'The goal that I have is to be happy'
By Didi Penn


As the fearless warrior Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo
Mortensen has emerged as a fully-fledged star ­ although he has been on the
cusp of success for a long time. Respected for his personal integrity, he's
an intelligent actor/poet/photographer with chiselled matinee-idol looks.

Born October 20, 1958, in Manhattan to a Danish businessman, Viggo Sr. and
his American wife, Viggo lived in Argentina, Venezuela and Denmark before
his parents divorced when he was 11. He then moved with his mother and two
younger brothers to upstate New York. After completing high school, he
studied at St. Lawrence University, graduating with a degree in Government
and Spanish.

He made his TV debut as the Lieutenant at LeBoeuf in the George Washington
mini-series (1984). His first big-screen part was in Swing Shift (1984) but
his scenes were deleted, so he actually made his debut as Moses
Hoechleitner, a young Amish farmer, in Witness (1985).

His varied filmography includes parts as varied as Demi Moore's sadistic
drill sergeant in G.I. Jane (1997) and Diane Lane's lover in A Walk on the
Moon (1999), in addition to the re-make of Psycho (1998) with Anne Heche

and A Perfect Murder (1998) opposite Gwyneth Paltrow. He was in Salvation!,
Witness, The Crimson Tide, The Reflecting Skin, The Indian Runner,
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Portrait of a Lady, Carlito's
Way, Daylight, 28 Days, and The Prophecy, among others. He did the voice of
Hoyteck in Live Freaky Die Freaky (2003) and will be seen next as Frank T
Hopkins in the epic Western, Hidalgo (2004), playing a US Cavalry rider
who, in 1890, takes his American mustang horse to compete in a 3,000-mile
race across the Arabian Desert.

LOVES:

1) Exene Cervenka (singer for the legendary L.A. punk band X): "We were
married. We're divorced now but we have a great relationship. We met while
shooting Salvation! in 1987. She's an amazing singer. If she was 22 and
looked like Britney Spears, she'd be on the cover of every magazine. She
writes the most beautiful lyrics and has the best voice."

2) Henry Mortensen: "He's my teenage son. He's really curious and smart ­ a
great person ­ my closest friend. When Peter (Jackson) asked me to play
Aragorn, the question was: 'Do you want to leave for New Zealand tomorrow?'
There were plenty of reasons not to go, but my son was familiar with the
books and he talked about them with his school friends. He knew about
Aragorn and said, 'Oh, that's pretty cool. You should do that.' Then he
joined me on the set for awhile. He's been in some other films with me. And
they outfitted him with a full set of armour so he could be an Orc in a
battle scene. I evaded him and Gimli killed him."

3) Home: "It's in Southern California in Topanga Canyon. I live there with
my son. I'm pretty much of a loner except for the time I spend with Henry.
I stay home, clean up a lot and write."

4) Being happy: "You can't achieve perfection, obviously, but the goal that
I have ­ in work and in life ­ is to be happy."

5) Painting/Photography: "Painting is something where I can look at the end
product and ­ whether I like it or you like it ­ I can say that's something
I did. I learned by watching other people do it, and by trial and error,
just like acting. I've written four books of painting, photographs and
poems, including Coincidence of Memory and Signlanguage. For A Perfect
Murder, I painted the large murals in my artist-character's studio. I've
exhibited my work internationally, most recently in Cuba and in Los Angeles."

6) Lost: "It's an exhibition of random photographs that I took when I spent
a terrifying night lost in a New Zealand rainforest while making Lord of
the Rings. It was a moonless night and my friend and I tried, in vain, to
find our way home through the forest. We made it back after the sun came up."

7) Poetry: "I started writing before I got into acting. I always wrote. I
write anywhere, everywhere. I've written poems on airplanes, in subways, in
taxis, even in the bathtub."

8) Beyond Baroque: "It's a poetry centre in Venice (California). I started
coming more than ten years ago and took a poetry workshop. The readings are
always great, but people aren't generally aware of this place because it's
not flashy."

9) Philosophy: "I agree with the Native American author Black Elk who said
that 'any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in
ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions.'"

10) Tolkien philosophy: "There is a tendency in America to say: this is
good and that is evil ­ and I shall do something about it. It isn't that
simple. Tolkien has Gandalf say something to the effect that nothing was
evil in the beginning ­ not even Sauron. Then Aragorn says to Legolas,
'Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, and nor are the one thing
among dwarves or elves.' I found it interesting that even though Tolkien
was a devout Christian, the books don't assert that there is a heavenly
reward for doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is its own reward."

11) Publishing: "I founded Perceval Press in order to publish high-quality
art books by artists and writers whom, I feel, are underappreciated so they
can keep attendant obligations from polluting otherwise pure artistic
enterprises. We print about a dozen books each year."

