Viggo Mortensen names his favourite movie of all time
Viggo Mortensen once said that if he’d known how long it would take him to make a steady living from acting, he’d never have bothered. The American-Danish actor made his film debut with a small role in 1985’s Witness, later appearing in Salvation!, where he met and fell in love with Exene Cervenka of the punk band X. By 1999, their son, Henry, was eleven years old and fanatical about J.RR Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings.
In fact, when Mortensen got a call from Peter Jackson asking if he’d be willing to fly to New Zealand to star as Aragorn, it was Henry who convinced him to say yes. The success of the trilogy made Mortensen a household name, and he remains one of the most respected actors in America. Here, the famously private Viggo opens up about his favourite movie of all time.
At the red carpet premiere for 2017’s Captain Fantastic, MTV asked Mortensen to name a few films he couldn’t live without: “At the top of the list, I would say The Passion of Joan of Arc that came out in 1928 by Carl Dreyer,” he began. “That is one movie that I’ve seen a lot of times, and it gets better every time I watch.”
Widely regarded as one of the most transcendent films of the silent era, The Passion of Joan of Arc chronicles the hours leading up to the titular French martyr’s execution by the English. Dreyer’s depiction of her torment – emphasised by his use of intimate close-ups and expressionistic lighting – endures as one of the most startling depictions of human suffering on screen. However, without the astonishing performance of Renée Falconetti, who manages to convey the internal life of Joan with her eyes alone, Dreyer’s experimentations could easily have fallen flat.
If that all sounds a little snobbish, Mortenson clarified that not all of his favourite films are so high-brow. “I also have seen ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Godfather: Part II’ a lot of times, but I also watch movies that aren’t so serious,” he said. I’ve enjoyed watching Elf and Happy Gilmore repeatedly.” Mortensen recently starred in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of The Future and is set to direct and star in the upcoming period Western The Dead Don’t Hurt alongside Phantom Thread actor Vicky Krieps.
You can watch a clip of The Passion of Joan of Arc below