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 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. 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,
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.
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
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 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
Two Towers, Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and the stunt 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 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
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.
In April 2009 Mortensen revealed in an interview that he had, at least temporarily, retired from film acting as the schedule required for promoting a film is too stressful.
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 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 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
[[File:ViggoMortensen08TIFF.jpg|thumb|right|Mortensen at the2008 Toronto International Film Festival]]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.
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 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.