12) Kant philosophy: "He said, 'Seek not the favour of the multitude. It is
seldom got by honest and lawful means. But see the testimony of the few,
and number not the voices but weigh them."

13) Music: "I'm partial to jazz. I've released several CDs. People who are
creators create."

14) Artist Lola Schnabel (daughter of painter Julian Schnabel): "We have
had a wonderful relationship."

15) Camping: "It's a great way to spend quality time, outdoors, with my son
Henry. I have always sought refuge outdoors. As a child, I was sleeping
under a tree and found it very peaceful ­ until a dog started barking, and
that's how my parents found me."

16) Designing his own living space: "When we were in New Zealand, Orlando
(Bloom) and I shared a converted bus. I stocked our own wine cellar and
wallpapered the inside with photos. It was a lot of fun."

17) Gardening: "It's another hobby, and I don't use pesticides."

18) Lord of the Rings message: "It's about how a person ­ even a small
Hobbit ­ can make a difference and how it's essential to work together and
look past differences."

19) His Lord of the Rings co-stars: "You wanted everybody to feel safe and
happy. You feel like brothers and sisters. You want to take care of them."

20) Lord of the Rings tattoos: "I was the one who persuaded Ian McKellen to
get his first tattoo ­ the number nine in Tolkien fantasy language. He was
really into it."

21) His Lord of the Rings ring: "It became so much part of my life that I
still wear the ring that I wore in the movie."

22) Swordplay: "I worked with Bob Anderson, who taught Errol Flynn. He
cracked the whip for a couple of days, which really got me into the
physical stuff. I did pretty much all my own stunts in the battle scenes.
The stunt team trained thousands of people to use weapons. It was fantastic."

23) Hidalgo: "I like the idea of being in an American movie, and the
American character goes to a Third World country, in this case the Middle
East, not to destroy, not to punish, but to challenge them in this contest,
and in the end they learn something and he learns something. And then he
goes home. I think that's kind of healthy."

24) Writer Joseph Campbell's advice: "He said the privilege of a lifetime
is being yourself. That's his feeling. And I guess it's mine too."

25) Spirituality: "In Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman said something to the
effect of 'I hear and behold that God is in every object and yet I
understand God not at all.'"

26) Working with Liv Tyler: "She's very relaxed and surprisingly mature.
She was so convincing (that) I honestly began imagining she really was an
elf princess."

27) Working with Demi Moore: "She's tough, very disciplined and very
driven. But she never asked for any special treatment. She was having to do
some amazing things as a girl soldier. She never complained, although I
know she was in pain and afraid of certain things. She never said anything,
whereas the guys were whining and complaining on some days."

28) Working with Nicole Kidman: "She never stopped working and getting
inside her character's head. Nicole has all the talent but never lets it
get in the way of hard work. She's also down-to-earth and could tell jokes
very easily. The crew fell in love with her."

29) Working with Gwyneth Paltrow: "She's a truly beautiful woman. Always in
control. I had to make sure she was comfortable, so I sang to her in
Spanish. I sang her a bunch of Argentine tango songs.

30) The scar on his upper lip: "It's a reminder of my reckless youth. It
was a combination of a fist and a barbwire fence on a particularly bad
Halloween night. I was 17. When I got out of surgery, my friends ordered
pizza to the hospital and I helped them eat (the pizzas)."

31) Horseback riding: "I enjoy it thoroughly and actually requested that
Aragorn be astride in several scenes. In New Zealand, I kept my horses
nearby and worked to strengthen the rider/horse bond. The horses I rode
became my horses."

32) Baseball: "I'm a New York Mets fan."

33) Denmark: "My father's Danish and I always felt an affinity to that
country. I lived there, selling flowers, driving a truck and writing
poetry, after college."

34) Argentina: "I lived there as a child and I am a fan of the Argentine
soccer team San Lorenzo ­ and when I went back there a year or so ago, they
made me an honorary member of the team."

35) Languages: "I speak three (English, Spanish, Danish) and can get by in
several others. I learned a bit of Maori when I was in New Zealand."

36) Esoterica: "I go through phases of intense interest in various things,
like Civil War history, sword fighting and ­ recently ­ ghost dancers."

37) Being dorky: "They call me the Dork of New York."

38) Contributing to his films: "I suggested that Master Chief, the Navy
SEAL instructor, recite a D.H. Lawrence poem at the end of G.I. Jane. You
get to see that, after all the punches, the guy is a real gentleman ­ as a
lot of the real Navy SEALS are."

