Viggo at home in first Argentine film | “Todos Tenemos un Plan” (“Everybody has a Plan”).
(Reuters) – Oscar-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen, best known as Aragorn in the “Lord of the Rings” films, says he never felt as comfortable as he does now while shooting his first Argentine film in the country where he was raised.
The Danish-American actor lived until age 11 in Argentina, where he learned fluent Spanish and developed a fanatical devotion to the San Lorenzo soccer club. He returns often to the South American country, where he says he feels at home.
“I’ve been in lots of shoots, more than 40 movies, but I’ve never felt this comfortable,” Mortensen told Reuters on the set of his new film, “Todos Tenemos un Plan” (“Everybody has a Plan”).
“In ‘Lord of the Rings’ we were working together for years so there was a bond created. But very quickly I’ve had the same feeling here,” he said, adding this was partly because the crew had to shoot for two months outdoors during the inclement Southern Hemisphere winter, which brought people together.
“But also because I was raised here. There are a lot of memories. I look around and the way people speak, talking to the crew each day, it’s as if I were with my people,” said Mortensen, who let a scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard grow for the film.
“Everybody has a Plan” tells the story of a middle-aged man who returns to the wooded islands along Argentina’s Tigre river delta after a long absence. Desperate for a new start, he impersonates his late twin brother, only to discover that his sibling was part of a criminal gang.
MAN OF MANY TALENTS
Mortensen compared his latest work to other films about criminal underworlds including David Cronenberg’s Oscar-nominated “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises,” which earned him a best actor Oscar nomination.
Mortensen, who also paints, writes and co-owns publisher Perceval Press, is modest about his celebrity and well-known for his method-acting and zealous preparation for roles.
For “Lord of the Rings,” he slept in Aragorn’s cloak. For “Eastern Promises,” where he plays a man with links to the Russian mob, he lived in St. Petersburg and the Urals to pick up a convincing Russian-accented English and gangster jargon.
In “Todos Tenemos un Plan,” directed by Argentine newcomer Ana Piterbarg, Mortensen stars alongside Soledad Villamil and Javier Godino, best known for their roles in the crime drama “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which won the Oscar for best foreign-language film last year.
“He’s very deep in his way of preparing the character,” Godino said, referring to Mortensen. “He’s living in Tigre, he dresses like somebody from there and I admire this. He’s an actor that connects with the character and he’s a little crazy, crazy enough to play these characters that he plays.”
Mortensen said his latest project has a small budget on a global scale but a big one for Argentina and huge potential for a country where he now hopes to return frequently for work.
“I had always wanted to shoot a film in Argentina,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful experience — a real return…to see the boats, the dogs, the Argentine winter, is beautiful.”
(Reporting by Luis Andres Henao; Additional reporting by Kylie Stott)
Viggo Up for Lead in Steven King’s Epic ‘Dark Tower’ Series
off a casting frenzy in Hollywood. Agents are tripping over themselves to land their clients coveted roles in what promises to be a blockbuster film and television franchise. Leading the pack for the principal character, Roland Deschain, is Javier Bardem, with Viggo Mortensen a close second, sources tell us.
Ron Howard image:Scott Mecum/London Ent / Splash
Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have a deal with Universal that will translate into a TV show and three movies, all using the same cast. Brian Grazer will produce with Goldsman and King. According to reports, they plan to start with an epic movie, then continue the story with the TV series, followed by a second film, and then a second TV season showing gunslinger Deschain as a young man. Then, the third movie will end the saga with Deschain as an older man.
Viggo Mortensen says The Road is the most faithful book adaptation
VIGGO MORTENSEN, star of the The Road, which is currently on release at cinemas, says the film is the most faithful adaptation of a book on the big screen.
Directed by John Hillcoat, the film is based on Cormac McCarthy’s bleak, post-apocalyptic novel and sees The Father (Mortensen) and his son (13-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee) travelling across a barren landscape, fighting for survival among the remaining humans, many of whom have turned to violence and even cannibalism.
Mortensen confesses that until he was sent the script he had never read the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by the writer of No Country For Old Men.
“I’m a fan of Cormac McCarthy and I have read all of his books except The Road”, he said. “I hadn’t got around to reading it, just out of stubbornness – like if someone says, ‘You’ve got to see this movie’, then I don’t.”
