Viggo Mortensen
☼ Born on 20 December 1958, in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
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.
Mortensen was born in New York City, to Grace Gamble (Atkinson) and Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. His father was Danish, his mother was American, and his maternal grandfather was Canadian. His parents met in Norway. They wed and moved to New York, where Viggo, Jr. was born, before moving to South America, where Viggo, Sr. managed chicken farms and ranches in Venezuela and Argentina. Two more sons were born, Charles and Walter, before the marriage grew increasingly unhappy. When Viggo was seven, his parents sent him to the St. Paul's boarding school, in the Córdoba Sierras, in Argentina. Then, at age eleven, his parents divorced. His mother moved herself and the children back to her home state of New York.
Viggo attended Watertown High School, and became a very good student and athlete. He graduated in 1976 and went on to St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. After graduation, he moved to Denmark - driven by the need for a defining purpose in life. He began writing poetry and short stories while working many odd jobs, from dock worker to flower seller. In 1982, he fell in love and followed his girlfriend back to New York City, hoping for a long romance and a writing career. He got neither. In New York, Viggo found work waiting tables and tending bar and began taking acting classes, studying with Warren Robertso
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n. 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.
He made his film debut with a small part in Witness (1985). He appeared in Salvation! (1987) and married his co-star, Exene Cervenka. The two had a son, Henry Mortensen. But after nearly eleven years of marriage, the couple divorced.
In 1999, Viggo got a phone call about a movie he did not know anything about: "The Lord of the Rings." At first, he didn't want to do it, because it would mean time away from his son. But Henry, a big fan of the books, told his father he shouldn't turn down the role. Viggo accepted the part and immediately began work on the project, which was already underway. Eventually, the success of "The Lord of the Rings" made him a household name - a difficult consequence for the ever private and introspective Viggo.
Critics have continually recognized his work in over thirty movies, including such diverse projects as Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (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 A Perfect Murder (1998), Ray Loriga's My Brother's Gun (1997), Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon (1999), and Peter Farrelly's Green Book (2018).
Mortensen is also an accomplished poet, photographer and painter.
In the role of actor
Crimes of the Future (03/06/2022)
David Cronenberg makes his return to body horror in Crimes of the Future. Sometime in the future, humanity has evolved to the point where they can no longer feel pain, which has resulted in body mutilations becoming a perverse form of performance art. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one such performance artist, who regularly performs […]
Falling (07/02/2021)
A man has to care for his deeply cruel and homophobic dementia-suffering father in Falling. John Peterson (Viggo Mortensen) is a gay man, who brings his father Willis (Lance Henriksen), who is suffering from the early signs of dementia, to John’s home in California with his husband Eric (Terry Chen) and daughter Monica (Gabby Velis). […]
Green Book (17/09/2018)
A working class bouncer from the Bronx gets a job chauffeuring an African American pianist in the American South in Green Book. Set in 1962, Tony “Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is a bouncer at New York’s Copacabana night club, who is in need of work while the club is closed for renovations. Tony is offered a […]
Hurt (27/07/2018)
A woman spends Halloween night with her PTSD-suffering husband in Hurt. It is Halloween night in the small town of New Caney, Texas and Rose (Emily Van Raay) is reunited with her husband Tommy (Andrew Creer), who has just returned from the war. After spending some time with Rose’s sister Lily (Stephanie Moran) and her husband Mark […]
The Night of the Virgin (23/07/2017)
A young virgin gets more than he bargained for one New Year’s Eve in The Night of the Virgin. Nico (Javier Bódalo) was dragged to a New Year’s Eve party by friends and desperate to find a girl to take his virginity. Nico attracts the attention of Medea (Miriam MartÃn), who takes him home to her […]
On the Road (07/09/2012)
TIFF is now upon us and it is now time for my first review of the festival! On the Road is an adaptation of the classic novel by Jack Kerouac. The film focuses on Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), who is an aspiring writer and the narrator of the film. The narration of the film is in Kerouac’s […]
A Dangerous Method (13/01/2012)
I’m started to head into the cream of the crop of the Canada’s Top Ten selection. A Dangerous Method is of course the latest film by David Cronenberg. The very fact that the film is directed Cronenberg might affect the opinions of some from an auteuristic point of view. On it’s the own, I thought that […]
In the role of director
Falling (07/02/2021)
A man has to care for his deeply cruel and homophobic dementia-suffering father in Falling. John Peterson (Viggo Mortensen) is a gay man, who brings his father Willis (Lance Henriksen), who is suffering from the early signs of dementia, to John’s home in California with his husband Eric (Terry Chen) and daughter Monica (Gabby Velis). […]
Green Book (17/09/2018)
A working class bouncer from the Bronx gets a job chauffeuring an African American pianist in the American South in Green Book. Set in 1962, Tony “Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is a bouncer at New York’s Copacabana night club, who is in need of work while the club is closed for renovations. Tony is offered a […]
Hurt (27/07/2018)
A woman spends Halloween night with her PTSD-suffering husband in Hurt. It is Halloween night in the small town of New Caney, Texas and Rose (Emily Van Raay) is reunited with her husband Tommy (Andrew Creer), who has just returned from the war. After spending some time with Rose’s sister Lily (Stephanie Moran) and her husband Mark […]
On the Road (07/09/2012)
TIFF is now upon us and it is now time for my first review of the festival! On the Road is an adaptation of the classic novel by Jack Kerouac. The film focuses on Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), who is an aspiring writer and the narrator of the film. The narration of the film is in Kerouac’s […]
TIFF08: Good and Fifty Dead Men Walking (11/09/2008)
Most of the films I’ve seen at the festival were pretty light-hearted affairs. However, the films I saw last night and this morning were, in contrast, quite serious. Good is a story about a German university professor (Viggo Mortensen), who joins the Nazi party and slowly moves from being a “good” guy to being totally […]