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Viggo Mortensen
Mortensen at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.
Born	Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. October 20, 1958 (1958-10-20) (age 51) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, Poet, Musician, Photographer, Painter
Years active	1984 – present
Spouse(s)	Exene Cervenka (1987–1998)

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is an American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. His film roles include Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Frank T. Hopkins in Hidalgo, Tom Stall in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, and his Academy and Golden Globe Award-nominated role as Nikolai Luzhin in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. He also stars in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road as "The Man".

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Acting career 2.2 Perceval Press 2.3 Bibliography 2.4 Visual arts and discography 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 References 6 External links

Early life

Mortensen was born in New York City. His American mother, Grace Gamble (née Atkinson), and Danish father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr., met in Norway.¹² His maternal grandfather was from Nova Scotia, Canada.³⁴ His family moved to Venezuela, Denmark, and Argentinian cities Córdoba and Buenos Aires, where he learned Spanish. His father managed chicken farms and ranches in Argentina.⁵ They remained there until Mortensen was eleven, when his parents divorced and his mother moved back to New York. He moved with his father to Copenhagen, Denmark. Mortensen and his father eventually went back to the United States, where he graduated from Watertown High School in Watertown, New York. After high school, he returned to Denmark and became a truck driver 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 prescribed robes.

Career

Acting career

After several years of experience in live theater, Mortensen made his first film appearance playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness. (Mortensen had actually acted in two prior films, Swing Shift^{citation needed} 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. 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 Ian McKellen, with whom Mortensen later costarred in The Lord of the Rings.

During the 1990s, Mortensen appeared in supporting roles in a variety of films, including Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady, Young Guns II, Prison, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Sean Penn's The Indian Runner, Carlito's Way, Crimson Tide, G.I. Jane, Daylight, A Walk on the Moon, American Yakuza, Charles Robert Carner's remake Vanishing Point, Philip Ridley's two films The Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon, A Perfect Murder and Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998 remakes of two Alfred Hitchcock's movies Dial M for Murder and Psycho), 28 Days, and The Prophecy, with Christopher Walken. Of these roles, Mortensen was probably best-known for playing Master Chief John Urgayle in G.I. Jane.⁶

Mortensen's major mainstream breakthrough came in 1999, when Peter Jackson cast him as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. 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 would not have taken the part of Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien novel. In the Two Towers DVD extras, the film's swordmaster, Bob Anderson, described Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained." Mortensen performed all of his own stunts, insisting it would look more authentic, and even the injuries he sustained during several of them did not dampen his enthusiasm. At one point during shooting of Two Towers, Orlando Bloom's, John Rhys-Davies's stunt double, and Mortensen all had fairly serious injuries, and during a shoot of them, running in the mountains, Peter Jackson jokingly referred to the three as "the walking wounded."

In 2004, Mortensen 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 desert race for a 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 with items he had bought to use as props on the set.

In 2006, he starred as Captain Diego Alatriste in Alatriste, 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 as a Russian gangster on the rise in London. His nude fight scene in a steam room, wherein his genitals were visible on screen for a full seven minutes, was applauded by Roger Ebert: "Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark."⁷ Mortensen's performance in Eastern Promises resulted in his winning the Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film award from the British Independent Film Awards.⁸ He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. ⁹

In 2009, Mortensen appeared as himself in the film Reclaiming The Blade,¹⁰ in which he discussed his passion for the sword and his sword-work in films such as The Lord of the Rings and Alatriste.¹⁰ Mortensen also talked about his work with Bob Anderson, the swordmaster on The Lord of the Rings, Alatriste, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others¹⁰

In April 2009 Mortensen revealed in an interview that he has, at least temporarily, retired from film acting as the schedule required for promoting a film is too stressful.¹¹

Perceval Press

With part of his earnings from The Lord of the Rings, Mortensen founded the Perceval Press publishing house — named for the knight from the legend of King Arthur — to help other artists by publishing works that might not find a home in more traditional publishing venues.¹²

Perceval Press is also the home of Viggo's many personal artistic projects in the area of fine arts, photography, poetry, song, and literature (see below).