39) The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): "It's a silent movie that's now
available on DVD. The original negative was destroyed in a fire but a
complete version was found in a closet in a Norwegian mental institution in
the early 1980s and was restored. You should see it."

LOATHES:

1) Collecting souvenirs: "How many things can you have in your house? I did
keep the sword I used throughout the (Lord of the Rings) trilogy, and
that's great to have. But the best souvenir I have is the memory of the
experience for as long as I can remember."

2) American foreign policy: "I do feel it was ill-advised to ignore so many
countries and so many millions of people around the world and in our own
country who had very strong feelings about diplomacy. I don't think our
government really tried at all. The agenda seemed to be set, and I think
that's dangerous."

3) American domestic policy: "The administration uses nomenclature
reminiscent of the '30s; it's like they're studying the German technique of
subverting attention in a time of national crisis.

4) American media: "I do find that in this country you have to make a big
effort to be well-informed. There is no real news anymore. The war in Iraq
was not unlike a studio movie. There was a certain schedule. There was a
budget. There were the appropriate visuals. There was a lot of comparing
the good guys with the bad guys."

6) This political era: "I think we're in a very dark period. How much
damage has been done to the credibility of the United States? This is a
disturbing time, and you don't have to be of any political persuasion to be
disturbed or troubled by it. I think we're in a time of deliberate cruelty
and deliberate lying and, frankly, I think it's the very bottom of humanity."

7) Expatriates: "I won't say it's cowardly to leave the country, but
there's something about staying here and saying what I have to say. I'm a
citizen. I don't want to be outside taking potshots."

8) Poetry's bad rep: "People think poetry is a guy in a basement smoking
French cigarettes, and that it doesn't have a place in our modern,
high-paced world of computers and TV. I don't agree. I don't have a beret."

9) Using poetry to attract women: "I've tried, but I don't think it
actually works."

10) Discussing acting: "It's impersonation."

11) Mystification of acting: "It comes down to the fact that you supply the
blue, and they supply the other colours and mix them with your blue ­ and,
maybe, there's some blue left in the painting and maybe there isn't. Maybe
there wasn't supposed to be any there in the first place. So have some fun
and make a good blue and walk away."

12) Inconsistency: "I'm a control freak about wanting my characters to be
faithful to where I think they're coming from."

13) Strategic career planning: "I don't plan. I wait and hope the right
thing will find me. 90 per cent of the time, I run out of money before I
find the right thing."

14) Being type-cast: "When I started out, I couldn't try out for anyone
even remotely shady because I looked sort of boyish. But once I did (a
villain) reasonably well.

15) Knocking his past films: "It's not like you get to do any part you
want. Sometimes you gotta just pay the rent. If I really think about it,
there isn't any one movie I would wipe off my slate. Even during the worst
experiences, there was somebody I got to know, or something about the place
we were in, something memorable. A lesson."

16) Psychotherapy: "I'm not a fan of analysing. Twenty years ago, I'd say:
'I wonder why I'm here.' But now I'm too busy taking care of my life and
the people around me."

17) Incompletion: "I believe you have a moral obligation to finish the job
you said you would do."

18) Hollywood's social scene: "I'm just not a hobnobbing public persona. If
getting acting roles were dependent on gregariousness, I wouldn't have
gotten them."

19) Boredom: "There is no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes.
Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there is no excuse for boredom, ever."

20) Refusing to sign autographs: "I see no excuse for it, no matter how
long it takes."

21) Personal vanity: "I'm not that involved in personal grooming. But I try
not to be offensive to people."

22) Frustration: "I understand why, in dire time, you'd be tempted to set
your house on fire and never answer the phone again. But it would be better
to ask yourself: How can I be most useful to this world?"

23) Not being able to answer every fan letter: "I consider it a compliment
when people write and I used to answer each one personally ­ until it got
overwhelming."

24) Replacing another actor: "Peter Jackson drafted me to do Aragorn after
Stuart Townsend had started. It came as a shock. I hadn't read any of the
books and found myself on a plane, reading the script, trying to imagine
myself playing this character. I've never before been in a position to do a
job that another actor had already started. Although I was grateful for the
role, I felt a little awkward about that. I never even met Stuart. It would
have been much worse had he been my best friend or something. He's 26, much
younger than me, and the character of Aragorn needs to be older. It was
just a casting miscalculation ­ one of those things that happens sometimes."

25) Exhaustion: "With Aragorn, I came to the project very late and I became
worn out and concerned about my ability to be up to the task. I was so
tired that sometimes I was practically hallucinating."

26) Stories that he lived in the woods during Lord of the Rings filming: "I
went fishing a few times, but I didn't live in the woods. I couldn't have
done that. I would have missed my call to the set in the morning."

­ Syndicated Features