Viggo Mortensen

Did You Know?

• Mortensen was one of the two finalists to play Tarzan in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), but the role went to Christopher Lambert.
• He wore a Montreal Canadiens shirt underneath his costume throughout the filming of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Mortensen was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog on April 16, 2010.

Early life

Mortensen was born in New York City to Grace Gamble and Viggo Peter Mortensen Sr.; his mother was American and his father Danish. The family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina, where he attended primary school and became fluent in Spanish. His parents divorced when he was 11, and he returned with his mother and brothers to the United States, growing up in Northern New York State. He graduated from Watertown High School in 1976 and earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish studies and government from St. Lawrence University in 1980. After living in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Denmark—working jobs such as truck driving and flower selling—he returned to the U.S. in 1982 to pursue acting.

Acting career

Mortensen's first onscreen film appearance was as an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness (1985), a role he chose over a stage production of Henry V. That same year he played Bragg on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow and Tybalt in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet. In 1987 he won a Dramalogue Critics' Award for his performance in Bent at the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles, and appeared in the films Salvation! and Prison. In 1990 he played roles in Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Young Guns II, and The Reflecting Skin, the latter being his first film to premiere at Cannes.

Mortensen gained international attention for his portrayal of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003). He later starred in several David Cronenberg films, including A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007)—for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor—A Dangerous Method (2011), and Crimes of the Future (2022). He earned further Academy Award nominations for Captain Fantastic (2016) and Green Book (2018).

He made his directorial debut with Falling (2020), in which he also starred, and played the title role in Alatriste (2006), the most expensive Spanish-language film ever produced.

Literary and arts career

Using part of his earnings from The Lord of the Rings, Mortensen founded Perceval Press, a publishing house named after the Arthurian knight, to publish works by little-known artists and authors as well as his own artistic projects. He is an author of books of poetry, photography, and painting, writing poems in English, Danish, and Spanish. With anthropologists Federico Bossert and Diego Villar, he has co-authored works on the ethnography of Indigenous peoples in South America, including Sons of the Forest and Skovbo.

His paintings, often abstract and incorporating fragments of his poetry, have been exhibited in galleries worldwide. He has collaborated with guitarist Buckethead on several albums, many released on Perceval Press or TDRS Music, after being introduced to Buckethead's work while creating sounds for an educational CD on Greek mythology. His discography includes numerous albums, such as Pandemoniumfromamerica (2003), Canciones de Invierno (2010), and Godzilla Sleeps Alone (2018).

Personal life

Mortensen holds American, Canadian, and Danish citizenships and speaks English, Spanish, and Danish fluently. He met singer Exene Cervenka on the set of the comedy Salvation! in 1986; they married in 1987 and had a son in 1988. The couple lived in Idaho for three years, separated in 1992, and divorced in 1997. Since 2009 he has been in a relationship with Spanish actress Ariadna Gil; they reside in Madrid, though he spends much time in the United States and has owned property in Sandpoint, Idaho.

He founded Perceval Press in 1995. Mortensen has spoken about his family's struggles with dementia, noting that both parents, three of four grandparents, aunts, uncles, and his stepfather battled the condition; he cared for his father in New York in 2016 before his father's death a year later, and his mother had died two years earlier from complications of dementia. He was a close friend of Icelandic painter Georg Guðni Hauksson until Hauksson's death in 2011.

Mortensen is a fan of association football, ice hockey, and baseball, supporting clubs such as San Lorenzo de Almagro, Fulham, Real Madrid, Beşiktaş, and the Argentine and Danish national teams; he is also a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, New York Mets, and New York Giants.