Noticias de Viggo

santa escribió:Las chicas de virtual-viggo y también de viggo-work han colgado una excelente entrevista telefónica que dio Viggo desde Madrid, está en inglés, pero recomiendo leerla porque si bien es larga es muy buena y habla mucho y de cosas muy interesantes, siempre es un hombre profundo y muy inteligente.- Gracias a las páginas mencionadas por poner tan interesante entrevista.-

Oscar post mortem; Interviews with the snubbed: Viggo Mortensen

Another significant omission at the Oscars was "A Dangerous Method," which got no nominations at all. Surely Viggo Mortensen's sly, subtle, and surprisingly moving portrayal of Sigmund Freud deserved some recognition. At least he is getting the Coolidge Award for career achievement, which, judging from this recent conversation I had with him on the phone [he is living in Madrid] might be a more substantive acknowledgment of his accomplishments than the often capricious , superficial, and trendy Academy choices.

This is the long version of the Backtalk with Mortensen that appears in this week's issue [March 2] of the Phoenix. I spoke with him for over an hour, with a short break in the middle due to my clumsiness with our new telephone system (I tried to put him on hold to deal with another call, and cut him off).

Come to think of it, isn't that how the unconscious manifests itself, as Freud might suggest, by breaking off a train of thought when it becomes too sensitive? Or maybe it has more to do with the Jungian notion of synchronicity. Indeed, Mortensen's conversation, jumping from topic to topic at length with a seeming free associativeness that reveals itself to being unexpectedly organized, had a kind of similarity to a psychoanalytic session. So naturally one of the first subjects was the Super Bowl.

PK: Congratulations on the Coolidge Award.

VM. Thanks.

PK: And since I know you're a Giants fan, on the Superbowl as well.

VM. Thanks. I watched it here late at night. The last one was a surprise. Nobody expected them to win. This time it wasn't such a big upset.

PK: You're getting jaded. And cocky. Moving on to other matters, let me join the chorus of those who think that your performance in "A Dangerous Method," and the movie in general, got robbed by the Academy.

VM: I've seen that happen before, not just with movies I've been involved with but other movies as well. I suppose if in the end I really believed that awards [of that kind] - all of them, critics awards, all the different Academies, Golden Globes - if they were meant to reward excellent work or awarded degree of difficulty, if I thought that was what was recognized all the time I suppose I would be upset about it. But since it doesn't happen, for whatever reason, it's hard to take it too hard - except on a business level it would be helpful. But I must say the movie is doing pretty well. It's doing steady business. So I don't know why that happened but I appreciate what you said.

PK: The Coolidge Award is some compensation as it honors an entire career..

VM: It was a surprise honor. A lot of important people received that award so I was very honored to be asked.

PK: I thought that "A Dangerous Method" was one of David Cronenberg's best movies. The scene in which Freud collapses and Jung comes to his side and Freud says, "How sweet it must be to die" choked me up. But maybe I should save that for my shrink.

VM: I also felt that it was [one of Cronenberg's best] at the time. That was very vulnerable moment and David shot it very well. Supposedly he [Freud] passed out completely and you can't tell that was what happened because it happened quickly but it was an effective scene. I do think it is a movie that will wear well. I would say that about most of his other movies, certainly the last ten years of work, like "A Dangerous Method," they get better each time you see them, revealing more layers. They become more rather than less profound. Like works of art.

That's not usually the case. Usually it's the opposite. Even lauded movies and critically acclaimed movies on second or third viewing don't hold up as well. Usually they go the other way around. But it has a lot to do with promotion and distribution and timing and God knows what else. I think David's movies are to a certain degree an acquired taste. It takes a while to realize what is really great about them, I think. Not everybody is going to like his movies, but with the passage of time they grow on you more and more. People who at first like it will love it the second or third time around. Just see things they hadn't seen. I find with other movies when I watch them again I find more and more flaws.

Maybe it's a late blooming kind of thing. Maybe it's instant gratification that wins awards. Maybe that's why David hasn't been nominated. He has been for the Canadian Academy, the Genie Award, he's been nominated there and won several times. But here he's never gotten any recognition. It's almost like he's invisible to the American Academy, the British Academy. It's odd.

PK: You got a nomination for "Eastern Promises" [2007], didn't you?

VM: I did. It was quite surprising. I don't know if it was because it was a stretch or it was the naked knife fight.

I don't know why people vote for what they do. I was honored. Flattered. That was the only other time I was nominated for a Golden Globe and the Giants won that year too. So I guess we're good luck for each other. [laughs] I didn't win either time but they did.

PK: When the NFC wins in an election year I believe that's supposed to mean the Democrats win.

VM: Is that right?

PK: I'm not totally sure but I think the exception was when Gore won. Or rather lost. But really won. But the Super Bowl tells the truth.

VM: Well, in 2008 Obama won. So maybe it will happen again.

Dual trilogies

PK: You're better known for "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" but with "A Dangerous Method" you've also completed a trilogy with David Cronenberg. Do you see any parallels between the two?

VM: They're three movies, but they're quite different. And with "Lord of the Rings," I actually look at that trilogy as one long story. When I think of it in general terms, I think of it as one long story. I don't really separate. But more in the sense of the Godfather 1 and 2, one long movie. But even more so with Lord of the Rings, because they are one long book.

PK: I don't know if there's any plan to do something to cover the time gap between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," but it seems like your connection with the project is over at this point. Do you feel any kind of sadness about that?

