Viggo Mortensen Biography

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (October 20, 1958) is an American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Daylight (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), A Perfect Murder (1998), A Walk on the Moon (1999) and 28 Days (2000).

Mortensen's career rose to new heights in the early 2000s with his role as Aragorn in the epic film trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In 2005, Mortensen won critical acclaim for David Cronenberg's crime thriller A History of Violence. Two years later, another Cronenberg film Eastern Promises (2007) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. A third teaming with Cronenberg in A Dangerous Method (2011) resulted in a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination. Other well-received films in recent years have included Appaloosa (2008) and the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road.

Aside from acting, his other artistic pursuits include fine arts, photography, poetry, and music. In 2002, he founded the Perceval Press to publish the works of little-known artists and authors. Mortensen is politically active. He campaigned for Dennis Kucinich in the 2008 United States presidential election, and later endorsed Barack Obama for President.

Early life

Mortensen was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Grace Gamble (née Atkinson), is American, and his father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr., is Danish; the two met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was from Nova Scotia, Canada, and his maternal grandmother's family was from New England.

The family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina, taking residency in the Argentine provinces of Córdoba, Chaco and Buenos Aires, where he attended primary school and acquired a fluent proficiency in Spanish, while his father managed chicken farms and ranches. They remained there until Mortensen was eleven, when his parents divorced. With his mother he returned to New York, where he spent the rest of his childhood, graduating from Watertown High School in Watertown, New York.

He then attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a degree in Spanish Studies and Politics in 1980. Afterward, he went to Europe and lived in Spain, England, and Denmark, where he took various jobs such as driving trucks in Esbjerg and selling flowers in Copenhagen. After two years, he returned to the United States to pursue an acting career.

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 at least one prior film, The Purple Rose of Cairo, but his scenes in the latter film 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. In 1987, Mortensen guest starred as a corrupt police detective on the hit series Miami Vice.

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, The Crew, which won the São Paulo Film Festival Audience Award, Brian de Palma's 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.

Another 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 The 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 The Two Towers DVD extras, the film's swordmaster, Bob Anderson, described Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained." Mortensen often spent days hiking to the film's remote locations, in costume and carrying his sword, in order to appear authentically travel-worn; he also performed all of his own stunts, and even the injuries he sustained during several of them did not dampen his enthusiasm. At one point during shooting of The Two Towers, Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and Brett Beattie (scale double for John Rhys-Davies) 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." Also, according to the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Mortensen purchased the two horses, Uraeus and Kenny, whom he rode and bonded with over the duration of the films.

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 the Spanish language film 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 was applauded by Roger Ebert: "Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark." 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. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

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

In 2009, Mortensen performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

While it was reported in April 2009 that Mortensen had, at least temporarily, retired from film acting, Mortensen said he was misquoted. In a 2012 interview, he denied that he ever said he was retiring, only that he didn't have "plans to do another movie" at the time and that he was "taking a little break now. I don't have anything lined up."

In 2009 he joined the cast of The Road, a film adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and collaborated with David Cronenberg for a third time on A Dangerous Method.

After two decades, Mortensen returned to theatre in 2011, starring in Ariel Dorfman's Purgatorio in Madrid.

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.

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).
• Sådanset " (2008). A small booklet published to accompany the exhibition Sådanset (October 18 " November 16, 2008) at the Palæfløjen in Roskilde (Denmark).
• Canciones de Invierno " Winter Songs " (2010). Collection of photographs and poems. Bilingual : in Spanish and English. It includes new texts (most of the poems and all the translations) and revised versions of texts previously published. They're accompanied by pictures of landscapes taken during the previous two winters.

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.

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.

Mortensen'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
• 2010: Canciones de Invierno
• 2011: Reunion

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.

Awards and honors

Following his appearance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 2006 he was granted an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, St. Lawrence University.

On October 13, 2006, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Province and the City of León, Spain.

On April 16, 2010, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Dannebrog.

