Vi
ggo Mortensen is railing against the fate of
Green Book. Peter Farrelly's feelgood film seemed to have reached the
Hollywood pinnacle when it picked up the Academy Award for Best Picture last year. Set in segregated Sixties America, it told the true story of the burgeoning friendship between a black classical pianist and his bigoted Italian-American driver. Mortensen himself was nominated for Best Actor. But, he tells me, bleakly, "It's become a cliché to say, 'Is this movie going to be the
Green Book of this year?'
Green Book has become a pejorative."
The film has been attacked for fitting into a history of white saviour narratives. Mortensen found the opprobrium "hurtful and destructive".
"Much of the criticism that was levelled at that movie was not only unreasonable, but it was inaccurate, mendacious, and irresponsible," the Danish-American star says on Zoom from his home in
Madrid, where he lives with his wife, the actor Ariadna Gil. "It's based on a load of bulls*** and an axe to grind and little else. Does it affect what I'm doing, or how people perceive me as an actor? Maybe it does. But I can't really do anything about that."
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