Viggo Mortensen
(born October 20, 1958, New York City,
New York
, U.S.) is an American actor known for his striking demeanour and understated persuasiveness in roles ranging from shockingly brutal to heroic.
Mortensen’s mother was American and his father Danish. His early childhood was
peripatetic
, with stints in
Venezuela
and
Denmark
as well as
Argentina
, where he attended elementary school. After his parents divorced, he lived with his mother in her hometown of
Watertown
, New York. After graduating from
high school
in 1976, he attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a
bachelor’s degree
in Spanish and government in 1980. He spent the next few years working at a variety of jobs in
Britain
,
Spain
, and Denmark. While employed at a
movie
house, Mortensen developed an interest in
acting
. He subsequently returned to the
United States
and studied acting in
New York City
.
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Mortensen made his movie
debut
playing an
Amish
farmer in
Witness
(1985), and he won notice for his stage performance in a
Los Angeles
production of
Bent
(1987). He was cast in a number of minor movies, including
Prison
(1987) and
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
(1990), before costarring as the bad brother in
Sean Penn
’s
The Indian Runner
(1991). In 1993 he portrayed a gangster in
Brian De Palma
’s
Carlito’s Way
. Mortensen later played a supporting role in the submarine-set
Crimson Tide
(1995) and was the trainer of
Navy SEAL
recruits in
G.I. Jane
(1997). He had developed a reputation for playing tough or damaged men when
Peter Jackson
cast him in the major role of the valiant Aragorn in
The Lord of the Rings
movie trilogy (
2001
,
2002
, and
2003
).
Mortensen next played the swashbuckling hero of
Hidalgo
(2004), about a cross-desert horse race. He later earned acclaim for two films directed by
David Cronenberg
:
A History of Violence
(2005), in which he was cast as a small-town hero with a dark secret, and
Eastern Promises
(2007), about the Russian criminal underworld in London. For his work in the latter movie, Mortensen earned an
Academy Award
nomination for best actor. His subsequent films included the western
Appaloosa
(2008) and
The Road
(2009), an
adaptation
of a
Cormac McCarthy
novel. He portrayed
Sigmund Freud
in
A Dangerous Method
(2011), directed by Cronenberg, and Old Bull Lee/
William S. Burroughs
in
On the Road
(2012), based on the
Jack Kerouac
novel. For his performance as a man raising his family outside the bonds of society in
Captain Fantastic
(2016), Mortensen was again nominated for an Oscar, and he received his third nomination for his role as an Italian American bouncer hired as a driver for an African American classical pianist (
Mahershala Ali
) in
Green Book
(2018). Mortensen wrote, directed, and starred in
Falling
(2020), about a son attempting to care for his
abrasive
and unlikeable father who has
dementia
.
In 2022 Mortensen reunited with Cronenberg for
Crimes of the Future
, a “body-horror” film in which humans can grow new organs and largely feel no physical pain. Later that year the actor also appeared in
Ron Howard
’s
Thirteen Lives
, which was based on the real-life rescue of a youth
football
(soccer) team from an underground cave.
In addition to acting, Mortensen created and published books of poetry and of photography, and he had exhibitions of his photographs and paintings. He also released several albums on which he sang and played keyboards. In 2002 he cofounded the independent publishing company Perceval Press.
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