LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Viggo Mortensen: Lord Aragorn
built 355 days ago
Viggo Mortensen is as cool as they come. During the filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, for example, he broke a tooth and two toes during the fight scenes; after shooting on The Lord of the Rings and Hildalgo wrapped, he bought the horses that he rode in those films. Mortensen, obviously, is the real deal.
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Mortensen's 1987 performance in Bent at the Coast Playhouse, Los Angeles, won him a Dramalogue Critics' Award. Coincidentally, the play, about homosexual concentration camp prisoners, was originally brought to prominence by Sir Ian McKellen, with whom Mortensen later co-starred in The Lord of the Rings. According to the Special Extended Edition DVD of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Mortensen was a last-minute replacement for Stuart Townsend, and wouldn't have taken the part of Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien trilogy. In the Two Towers DVD extras, the film's swordmaster Bob Anderson described Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained".
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An accomplished horseman in his spare time, Mortensen requested that his "Rings" character Aragorn be given more saddle time than was originally scripted. He ... kept his on-screen horse nearby during the entire principal photography schedule in order to ride in his off-hours and strengthen his relationship with the horse.
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Deze rol was aanleiding voor regisseur Peter Jackson om Viggo in 1999 telefonisch te benaderen voor de rol van Aragorn in de filmtrilogie The Lord of the Rings. In eerste instantie weigerde Viggo; het zou betekenen dat hij een lange tijd niet bij zijn zoon Henry zou kunnen zijn. Maar Henry, een groot fan van Tolkiens Trilogie, overtuigde zijn vader de rol toch aan te nemen. Viggo liet zich overhalen en begon meteen te werken aan het project, dat al in volle gang was; dit tot grote vreugde van regisseur Peter Jackson, die eindelijk zijn cast compleet had. Mortensen stortte zich vol overgaven in het project en wordt door velen als de meest devote acteur van de trilogie gezien, mede door zijn grootse inzet om de vechtscenes met zwaarden zo authentiek mogelijk te laten lijken. De wapensmeden welke de zwaarden smeedden voor de trilogie, beschouwden Viggo's toewijding als een compliment.
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His voice is featured on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack - he sings 'Aragorn's Coronation', the words by Tolkien but the music composed by Viggo himself. His poems are written in English, Danish, and Spanish.
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[One] trademark is Mortensen's seemingly perpetual five o'clock shadow. While he certainly is clean-shaven when need be, he often keeps the scruffy look he cultivated with characters like Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, and Mortensen is hard to recognize without a good dusting of manly stubble.
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Lord Aragorn