LOTR Castmember Quotes

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)
Speaker
Topic
Quote
Barry Osbourne Dedication He's incredibly dedicated. He's the kind of actor who one day had his tooth knocked out by a sword and actually asked if they could superglue it back on so he could finish the scene. He became Aragorn.
Elijah Aragorn Switch "I bow down to Viggo. He came in and saved the day. A lot of things would happen on this film where a certain amount of trouble would arise, and then something would come along where it would not only solve it, but would seem like fate, like it was meant to be. And Viggo was one of those cases. …Someone just mentioned his name, they called him, he came and it was perfect. He was meant to play Aragorn, he is Aragorn."
Karl Dedication Viggo was such an inspiration to the younger cast members on this film, just the way he threw himself into his work. His dedication, his passion, his commitment. The younger cast members were, in some way, trying to be like him, following him around. He was the embodiment of Aragorn. I just think he's a really professional actor and one that you could learn so much off just by watching. I watched Viggo and Miranda do a scene and he would come in and do just the slightest difference of inflection on each take. Like, "Night changes many thoughts. Night changes many thoughts. Night changes many thoughts." He would do this take after take, and not only was he exploring the scene, he was giving his director the luxury of choice.
Karl Experience Look at Viggo Mortensen. He’s been around a long time and now when you watch him in The Lord of the Rings, you can see he’s ready. It’s his time! What he does on screen is so commanding because he’s done so much work and been in so many films.
Liv Dedication I’ve never seen anybody in my whole life work as hard as Viggo Mortensen. The guy did not complain once. He never got a massage. He never took a day off. He just worked every second. Even on the days off, he’d go horseback riding or do something that was related.
Liv Personality Women go nuts over Viggo, but he's the kind of guy who never looks at himself. On the set, we each had a station with a big mirror. His was covered by pictures of his son and a photo collage of the crew. There wasn't one little speck left for him to look.
Miranda Otto Personality As soon as I saw him onscreen for the first time, they showed me some of the rushes, and they said, "That's Aragorn." And I thought, I have to fall in love with him? That's going to be very easy. No problem. That one's solved. And he's also a very wonderful person to work with. He's a very sensitive, caring person and really quite quiet and shy.
Sean B Friendship We spent a whole year of our lives together. We learned to socialise and accept other people from different backgrounds, as we do in the Fellowship in the film. We all used to go out together, and then the hobbits would break off and play pool. If I wasn't hanging out with all the guys in the Fellowship, I'd hang out with Viggo Mortensen. You could say he was my best friend on the film.
Viggo Arriving So, there I am on the plane for New Zealand reading that enormous, telephone directory sized book...
Viggo Mythology I'm Celtic and Scandinavian, so I was raised on the myths Tolkien used to inspire The Lord of the Rings. It's part of my heritage.
Viggo Mythology The reason there's so many problems with religion in the world is because people take literally what were symbolic elements. They all believe the same thing essentially and yet they're willing to die about the details. But religion, myth and fairytales need to be reinvented and those who manage to do that cleverly are the ones who are saving us from ourselves.
Viggo Sword-carrying One time, a cop stopped me in Wellington, because I was walking out of my apartment building with the sword, and I got in the car with it. I guess it would be an alarming sight to anyone at 5:00 am seeing me walking around with a sword. But, once I told the cop what it was for, he let me go. But, I did keep the sword with me all the time. I just felt that it was part of the job description.

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