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| Birth Name(s) : Viggo Peter Mortensen |
Date of Birth: October 20, 1958 |
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| Profession:
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Full Viggo Mortensen Biography
Since his screen debut as a young Amish Farmer in Peter Weir's Witness (1985), Viggo Mortensen's career has been marked by a steady string of well-rounded performances. Critics have continually recognized his work in over thirty movies, including such diverse projects as Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady, The (1996), Sean Penn's Indian Runner, The (1991), Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (1993), Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (1997), Tony Scott's Crimson Tide (1995), Andrew Davis's Perfect Murder, A (1998), Ray Loriga's Pistola de mi hermano, La (1997), and Tony Goldwyn's Walk on the Moon, A (1999).
Born in New York to a Danish father and an American mother, Mortensen spent the early part of his childhood in Manhattan. His family traveled a great deal and he spent several years living in Venezuela, Argentina and Denmark. He began acting in New York, studying with Warren Robertson. He appeared in several plays and movies, and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where his performance in "Bent" at the Coast Playhouse earned him a Drama-logue Critic's Award. Mortensen is also an accomplished poet, photographer and painter. |
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Additional Viggo Mortensen Biography
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is an American theater and movie actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He is known for his role as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Mortensen was born in New York City. His Danish father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. (a farm manager who worked in business), and American mother, Grace Gamble (née Atkinson), met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was Canadian. His family moved to Venezuela, Argentina and Denmark, settling in Argentina, where his father managed chicken farms and ranches. They remained there until Viggo was age eleven, when his parents divorced and his mother moved back to New York. He moved with his father to Copenhagen, Denmark. Viggo and his father eventually went back to the United States where Viggo graduated from Watertown High School. After high school, he returned to Denmark, and became a truckdriver in Esbjerg, Denmark, before, again, returning to the United States to pursue an acting career. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a bachelor's degree in Spanish. He chose that subject because he could get good grades without a lot of study, leaving him free to be in a lot of plays. At his commencement, he refused to wear an academic gown because they were made by sweatshop workers. However, after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when he was granted an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, he did appear in the appropriate robes.
Mortensen has a son, Henry Mortensen, with ex-wife Exene Cervenka of the band X. Henry and Viggo have done public father/son poetry reading together as recently as April 2006. Mortensen is fluent in English, Danish, and Spanish, and conversant in Norwegian. He also speaks French, Italian, and Swedish reasonably well. Mortensen has dual citizenship in the US and Denmark.
Mortensen is an ice hockey fan, particularly of the Montreal Canadiens. He also loves football, and is a big fan of all time Argentinean star Diego Maradona and both the Argentine and Danish national teams, as well as Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro. In 1993, Mortensen went to Ireland during a break in shooting without the consent of the production company, to watch Denmark play in an important match. He is also a fan of the New York Mets.
He has spoken out against militarism and U.S. foreign policy. In continuing with his opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy he participated in a series of fundraisers for the Northern New York Congressional candidate from the Watertown, New York area, Bob Johnson, in September 2006. In Denmark, Mortensen is known for his support for the Freetown Christiania and criticism against the Danish participation in the Iraq war.
After several years of experience in live theater, he made his first movie appearance playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness. (Mortensen had actually been cast in two prior films — Swing Shift and 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.
In 2004, he 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 race for a massive 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 September 2007 the film Eastern Promises, directed by David Cronenberg, was released to critical acclaim for the film itself and for Mortensen's performance (see Roger Ebert's review among others). Viggo plays a Russian gangster on the rise in London. His nude fight scene in a steam room brought this comment by Roger Ebert: "Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark." Also in September 2007, either Mortensen himself or a like-alike appeared on an episode of The Colbert Report wherein Stephen considers running for President. As Colbert asks for a sign, Viggo appears in costume, offering Stephen his sword as would a knight.
With part of his earnings from The Lord of the Rings, he founded the Perceval Press publishing house — named for the knight from the legend of King Arthur — to help other artists by publishing avant-garde works that might not find a home in more traditional publishing venues.
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 several appeared in A Perfect Murder.
Mortensen experiments with his poetry and music by mixing the two art forms. He has collaborated with guitar virtuoso Buckethead on 6 albums. His discography includes: Don't Tell Me What to Do, Intelligence Failure, One Less Thing to Worry About, One Man's Meat, Live at Beyond Baroque, The Other Parade, This That and The Other, Live at Beyond Baroque 2, Pandemoniumfromamerica, and Please Tomorrow.
His latest CD/DVD, 3 Fools 4 April, documents the poetry readings given on April Fool's Day 2006 at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California.
His voice is featured on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack — he sings "Aragorn's Coronation," the words by Tolkien but the music composed by Mortensen himself. His poems are written in English, Danish, and Spanish. |
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| Whereas in The Two Towers you have different races, nations, cultures coming together and examining their conscience and unifying against a very real and terrifying enemy. What the United States has been doing for the past year is bombing innocent civilians without having come anywhere close to catching Osama bin Laden or any presumed enemy. |
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