Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. (/ˈviːɡoʊ ˈmɔːrtənsən/; Danish: [viːɡo ˈmɒːdn̩sn̩]; born October 20, 1958) is a Danish American actor, producer, author, musician, photographer, poet, and painter.
I would literally climb out of the cradle while my parents slept, go and crawl off. I did this a couple of times apparently. I'd cross the road and into someone's house, wake them up banging pots and pans in the kitchen.
I'm an optimist; I always hope that each new script is going to be a great story.
I was born in New York but as a baby moved to Venezuela and Argentina. I've also lived in Denmark, where my father's from. I've traveled a lot, and having that sort of background probably increased the chance that I was going to remain curious as an adult about people who are different.
When I make a movie, I don't break it down and analyze it. I could but it would get in the way of doing a job - on instinct based on all the research we did going in. you want to trust yourself and your director and your acting partners in the circumstances you're shooting. I don't like to have any kind of overview.
As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notebooks.
More often than not, the experience of shooting the movie has been disappointing and the end product has been a mere shadow of what I hoped it would be. But immersing myself in the story - that's what I like best of all.
You see people on the street yelling and think they're crazy, but maybe they're just happy and expressing what they feel at all times.
It's hard not to get depressed when you pay attention to the world and how strangely and corrupt the people in it sometimes behave.
I campaigned for [Dennis] Kucinich in 2008. I continue to be in touch with him and I really admire him. I think he's very brave and honest - unusually so for a U. S. politician.
I like a twisted sense of humour. On 'A History of Violence,' David Cronenberg and I would be doing the grimmest scenes and laugh a lot.
If in my twenties I'd gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.
I love rehearsing, but a lot of directors don't, and some actors don't.
It doesn't take that many years for a kid to realise that they're going to die. It's always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.
We all experience many freakish and unexpected events - you have to be open to suffering a little. The philosopher Schopenhauer talked about how out of the randomness, there is an apparent intention in the fate of an individual that can be glimpsed later on. When you are an old guy, you can look back, and maybe this rambling life has some through-line. Others can see it better sometimes. But when you glimpse it yourself, you see it more clearly than anyone.
The money I earn from films means I can help the people I want to help - you can do a lot of good if you want to.
I've been lucky to learn by playing all kinds of roles and watching all kinds of really good cinematographers, actors, and directors for many years before people were even aware of me in terms of audience.
Any nominations a movie gets helps to raise the level of curiosity in the public, so in that sense awards and nominations are important.
I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.
I don't like the 'must', the 'always', and the 'never' words. I don't like 'no' either.
I'm just looking as always for something that's stimulating and I hope to find a good story that's a challenge, whether it's big or small. Or that it finds me. I don't have like a career plan. Maybe I should, but I don't.