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.
• Hole in the Sun — (2002, ISBN), color and black & white photographs of a back yard swimming pool.
• SignLanguage — (2002 ISBN), a catalog from an exhibition of his works, combining photographs, paintings, and poetry into a multimedia diary of his time in New Zealand while filming The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Introduction by Kevin Power.
• 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.
• Mo Te Upoko-o-te-ika/For Wellington — (2003), ISBN, a book to accompany the joint exhibitions at Massey University and the Wellington City Gallery during the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
• 45301 — (2003), ISBN. Abstract images, fragments, and phrases from poems comprise 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 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.
• Nye Falsknerier - (2003). Paintings and poems translated into Danish from Ten Last Night, Recent Forgeries, Coincidence of Memory.
• 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, and Argentina. This book reflects Mortensen's fondness for horses. In fact, he bought Uraeus—the horse who played Brego, Aragorn's steed (Roheryn in the books) in The Lord of the Rings movies—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, Jane Abbott, who rode the horse in place of Liv Tyler.
• Linger - (2005). In this book, the artist combines black and white photographs and prose poems. Images from Spain (partly shot during his work on the film Alatriste), Morocco, Iceland, United States, Denmark…
• I Forget You For Ever - (2006). Texts and photographs.
• Skovbo - (2008). Collection of photographs, poems (in English, Spanish and Danish) and quotes. The book is dedicated to Howard Zinn and Dennis Kucinich and functions as a companion to the photo exhibit Skovbo at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography (2008).
• SÃ¥danset - (2008). A small booklet published to accompany the exhibition SÃ¥danset (October 18 - November 16, 2008) at the Palæfløjen in Roskilde (Denmark).

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 the paintings of the artist he portrayed in A Perfect Murder are all his own.^{citation needed}

Mortensen experiments with his poetry and music by mixing the two art forms. He has collaborated with guitarist Buckethead on several albums, mostly released on his own label (Perceval Press) or TDRS Music. Viggo was first introduced to Buckethead's work while working on sounds for an educational CD on Greek mythology. The finished product included a guitar part by Buckethead, which caught Viggo's ear and led him to initiate contact with the guitarist. The collaboration grew from there.¹³

Viggo's discography includes:

• 1994: Don't Tell Me What to Do
• 1997: One Less Thing to Worry About
• 1998: Recent Forgeries
• 1999: The Other Parade
• 1999: One Man's Meat
• 1999: Live at Beyond Baroque
• 2003: Pandemoniumfromamerica
• 2004: Live at Beyond Baroque II
• 2004: Please Tomorrow
• 2004: This, That, and The Other
• 2005: Intelligence Failure
• 2006: 3 Fools 4 April
• 2007: Time Waits for Everyone
• 2008: At All

Mortensen is featured on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack, singing "Aragorn's Coronation" (the name of the extended version of this song in the 3rd original sound track is "The Return of the King"), the words by Tolkien and the music composed by Mortensen. In the extended DVD edition of the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, he sings the song "The Lay of Beren and Lúthien." His poems are written in English, Danish, and Spanish.

Personal life

Mortensen has a son, Henry Blake Mortensen (b. 28 January 1988), with ex-wife Exene Cervenka, singer in the punk band X. Henry and Viggo have done public father/son poetry readings together as recently as April 2006. Mortensen is fluent in English, Danish, and Spanish, and conversant in Norwegian. He also speaks French, Italian, Catalan and Swedish reasonably well.

Mortensen is a hockey fan, particularly of the Montréal Canadiens. He wore a Montréal Canadiens t-shirt underneath his armour all through the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.¹⁴

On December 4, 2009, wearing a Montréal Canadiens jersey underneath a blazer, Mortensen introduced his idol Guy Lafleur at the Montréal Canadiens 100th Anniversary Ceremony on ice at the Bell Centre.