VM: No. I mean, obviously if they had decided to bring my character back in whatever bridge story they're doing - I understand they're doing two movies. Now they may be doing two in order to be able to tell the whole story. I've heard the same rumors you probably have that the idea was to do some sort of bridge between "The Hobbit," and - you know there's a 60 odd year time span between the end of "The Hobbit" and the beginning of "The Lord of the Rings." So they could feasibly have done that, since Aragorn lives much longer than humans do, being part Elf and all that. Sure, if it seemed like something they wanted to do, I guess I would have done it, and it would have been fun. I really enjoyed working with New Zealanders as crew members, as teammates. They're great, and it's a beautiful country. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been and I've traveled quite a bit. It just has so many things. It's a good feeling being there. I have fun with most of the people that work on "Lord of the Rings," too. Like the ones that did get to go back, some were obviously central to "The Hobbit." Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Cate Blanchett and I guess Elijah went back for a small part, and Orlando Bloom as well. I know that they had a good time and so forth. I go back there [New Zealand] occasionally. I have friends there, and go back there when I can. It would have been nice to have work, but apart from going back to New Zealand, I don't have a strong contact with the filmmakers, but I do see a few of the actors here and there once in a while. It's something that was an important part of all of our lives, and I have fond memories of it. If it would have been possible I would have returned [for the new movies.] But I don't really feel - I mean nostalgia, in a sense. I have for many experiences, for many people I've known and places I've been. But I don't feel sad. I don't feel like suddenly it's over now, or something. It was over when we finished it. I look forward to seeing what they do with it. I'll be fun to see some the way they've adapted that book.

No fraud as Freud

PK: Do you think you'll ever do another movie with David Cronenberg? Has anything been discussed?

VM: I'm sure I will. We talk regularly and we write back and forth a lot about lots of things, not just movies. But he's always got a couple in the works. Because he's kind of eclectic and so original - what I was talking about before, it takes people a little bit to catch up to him, or get what he's doing in some cases. Maybe for that reason it's also so difficult for him to... He doesn't get his movies financed as easily as someone like, say, Woody Allen does, even though he has a very good track record, critically and in terms of making the money back. He's shooting on time or before time, and on budget or under budget. He couldn't be more efficient as a director, and more of a guarantee of quality and efficiency, in terms of the economics of movie making. But it takes him a while to get something together. He's got a couple things he's been talking about, and I don't know which will happen first but I'm sure we'll do something together because we have a good time working together. We have similar tastes and similar sense of humor, and obviously he knows he can count on me to work in a way that he likes, and I know that I work in a way that makes me comfortable.

PK: You almost didn't take the role of Freud, though, I read somewhere. You didn't think it was for you at first.

VM: I was surprised, you know. Just in terms of the way I look, I'm more of a Jung type, I suppose. So I was a little surprised. But it was David, after all. So when he first offered it to me I wasn't available, so he cast someone else [Christoph Waltz ]. But that person left and he came back to me and said, "Can you do it now?" This was half a year later or more. And I said, "Well I actually could if you think I could do it." And he said, "Yeah, definitely." He doesn't make those decisions or offers lightly. He's very careful about his casting always. I mean I interested him, basically. And as soon as I started learning more about Freud and doing the research, I gradually got more and more excited because I knew it would be interesting, it would be fun. But like any role, anything that's unknown, it was a little nervous-making at the start. It was more dialogue than I was used to. It was more of a stretch, in terms of characterization physically than other movies. There was a lot of new ground for me as an actor, but it was fun. It's nice when you can do that.

PK: Not as much sword fighting or violence.

VM: No, no. There's some, I suppose. There's different levels of emotional violence or verbal sparring going on, but it's true. There's not as much physical gesture speaking for me, although there is quite a bit. There's a difference in how he walks and sits and smokes. His posture's different. He does all those things differently than I do, the character. The voice is different, the intonation, the ironic tone. All of those things were challenges. But yeah, you're right. There's not fights or anything.

PK: I understand you smoked a number of cigars in order to get into the role.

VM: Well I had to do what he did, basically. Smoke a lot of cigars for every scene. Except for one brief one, I have a cigar either in my hand or in my mouth, and I smoke it in the course of the scene. In keeping with the photographic record, he's almost never without one in any setting: with kids, with adults, at work, at play. He always had them going. He was supposed to have smoked 20 to 22 of those cigars a day. It was quite a bit.

PK: You didn't have to smoke that many yourself I imagine.

VM: You know what, I smoked probably close to that. Probably half at a time, because there was more than one take. It seemed like I smoked a lot. I stopped doing that once I got the hang of it, but I was working on how he held them and how he smoked them, and getting comfortable with getting comfortable speaking with a cigar in your mouth so it doesn't seem or sound weird. So you can be intelligible and it seems natural. So I was smoking also between setups and things like that just to get the hang of it, but after a while I didn't need to do that so much anymore. It wasn't like I would go home and smoke cigars.

PK: So is it true that a cigar is just a cigar based on your research and your movie?

VM: I think a cigar is always a cigar. Just like a gun is always a gun. But all kinds of things can happen with cigars and guns. Sometimes a cigar tastes terrible and sometimes it tastes great. I don't know.

Jung at heart?

PK: I would take you to be more of a Jungian, based on what I've read about you and your movies and so forth, than a Freudian. Do you fall into either camp?

VM: Well it's true I'd read more about Jung before we started. What I like about the movie is it seems quite balanced academically, and in terms of painting a fair portrait of both Jung and Freud I think it's pretty evenhanded. Although I'm interested in a lot of the ideas that Jung had, I'm probably nearly as skeptical about the mystical aspects of Jung. The direction he was going in, which was the direction Freud feared, was going toward more of a religious figure. As a scientist, that did happen. I'm not so much concerned with that. I'm interested in the things that Jung touched on, in the things that Joseph Campbell found interesting about him, his interest in mythology . I don't know that I would find everything as connected as Jung did, in terms of reincarnation and the collective unconscious, and all those things. I'm not 100% sure about that to be honest. Freud was as interested and knowledgeable about mythology, archeology, anthropology as Jung was, but that didn't mean he felt he had to put it into his work. It touched upon that difference of opinion in the movie. I kind of agree with that. I don't you have to be a religious person to believe in any kind of god or otherworldly existence, supernatural being or life after death, or any of that to have a real interest in mythology.

PK: How about synchronicity? Does that ring any bells for you?