But when he was sent Joe Penhall’s script, he was converted.
“I read the script by Joe and I thought it was a great story and I realised it was quite an honour to be offered this role. So then I ran out and got the book, and it’s one of those books you can’t put down – if you’ve read it you know what I mean.
“I read it all and realised [the movie] was a very good adaptation, which only became better and better as we went along. Including Lord Of The Rings, I think it’s probably the most faithful adaptation of any book.”
And the actor insists it wasn’t just him who was so moved. The whole crew, who all had copies of the book on set with them, were brought together by the story.
“That support you get from crew members, when you feel that people are really into the story, it lifts you, it makes you braver.”
Mortensen says he is delighted that The Road seems to be touching audiences. “I’ve seen people at Q&As after screenings, where a lot of people have a sort of a blissed-out look on their face, or even a smile, but at the same time tears in their eyes.
“I think you’d have to be quite obstructed internally somehow if, whether you like the movie or not, you’re not moved by it.
“The journey has to be difficult to learn what happens at the end, which I think is strangely uplifting and quite beautiful, when everything is stripped away.”
source: Coventry Telegraph
Howard Zinn
A tribute to Howard Zinn was made on Perceval Press.
Thank you, Howard. It is an honour to have read you, heard you, learned from you, known you at least a little. You will always be missed, always be celebrated. Your history is our history, irreplaceable, unforgettable, as contagious as your smile, a blessing, a warning, a measuring stick, an example to us all.
The tribute continue’s with several quotes:
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
“If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates”
“Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.”
“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children”
“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.”
Full story: Perceval Press
The Hobbit Delayed Until 2012
We wants the precious now!
But it looks like we’re not going to get it till at least 2012. The forthcoming
Hobbit movie has run into yet more delays according to Variety.
Head of New Line David Horn said that they’re looking at “fourth quarter 2012 release” which is a long way from the originally promised 2011 date we were given some time ago.
The studio are still waiting for the second script, penned by Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson, to be finished before cracking on with filming. The expected long shoot time of 14 months is making a 2011 release date extremely unlikely.
And as the planned two films are being funded by MGM, which is currently undergoing restructuring, that’s likely to be a contributing factor to the delay.
We’d rather they took their time and got it right, rather than rushed it out. Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Viggo Mortensen and Sir Ian McKellen are expected to reprise their roles and as it’s being directed by Guillermo “Pan’s Labyrinth” Del Torro, it’s in good hands.
source: On The Box
Viggo Mortensen played a prank on Elijah Wood every day for six weeks
The actor – who starred alongside Elijah in ‘Lord Of The Rings’ – often plays practical jokes on set to keep his colleagues in a good mood and once played a prank which lasted for weeks.
He said:
”There’s no sense in doing something, especially if it’s a hard job, if you can’t have a little fun.
“One time, I called Elijah Wood every day for six weeks pretending to be a long-lost German friend.
Most of the calls were in the middle of the night. Fortunately he thought it was funny…”
However, during the making of the fantasy epic trilogy, one of Viggo’s jokes went too far and quickly escaladed into a “big crisis”.
He told Live magazine: “On ‘Lord Of The Rings’ we had these little people who were stand-ins for the hobbits. One time Dominic Monaghan, who played the hobbit Merry, and I mimicked this one particular guy who had a really distinctive voice and rang the producers to say that all the little people were stranded on New Zealand’s South Island with nothing to eat and no water. It became this big crisis and the producers sent everyone scrambling.”
The Bosh photowenn.com
Viggo Mortensen pulls out of “Purgatorio” in Madrid
Viggo has made an announcement regarding his appearance in the up and coming play Purgatorio due to begin in February in Madrid.
“I deeply regret having to leave the production of Purgatorio. The intensive work with writer Ariel Dorfman and director Josep María Mestres in El Teatro Español has almost lasted a year. Despite the changes and postponements that have been necessary during this past year, a way to go on had always been found.
Now, due to the recent worsening of my mother´s health, I have been unable to go back to Madrid for rehearsals, and the play would not be staged on February 12 as anticipated. In spite of having done everything possible to solve this personal dilemma, I don´t see a way out. It saddens me to be unable to continue our work, leaving Emma Suárez, my costar, Josep María and his team, the Teatro Español and the Madrid audience who had shown such interest in the project, in this difficult situation.