He is also a fan of soccer and is a fan of Argentine star Diego Maradona, Héctor "Bambino" Veira, and both the Argentine and Danish national teams as well as Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro.¹⁵ In 1993, Mortensen went to Ireland during a break in shooting (without the consent of the production company)^{clarification needed} to watch Denmark play in a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification match. He is also a fan of the New York Mets, and recently appeared in an interview promoting 2009 film "The Road" wearing apparel indicating his support of the Australian Football League's Collingwood Magpies football club.¹⁶

He endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency.¹⁷ He was also one of the signees of the so called "Toronto Declaration" protesting against spotlighting Tel-Aviv at the TIFF in 2009.¹⁸

Mortensen has owned property near Sandpoint, Idaho since the mid-1980s, and spends time there when not filming movies.¹⁹

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1985	Witness	Moses Hochleitner	Film Debut
	The Purple Rose of Cairo	Unknown Role	Scenes Deleted
1987	Salvation!	Jerome Stample
1988	Prison	Burke/Forsythe Electrocution
	Fresh Horses	Green
1990	Once in a Blue Moon		TV film
	Tripwire	Hans
	Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III	Tex
	Young Guns II	John W. Poe
	The Reflecting Skin	Cameron Dove
1991	The Indian Runner	Frank Roberts
1993	Boiling Point	Ronnie
	Ruby Cairo	John E. "Johnny" Faro
	Carlito's Way	Lalin
	The Young Americans	Carl Frazer
1994	The Crew	Phillip
	Floundering	Homeless Man
	Gospel According to Harry	Wes
	American Yakuza	Nick Davis/David Brandt
1995	Gimlet	Hombre
	Crimson Tide	Lieutenant Peter "WEAPS" Ince
	The Passion of Darkly Noon	Clay
	Black Velvet Pantsuit	Worthless Junkie
	The Prophecy	Lucifer
1996	Albino Alligator	Guy Foucard
	Daylight	Roy Nord
	The Portrait of a Lady	Caspar Goodwood
1997	Vanishing Point	Jimmy Kowalski	TV
	G.I. Jane	Master Chief John James "Jack" Urgayle
	My Brother's Gun	Juanito
1998	A Perfect Murder	David Shaw
	Psycho	Samuel "Sam" Loomis
1999	A Walk on the Moon	Walker Jerome
2000	28 Days	Eddie Boone
2001	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	Aragorn	Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Nominated — Empire Award for Best Actor Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2002	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers		Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Nominated — Empire Award for Best Actor Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2003	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King		Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast National Board of Review Award for Best Cast Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated — Empire Award for Best Actor Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
2004	Hidalgo	Frank Hopkins
2005	A History of Violence	Tom Stall/Joey Cusack	Nominated — Empire Award for Best Actor Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
2006	Alatriste	Diego Alatriste y Tenorio	Nominated — Goya Award for Best Actor
2007	Eastern Promises	Nikolai Luzhin	British Independent Film Award for Best Actor Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
2008	Slacker Uprising	Himself	Mortensen speaks at a 2004 "Slacker Uprising" rally in Columbus, Ohio.
	Appaloosa	Everett Hitch
	Good	John Halder
2009	Reclaiming The Blade	Himself
	The Road	The Man	Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association for Best Actor Nominated — Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor Nominated — Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
2011	The Talking Cure	Sigmund Freud	in development

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Viggo Mortensen

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Viggo Mortensen

• Perceval Press Viggo Mortensen's publishing house
• Charlie Rose A discussion about "A History of Violence"
• Viggo Mortensen at the Internet Movie Database
• Viggo Mortensen at TV.com
• Viggo Mortensen at the Open Directory Project
• Viggo-Works Main site about Viggo Mortensen - daily updated
• Viggo Mortensen Interview
• Men's Vogue profile on Viggo Mortensen
• The Eye and the Hand A French site dedicated to Viggo Mortensen's art
• Viggo Mortensen at BAFTA, A Life in Pictures event

Persondata
NAME	Mortensen, Viggo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Mortensen, Viggo Peter, Jr.
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American actor
DATE OF BIRTH	October 20, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City, New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH