Viggo Mortensen - Biography

Name: Viggo Mortensen

Born: 20 October 1958 (Age: 51)

Where: New York City, New York USA

Height: 5' 11"

Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar, 1 BAFTA and 1 Golden Globe

It's said that massive Hollywood fame only comes to those who seek it with fervour. Only by bloody-minded persistence and constant networking and self-promotion can you scale the heights of the film world. Or so the theory goes. The case of Viggo Mortensen would appear to prove otherwise. As Aragorn, the warrior-heart of Peter Jackson's awe-inspiring Lord Of The Rings trilogy, he's achieved a worldwide recognition that few have ever managed. Yet he's far removed from the archetypal fame-hungry wannabe. As an accomplished painter, photographer, poet and musician, he's more of a Renaissance Man, deeply rooted in underground culture. His success is thus something of a happy accident, arriving both because of and despite his artistic efforts. In this, his achievements are a lesson to us all.

He was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on the 20th of October, 1958. His father, Viggo P Mortensen, was Danish (though his mother was from Trondheim, Norway), while his mother, Grace, was a New Yorker. The couple had met in Norway and married in Holland, in a Lutheran ceremony. Hailing from farming stock in Denmark, Viggo Sr was set on making his own mark and, hoping to make his fortune, in 1960 moved his family (Viggo has two younger brothers, Charles and Walter, now both geologists) to South America. Here they would shift between Buenos Aires in Argentina and Venezuela, where dad would manage chicken farms and cattle ranches, often spending holidays back in Denmark on the Mortensen family farm. At age 7, young Viggo would be sent to a strict boarding school in the west of Argentina, in the foothills of the Andes.

Young Viggo was an artistic kid, always to be seen with a pencil and paper on hand. This would continue back in New York State when, his parents divorcing in 1969, he and his brothers would move with their mother from Argentina back to Watertown. It was a strange time, as if the whole world were changing, for they arrived back in America just after the first moon landing and just before the cultural phenomenon that was Woodstock (Viggo would, 30 years later, star in A Walk On The Moon, set at exactly this point, and very close to Watertown).

In 1972, Viggo would enrol at Watertown High School where, known as a friendly, kind and shy kid, he would feature on the tennis team while captaining the swimming team. He also had a further artistic interest. Now armed with a camera, he would prowl the streets, snapping any person or scene that caught his eye. It was a habit he'd never relinquish.

But he wasn't simply a quiet, bookish kid - he certainly had his moments. At Halloween when he was 17, for instance, he got seriously drunk with his friends and wound up in a brawl, a combination of a fist and a barbed wire fence resulting in a severe cut above his upper lip. He was so out-of-it he didn't need an anaesthetic during the stitching. He still carries the scar to this day.

Graduating from High School in 1976, he moved on to college at St Lawrence University in Canton, a short distance north-east of Watertown. He'd graduate from here in 1980, with a degree in Government and Language (the language being Spanish, making Viggo fluent in three tongues - English, Danish and Spanish. He's also handy in French, Norwegian, Italian and Swedish). At this stage, he had no real clue as to which career he might follow - he briefly worked as translator for the Swedish ice hockey team at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid - so he took off back to Denmark where, living with his cousins, he spent a couple of years employed as a waiter and a forklift driver, sold roses on the streets of Copenhagen and drove around the country delivering sacks of flour to village bakeries.

Come 1982, he followed a girlfriend back to New York and it was here that he decided to become an actor. And, being Viggo, he threw himself into the task with maximum intensity. Enrolling at Warren Robertson's prestigious Acting Workshop, he spent two years at the craft, at the same time gaining practical experience by appearing in the likes of Romeo And Juliet, Kevin O' Cypher, Two By Two and The Rapido with various New York repertory theatre companies, including the Ryan, the Indiana, the American, and the New York Ensemble.

Once out of college, work came immediately - excellent work. First was Jonathan Demme's Swing Shift, a WW2 piece that saw Viggo alongside such luminaries as Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Ed Harris and Holly Hunter. Then there was Woody Allen's masterpiece The Purple Rose Of Cairo, with Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels. What a start. At least it would have been if Viggo's work had not hit the cutting-room floor and stayed there. Beyond this, there were auditions for the title role in Hugh Hudson's Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes. Mortensen would make it onto a final short-list of three, performing screen tests in London and even training to behave like a monkey. He was, of course, hugely disappointed. Not just at the missed opportunity but, more importantly for a creative workaholic, at the wasted time.

