Viggo Mortensen Trivia
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Birth name: Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr.
Date of birth: 20 October 1958
Place of birth: Manhattan, New York, USA
Nickname: Vig
Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Spouse: Exene Cervenka (8 July 1987 – 13 March 1998) (divorced) 1 child.
- He is the ex-husband of Exene Cervenka, the singer of the punk band X.
- Had a book of poetry printed before he was known. The title: “Ten Last Night.”
- Speaks fluent English, Spanish and Danish, but he also speaks Swedish and Norwegian reasonably well.
- Father of Henry Mortensen.
- He actually painted the large murals in his artist’s studio in the film A Perfect Murder (1998).
- Lived in South America from age 2 to age 11.
- Is a photographer.
- Has been photographing for years, recently debuted with an exhibition at the Robert Mann Gallery in NYC. – American Photo, July/August 2000
- Writes poetry in his spare time.
- Is also a jazz musician – he has released three CDs so far.
- Worked as a truck driver while living in Denmark
- Broke a tooth while filming a fight sequence for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).
- Replaced Stuart Townsend in the role of Aragorn/Strider in The Lord of the Rings, after filming began.
- Got so into his character of Aragorn that director Peter Jackson once addressed him as Aragorn for over half an hour, and Mortensen didn’t even realize it.
- Was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine in 2002
- He has two younger brothers
- Graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York in 1980 with a degree in Government and Spanish.
- An accomplished horseman in his spare time, Mortensen requested that his “Rings” character Aragorn be given more saddle time than was originally scripted. He also 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.
- As Viggo lived in Argentina as a child, he is a fan of Argentine soccer team San Lorenzo.
- Broke two toes during the filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), in the scene where he kicks an Orc helmet.
- Owner of publishing company Perceval Press.
- He is a New York Mets fan.
- Visits Denmark at least 3 times a year. In 2003 he had a booksigning, an art exhibition opening and The Lord of The Rings premiere.
- He’s a Danish citizen.
- Was in remakes of two Alfred Hitchcock films in the same year: A Perfect Murder (1998) – a remake of Dial M for Murder (1954) – and Psycho (1998).
- Purchased the horses he rode in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and Hidalgo (2004) after the films were completed.
- It is well-known that his father is Danish and his mother American, but also his grandmother was from Trondheim, Norway.
- Worked as a translator for the Swedish hockey team during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid and was at the ‘miracle’ game between the Soviet Union and United States.
- While filming “The Lord of The Rings” trilogy in New Zealand, he would go surfing with the other actors in their spare time. One day he suffered an accident which left a bruise on the right side of his face. As a result, director Peter Jackson had to shoot only the left side of his face in the entire Moria sequence.
- Dated Lola Schnabel, daughter of painter and film director Julian Schnabel, for nearly two years. Broke up in 2003.
- Was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in June 2004.
- Ranked #10 on VH1′s Hottest Hotties
- At first, turned down the part of Aragorn of Lord of the Rings. His son convinced him to do the part.
- Is one of four “Lord of the Rings” stars to star, pre-”Rings,” with Harrison Ford. He starred with Ford in Witness (1985). Ford starred with John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Sean Bean (Boromir) in Patriot Games (1992) and Miranda Otto (Eowyn) in What Lies Beneath (2000).
- While working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he asked writer/director Peter Jackson to revise scripts so that his character Aragorn would be speaking in the Elvish language in several scenes of all three movies.
- He became good friends with the close-knit stunt men on the “Lord of the Rings” films, but they were wary of doing fight scenes with him because, carried away with the intensity of his character Aragorn, he would frequently “really go at them” and leave the other combatants in bruises. Massive actor Lawrence Makoare, playing Lurtz under heaps of make-up which restricted his vision, also got carried away during their fight scene at the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and, for once, Mortensen was left more bruised than the other actor.
- Ranked #19 on Tropopkin’s Top 25 Most Intriguing People [Issue #100]
- Shares a birthday with Tom Petty and Snoop Dogg.
- Shares a birthday with actor Bela Lugosi and poet Arthur Rimbaud.
- Although their divorce only became final in 1998, he and his former wife, Exene Cervenka, separated in 1992, 5 years after they were married.
- Both his brothers are geologists.
- Is a Montreal Canadians fan
- Father’s name is also Viggo. Mother’s is Grace.
- After his parents divorced when he was 11, he moved back with his mother and two younger brothers, Walter and Charles, to New York.
- Born on the same day as director Danny Boyle.
- The scar on his upper lip comes from a wild Halloween party where he got too close to a barbed-wire fence.
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