Viggo Mortensen Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. was born in 1958 in New York City, but spent his younger years living in various countries including Venezuela, Argentina, and Denmark with his father before returning to New York for high school. Although his face has become most recognizable as the character, Aragorn, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he is actually a multi-faceted artist who has been successful in several mediums of expression. Mortensen’s father is from Denmark and thanks to the years they spent there when Viggo was a child, Viggo also has duel-citizenship in the US and Denmark. In high school Mortensen was an athlete and became the captain of his swim team. He later graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1980. Mortensen’s years of international traveling have also made him fluent in English, Danish, Spanish, and Norwegian. He also claims to speak French, Italian, and Swedish fairly well. The actor’s first role in a film came after years of performing in live theater. The film was Witness and Mortensen played an Amish farmer. This quickly led to more roles, though Mortensen has preferred more artistic films with well-developed characters as opposed to blockbusters. Coincidentally, it was Mortensen’s role in the play Bent that eventually led him to The Lord of the Rings. Sir Ian McKellen, who later became his co-star in The Lord of the Rings, originally played his role in the play. Mortensen’s character, Aragorn, was originally given to Stuart Townsend who had to drop out of the project at the last minute. It is said that the only reason Mortensen accepted the role was because his son, Henry Blake, is so fond of the trilogy. The swordmaster for the film, Bob Anderson, has said that Mortensen is, “the best swordsman I’ve trained.”
On top of being an actor, starring in such films as A Perfect Murder with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas, and A History of Violence, Viggo is also a painter, author, poet, and photographer. In fact, several of his paintings were featured in the film A Perfect Murder. They have also been showcased worldwide. He has also had a fairly large collection of published works including several photography, poetry, and mixed media books published in several languages. One of his photography books is called The Horse is Good. Mortensen is a known horse enthusiast and the photographs feature his work on the film Hidalgo and include shots from Morocco, New Zealand, Denmark, Brazil, and California. The book represents horses as teachers, partners, and friends. During the filming of Hidalgo, Mortensen bought the horse, TJ, who played Hidalgo. Mortensen also bought the horse his character rode in The Lord of the Rings. In addition to those purchases, Mortensen bought horse that Liv Tyler’s character rode in the film and gave the horse to the stunt rider. With part of his earning from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Mortensen started his own publishing company that specializes in avant-garde works. His goal with the publishing company is to give artists, who would otherwise not be features by publishing houses, the chance to show off their work. He named the publishing house, Perceval Press. On top of being an artist, Viggo is also somewhat of a left-wing political activist who has spoken publicly about his negative feelings toward militarism and US foreign policy. |