Personal life

Mortensen has a son, Henry Blake Mortensen (born January 28, 1988), with ex-wife Exene Cervenka, the singer in the punk band X. His son has a minor uncredited role in the extended version of The Two Towers, where he plays a young soldier next to Haleth (played by Calum Gittins, son of screenwriter Philippa Boyens), and in The Return of the King he played the first orc killed by Aragorn upon leaving the ships during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (according to Directors and Writers commentary on the DVD).

Mortensen holds dual American-Danish citizenship. He speaks fluent English, Danish, and Spanish; he is also conversational in French and Italian, and understands Norwegian and Swedish. He has stated that he was raised speaking English and Spanish and at times feels more comfortable expressing himself in Spanish. He also has some knowledge of Catalan; twice, when receiving a prize in Catalonia, he made a short speech in Catalan.

Mortensen is a fan of association football 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. In 1993, Mortensen went to Ireland during a break in shooting to watch Denmark play in a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification match, and has professed support for English side Norwich City. He is also a hockey fan, particularly of the Montréal Canadiens. He wore a Montréal Canadiens t-shirt underneath his armour throughout the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He is also a fan of the New York Mets, and in an interview promoting 2009 film The Road was seen wearing apparel indicating his support of the Australian Football League's Collingwood Magpies football club. While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman, he held a sign supporting the New York Giants. In November 2012 while shooting the movie The Two Faces of January, he became a fan of Besiktas J.K. attending home games at BJK ?nönü Stadium.

Mortensen was a good friend of Icelandic painter Georg Guðni Hauksson up until his death in 2011. Mortensen had long been an admirer of Hauksson's work as a landscape artist, and the two published books together as well as maintaining a close friendship.

Mortensen actively campaigned for Dennis Kucinich in the 2008 United States presidential election, and later endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency. He was also one of the signees of the "Toronto Declaration" protesting against spotlighting Tel-Aviv at the TIFF in 2009.

Mortensen has owned property in northern Sandpoint, Idaho, and spends time there when not filming movies.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Witness	Moses Hochleitner
	The Purple Rose of Cairo	Unknown	Scenes deleted
1987	Miami Vice	Murdered Rookie Vice Cop "Eddie"	Season 3, Episode 19 "Red Tape" (Blown up at the beginning of the episode when attempting a bust with his partner (Played by Lou Diamond Phillips) and Tubbs).
1987	Salvation!	Jerome Stample
1988	Prison	Burke / Forsythe Electrocution
	Fresh Horses	Green
1990	Once in a Blue Moon
	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 "Weps" Ince
	The Passion of Darkly Noon	Clay
	Black Velvet Pantsuit	Junkie
	The Prophecy	Lucifer
1996	Albino Alligator	Guy Foucard
	Daylight	Roy Nord
	The Portrait of a Lady	Caspar Goodwood
1997	Vanishing Point	Jimmy Kowalski
	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 " Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Nominated " Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2002	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers		Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast SFX Award for Best SF or Fantasy Film Actor Nominated " Empire Award for Best Actor Nominated " Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture Drama Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Actor 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 Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Actor
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 Actor of the Year Nominated " New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (3rd place) Nominated " Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Actor
2006	Alatriste	Diego Alatriste y Tenorio	Nominated " Goya Award for Best Actor
2007	Eastern Promises	Nikolai Luzhin	British Independent Film Award for Best Actor Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign 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 in a Canadian Film 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 " Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated " New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (2nd place) Nominated " Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated " San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor (2nd place) Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Actor Nominated " Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role Nominated " St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated " Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
2008	Appaloosa	Everett Hitch
	Good	John Halder
2009	The Road	The Man	Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated " Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated " Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor Nominated " Fangoria Chainsaw Award 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 Nominated " Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
2011	A Dangerous Method	Sigmund Freud	Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film Nominated " Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture Nominated " New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor (3rd place) Nominated " Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture
2012	On the Road	Old Bull Lee
	Everybody Has a Plan	Agustín / Pedro
2013	The Two Faces of January	Chester Macfarland	Post-production