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What the hell kind of accent was Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) going for in Lord of the Rings!?
- Thread starter El Bombastico
- Start date
Pretty much.
A bit of stubble and boom, there's your Strider.
Viggo's great though.
Wasn't he offered 10% of gross profits too for his salary.
Viggo is a Danish-American who spent part of his childhood in South America. Aragorn is a human raised among Elves and later spent his life wandering Middle-earth. I think it makes sense that the accent of the actor/character is mixed and so untraceable.
Yeah, it was something like that from what I read. It was points on the gross, which in Hollywood Accounting meant he wouldn't have made anything from that (I think Jackson had a lawsuit against WB, because he argued he wasn't paid his points due to Hollywood Accounting).
I think he was offered something like $30MM outright for the role.
Truly sucks for him. looks like his career just petered out after this.All I ever found was this.
Pretty much.
A bit of stubble and boom, there's your Strider.
Viggo's great though.
Now that it's mentioned, yeah, I can see Daniel Day-Lewis in this role.
I really don't know if he would have committed to all three movies, though.
Yeah, I'd classify it as "British, by way of Scandinavia".
It never bothered me. The films have a pretty big mix of European, Australian, and American accents, and they all sort of blend together just fine.
They were all filmed at the same time, so it's basically just one big movie (and then reshoots where necessary over the next 3 years).
Seems like he could have been a good fit for Frodo tho.All I ever found was this.
It's funny how Townsend was too young. Cause it would look too weird on camera to have liv Tyler with a love interest her own age.
I thought that was just how he spoke. Didn't know he was putting on an accent. Anyways I like it.
y'all making me feel super old that you never knew Viggo was cast at the last minute, never mind remembering Townsend's hiring and firing in real time
Also I think all those A-list names were handed down from the studio and Jackson didn't really want any of them. ( I imagine he wouldn't have turned his nose up at DDL as Aragorn though.)
Also I think all those A-list names were handed down from the studio and Jackson didn't really want any of them. ( I imagine he wouldn't have turned his nose up at DDL as Aragorn though.)
He was winging it as he was brought in on short notice. I don't notice it when watching the movies myself so meh.
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Very, especially with that final speech at the Black Gate.
He probably would have spent a year learning to track and hunt whilst also learning herbology and maybe some blacksmithing. He would have memorized Elvish.
Viggo is Aragorn but I kinda want to see DDL as Aragorn because he's so good.
lol, that's so funny, because Townsend was also in that movie. Was the entire film cast with LotR cast-offs?
Viggo was pretty method himself. Carried his sword with him around town, slept with his horse, got injured all the time going 110% in the action sequences. In the fight with Lurtz the part where he swats away the throwing knife with his sword is real.
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That horse thing is actually a very common way to bond with them. Viggo is an expert horse rider and knew his shit. I believe the horse he worked with in LotR after production ended.
Viggo should've played Ned Stark too.
What I got out of this is that South Americans are the elves of our world.
What I got out of this is that South Americans are the elves of our world.
Viggo has an amazing faculty for language. He speaks English, Spanish, French, Danish and a fair amount of Italian. His mother was American and his father was Danish. During his childhood he lived all over like Venezuela, Denmark and Argentina where he learned fluent Spanish, but when their parents divorced he settled in New York where he lived for the rest of his childhood. So being a quadrilingual I'd assume you can conjure up very unique sets of accents to play around with which is probably what he wanted to do since this was set in a fantasy world like Middle Earth. His character being a ranger, traveler and an explorer who have been part of many different cultures, he might have wanted to create a dynamic accent that reflects upon someone with that kind of personality and wanderlust, which comes to think of it sounds a lot like himself . Also, like others have previously explained… he just got flown straight into the scene so he probably had to wing it heavily in the beginning.
A funny Easter egg people might not know about is that he did sneak in a Danish sentence at one point during the first film. When he and Arwen first meet after Weathertop they embrace and he says "Min elskling" which is Danish for "My Love". My first language is Norwegian so I picked that up straight away when I saw the first film in the cinema. I always thought that was pretty cool.
A funny Easter egg people might not know about is that he did sneak in a Danish sentence at one point during the first film. When he and Arwen first meet after Weathertop they embrace and he says "Min elskling" which is Danish for "My Love". My first language is Norwegian so I picked that up straight away when I saw the first film in the cinema. I always thought that was pretty cool.
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Sometimes he sounded like he was doing a Katherine Hepburn impersonation. He was still awesome, though.
For big studio films that get a lot of rewrites it's not uncommon for actors to not get their lines until the day of
Cause he is fucking Viggo Mortensen. From every thing I've heard of this guy he is just a very gifted and dedicated individual with many talents. Like on the side he is a fairly decent abstract painter, a photographer and he has also made like 20 albums where he have collaborated with guitarists like Buckethead.
One example from the set of LOTR that shows his dedication. To befriend his horse he would stay with them at all times and even sleep in the barn next to the horses to bond with them. When he falls from the cliff after the Warg attack he performs a very dangerous stunt where the horse would bend down next to him as he was lying there wounded and pick him up. Viggo thought it was very important that they would have a strong bond before performing stunts like that where a mistake could end up with Viggo being crushed if the horse landed on top of him. He even ends up adopting the horses after the films.
Another example of Viggo been great is the following moment:
He broke his foot in that moment and that was real pain.
He broke his foot in that moment and that was real pain.
