by Dennis Hopper.
- Errant Vine - (2000), limited edition booklet of an exhibit at the Robert
Mann Gallery. Only about 300 were published at the time of the exhibition so it is a very rare book.
- Hole in the Sun - (2002, ISBN), color and black and white photographs of a
back yard swimming pool.
- Coincidence of Memory - (2002, ISBN Third Edition, in this book, the
artist combines photographs, paintings, and poems that cover his artistic output from 1978 to 2002.
- 45301 - (2003), ISBN, Abstract images, fragments and phrases from poems
create this photography book. Many of the photographs were shot during travels to Morocco, Cuba, and the northern plains of the
United States.
- Un hueco en el sol - (2003), a small booklet was published to accompany
the exhibition "Un hueco en el sol" at the Fototeca de Cuba in Havana. In Spanish.
- Miyelo - (2003), ISBN-X), a series of panoramic photographs of a Lakota Ghost
Dance. It also tells about the events leading up to the massacre at Wounded Knee.
- The Horse is Good - (2004), ISBN, a photography book, partly shot during
his work on the film Hidalgo, about horses as partners, teachers, and fellow
travelers. Images from Morocco, South Dakota, Montana, California, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Brazil, Argentina. This book
reflects Mortensen's fondness for horses. In fact, he bought Uraeus, the horse who played Brego in The Lord of the Rings
movies (Roheryn in the books), which is Aragorn's steed; as well as TJ, one of the horses who played Hidalgo. He also purchased
the stallion that played Arwen's horse, a grey Andalusian stallion named Florian, and gave it to the stunt woman who rode the horse in place of Liv Tyler.
With part of his earnings from The Lord of the Rings, he founded the Perceval Press publishing house — named for
the knight from the legend of King Arthur — to help other
artists by publishing avant-garde works that might not find a home in more traditional
publishing venues.
Visual arts and discography
Mortensen is a painter, and photographer. His
paintings are frequently abstract, and often contain fragments of his poetry in them. His
paintings have been featured in galleries worldwide, and several appeared in A Perfect
Murder.
Mortensen experiments with his poetry and music by mixing the two art forms. He has collaborated with guitar virtuoso
Buckethead on 6 albums. His discography includes: Don't Tell Me What to Do,
Intelligence Failure, One Less Thing to Worry About, One Man's Meat, Live at Beyond Baroque, The
Other Parade, This That and The Other, Live at Beyond Baroque 2, Pandemoniumfromamerica, and Please
Tomorrow.
His latest CD/DVD, 3 Fools 4 April, documents the poetry readings given on April Fool's Day 2006 at the Beyond Baroque
Literary Arts Center in Venice, California.
His voice is featured on The Lord of the Rings: The
Return of the King soundtrack — he sings "Aragorn's Coronation," the words by Tolkien but the music composed by
Mortensen himself. His poems are written in English, Danish, and Spanish.
Filmography
References
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External links
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