But it wasn't all disastrous. There was a brief appearance in the lengthy historical miniseries, George Washington where, incredibly, Washington was played by Barry Bostwick of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and, latterly, Spin City. Better still, there was Peter Weir's Witness. Here tough city cop Harrison Ford must hole out in a remote Amish community in order to protect a young witness to a Mob killing.

While there, he falls for the boy's mother, Kelly McGillis, a rival Amish suitor being played by Alexander Godunov. Viggo won the part of Godunov's younger brother, to begin with a walk-on role but, so impressed was Weir by Mortensen's charisma, the part was extended, with Viggo at his screen brother's side almost every time he appears. This would help to ease Mortensen's disappointment when he was replaced by Willem Dafoe in Oliver Stone's Platoon. He'd auditioned for the part and thought he'd got it. Stone had even sent out Mortensen's audition reels to help drum up finance. But then Stone was told he'd ensure a higher budget by hiring a name actor for the part, and Mortensen was dumped. A year of studying the Vietnam conflict had proved unnecessary - not that the artist Mortensen would ever consider it time wasted.

. Feeling that his best chance lay in Los Angeles, Viggo now took off for California. Working as a truck driver, waiter and bartender to keep himself going, slowly things began to happen. His first real recognition came when he won a Dramalogue Critics Award for his performances as a sadistic Nazi in Bent at the Coast Playhouse. This involved questions of love and betrayal amongst homosexuals in Dachau and, coincidentally, the lead role of Max had been originated by Ian McKellen, later to join Viggo in The Lord Of The Rings.

Now at least his personal life began to come together. In Salvation!, he played a seedy sort whose wife becomes obsessed with TV evangelist Stephen McHattie. Her slutty sister tries to seduce the "priest", Viggo tries to blackmail him and, bizarrely, the wife tries to boost his operation by becoming a Christian heavy metal singer. Directly following the real-life Bakker scandal, it was wildly satirical stuff, and very entertaining. More importantly, though, it introduced Viggo to Exene Cervenka, who played his screen wife. Exene was the singer in X, the very best of the early Eighties US punk bands and the only one to go on to major success. As a maker and patron of underground art, she was a perfect match for the restlessly creative Mortensen, and the pair would marry in 1987, Exene bearing a son, Henry Blake, the next year.

Two more parts quickly came Viggo's way. First was Fresh Horses, where college student Andrew McCarthy falls for backwoods girl Molly Ringwald, only to discover that she's only 16 AND she's already married to abusive Viggo. Then there was Prison, directed by Renny Harlin (later to make Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea, and marry Geena Davis). This was a superior horror flick which began with a 1956 execution in the Big House. Thirty years later, the prison has been re-opened, the vile guard who oversaw the electrocution is now the vicious warden, and people start to die in impressively violent circumstances. Is the place haunted by the vengeful spirit of the executed inmate, and what's the connection with new con Viggo, who looks exactly like him?

For a while it got harder. Now with young Henry to think about, Viggo and Exene decided to move out to Idaho where they could bring the boy up away from the pressures of his mother's fame. Trouble was, this made it difficult for Viggo to attend auditions - an awful lot of driving was required. Nevertheless, he did pick up some work, 1990 seeing him in four crazily varied projects.

First was Leatherface, second sequel to the notorious Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This saw a nice couple pull into a gas station run by an utter nutter. Also present is kind-hearted drifter Viggo who advises them on a nifty short-cut before being shot-gunned into oblivion by the psychotic attendant. The couple flee down the "shortcut" only to find themselves pursued by a monster truck driven by the cannibal family of the original movie. And, as it happens, there's Viggo too - the sneaky, man-eating sod.

After this came a brief role in the roustabout Brat Pack western Young Guns 2 and another in Tripwire, a thriller enlivened by David Warner as a relentless terrorist seeking payback for the official sanctioning of his son. Far more interesting was The Reflecting Skin, by maverick director Philip Ridley. This was a far meatier piece, set in the Fifties, with a rural kid using fantasy to make sense of a hard world where his mother's abusive, his dad's accused of murder and hooligans are on the rampage. When his older soldier brother Viggo returns from nuclear tests in the South Pacific and suffers progressive radiation sickness, the kid believes he's being drained by a local widow he believes to be a vampire.

Next came another excellent indie flick - Sean Penn's directorial debut, The Indian Runner. Based on Bruce Springsteen's Highway Patrolman, this saw Viggo as a bad-boy itinerant returning to his small home town, and seeking forgiveness from his deputy sheriff brother and parents (Charles Bronson and Sandy Dennis, in her final role). Making big plans to go straight, he shacks up with and impregnates Patricia Arquette, but soon his explosive temper rears up once more, sending him into a dark spiral downwards. It was a brilliant movie, with Mortensen managing to match the infamous intensity of his director.

Having thus far concentrated on artistic, and consequently independent endeavours, now Viggo accepted that he needed to involve himself in more commercial works in order to maintain his family. This had become a serious priority as, in 1991, he and Exene had decided to split, attempting to remain friends for the sake of their son (they'd not officially divorce till 1998). Viggo tried out for lead roles, but despite his evident good looks and charisma, his intensity and sallow Nordic features saw him cast as low-lifes and villains again and again. In Boiling Point he played the murderous attack dog partner of con man Dennis Hopper as they battled against secret service agent Wesley Snipes (Hopper, also his co-star in The Indian Runner, would become a close friend).

Then, in Ruby Cairo, he embezzled a fortune from his business and faked his own death, leaving wife Andie MacDowell to pick up the pieces.

. Next came a short but impressive role in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way, where Al Pacino played an ex-con desperately trying to go straight, despite the lunatic efforts of his shady lawyer (Sean Penn) and Viggo's wired-up paraplegic grass, Lalin. After this, Viggo was off to England to film The Young Americans, in which he played Carl Frazer, a mysterious gang leader who recruits English teenagers to carry out his drug deals and acts of thuggery, all the while pursued by US copper Harvey Keitel.

Yet there was still room for more independent projects. 1994 saw him in the strange, desert-set soap opera The Gospel According To Harry, directed by Lech Majewski (later to write the art-hit Basquiat). There was an appearance as a Homeless Man in the social satire Floundering, featuring John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton and Exene (as a Homeless Woman). Then there was The Crew, where he was a smug and vicious rich guy who invites his sister and a few other folks onto his yacht for the weekend, only for the holiday to descend into arguments, bickering and, when another couple are rescued from a burning boat, an all-out battle for control.

1994 ended with another starring role, in American Yakuza. Here he played an FBI agent who's ordered to LA to infiltrate a burgeoning Japanese gang. Rising quickly through the ranks, he finds himself caught between the FBI, the yakuza and an enraged US mafia. This led to another major production, Tony Scott's Crimson Tide. Here there's a nuclear stand-off between Russia and America and orders are sent through to a US submarine to commence firing. Trouble is, the orders are incomplete, leading to a struggle between gung-ho captain Gene Hackman and his more cautious mate Denzel Washington, Viggo playing the crucial role of the lieutenant who controls the missile code.

Now Viggo was on a roll. Next came The Prophecy, where Christopher Walken played an archangel at war with God and on Earth to find a 100% wicked soul to help him in his struggle. Viggo made a very impressive Lucifer who, rather than helping Walken in his sinfulness, as you'd expect, decides he could do without a rival in beastliness and so rips out Walken's heart and eats it. There would be more dark goings-on when he reunited with Reflecting Skin director Philip Ridley for The Passion Of Darkly Noon. This would see Brendan Fraser as a young man horribly confused by an ultra-strict religious upbringing and driven to madness by the sound of Viggo making love to his heart's desire, Ashley Judd.