VM: Yeah, it's interesting but I like to deal with the here and now. Imagining you are someone else, imagining... I like to thing about where my family came from and what life was like for them. I imagine they're strains genetically in me, behavior that repeats itself. But beyond that... I don't believe in the scene when Jung speaks about coincidence, I more believe in what can be observed.

Analysis terminable and interminable

PK: A friend of mine who's a Wiccan asked me to ask you, because she heard you were a Pagan.

VM: What did she mean by that?

PK: She didn't specify.

VM: I recognize what it means, but it's a broad subject. I believe in what happens in nature and what I can see, and I don't mind that there are certain things that I don't know and that I can't know. And I think Freud would have been the first to agree with that. He felt that science was the best way of gaining knowledge, of learning things, of finding out about things, but he also recognized that science would never... you would never figure out the way of things. It's impossible to ever really know how things work. To completely know how we work, how our minds work, what's going on in nature. But that doesn't mean it's not worth making the effort. There's no such thing as perfection for an athlete, for a scientist, for a machinist, for a teacher, for a violinist, for a writer, but that does not mean it's not worth striving for. There's a contradiction there, obviously. It's paradoxical. But just because you're going to die, it doesn't mean you should stop wondering about things. Or you should stop reading books, educating yourself, improving yourself just because life is finite. Just because you'll never really know the answers, doesn't mean you shouldn't look for them.

The main thing that I do - I feel like Freud and Jung were not that far apart, honestly. They seemed to go further and further apart as time went by, and certainly after Freud died, Jung went in a direction that Freud was afraid of, or worried about. But I think essentially they were on the same wavelength, but it was more of personality difference and a difference in backgrounds. Although there were some significant differences, the main one being, just on a practical level, Freud said, "We're not going to cure anybody. In terms of how their mind works or how they feel about themselves. All we can do is help them understand themselves." He felt there's a difference between helping and curing, and that they're not the same thing. And Jung felt he was going to cure people.

He made that crack, a joke that Freud wouldn't even say in jest. He said, ‘Show me a sane man and I'll cure him.'

There's an arrogance to that, even if you're just making a joke. Sort of a sense of humor that he had, he was able to crack a joke, too. But really what Jung was saying was, "We're going to cure people. We're going to fix them. We're going to make them be who they've always meant to be. Help them." And Freud always maintained, even as his theories evolved, though he'd change his mind about certain things, he'd never change his mind about that, he believed "We're not going to fix you, but I can help you - the patient - understand yourself, understand the patterns of your behavior, why you think the way you do, why you do some of the things you do. Help you find some answers so can maybe avoid repeating certain patterns. Save yourself a certain amount of trouble, save those around you a certain amount of trouble."

But it's an ongoing effort. Just like any person's evolution is. Any relationship, any friendship requires regular work. Just like staying alive and functioning physically, if you don't go for a walk and just sit there, if you don't feed yourself, take care of yourself, you're going to decline rapidly. You'll function better if you work at it. A relationship will remain strong if both people work at evolving together, separately and together, to make it work. He's saying, "Maybe they'll be able to grow, but certainly they can avoid pitfalls or negative patterns, but they're still going to be troubled."

I think the thing that really upset people, including Jung, about Freud, not so much that he wanted to talk about the body in a very direct way, including sexuality. Not beat around the bush, sort of speak. What really bothered people was that he said everybody has that destructive impulse, everybody had has that negative, that dark side to them and that it's not going away. No matter how civilized we seem as human beings, as civilized as human society seems to be, there's always going to be a savage, destructive part. Destructive towards others, destructive towards oneself. And if you don't look at it in an honest way, examine it, those fears, those insecurities that lead to violence towards others and oneself, that unpleasant side to each person will come out eventually and in ways that are less manageable.

More destructive towards oneself and others.. I think that's what upset people, that he kept saying, "We're messed up. And we're never not going to be messed up, but it's worthwhile learning about it." It's like saying," You're going to die, and there's nothing afterwards. Get over it." It upsets a lot of people, including Jung. A son of pastors and a guy who, as I say, went into a more and more religious direction. I do like that directness and that fearlessness and that stoic side of Freud. I had misgivings about many things in his work, but I think the story's very interesting. People were very ambitious, arrogant, competitive, and insecure. And had big egos.

Yeah, it's an interesting story. You don't need to know anything or care about psychoanalysis to watch it and be interested, I think, in what happens between these people. And how pride gets in the way, how ego gets in the way. I do admire what I know about Freud, as far as how he lived and how de died. There's a stoic approach to life and work and death. I felt it was quite admirable.

PK: He faced down the Gestapo, that's pretty good.

VM: He said he'd be sure to recommend them to anyone. They were too stupid to realize he was making fun of them, I suppose, or didn't care. I'm not sure.

PK: Speaking of violence, you're going to be doing a Q&A for ....

VM: ...Mark Twain was someone who has a great quote about cigars. I don't know why that just occurred to me. I mean this is the kind of humor that Freud liked a lot. And they'd met. He was an admirer of Mark Twain. He liked Twain and Oscar Wilde for the same reason, because they liked satire and wordplay. They got around censorship, they got around taboos. He admired them for that. I think politically, he was on the same wavelength as both of them. But Mark Twain once said, "I've made it a rule to not smoke more than one cigar at a time." Which is simple but it's great. Freud liked that kind of dry wit. Sometimes goofy, kind of silly.

PK: Did you read his book, Psychopathology of Jokes, or something? ["The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious"]

VM: Yeah, that's a pretty good book.

PK: It's not very funny.

VM: No, but it's an interesting study of why people tell jokes and what are they saying when they're telling jokes. Very, very interesting.

PK: Like "Interpretation of Dreams," it's a good book to apply to movies sometimes. The mechanics of how dreams work are often paralleled in movies. Anyway, so you plan to do a Q&A after a screening of "Eastern Promises." Was that your choice?

VM: Apparently... That's what I think we're doing. I think they're showing "A History of Violence." During the days of that week I think they're going to show the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "A History of Violence," "A Walk on the Moon." And the day I'm there I guess they're showing "Eastern Promises" before the Q&A. Kind of weird to go back to that, in a way.

