Viggo Mortensen had a career-defining role when he portrayed Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. With the movies based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s successful novels, The Lord of the Rings joined in its successes. Combining all Box Office earnings from all three movies, The Lord of the Rings trilogy grossed a whopping $2.988 billion after its theatrical run.
As one of its central characters, Viggo Mortensen became one of Hollywood’s most successful actors and recognizable faces in film’s fantasy genre. However, since the trilogy ended over two decades ago, Mortensen’s career seems to have dwindled. Interestingly, the actor has kept an active acting profile. Here’s all Viggo Mortensen, the Aragorn actor, has been up to in his career for the past two decades.
Viggo Mortensen Portrayed Frank Hopkins in Hidalgo
Walking away from the success and fame of The Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen’s next project was in 2004. Mortensen portrayed Frank Hopkins in the epic biographical Western movie Hidalgo. The movie centered around Frank Hopkins in 1891, racing with his Mustang Hidalgo. Upon the request of the wealthy Sheikh Riyadh, Frank Hopkins journeyed to Arabia to race pure-bred Arabian horses and Bedouin/Arab riders. Hidalgo bombed at the Box Office and received mixed reviews from critics.
He Began Collaborating With David Cronenberg in 2005
The 2005 action thriller A History of Violence was Viggo Mortensen’s first work with Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg. In the movie, Mortensen plays Joey Cusack, a Philadelphia professional hitman named Joey Cusack, who moves to a fictional small town of Millbrook, Indiana, to start a new life and family as Tom Stall. However, his perfect life is disrupted when he’s forced to kill two spree killers and save a waitress, turning him into a local hero.
A History of Violence was a critical and commercial success. Besides holding an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, A History of Violence grossed $61.4 million on a $32 million budget. Viggo Mortensen collaborated with David Cronenberg in the filmmaker’s next two movies, Eastern Promises (2007) and A Dangerous Method (2011), as well as in the 2022 Crimes of the Future.
Viggo Mortensen Received His First Academy Awards Nomination in 2008
The Lord of the Rings may have been Viggo Mortensen’s most successful project of his career, but his performance never got a nod from the Academy. Surprisingly, besides the nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Mortensen never received any nomination from any major award association for his performance in The Lord of the Rings. However, all that changed in 2008 when he received his first Academy Award nomination and similar nominations from other award associations.
In his second David Cronenberg movie, the gangster film Eastern Promises, Viggo Mortensen played Nikolai Luzhin. Eastern Promises was regarded as one of the best movies of 2007 and eventually became a cult classic. For his performance, Viggo Mortensen was nominated for Best Actor at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008. So far, Mortensen has received three Oscar nominations, all of which came after The Lord of the Rings. Mortensen’s second and third Academy Awards nominations came in 2017 for Captain Fantastic and 2019 for Green Book. In 2008, Viggo Mortensen received similar nominations at the BAFTA Awards and Golden Globe Awards.
Viggo Mortensen Began Dating Ariadna Gil in 2009
Viggo Mortensen’s first marriage to singer, artist, and poet Exene Cervenka ended long ago on March 13, 1998. The marriage produced a son, Henry Mortensen, who studied and graduated from Columbia University in 2010 with a B.A. in archaeology. Henry reportedly now works at Viggo Mortensen’s publishing company, Perceval Press. In 2009, Viggo Mortensen began dating Spanish actress Ariadna Gil.
Like Mortensen, Gil had previously been married, having married Spanish filmmaker and author David Trueba. The marriage produced children, making Ariadna Gil a mother of two. Viggo Mortensen and Ariadna Gil live in Madrid, but Mortensen often visits the United States. The couple has been together since 2009 and supports one another’s careers.
Viggo Mortensen Made His Directorial Debut In 2020
Beyond his love for acting, Viggo Mortensen had always had a passion for filmmaking. He was credited as producer of the 2012 Spanish crime thriller, Everybody Has a Plan. Since then, he has been credited as producer of a few other movies, with his last credit in the 2013 The Dead Don’t Hurt. Sitting on the director’s chair, Viggo Mortensen made his feature directorial debut in 2020 in the drama Falling. Besides directing the movie, Mortensen wrote the screenplay, co-produced, and played the lead role. He made his sophomore directorial project in 2023 with The Dead Don’t Hurt. If you enjoyed reading about Viggo Mortensen’s career since The Lord of the Rings, read about the Harry Potter childhood star, Daniel Radcliffe.
Follow Us