Next, Gimlet would take Mortensen off to Spain to play a freaky voyeur fixating on the owner of a hip Barcelona bar. When her boyfriend is horribly murdered and she starts getting messages of obsessive love, you have to think the Vig-man's involved. And the indie-ness would continue with Albino Alligator, Kevin Spacey's directorial debut, where Viggo played a New Orleans suit, caught up in a hostage situation when bungling thieves Matt Dillon, Gary Sinise and William Fichtner foolishly take control of a late-night drinking den.

Now, after a good decade of work, Mortensen had finally come to prominence. He now entered a run of big pictures, beginning with Jane Campion's The Portrait Of A Lady. Here Nicole Kidman played a free-spirited US heiress who, turning down genteel suitor Viggo, gets caught up with malevolent plotters Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich. Then, just by way of a change, there was Daylight, a disaster flick where people get trapped in a New York tunnel and Sylvester Stallone, as a disgraced rescue serviceman tries heroically to free them. Before he can, though, Viggo, as a sportswear magnate and part-time mountaineer who luckily always travels with his equipment, has a go himself. A disastrous go, as it happens.

1997 brought two more stand-out parts. First he took the Barry Newman role of Kowalski in an update of 1971's surreal thriller Vanishing Point, trying to avoid the law as he raced 1200 miles home to the side of his wife as she goes into a difficult labour. Then came GI Jane, directed by Ridley Scott, brother of Crimson Tide's Tony (indeed, GI Jane's submarine shots were actually off-cuts from the earlier film). Here senator Anne Bancroft, a freedom fighter in the area of sexual politics, sets Demi Moore up to go through Navy SEALS training, with Viggo doing a Louis Gossett Jr as her harsh taskmaster. But, being Viggo, he couldn't just deal in goading and insults - though he does deliver a particularly fine "I always look for one quitter on the first day, and that day doesn't stop until I get it". By having his character read JM Coetzee and quote DH Lawrence, he lent depth to Master Chief Urgayle that elevated him above the purely sadistic. Furthermore, as an actor who goes to extreme lengths in his research, Viggo spent many months in physical training, beginning way before the rest of the cast and always working on his own, just so he could display the requisite superiority and consequent distance.

The next year saw another pair of major releases. In A Perfect Murder, Michael Douglas played a high-flying industrialist who manages to alienate his young wife Gwyneth Paltrow so badly she engages in an affair with boho artist Viggo. But Viggo's not the arch-romantic he appears, and when an embittered Douglas tries to hire him to off Paltrow he agrees. Naturally, it all goes hideously wrong, as it did in Viggo's next picture, Gus Van Sant's faithful reproduction of Psycho, where Viggo played Sam Loomis, the dopey boyfriend of Anne Heche's Marion Crane, a girl doomed to a watery death.

Now Mortensen's releases dropped to one a year. 1999 brought A Walk On The Moon, a sweet picture which took him back to his own re-arrival in America. Set in 1969, it saw him as a blouse-salesman who engages in an affair with bored housewife Diane Lane and takes her off to Woodstock. Then came 28 Days, where he played a top baseball pitcher who enters rehab to break his substance addiction and quietly courts Sandra Bullock, a good-time girl who cannot accept she has a problem.

The reasons for this drop in work-rate (and Viggo is a worker by nature) were two-fold. Firstly, having viewed several of his paintings, the set designers of A Perfect Murder had decided to use Viggo's own work in the movie, demanding that he rapidly turn out a series of larger pieces. This inspired him to such a degree that he spent more and more time in isolation, dedicated to his art-work. Through the influence of Dennis Hopper, he would exhibit at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York, and then at Track 16 in Santa Monica, many of the exhibits being photos he'd taken on the sets of his various movies.

Then there was the poetry and the music. As said, his divorce from Exene Cervenka was entirely amicable. He'd look after Henry when she was on tour, and she'd take over while he was on-set. The family would even holiday together. On top of this, she'd usually be involved (along with former X bassist DJ Bonebrake) when Viggo put together CDs of poetry readings, jazzy music and "organised chaos". These would include 1997's One Less Thing, '98's One Man's Meat (featuring both Viggo's brother Hank, and Donita Sparks, vocalist with L7) and The Other Parade. Mortensen would also appear, with the Duke McVinnie Band, on Don't Tell Me What To Do, recorded live on KCRW, and on Live At Beyond Baroque, another live show featuring Exene and controversial performance artist Karen Finley. He'd already, before finding fame, released a book of poetry, entitled Ten Last Night, and two other volumes of artwork would now follow - Errant Vine and Recent Forgeries.

The other reason for the fall in movie output was that Viggo had embarked upon the biggest project of his career - arguably the biggest project in ANYONE's career. After just a few days of shooting, Stuart Townsend was fired from the set of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, being shot over an 18 month period in New Zealand.

Someone was thus needed to step into the shoes of Aragorn, long lost heir to the throne of Gondor, unrequited lover of elf princess Arwen and a prime mover in the rebellion against the dark lord Sauron. Viggo was called and given an afternoon to decide. He asked Henry if he could deal with such a break from his father and, being told that he HAD to take the role, he agreed to play Aragorn, otherwise known as Strider (oddly, Viggo's character in A Walk On The Moon had been called Walker).

. Having never read Tolkien's novel, Mortensen, always a vigorous researcher of his roles, felt thoroughly unprepared and nervous. Reading the book on the plane to New Zealand, though, he discovered that, fortunately, these were just the feelings he needed to play Aragorn, a man who, as even his greatest ancestor has succumbed to the power of the ring, believes himself to be too weak for the task ahead. Beyond this, Viggo found a connection through Nordic mythology, legends Tolkien had used heavily in the writing and which Viggo had heard many times from his Danish family.

And so, as ever, he threw himself into the part, doing all his own stunts, demanding script revisions so he could speak more lines in Elvish, and always using a real steel sword, rather than the lightweight aluminium and rubber versions that had been specially made. At one point, having lost a tooth in one particularly rough fight sequence, he called for superglue so he could stick it back in and keep filming, becoming thoroughly irate when Jackson sent him to the dentist. Naturally, he was back before the cameras that same afternoon. His efforts were said to be a mighty inspiration to the rest of the cast who, for the last 6 months of shooting, were working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Mortensen's work certainly paid off, with The Fellowship Of The Ring and its follow-ups The Two Towers and The Return Of The King becoming some of the most popular movies ever made. At last his striking looks and fierce intensity had found a home - Aragorn was no pretty boy, after all, rather a flawed, dangerous but honourable warrior. Viggo would move on to star in Hidalgo, supposedly the true story of Frank T. Hopkins, a courier rider for the Pony Express who claimed that, in 1890, he'd travelled with his titular horse to Saudi to enter the Ocean of Fire, a dangerous 3000-mile marathon with a huge prize at stake. Highly romantic, the movie was an old school swashbuckler, with Mortensen deftly avoiding poisoning, murder and, having got involved with a beautiful princess, emasculation at the hands of her father, Omar Sharif. Of course it was unrealistic. Indeed, Dr Awad Al-Badim, director of research at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, was moved to note that the idea of such a race was profoundly silly and, at 3000 miles long, its finishing line would have been "somewhere in Romania". Still, Hidalgo was great fun.

Very different would be Mortensen's next picture, David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence, based on the graphic novels of John Wagner and Vince Locke. Here he'd play the apparently mild-mannered owner of a small-town diner, married to lawyer Maria Bello, with two doting kids. When two tough guys attempt to turn the diner over, Mortensen incapacitates them both with a unexpected show of expert brutality, being proclaimed a hero by the press. This attracts the attention of his past cohorts, a horribly scarred Ed Harris and a supremely wicked William Hurt, Mortensen having once lived a life of crime in Philadelphia. Now his new life is upturned. His old self is needed to save his new self, while his wife and kids wonder who he is and, indeed, who they are. It was a tense effort, intelligent and brilliantly played, Hurt winning an Oscar nomination.

. 2005 would see Mortensen much in the news. With his relationships he'd been keen to avoid the tabloids and few knew that between 2001 and 2003 he'd dated Lola Schnabel, daughter of the painter and director Julian. Now, though, his name came up as former wife Exene, noting Mortensen's success, went after him for increased maintenance for their son. It seemed the boy urgently required $18,000 a month. More trouble arrived when Mortensen was attacked for criticizing President Bush. It's worth noting his reply: "I'm not anti-Bush, I'm anti-Bush behaviour. In other words, I'm against cheating, greed, cruelty, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy shown by Bush and his administration". Mince not your words, Mr Mortensen. Tell us what you really mean.