No Shame in that

PK: Strange how Roger Ebert said that film ["Eastern Promises"] was a landmark because of the scene that you mentioned, the nude fighting scene in the sauna. And now you appear in a movie with Michael Fassbender, who was also naked in what some think was a very taboo-breaking performance in "Shame." Did you ever talk about that while you were making the movie?

VM: We didn't I hadn't seen that at the time. I finally just got around to seeing it. Honestly, I don't understand what the big fuss about it is. I don't know what taboos are being broken. It's not that groundbreaking, all due respect to the movie ,in my opinion. What's so groundbreaking about that movie? Maybe you can explain it to me.

PK: Well I don't think it's groundbreaking, certainly when you compare it to European movies...

VM: Well that's the word on the street. All these people have been raving and raving, and I go see it and it's nicely made. Quite well-performed. But it's not breaking new ground in terms of cinematography, scriptwriting, editing.

[The call is dropped because of my inability to understand the new phone system. Viggo calls back about fifteen minutes later.]

PK: I'm awfully sorry about that...

VM: What were we talking about? Synchronicity? I don't think there's a pattern to seemingly unrelated events, but I do think it's interesting, the connections that we can make. And I'm inclined that way, to favorably compare things or to look for what we have in common, what other people... If I travel to somewhere and I recognize the landscape, I try to see it for what it is and learn whatever's new about it, but Austria reminded me of when I lived in Argentina - same latitude, some of the vegetation was similar. Those experiences that you have, when something rings a bell or you make certain connections or a certain person reminds you of someone you know or someone in your family. I think it says more about the person that makes connections, than that it confirms that things are related. It's more about what we make of the world, than that the world is a certain way. There's something about that. Deciding that things are all connected. It's nice to look for connections, but I don't think they're there necessarily all the time. Most of the time there are not. But I think it's a very positive trait that a lot of people have, including myself, that you try to find common ground.

I don't know what else we were talking about. Oh yeah, "Shame."

I think it's an interesting movie, it's a good movie. But I don't know... If the movie was really groundbreaking and really transgressive, it certainly wouldn't have been winning all those awards. I guess people's taste is fairly conservative and it's pretty much a herd mentality. And many times, on these Top 10 lists, people tend to dismiss it until a year later.

It's kind of a little absurd. I don't think "Shame" is one of those movies. I think "Shame" is a very interesting movie, but the thing that I've heard about it... It didn't seem, at least to, my taste, but to each his own. It didn't seem groundbreaking in terms of photography, or movie storytelling, script writing, acting, directing. I didn't think on any level it was a new wave of moviemaking that we were seeing the birth of. I think it's a very well made movie, like other movies were quite well made, but I don't know what all the taboo-breaking fuss was about. It's really not about that at all. It's fairly straightforward.

PK: I take it you didn't discuss it much with Michael when you were making the movie.

VM: No, because I hadn't seen it until just the other day.

PK: With all the hype it must have been disappointing.

VM: No, it wasn't disappointing. I was just surprised. I appreciated the things that were good about it, and good about his performance. But the aspect of, "This is the most bold, brave, blow your mind kind of thing," I didn't get that from it. It's a well made movie. It's a nice follow-up to "Hunger." But it wasn't much more than that. It was a decent piece of work. But I don't understand why people make a big deal about a lot of things, so. Nice job. If I hadn't have heard all the hype I would have said, "Oh, nice." It was pretty good. Good job. It was a probably a hard role to play, and, congratulations. I'm talking about... It's not just about the filmmaker, or the actors. There's just a reaction of how it's categorized or how it's described, and I find fault with that. Not fault, but I don't comprehend. It just doesn't make any sense. It's just like, "What's the big deal?" As far as transgressive, because it isn't.

PK: How was it working with Michael in the making of "A Dangerous Method?" Did you guys get along?

VM: We had a good time, yeah. He's obviously a very good actor, but he's also a good work companion. He's very funny, has a very good sense of humor. He has a good singing voice and enjoys singing. He's very well prepared. He shows up having worked extremely hard on the script. I'm sure that's probably how he always works. He shows up ready to go to work and give his best, but he's also relaxed and fun. We get along very well, cracking jokes. It's a good way to keep things light, especially when you're dealing with heavy material or lots of dialogue. The worst thing you could so with Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud is to take yourself too seriously, because you're going to bore yourself and others, I think. It's important to keep it light. I think that was David's attitude.

[A dog barks in the background. Or does it?]

PK: I'm sorry, I have to ask you what kind of dog you've got. I heard a dog barking in the background.

VM: What kind of dog do I have? I don't have one right now. But I used to have a Border Collie, well, a cross of Border Collie and something else. A sheep dog, you know. Black and white dog you see all over Scotland. Classic sheepherding dog.

The Road goes ever on

PK: Anyway, speaking of top 10s, I put "The Road" on my Top 10 list in 2009. I was surprised that it didn't get much attention.

VM: Well thank you. I like that movie, too. I was proud of that movie. But I understood why it didn't do well. It was dumped by the distributor, unfortunately [Weinstein, ironically]. But that was a movie that deserved a lot better. They didn't put in all the theaters by a long shot, or do the promotion they contractually had agreed to do. So the director, myself, and a couple others worked very hard to promote the movie. With that in mind, and when it came time to release the movie they didn't do much of anything. They put their money into other movies that they had. I guess it was too much of a gamble, I don't know.

But there was a big audience out there. It was a best-selling novel. A lot of people were waiting to see the movie, a lot of people were very frustrated and wrote to their newspapers. I read some of those things. Like, "Why wasn't this in Maine? Why can't I see the movie?" That was unfortunate. As with Cronenberg's movies, there are other ones that have been overlooked. That deserve to be seen or are interesting, not the usual fare. They will eventually get to their audience. In time: on DVD, in other ways. On TV, on cable, on airplanes, or whatever. People will eventually see it, but you want them to go see in the movies theaters. You hope they'll go see in the movie theater. And the ones who did enjoyed it. A lot of people come up to me and say they really liked that movie. Kind of disturbing, but very beautiful. It's nice to hear you say it. Cronenberg's movies: they have a long shelf life.

