Once Lucifer, Viggo Mortensen is now mankind's best hope in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
Late in Gregory Widen's 1995 supernatural thriller The Prophecy, starring the great Christopher Walken as an angel raging war on Earth, the film is interrupted by an unexpected twist - the arrival of Lucifer himself to level the playing field and give the puny humans half a chance. So, who did Widen enlist to face off against Walken?
Hailed as 'mordantly witty', a young vaguely edgy actor named Viggo Mortensen wound up stealing the remainder of the film from Walken, creating one of the most memorable embodiments of evil ever put to screen. 'The devil doesn't really need to yell at people and slap 'em around,' says Mortensen now, six years later, 'because he knows he's powerful. That was one superficial guiding principle I tried to keep in mind. You are it. You are the Dark One and you don't have to prove it.'
The same can be said for Mortensen himself, whose rugged good looks and string of well-chosen roles in films ranging from the art house to the grind house have garnered the actor an air of mystery and a reputation for disappearing into his characters. There was something compelling and dangerous about Alexander Godunov's Amish brother in Witness (his first performance that didn't end up on the cutting room floor), the born-bad hellion brother in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner and the shell-shocked young veteran in Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin.
He brought equal passion and gusto to his wheelchair-bound skag in Carlito's Way, Demi Moore's unforgiving taskmaster in G.I. Jane and the murderous southern cracker Tex in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Unafraid of Hollywood fare, indie-risk taking and genre films alike, Mortensen next commits what he calls 'hack-and-slash mayhem' in the name of all that is right in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first instalment in Peter (Dead Alive) Jackson's ambitious Lord of the Rings trilogy (opening worldwide December 19 from New Line), based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic saga of good and evil.
Generations of readers have in their minds visions of Aragorn, a.k.a. the wandering Ranger Strider, whose secret destiny to become king informs his every move as he joins hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and a fellowship of nine in their quest to destroy the all-powerful ring forged by the Dark Lord Sauron. Tolkien described Aragorn as the 'weather-beaten' heir to the fading royal house of a long-lived race of men. At the age of 85, Aragorn is the story's traditional hero.
Facing the challenge of becoming this multi-faceted character, Mortensen found familiar ground in the ancient European and Icelandic myths he remembers from his childhood. 'Aragorn is different, more of a modern type of character in that he doesn't really talk about his deeds as much as similar characters in the sagas did,' says the 42-year-old product of a Danish father and an American mother who spent much of his youth in places like Argentina, Venezuela and Denmark. 'A lot of characters, Beowulf in particular, weren't shy about talking about their exploits, whereas Aragorn is someone who just goes about his business. He has various reasons, a couple of important ones, for appearing to be modest or secretive about what he's up or needs to do. He is someone who is meant to be king of men, but he has not taken on that responsibility.
'He needs to be anonymous in order to hide from Sauron, because if Sauron knew that there is an heir still alive, then that's a threat to him,' Mortensen continues. 'So, from the time that Aragorn was told by the man who basically raised him, Elrond [The Matrix's Hugo Weaving], he hasn't known who he really is. He has more or less been hiding, working anonymously, using other names, and while he's been good at it and perfectly willing to help people, it has more or less always been a hit-and-run situation.'
