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. More..

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer, and painter. His film roles include Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Frank T. Hopkins in Hidalgo, David Shaw in A Perfect Murder, Tom Stall in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, and his Academy and Golden Globe Award-nominated role as Nikolai Luzhin in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. He is to star in the upcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road as “The Man”. Visit: percevalpress.com

Pearl Sandybanks writes: While killing time in NY waiting for my flight back home after the concerts this past weekend, I wandered into a magazine store seeking to look at the newest Empire. Lo and behold, but Viggo Mortensen is staring down at me from one of the racks. Attached please find JPEG scans of the article. Words of caution: one sort of inappropriate term used, perhaps more that I don’t recall. Enjoy!! More..

The adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s book No Country for Old Men won the Oscar for best picture. So the film version of his latest novel, The Road, is much anticipated. Stephanie West reports. There is also a lot of excitement surrounding the movie because it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. The Road tells the story of a father and son travelling across a burned-out America, ravaged by some unspecified disaster which the reclusive author has never explained. But as the film is shown in Britain for the first time, Channel 4 News talked to its director about Cormac McCarthy’s vision. More..

For the record, there’s nothing wrong with “The Road” star Viggo Mortensen not knowing much about the plans that Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro have in place for their two-part big screen telling of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” Aragorn, his “Lord of the Rings” character, doesn’t actually factor into that story. That doesn’t mean he can’t be written in, but clearly no one’s mentioned anything to Mortensen. More..

For the record, Viggo Mortensen is not quitting acting. In Toronto yesterday promoting his latest film, The Road, Mortensen was ticked at a Men’s Journal quote several months ago that he has “no plans” to do another movie. “I guess I should have been a bullsh–ter, like a lot of actors are. When they say, ‘Have you got anything lined up?’ ‘Oh, I’ve got 20 (projects) I’m not at liberty to discuss,’ ” Mortensen said. “I was just honest with someone a little while back who asked, ‘Have you got a movie lined up?’ and I said, ‘No.’ It’s oh, he’s quitting. I never said that.” More..

The ridiculously talented Academy Award nominated actor Viggo Mortensen could be throwing in the towel with acting. According to Cinemablend, Mortensen recently did an interview with Men’s Journal and spoke about his future projects or lack there of. For the past ten years the actor’s career has been a critical success with no signs of stopping, but at this point he may want it to. Even though there has been talk of Mortensen making an appearance in Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit as his Lord of the Rings character Aragorn, he presses that currently he doesn’t have any film projects on the horizon. More..

More confirmation that Viggo was in Wellington recently, some good news about one Lothlorien location visited by Flat Earth Tours and Red Carpet Tours, and other tid-bits of news from this blogger that’s got his finger on Wellywood’s pulse.
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Check out The Noldor Blog, written by a Wellington-based LOTR tour operator who hears all sorts of interesting rumours. He can expand on Red Carpet Tours’ discovery that Viggo had been in New Zealand on film work recently. If you read down to here you’ll see a spy report suggesting Viggo will be in both Hobbit movies and reprise his role as a Dunedain protecting the Shire.

The latest Red Carpet tour had the worst weather ever, but they did get to pick up a couple of LOTR rumours on their way round the country. Viggo had recently visited the stables where the LOTR stars worked on their riding skills and kept their horses, and he also dropped in to his favourite Wellington steak house, the Green Parrot, according to staff there. He was able to say that he was in New Zealand on movie business, but wouldn’t say more….