And "Shame" was fortunate in that it did get praise. I was not the most easy subject matter, a movie like "Shame," but it got very good notices, good reviews. It did get a lot of attention while it was in theaters, which was nice for it. That kind of movie usually fairs about as well as "The Road" did. It's seen very little. The movie business talked about it, some critics. If you see it ever you end up seeing it on DVD. Though I think a lot of people got to see it in theaters, which is good. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case in the United States with "The Road." But since then it's done quite well, in other media, on DVD and other things. If not, not so many people would come up to me and talk about that movie the way they do.

PK: So do you choose movies, what you were mentioning for, because they break new ground? What are the criteria you use to decide that you ....

VM: I don't have any formula, I'm just looking for an interesting story. People think actors who work regularly have a lot more say. All I can say is "No" really, or "Yes." People have to offer them to me. It's not like I can decide what I'm going to do next and I can choose, if I'm lucky enough to get more than one offer it's viable and something that's really going to go. I read lots and lots and lots of scripts, and most of them don't ever get made. They make the ones that are very good. But if someone wants you to do something and it's an interesting story and it's something you haven't tried before and that you're afraid of, that's the kind of thing that usually I'm drawn to. Something that scares me. As long as it's got a solid, good story. If I'm afraid of it, that's a sign that I should do it, assuming that they want me. Because what we're usually afraid of is the unknown, what we don't know, and what we haven't tried before.

In the case of Freud, as I said, being afraid of a lot of dialogue. How do I get that ironic tone? How do I look like that sort of person? Once you crack it, or feel you have, feel comfortable with the character, it can be a lot of fun to do something completely new. That's what interests me. There are other actors that have another, sort of zen-like way of looking at things. Who choose two very similar characters, and do variations on a theme, in a way. They play in an area that's comfortable. There's infinite possibilities for variations. There's actors like Clint Eastwood or those able to reinvent themselves to a degree playing similar characters. I like to play things that are quite different sometimes, from myself or from other characters, just for fun. Just to see what happens.

PK: You did your first Argentinean movie, is that correct?

VM: Yeah, I played twin brothers in that, and that was interesting. I've never played twins before so that was an interesting challenge.

I've done other foreign movies in Spanish, and this last one was in Argentina where I was raised until I was 11. It was my first chance to make a film there.

PK: Did you recognize the places where you used to live in Argentina?

VM: Yeah, but I've been going back since 1995. I've been going back every year at least once. But it was different to be shooting, because you know you're going to be there for months. And plus we're shooting outside of the capital and itwas nice to be out in nature, out in the outdoors during the wintertime. It was an unusual movie location.

PK: Are you working on anything right now?

VM: I just finished a play, an Ariel Dorfman play called "Purgatorio."

He's a brilliant writer who also wrote "Death and the Maiden." This was a new play, the first time it'd been done in Spanish anyway. It'd been done before in English. But, in the process of rehearsing this play, he [Dorfman] ended up discovering a lot of new things about it, rewriting it and tightening it. I think this will be the definitive version. He's now translating it back into English and into other languages. It was an interesting experience for me. I hadn't been in a play in over 20 years. Talk about being frightened - that was definitely frightening in a very positive way. Scared me into doing something different and learning a lot.

PK: Were your fears realized or did it all go well?

VM: Yeah. I was terrified but it was fun. I loved it. I really enjoyed it. I guess it was the next step after doing Freud, having a part with so much dialogue and then to do a play where you're on stage for an hour and 45 minutes. Just you and another person and you never leave the stage, basically. You never stop talking to each other. That's a tall order, but it ended up being a lot of fun. It was a nice theater, we were very close to the audience. We had them on three sides. It was a good experience, I liked it. It was a good challenge.

More Road work

PK: Did that prep you for doing another movie? Do you have another movie in mind?

VM: I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing next yet. I have that Argentinean movie called "Everyone Has Plan," the one you were talking about, that one's coming out soon. And I have a part in Walter Salles's adaptation of Kerouac's "On The Road." Since you're speaking to me from Boston, that's more of local product.

PK: Going from "The Road" to "On The Road," huh?

VM: Yeah, exactly. It was fun, I got to play the character who was a mentor to younger, like-minded thinkers, the Bull Lee character based on William Burroughs.

PK: Do you read much Burroughs?

VM: Yeah, I've read everything he wrote, I think. A lot of articles, and a lot of things. I listened to a lot of video recordings. Video recordings were very helpful for this part. I was trying to be pretty faithful to his sound, his rhythms.

PK: Did you ever meet the guy?

VM: Never did. Would have loved to.

I think it's funny, because at the time it was like, "Well he's completely insane." And Kerouac's work was more geared to youthful, popular kind of taste. Not mainstream, but closer to it. And Ginsberg, in terms of Beat poetry or whatever it was, was the man. But I think in some ways, the work that holds up the best is Burroughs. As a writer, as a literary contribution. I think that "On The Road" was a really well-crafted, cultural contribution, kind of a watershed moment starting the Beat movement in '57 and all the repercussions of all that. But William Burroughs's use of language, his wordplay, is very original. His landscapes and characters. The mixture of realism, in terms of slang and colloquial language. And his imagination is sort of fantastical, paranoid, other-worldly, disease-ridden... [laughs] I don't know. I think there will be more of a lasting contribution. Of those guys he was the most substantive or whatever. There was just something about, he had more of a sense of humor. In terms of literature I think he's going to hold up longer than either Kerouac or Ginsberg.

PK: What'd you think of David Cronenberg's adaptation of "Naked Lunch " (1991)?

