Viggo Mortensen (“The Lord of the Rings”) is reteaming with director David Cronenberg for Eastern Promises at Focus Features and BBC Films, reports Variety. The project, written by Steve Knight (Dirty Pretty Things), is a London thriller that centers on a nurse investigating the identity of a Russian girl who dies in childbirth. The nurse stumbles into danger when she learns the woman was a prostitute involved in sex trafficking. [More]
Category: Viggo Mortensen
Garfeimao writes: Last year at the Newport Beach Film Festival, it was “Ringers: Lord of the Fans” and Billy Boyd’s short “Instant Credit” making LOTR fans happy. This year it will be Sir Ian’s “Neverwas” on opening night, April 20, Viggo’s “Spirit Riders” the following day and David’s “Three Dollars the next week. The Newport Beach Film Festival has something for everyone, features, shorts and documentaries from around the world. It even features a legendary Fan Made film called “Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation”. For an exclusive TORn interview with the filmmakers, please click here! [More]
For the full schedule and ticketing info, please head to the Festival Website.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “A History of Violence” snagged the top spot on the DVD rental chart its first week in stores, but the Oscar-nominated crime drama wasn’t able to topple “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” from the No. 1 position on the DVD sales chart. The fourth film in the “Harry Potter” franchise outsold “Violence,” which stars Oscar nominee William Hurt, by a margin of nearly 2-1 during the week ended March 19, according to VideoScan data issued Wednesday. [More]
Order “A History of Violence” on Amazon.com today! [CA] [UK]
New to DVD ‘A History of Violence’: David Cronenberg’s drama of a small town husband and father (Viggo Mortensen) whose small town act of heroism — saving the patrons of his diner by killing a pair of criminal psychopaths — reveals his own repressed past as a brutal criminal is one of the best American films of the last year. The film turns the vigilante hero story on its head as it portrays his history of violence as a hibernating virus that emerges like a reflex when his family comes under attack, and shows the reverberations of the revelation through his small town family. [More]
For Viggo Mortensen, acting in big budget Hollywood films is just one form of artistic release. Voted one of the world’s most beautiful men by numerous magazines, Mortensen is also an artist, photographer and a jazz musician. “It is all one thing, there are all different ways of expressing yourself,” said Mortensen, in Sydney to promote his Oscar nominated film A History of Violence. “You don’t have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day.” [More]
LeafOfHumanTree writes: Viggo Mortensen was at the Sydney premiere of A History of Violence tonight at the George St cinemas. Viggo was an absolute gentleman and generous with his time. He signed everything for everyone, posing for photos, chatting to fans in different languages and shaking hands.
Before the film started, Viggo slowly worked his way down the red carpet, signing books, film postcards, DVD covers, calendars, etc for the fans. After the invitees had entered the cinema, cinema staff allowed fans to take down the posters and poster boards promoting A History of Violence, so I took one. Viggo then disappeared briefly to introduce the film to those VIPs invited to the screening and returned to sign more paraphernalia.
On his first trip down the carpet, Viggo was kind enough to sign a LOTR CD cover for me. When he returned from introducing the film, he was kind enough to sign my A History of Violence poster.
Here is a link to one of the few photos I took before my camera batteries died. I wish I could have taken a photo when he was smiling and turned my way, but the batteries were dead. [More]
Here is a link to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about Viggo’s appearance at the premiere. [More]
Viggo is even more gorgeous in person than on film. Softly spoken, polite, patient and kind. He was a little serious, but smiled readily for photos and conversation.
I wish I could say that I said or asked something incredibly clever or gracious but I was dumbstruck and he had to say ‘And this is for…?’ when he came to sign my LOTR picture. ‘Is this how you spell it?’, he asked, as he wrote my name. I didn’t care – he could have signed it ‘To Rumpelstiltskin’ for all I cared!