Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. R (born October 20, 1958) is an American actor.

Mortensen was born in New York City on October 20, 1958, the son of Grace Gamble (Atkinson; July 8, 1928 – April 25, 2015) and Viggo Peter Mortensen Sr. (May 8, 1929 – March 2, 2017).

His mother was American, while his father was Danish.

They met in Norway.

His maternal grandfather was a Canadian from Nova Scotia.

His paternal grandmother was from Trondheim, Norway.

The family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina.

They lived successively in the provinces of Córdoba, Chaco, and Buenos Aires.

Mortensen attended primary school and acquired a fluent proficiency in Spanish while his father managed poultry farms and ranches.

He was baptized Lutheran, the tradition of his father.

When Mortensen was 11 and his brothers 8 and 6, their parents divorced.

The three boys returned with their mother to the United States, where Viggo spent the rest of his childhood in New York State.

He graduated from Watertown High School in 1976.

He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a bachelor's degree in 1980 in Spanish studies and politics.

Upon graduating, Mortensen went to Europe, living for a time in the United Kingdom and Spain, before returning to Denmark.

There he took various jobs such as driving trucks in Esbjerg and selling flowers in Copenhagen.

He eventually returned to the United States to pursue an acting career.

He made his film debut in a small role in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness.

Mortensen's first film role was in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), but his scenes were deleted from the final cut.

His first onscreen appearance was playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness.

He was cast in Witness because the director thought he had the right face for the part of an Amish man.

He had also been simultaneously cast for another role as a soldier in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Henry V, but he decided to choose acting in the film because he wanted to try something new.

He credited that decision and the very positive experience on the film as the start of his film career.

Also in 1985, he was cast in the role of Bragg on the TV series Search for Tomorrow.

Mortensen's 1987 performance in Bent at the Coast Playhouse, Los Angeles, won him a Dramalogue Critics' Award.

The play, about homosexual prisoners in a concentration camp, was known for the leading performance by Ian McKellen.

Mortensen later costarred with him in the film trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

In 1987, Mortensen guest starred as a police detective on the hit TV series Miami Vice.

During the 1990s, Mortensen appeared in supporting roles in a variety of films, including Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady, Young Guns II, Prison, Boiling Point, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Sean Penn's The Indian Runner, Danny Cannon's The Young Americans, Carl Colpaert's The Crew, which won the São Paulo Film Festival Audience Award, Brian de Palma's Carlito's Way, Crimson Tide, G.I. Jane, Daylight, A Walk on the Moon, American Yakuza, Charles Robert Carner's remake Vanishing Point, Philip Ridley's films The Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon, the remake films A Perfect Murder and Gus Van Sant's Psycho (the 1998 remakes of two Alfred Hitchcock's movies Dial M for Murder and Psycho), 28 Days, and The Prophecy, with Christopher Walken.

Of these roles, Mortensen was probably best known for playing Master Chief John Urgayle in G.I. Jane.

He appeared in several notable films, including The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Daylight (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), A Perfect Murder (1998), A Walk on the Moon (1999), and 28 Days (2000).

Another major mainstream breakthrough came in 1999, when Peter Jackson cast him as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

According to the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Mortensen was a last-minute replacement for Stuart Townsend, and would not have taken the part of Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien novel.

Mortensen gained international attention for playing Aragorn in the fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003).

In 2002, he founded the Perceval Press to publish both his works and the works of little-known artists and authors.

Mortensen sang and composed for part of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and has collaborated with guitarist Buckethead on several albums.

He gained acclaim for his collaborations with filmmaker David Cronenberg in the thrillers A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and A Dangerous Method (2011).

He gained additional Academy Award nominations for his leading roles as an anarchist father in Captain Fantastic (2016) and as Tony Lip in Green Book (2018).

Mortensen made his directorial debut with Falling (2020), in which he also starred.

Aside from acting, Mortensen has explored fine arts, photography, poetry, and music.