VM: I thought it was really interesting. I mean it was only 50% Burroughs, if that, with Burroughs's blessing. I thought it was completely in the spirit for Burroughs. It was very interesting. That was a hard shoot for David. With the political problems and unrest in north Africa where they were shooting they had to Toronto and reinvent all that. In terms of set construction and art department work, they did a great job with it. They didn't miss a beat. It is very interesting. Very thought provoking. It's been a while since I've seen it. But I remember thinking it was a pretty good hybrid of Cronenberg and Burroughs.

Ring of power

PK: So with the trilogy, with "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, you must have gone from a life of relative obscurity to one where a lot of people are kind of worshipping you as a demigod. Has that proven to be a positive experience? How are you adjusting to it?

VM: I focus on... It has allowed me to sell books [via his Perceval Press], to have more people come to poetry readings. It allowed turn a lot people who are interested in me as an actor suddenly that hadn't been before, turn them on to writers and people that I like and that I'm interested in. In terms of me being an actor, it allowed me to work with David Cronenberg, for example. If it hadn't been for the trilogy, he wouldn't have been able to cast me, no matter how much he wanted to, in "A History of Violence" (2005) and that was important to me.


I look at it as a win-win situation - good all the way around. Yes, it's weird when suddenly people on the street think they know you better than they know their own family, and that's odd until you go through I supposed, there's no way to know how to prepare for that. I keep to myself. I'm not someone who goes out, hits all the hot spots. In any case, I am in the world. It didn't affect me that much, just once in a while. I might be caught unawares, when people come over and interrupt you when you're at a restaurant. But mostly it's just at a premiere situation where you know there are going to be a lot of people. There's events, public events, poetry readings, photo exhibitions. There's going to be a lot of those people who come. I don't feel any resentment. It's only brought me a lot of new opportunities in terms of work and exposure and travel. I'm most grateful to it.

PK: It also gives you more of a presence when it comes to expressing yourself politically. You were involved in the presidential campaign in 2008. You don't seem to be as noticeable this year for this campaign. Is there a reason for that?

VM: I am active in terms of the Dennis Kucinich re-election. He's in danger because of Republican engineered re-districting. He's been able to withstand that kind of thing before and be reelected because people really value him in that district. I think he'll go down in history as one of the great, not just politicians, but American statesmen. He puts his money where his mouth is. about Iraq, Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, and about Syria now. He's someone who speaks truth to power as much as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. He's a national treasure.

But as far as presidential politics, there's not a hell of a lot to talk about. Obama has unfortunately but predictably caved in in almost every area. He's doing what he needs to do to win the reelection. In every area, in terms of his promises, and what people hoped would change drastically in the country. And it's not all the doing of the Republicans who have stymied him along the way, even though they've done a lot of that. It's his own choice. It's the kind of statements he makes abroad which are ridiculous. His policy in terms of the Middle East, he's coming very late to the game of acknowledging the Arabs after what happened in Egypt and supporting Mubarak. What I think was a mess in terms of Libya, what I think is a very dangerous mess in terms of Iran. He's not so different from Bush at all, so there's not much to talk about there.

That being said, I would rather see him reelected - the lesser of two evils - than anybody in the Republican camp. It's just absurd. It would be funny if it was not so dangerous to the United States and the world. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, or any of them. Ridiculous, ridiculous people. I don't see much to be excited about in terms of presidential politics on either side.

But I am an optimist. I will definitely vote and I will keep paying attention. And Dennis Kucinich is one of the most optimistic politicians in maybe the history of the United States, but he's also the most realistic one. Considering what the stakes are, in terms of war and foreign policy, social inequalities and all the things that are problematic. He is the most forthright, courageous and optimistic at the same time. He makes a good example, like Howard Zinn, like Noam Chomsky. He's fearless in talking about things as they are but that doesn't make him defeatist.

PK: Since you are coming to Boston, I noticed that you like to go some place that's indigenous to the place that you visit, because you don't know when you're going to back there. Is there any place you're planning on visiting when you're here?

VM: Do you have any recommendations?

PK: I would say the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

VM: I'll look for that. Isabella Gardner.

PK: And of course Fenway Park. Unless you're a Yankees fan, too.

VM: Nope, I'm a Mets fan. [laughs]

PK: No!

VM: Bill Buckner. Poor guy.

Who are Viggo Mortensen’s heroes? Ask him, and he doesn’t hold back. That’s what we learned when, after a recent interview, we sent the actor some follow-up questions via e-mail. Here are his responses.

1) Who were your heroes growing up as a child, and who are they today?

Okay, you asked for it...

As a child — say, before age eleven — I suppose they were my father, my mother, various horses and dogs, soccer players for San Lorenzo de Almagro (a club founded in Boedo, Argentina, in 1908 by Salesian priest Lorenzo Massa) like “Lobo” Fischer, “Loco” Doval, “Bambino” Veira, “Sapo” Villar and too many other legendary players from that club to mention — Viking Leif Eriksson, fictional gaucho cowboy Martin Fierro, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Odin, Thor, Jesus of Nazareth, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, the character Don Quijote, his horse Rosinante and his trusty servant Sancho Panza, Achilles, Odysseus, Theseus, Joan of Arc, explorer Roald Amundsen, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, Thor Heyerdahl, Roger Bannister (the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier), marathon champion Abebe Bikila, Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), long jumper Bob Beamon, Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes, Emil Zátopek, Wilt Chamberlain, Cassius Clay, swimmers Don Schollander and Dawn Fraser, Peter O’Toole’s impersonation of T. E. Lawrence, the crew of Apollo 11, the recently-deceased rock legend Luis Alberto “El Flaco” Spinetta, Carlos Gardel, Bela Lugosi, Greta Garbo, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Louis Armstrong, Edith Piaf, Beethoven, Mozart ... I could probably name more, but surely that gives an idea of how and where I dreamed back then.

