Viggo Mortensen

Not many careers in Hollywood have a second act like Viggo Mortensen's. He was already in his forties, a respected character actor with fifteen years of solid work behind him, when an urgent phone call from New Zealand turned him into one of the biggest stars on the planet. To understand why fame arrived so late, you have to go back to the beginning.

Viggo Peter Mortensen was born in Manhattan on 20 October 1958, the son of a Danish father and an American mother who had met in Norway. The family moved constantly: Venezuela, Denmark and finally Argentina, where his father managed farms and ranches and where young Viggo picked up fluent Spanish and a lifelong devotion to the San Lorenzo football club.

After his parents divorced, eleven year old Viggo returned to New York State with his mother. He later took a degree in Spanish and government at St. Lawrence University and spent a few years in Denmark selling flowers, driving lorries and writing poetry before settling in New York to study acting.

From Amish farmer to Aragorn

His film debut came as a young Amish farmer in Peter Weir's 'Witness' (1985). Steady supporting work followed with some of the best directors around: he was the violent brother in 'The Indian Runner' (1991), Sean Penn's first film behind the camera, an old associate of Al Pacino in Brian de Palma's Carlito's Way (1993), a submarine officer in Crimson Tide (1995) and a fearsome military instructor in 'G.I. Jane' (1997), as well as appearing in Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996).

Along the way he started a family: in 1987 he married Exene Cervenka, singer of the punk band X, whom he had met on a film set. Their son Henry was born in 1988, and the couple divorced in 1997.

Then came the call. In October 1999 Peter Jackson urgently needed to replace Stuart Townsend, who had been let go just as filming was getting under way on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Mortensen had never read Tolkien, but his son Henry, a devoted fan of the books, talked him into taking the part.

His Aragorn, completed in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), became one of the defining heroes of modern cinema. He threw himself into the role so completely that he ended up buying two of the horses he rode during the shoot.

Cronenberg's favourite leading man

Instead of cashing in on blockbusters, he chose the riskiest path available: David Cronenberg. Together they made A History of Violence (2005), with Mortensen as a quiet family man hiding a dark past, and Eastern Promises (2007), in which his Russian gangster Nikolai, protagonist of a savage naked fight in a London bathhouse, earned him his first Oscar nomination. They later reunited on A Dangerous Method (2011), where he played Sigmund Freud, and on Crimes of the Future (2022).

In between he showed remarkable range: the western Appaloosa (2008), directed by Ed Harris, the shattering Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road (2009) and Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives (2022), in which he played one of the divers who rescued the boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand.

Two more Oscar nominations followed: for Captain Fantastic (2016), Matt Ross's tale of a father raising his six children in the wilderness, and for Green Book (2018), Peter Farrelly's road movie, for which he gained more than three stone and which went on to win Best Picture. Three nominations, no statuette: few actors have come so close so often.

A Spaniard by adoption

Mortensen's bond with Spain and Argentina runs deep. In 2006 he stunned Spanish audiences by starring, entirely in Spanish, in Captain Alatriste, Agustín Díaz Yanes's lavish swashbuckler and one of the most expensive Spanish productions made up to that point. On that set he met the actress Ariadna Gil, his partner since 2009, and he has lived in Madrid ever since. In 2020 the San Sebastián Film Festival honoured his career with its Donostia Award.

He also returned to the Argentina of his childhood to play twin brothers in the thriller Everybody Has a Plan (2012), by Ana Piterbarg, and to star in Lisandro Alonso's hypnotic Jauja (2014) and Eureka (2023).

Poet, publisher, painter, director

Acting is only part of the picture. Mortensen publishes poetry, paints, exhibits his photography, has recorded several albums with the guitarist Buckethead and in 2002 founded the independent publishing house Perceval Press. He is fluent in English, Spanish and Danish, and Denmark made him a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 2010.

In 2020 he finally stepped behind the camera with Falling, a family drama he also wrote, scored and starred in alongside Lance Henriksen, and he followed it with The Dead Don't Hurt (2023), a classical western with Vicky Krieps that premiered in Toronto.

At 67 he shows no sign of slowing down. On the way is Porto Rico, a Caribbean western with Javier Bardem and Edward Norton that marks the directing debut of Puerto Rican rapper Residente, and he has been shooting the drama 'Embers' in Budapest under István Szabó alongside Ralph Fiennes. Not bad for a man who once paid the rent selling flowers in Copenhagen, is it?

The earliest credit MovieNCo has for Viggo Mortensen is Let's Get Lost (1988); in all, 28 films over 35 years. They have worked as actor in 28, producer in 5, composer in 3, director in 2 and writer in 2. Their title most voted by MovieNCo readers is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), with 199 votes. Their busiest decade is the 2000s, with 10 titles. The person they have worked with most is David Cronenberg, on 5 films, among them A Dangerous Method and A History of Violence.