Mortensen's next release would allow him to exhibit his mastery of Spanish. This was Alatriste, the most expensive Spanish language film ever made, directed by Agustin Diaz Yanes who'd earlier helmed Nobody Will Speak Of Us When We're Dead, starring Javier Bardem's mother Pilar, and whose last movie had been Don't Tempt Me, with Penelope Cruz and Victoria Abril. Alatriste would see Mortensen star as the titular hero from the early 1600s, a soldier and mercenary who'd featured in a series of best-selling novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte. He'd be a kind of Hispanic Clint Eastwood, caught up in court intrigue and international politics as well as getting involved with the Inquisition, aspiring actress Ariadna Gil and some serious battle sequences. Like Hidalgo, it was roaring good fun, with Mortensen, very much in Aragorn mode, being nominated for a Goya.

2007 would see a return to David Cronenberg and ultraviolence with Eastern Promises. Here midwife Naomi Watts would have a young patient die in childbirth and try to help the baby. Digging into the young girl's diaries, she's led to a restaurant owned by Armin Mueller-Stahl, also the head of a Russian mob who've emigrated to London.

These guys are seriously interested in those diaries and so Watts must encounter Mueller-Stahl's vicious son, Vincent Cassel, and his bodyguard Viggo, a man with an extraordinary talent for hurting people. Digging deep into every character's motivations, it was a superb piece. To prepare for the role, Mortensen had visited Russia, spent time with mobsters, even studied their tattoo art. His flawless accent and tremendous physical performance would see him nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.

. Next up would come Appaloosa, based on a novel by Robert B Parker. After Pollock, this would be the second directorial effort by Ed Harris, Viggo's co-star in A History Of Violence. Here Jeremy Irons would play a wealthy rancher who runs the small town of the title and believes himself to be above the law. When he kills the town's only lawman, the town call for Harris, a freelance and very moral sheriff, aided by his friend and longtime deputy Mortensen. Mortensen, a former West Point soldier, is a sharpshooter and smart enough to realise that Harris's advanced sense of decency will leave him at the mercy of both Irons and treacherous widow Renee Zellweger. Also featuring would be Viggo's Alatriste paramour Ariadna Gil.

The same year, 2008, would bring Good, based on the renowned play by CP Taylor. Originally produced by the RSC in 1981 with Alan Howard in the lead, and revived in 1999 with Charles Dance, this would explore Brecht's dictum that for evil to flourish good men must do nothing, and was perhaps the most convincing play yet to be written about the Holocaust. In the movie, Mortensen would play the lead, Halder, a professor of literature whose book about euthanasia brings him to the attention of the Nazis. Though he's a good liberal and a lover of the arts, he loves the power and access they give him. His head turned by a new mistress and lifestyle, he rejects his wife, his kids and his closest friend, compromising himself step by step, rationalising the Nazis' actions until, finally, this good liberal is participating in the Final Solution. In this, he would represent much of the German population.

Naturally, he would not over-burden himself with film work. Still politically active, in 2007 he'd work to raise the profile of Democratic outsider Dennis Kucinich. He'd also continue with his music and art, regularly releasing new CDs and books. He'd also help others to do so, founding and running Perceval Press, publishing books of art and photographs by himself and others. This extra-curricular work would lead to one amusing misunderstanding when scores of Lord Of The Rings fans, keen to devour the sacred words of Aragorn, rushed to purchase a weighty tome called Theology And The Religions: A Dialogue. It was by a different Viggo Mortensen, a professor of systematic theology and director of the centre of multireligious studies at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Though clearly learned, Professor Mortensen turned out to be disappointingly poorly-versed in elvish lore.

. Now one of the most recognisable stars in the world, Viggo Mortensen can pick and choose his parts. And there will be many as Mortensen, who believes absolutely in the necessity of creativity, feels that he should always "do" - that is spend every waking moment making things happen. There will also, of course, be more poetry, more paintings, more photos, more music, more exhibitions. The man is, after all, an artistic powerhouse.

Dominic Wills