Although as an adult I have come to see that no human being is perfect, I now would place at the top of the list the many unheralded people whose small acts of selfless kindness and courtesy, of grace under pressure that we come across every single day are there to be noticed and emulated if we simply pay attention. In terms of individuals who are relatively well-known, I would single out Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Helen Caldicott, Dennis Kucinich, Baltasar Garzón, Aung San Suu Kyi, Julian Assange and anyone who speaks truth to power, stands up against injustice and cruelty regardless of any consequential risk of ostracism or personal physical danger. Of course, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mark Twain, my father, my mother, and some of the others previously mentioned, are still heroes to me. I can also add, among other diverse sorts of heroes, my son Henry, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein, Heraclitus, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, Epictetus, writers Marguerite Duras, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Albert Camus, Jonathan Swift, E. E. Cummings, Julio Cortázar, Mario Benedetti, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Juan Carlos Onetti, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Francisco Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Haroldo Conti, Oscar Wilde, Knut Hamsun, Saxo Grammaticus, Schopenhauer, Ludvig Holberg, Anton Chekhov, Anna Akhmatova, Johannes Ewald, Euripides, Stanley Kunitz, Theodore Roethke, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Conrad, Osip Mandelstam, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Seamus Heaney, Oscar Wilde, Cormac McCarthy, Edgar Allan Poe, Rainer Maria Rilke, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, William Burroughs, Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Campbell, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, directors Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, David Cronenberg, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Luis Buñuel and Yasujirō Ozu, actors Richard Jenkins, Sandy Dennis, Geraldine Page, Meryl Streep, Maria Falconetti, Ghita Nørby, Ariadna Gil, Jessica Lange, Paco Rabal, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Dirk Bogarde, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Federico Luppi, Montgomery Clift, and Robert Duvall, stuntman Mike Watson, sculptors Bertel Thorvaldsen, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, painters Giotto, da Vinci, Juan Gris, Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Andrei Rublev, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Utagawa Hiroshige, Minerva Chapman, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Diebenkorn, Per Kirkeby, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and photographers Jacques Henri Lartigue, Jacob Riis, André Kertész, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Julia Margaret Cameron, Martin Munkácsi, August Sander, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Garry Winogrand and Dennis Hopper, tennis champions Rafael Nadal, Björn Borg and Guillermo Vilas, skiers Bill Koch, Juha Mieto, Jean-Claude Killy and Bjørn Dæhlie, newer San Lorenzo players like “Beto” Acosta, “Ratón” Ayala, the heroic 1982 San Lorenzo team that came back from the club’s only descent to Argentina’s second division breaking national attendance records along the way, Guy Lafleur and the great Montréal Canadiens teams from the 1970s, the 1969 and and 1986 New York Mets, Tom Seaver, “Doc” Gooden, New York Knick stars Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Bernard King, Oscar Reed, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, “Magic” Johnson, the U.S.A. 1980 Olympic hockey team, the ’87, ’91, 2008 and 2012 New York Giants teams, Danish soccer stars Allan Simonsen, Michael Laudrup, Peter Schmeichel and Denmark’s 1992’s soccer cinderella-story European Champion team, Johan Cruyff, Mario Kempes, Diego Maradona, Real Madrid’s/Schalke’s Raúl González Blanco, Leo Messi, Gonzalo Higuaín, Zinedine Zidane, Bob Dylan, Ada Falcón, Leonard Cohen, Chet Baker, Gustav Mahler, Arvo Pärt, Carl Nielsen and so on...

Sorry to give you such long lists. Could have been even longer...

2) What are your favorite films, or films influential on your career, and/or what actors do you admire, and why?

Movies, to name a few: The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Godfather I & II, A Separation, The Fog of War, The Conformist, Los Santos Inocentes, The Deer Hunter, Casino, Lawrence of Arabia, Tokyo Story, Autumn Sonata, Sunrise, Andrei Rublev, Citizen Kane, A Place in the Sun, City Lights, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Greed, The Night of the Hunter, The Third Man, Gallipoli, Mother and Son, Stalker, Ivan’s Childhood, Red River, Taxi Driver, Frances, Network, Grand Illusion, L’Atalante, Throne of Blood, The Seven Samurai, The Sword of Doom, Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy, Carnival of Souls, Solaris (Tarkovsky’s original)...

Actors, to name a few: Montgomery Clift, Maria Falconetti, Meryl Streep, Marlon Brando, Richard Jenkins, Sandy Dennis, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page, Robert Duvall, Anna Magnani, Peter O’Toole, Toshiro Mifune, Dennis Hopper, Jessica Lange, James Dean, John Hurt, Dirk Bogarde, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Bergman, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Ulrich Thomsen, Max von Sydow, Bruno Ganz...

3) Did you read much fantasy or science fiction as a kid? Did you ever play Dungeons & Dragons or know anyone who did?

Never have played “Dungeons and Dragons.” 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.

4) We talked a little about your work as an actor, painter, poet and musician. They all seem linked by story. So I’m wondering what you think is the significance or power of stories? Why are they so important?

We are the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories we tell about others, the stories we read about everyone and every thing.

Actor Viggo Mortensen honored at the Coolidge Corner Theatre

Viggo Mortensen at the press conference for his Coolidge Award Monday at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Globe Staff/Suzanne Kreiter

By James H. Burnett III, Globe Staff

Actor Viggo Mortensen took the stage at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline Monday afternoon to accept the theater’s ninth annual Coolidge Award, given to artists who advance “the spirt of original and challenging cinema.”

Prior Coolidge Award winners include Jonathan Demme, Meryl Streep, and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who has collaborated with director Martin Scorsese for decades.

Dressed as if he might be preparing for a role as a sailor -- in black pea coat, striped nautical shirt, and boat shoes -- Mortensen faced a throng of cameras and journalists, thanking everyone “for showing up.”

With that the extent of his acceptance speech, Mortensen alternately joked with reporters and fielded questions -- most of them, inevitably, about his role as Aragorn in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Mortensen has also starred in “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” “A Walk on the Moon,” and will appear this year in the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”

Asked by a writer for a J.R.R. Tolkien fan site how he felt about her ilk, Mortensen lauded the 400-plus Tolkien fans -- many dressed in “Lord of the Rings” costume -- who descended on the theater Sunday night for a screening of the trilogy.