Viggo Mortensen”
This will come as a blow to his many legion of fans who have been waiting in anticipation of seeing Viggo perform live on stage.
Viggo was due to perform “Purgatorio”, written by Duke professor and author Ariel Dorfman in Madrid’s Teatro Espanol. The Oscar-nominated actor, who has appeared in Eastern Promises and The Lord of the Rings, will perform as the Man along side co-star Ariadna Gil (Pan’s Labyrinth, Apalooza), who is taking on the role of the Woman.
Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio clearly resemble Jason and Medea, the story of a male conqueror falling in love with, befriending, or enslaving a female native who helped him conquer the land is a common historical theme in the European conquest of the New World inhabited by Native Americans. One is reminded of Cortes and Dona Marina (La Malinche) in Mexico circa 1520, John Smith and Pocohontas in the Virginia Colony circa 1607, and Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea who accompanied Lewis & Clark on their Northwest Expedition circa 1804.
Dorfman’s “Purgatorio” constructs an afterlife where the two protagonists are each faced with the truths of their lives, and required to account for them. In this new play, the power of language and the passion of conscience meet in a place where redemption is the only hope.
Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’
The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, almost all life on earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.
The Road follows an unnamed father and son journeying together toward the sea across a post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm has destroyed civilization and almost all life on Earth. The setting is extremely bleak; the sun is obscured by a layer of ash so thick that the pair must breathe through masks, and the land seems devoid of any living flora. The surviving remnants of civilization have been largely reduced to cannibalistic tribalism, or nomadic scavenging of metropolitan detritus that is almost entirely depleted. Realizing that they will not survive another winter in their present location, the father leads them through this desolate landscape towards the sea, sustained by a vague hope of finding other “good people” like them.
Overwhelmed by this desperate and apparently hopeless situation, the boy’s mother, pregnant with him at the time of the cataclysm, has committed suicide some time before the story begins. The father coughs blood every morning and knows he is dying. He struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation, as well as from what he sees as the boy’s innocently well-meaning, but dangerous desire to help the other wanderers they meet. They carry a pistol with two bullets, meant for protection or suicide if necessary. In the face of these obstacles, the man and the boy have only each other (they are “each the other’s world entire”). The man maintains the pretense, and the boy holds on to the real faith, that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity. They repeatedly assure one another that they are “the good guys,” who are “carrying the fire.”
On their journey the duo scrounge for food, encounter roving bands of cannibals, and contend with casual horrors such as a new born infant being roasted on a spit, and people being kept captive as they are slowly harvested for food. Although the father and son travel south and eventually reach the sea, neither the climate nor availability of food has improved. Despite having succeeded in defending the boy through extreme hardship, ‘the man’ has failed to find the salvation he had hoped for for his son, and succumbs to his illness and dies; leaving the boy entirely alone. Three days later, however, the grieving boy encounters a man who has been tracking the father and son. This man, who has a wife and two children of his own, brings the boy to join his family. One of the children is a girl, implying the possibility of a future for the human race, despite the grim conditions. A brief epilogue meditates on nature and infinity in this altered environment.
A film adaptation of the novel, directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall, opened in theatres on November 25, 2009. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Man and the Boy. Production took place in Louisiana, Oregon, and several locations in Pennsylvania.
Honoured in Hollywood
(UKPA) – 12 hours ago
Viggo Mortensen has been honoured for his work in film.
The actor took to the red carpet in Hollywood as the American Film Institute (AFI) held a special evening in his honour as part of the AFI Festival, accompanying a screening of his new movie The Road.
“It’s a team sport making movies,” said Viggo, whose other films include A History Of Violence and Eastern Promises.
The star revealed his latest film, a post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible, was rife with challenges.
“In this case it’s a story about a father and a son and if the son wasn’t a great actor and didn’t have a great emotional range I wouldn’t have done a very good job, I could have only gone so far,” he said.
“I’m glad I’m not in as dire straights as he is but I understand the lessons he learned,” Viggo went on.
“I learned a lot from telling the story. It’s always when things are difficult in your family and your life that you learn things, even if you don’t like that you’re learning.”
Howard Zinn
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