Viggo Mortensen Talks ‘Lord of the Rings’ Scripts: KVIFF 2024

Viggo Mortensen seems tireless. On Friday evening, he opened the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic with his feminist western Deaths don't hurt after receiving the festival's President's Award. On Saturday, he spoke about the film at a press conference and presented another screening in the Czech spa town. On Sunday, Mortensen met the press for roundtable interviews.

Accepting his KVIFF award, Mortensen said that “all films are difficult to make. But I was lucky enough to have a group of incredible actors” to Deaths don't hurtHe particularly praised stars Vicky Krieps, who plays Vivienne, a strong woman who falls in love with Olsen (Mortensen), who leaves her behind for a time to join a war, and Solly McLeod, who plays antagonist Weston Jeffries.

In an interview on Sunday, the star discussed his inspirations behind the film, feminism and how he didn't set out to make a film with a political message, how Westerns have sometimes promoted a certain “mythology” of the United States, why he cast Deaths don't hurt in Ukraine and those planned for new ones the Lord of the Rings movies.

Read excerpts from the interview below.

The dead don't hurt shows the cultural diversity of life in the Old West. Your character is of Danish origin, Vivienne is French-Canadian. I don't remember any other westerns showing this diversity.

There are Westerns in which you see these kinds of characters, and they're usually clichés, or bad guys, or secondary characters, very secondary characters – a Chinese guy, an Irish guy, or a Native American guy. That's true. The leads, the main characters are almost always born in the United States or Canada. They may be English, but their first language is English. And they're usually white. To have a woman as the main character in a Western is unusual. There have been women, whether it's Barbara Stanwyck, Claudia Cardinale, or Marlene Dietrich, but they've played remarkable characters. They're usually extraordinary women. They're very rich, they're so beautiful that you're amazed, they're special. To have an ordinary woman like Vivienne as the main character is unusual. And to stay with her when a man goes to war is totally unusual.

Dead people don't hurt has been described as a feminist western. What is your attitude towards feminism in general?

For this film, I did questions and answers with journalists, but also with the public. I believe there are almost 80 around the world. People have a lot of different things to say, especially about feminism. I didn't intend to make a film from a political, ideological or other point of view. I just wanted to tell a good story about a strong, independent woman. [Vivienne, played by Vicky Krieps]. I'm sure there were many, maybe most, women like Vivienne in those days. It’s just that their stories hadn’t been told. Journalists or novelists were not interested in these stories. They were interested in battles against indigenous people or the coming of the railroad or outlaws and sheriffs and ranchers fighting sheep ranchers or something like that. The push west and the settling of the country and the promotion of this mythology of the United States, you know, “God wanted them to go west and take all this.” These are the kind of stories that seemed interesting, even when they started making Western films in the early 20th century. So far, actually, even female western directors haven't really focused on a woman as a main character, unless she's extraordinary – super powerful, or maybe some type of vigilante who behaves like a violent man herself and has a gun and shoots. . This is a sort of exploitation to the point of instant gratification story. I just wanted to tell the story of an ordinary, relatively ordinary woman. I asked myself a question. What does she do in this situation [she finds herself in]?

At first, I didn't know it was a Western. I thought of my mother and I knew where she grew up, near a forest. And I have books that she had when she was a child: these hardcover books with beautiful colored pictures on the cover of knights and things like Joan of Arc or fairy tales with lots of illustrations. She is very curious about other people and cultures and has an adventurous spirit that knows herself, what she wants, what she thinks. Even though she is a woman of her time, a mother of three children, a housewife, she has always been interested in films, books, languages ​​and everything. And I thought: “Imagine what she was like as a little girl, based on these books and the landscapes she grew up in.” And if she grows up to be a woman, Vivienne should be like that. That was really my inspiration, and everything else is obviously fiction.

You said this in your film FallYou have used many references to your father. Do you feel the need to include personal things and stories in your films?

As an actor, I'm playing a role or telling a story, and I always do it from a personal point of view, like the audience when they see the movie we made. They see a different movie than I see. I like to respect the audience. I think sometimes directors, producers, studios, etc., don't trust the audience completely. And the bigger the budget, the less risk they want to take. They want to make sure that everybody understands and everybody goes to see it. So they over-explain things. I like to give just enough information, and then the audience can participate. If they like what they've seen enough in the first 10 or 15 minutes, they're like, “What's going on? Okay, who is this? Okay?” And at the end, I like to be left wondering, “What are these people going to do now?” So it doesn't really end, like life. These are the kinds of stories that I like as an audience. So I made the kind of film that I want to see.

Your acting work also continues after this film. Could we maybe see you in one of the new the Lord of the Rings movies?

I haven't read a script. So I do not know. The storyline is the most important thing to me, unless I'm broke and I have no money and I'm lucky to have a job. So it depends.

How often does this happen?

Lately I've been lucky and that hasn't been the case for a while.

The dead don't hurt has been described as a dramatic romantic story set in dangerous times. But I also see it as a father-son road trip.

It’s also a father-daughter and mother-daughter story. You see the effect that it has on Vivienne when her father decides to go away. And what she thinks, as a little girl, is, “Wow, that’s cool. He’s going because he has moral reasons to do something.” And the daughter says, “Why does Mommy say he shouldn’t go?” And then the father says, “I have to go because my friends are counting on me to go,” and the daughter says, “Yeah, that’s cool. I want to be like him.” But then you also see the relationship with the mother, and Vivienne remembers that relationship when the mother tries to answer some tough questions. “Why do people go to war? Do men do the same thing to women? And when the mother thinks she’s answered enough of the questions, well, she says, “Well, I want to fight like that.”

But this is our most complicated thing. It's not an unrealistic movie in the sense that she's literally going to be Joan of Arc and take up arms and kill people. Psychologically, her journey is more complex, and she is the psychologically strongest person in the film. [my character] Olsen. She is stronger than Weston. [played by Solly McLead]. She's stronger than Weston's father [played by Garret Dillahunt], and everyone. But she is limited by her situation, physically, environmentally, everything. And that’s what I wanted to explore.

Why did you decide to filter? Dead people don't hurt in Ukraine at the Mykolaichuk Open film festival?

I was invited and I thought it was going to be difficult to accommodate my schedule and I don't know how I would get to this place. And it was a bit complicated. There were several different planes to Romania, and I drive for six, seven hours. But we got there and I definitely knew it was the right thing when I was there. I really enjoyed being there. Because for them, it was very immediate. In the audience, there were people who said: “I'm alone, my husband died last month” or: “My husband, I don't know when he will come back.” Or my boyfriend or my dad or whatever. And: “I have a little Vincent [like Krieps’ character with her baby son in the film]. He doesn't have a father anymore either.” So it was very immediate.

And they talked about it in a different way. It wasn't like, “Imagine if there was a war.” » It was more: “There is a war and we are in this situation. » And it's the women for the most part who stay, as always, when the men leave to do this – it's mostly the men, but the women are leaving now too. Historically, women have always ensured the cohesion of the home, the cohesion of society, the food and education of children, etc., the functioning of society, while men kill each other and destroy the landscape. In general, this is how the history of human beings goes. So it was very immediate and different. I was very glad I went and I also thought there was an international film festival with films from the United States and different places in Europe and Asia, but there was no directors or actors. I thought it would be good for them to have a filmmaker there.