“And these were the extended versions, three-and-a-half hours each,” Mortensen said. “So they were there all day!”

Mortensen described how he arrived in Boston late Sunday after driving from upstate New York and surprised the Tolkien fans by making an unscheduled appearance at the theater to introduce the third film, “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” He even serenaded the crowd with the song performed during his coronation ceremony in the film.

The fans reminded him of the night in 2003 that “Return of the King” premiered in Oslo, Norway, Mortensen said. “People had been lining up in costume for a month -- elves, fair maidens, all that stuff.” Volunteers provided free Internet service, psychological counseling, coffee, blankets -- “because [fans] were basically laying in the snow.”

“Last night was akin to that,” Mortensen said.

Though he returns to New York early Tuesday, Mortensen said that when he has time he likes visiting museums here and simply walking around the city. “I’ve never been to Fenway,” he mused. “I’d like to go there,”

The actor, who began his film career in Peter Weir’s “Witness,” took a moment to pay tribute to swordsman Bob Anderson, who died in January at 89. Anderson trained Mortensen and others for the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and, as Darth Vader, fought Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi with light sabers in “Star Wars.”

Mortensen also explained the lengths to which he goes to prepare for characters, by conducting almost academic research on them and the history surrounding their type.

Asked a half dozen different ways if he has a mantra, Mortensen answered “Life is short.” JAMES H. BURNETT III

El actor VM honrado en el CCT

VM en la conferencia de prensa por su CAM en el CCT, por James H.Burnett III

El actor VM tomó el escenario del CCT en Brookline en la tarde del lunes para aceptar el premio que se otorga a los artistas que se dedican al espíritu del cine original y desafiante.
Otros personajes que recibieron este premio han sido Jonathan Demme, Meryl Streep y la editora de películas Thelma Schoonmaker, quien ha colaborado con el director Martin Scorsese por décadas.

Vestido como si estuviera preparándose para el rol de marinero – con chaqueta negra, remera a rayas estilo náutico y zapatos marineros- Mortensen enfrentó un montón de cámaras y de periodistas, agradeciendo a todos “por haber venido”.

A lo largo de su discurso de aceptación, Mortensen alternó bromas con los reporteros y preguntas, la mayoría de ellas referidas a su rol como Aragorn en ESDLA. Mortensen también protagonizó AHOV, EP, AWOTM y este año va a aparecer en la adaptación del libro de Jack Kerouac “On the road”.

Cuando una escritora de un sitio de fans de Tolkien le preguntó cómo se sentía sobre su clase, Mortensen elogió a los más de 400 fans de Tolkien – muchos de ellos con ropas de época, por aparecer en el teatro para presentar la tercera película, ROTK. Incluso les canto la canción de la coronación.

Los fans le recordaron la noche de 2003 en la que se estrenó ROTK en Oslo, Noruega. Mortensen dijo “la gente había estado con ropas de época por un mes, elfos, doncellas, todo eso” Los voluntarios suministraron servicio gratis de Internet, asistencia psicológica,l café, mantas “porque los fans yacían sobre la nieve”.

Aunque el va a regresar a NY el martes temprano, dijo que cuando tiene tiempo, le gusta visitor museos aqui y sencillamente caminar por la ciudad. “He ido incluso a Fenway, me gustaría ir allí.

El actor, quien comenzó su carrera en el film de Peter Weir “Testigo en peligro”, dedicó un momento a homenajear al espadachin Bob Anderson, quien murió el pasado enero a los 89 años. Anderson entrenó a Mortensen y otros para la trilogia de ESDLA y actuó como Darth Vader en la pelea contra el personaje de A.Guiness en Star wars.
También explicó a qué extension prepara sus roles, con búsqueda académica y todo el background histórico que rodea a cada personaje.

Varias veces le preguntaron si tiene un mantra y respondió “la vida es corta”.

Hombres: Mejor a los 50 que a los 20

Actores que han conseguido alcanzar la cincuentena en perfecta forma física
Muchos dirán que mantenerse en forma cuando no se ha pasado aún de la treintena es casi un juego de niños: los efectos de una dieta equilibrada y algo de ejercicio regular se hacen notar de forma rápida y eficaz si tenemos algo de constancia, y no hay serie de circuitos hechos entre las paredes del gimnasio, o deporte practicado al aire libre, que se nos resista.


La cosa cambia, sin embargo, a medida que vamos ganando años, y los efectos del gym (o la falta de él, como consecuencia de una vida más sedentaria) no son tan notables como nos gustaría. El secreto: perseverar con nuestras metas y rutinas de entrenamiento, y darle prioridad a los alimentos de alto contenido proteínico, combinados con verduras, hortalizas y legumbres, que ayuden a 'fabricar' músculo y prevengan la caída de los tejidos.

Un buen ejemplo de éxito en este sentido sería el extenso plantel de actores maduros que pueblan las alfombras rojas de Hollywood, y que han conseguido lucir mejor a los 50 que a los 20: Tom Cruise (49 años), Sean Penn (51 años), Viggo Mortensen (53 años), Dylan McDermott (50 años), David Duchovny (51 años) o los espectaculares 50 años de Eddie Murphy son algunos de ellos. ¿Quieres saber cómo lucen sin camiseta los torsos de estos 'cincuentones' de la meca del cine? No te pierdas nuestra galería de imágenes más sexy.

vero escribió:Hola!!! Sigo muy liada...Primeramente, deseo una pronta recuperación para Coucou. Un beso guapa.
Segundo, agradezco la amplia información sobre cine. Tercero, ha sido muy bonito recordar viejos tiempos de ESDLA. Cuarto, sería genial que Viggo trabajase con Scorsese. Algo muy bueno para la carrera de "ambos". Quinto y por último, donde están esas fotos de Viggo sin camiseta, con torso sexy???
Saludos para todas