Return of the Handsome King

Aragorn actor Viggo Mortensen rides again in real-life tale about Frank T. Hopkins Hidalgo

Viggo Mortensen is every bit as gentle and soft-spoken as the soulful warrior king Aragorn he plays in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although his long locks have been replaced with a reddish crop, and he's visibly exhausted from this publicity tour, the American-born actor nevertheless manages to exude comfortable sex appeal and charm.
Viggo worked steadily long before the Rings, the films that have skyrocketed him to superstardom, but mostly in supporting roles and rarely in major films. For every A Perfect Murder or Crimson Tide, he made duds such as Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III or Demi Moore's G.I. Jane.
Now he stars in Joe Johnston's Hidalgo, where he plays Frank T. Hopkins, a real-life 1890s cowboy who races his beloved mustang, Hidalgo, against larger Arabians in the Ocean of Fire - a punishing 3,000-mile endurance contest in the Arabian desert. The old-fashioned action-adventure film, costing $90 million, also stars legendary Egyptian actor Omar Sharif.
Tandem talked to 46-year-old Mortensen when he was in Toronto recently.

Now that the Lord of the Rings saga is over, how do you feel about the experience?
"I valued it, I learned from it. It allowed me to explore further things that already interested me: mythology, history, certain values - the idea of compassion, the idea of community, common ground, the idea of something like the United Nations - that sort of thing. I value that. But I mean to have to literally play Aragorn or to have to talk about Aragorn as I have done a lot... I was happy doing it, it was a good story, well told. I need good stories like that. To some degree, Hidalgo is a continuation, is a similar kind of quest story. Any good story requires some kind of ordeal, some kind of rite of passage. Again that's what this story is about, quite a different person I'm playing; someone who hasn't traveled all over the world, doesn't understand all the languages of the world, customs, someone who along with the audience is learning a lot on the way. But also someone who is at least curious about it which is the first step to being open and to learning about one's place in the world. Yes, it's nice to have done that stuff to a degree because it made such a mark. It was such a popular movie trilogy."

Both the Rings and Hidalgo require a lot of physical acting. How does this impact on performance?
"On a practical level, when you've been sitting in very hot weather or very cold weather, and you're on horseback all day and you haven't gotten into really good shape, or you're not accustomed to doing that, it changes your posture, the sound of your voice, the look of your face, the texture of your skin and that can be helpful. It helps you do your work better. I look at those obstacles as aids. Both these movies are clearly about ordeals. It's during an ordeal in your life... if something that happens to you, an unexpected turn in your life... your view of what you are, more importantly, how you fit into the world and how you are connected to others becomes very clear. Whereas, you might have been ignoring that or not paying much attention to it; the moment you are in a really trying situation everything is crystal clear for that time. Everything becomes very clear, you are this person and this is what you are capable of; these are your limitations; this is the environment you are in; right now, everything else goes away. That's what ordeals do and I think those are times in which we have a chance to learn something."

How did you endure working in the desert?
"Like any shoot getting through certain days, putting up with the obvious thing like the dust storms, the heat and for the horses too, the horses suffered; the American ones were not used to the Sahara desert. And that dryness, what they had to eat and their congested lungs. It was hard on them but as in any good hero story it becomes about the journey not the destination. It really is Frank Hopkins and Hidalgo in this story. They have to face themselves and what they are capable of at certain points and more is brought out of each of them and out of them together than they ever expected to have to deliver or live up to. How they react in difficult situation tells more about their character or forges their character more than whether they finish the race or not, more than whether they return home or not. And in any of those kinds of stories it's what you do with what you've learned if you survive the ordeal that really matters. In the classic heroic story the hero takes what he's learned or been awarded with as a result of surviving and shares that with his people. I've been to this place and come back and this is what I have to offer in terms of inclination."

Is that how you first met the horse that plays Hidalgo?
"Yeah. I mean we make good friends. I thought that was handled really well in this story. Without doing a Mr. Ed kind of thing; we somehow were able to. He is another character without making some goofy animal story and that was Joe Johnston's approach to tell it in a very old-fashioned, stream-lined, bare bones kind of way. A good cinematographer and designer and all that and a lot of attention to detail. I mean, there was another movie, I don't mean to be negative about it all, but Seabiscuit, which is also the name of the horse, and yet as much as I liked that movie and I thought it was good and everything, I would have liked to have gotten to know the horse a little more as a character. I didn't find I really did. I sort of read into it a lot."

Is there any tension between the straight-ahead approach Joe Johnston took and the issue of the details of Frank Hopkins stories? They are in dispute.
"They are in dispute. I think that first of all it's not a documentary; its entertainment and it's a story and to some degree it's about the myth of Frank Hopkins and Hidalgo. I mean, your national identity or mine or that of anybody in the world largely has to do with exaggerating, embellishing and the re-telling accomplishments of individuals or significant events in that society's history and it depends how it's done. When a myth is taken literally rather than as metaphor, then you're in trouble. The problem is when the person on their individual quest chooses to take a path that nobody's taken before, come hell or high water, no matter what anybody says, when that infringes on other individuals' right or ability to take their own path and have their own individual quest, then you got a problem. I think in this movie you can see a character like Frank Hopkins who embodies that sort of Cowboy way as a positive force."

As an actor who has never really pursued celebrity, to all of a sudden be on the cover of Vanity Fair, you're this huge global super-star. Is that a little jarring for you?
"It's just strange. When I hear you say that it's like we're talking about somebody else, clearly. When I see myself on the cover of the magazine or something or you say that, then it's 'Wow,' yeah, it's me to a degree but it's also this idea that people have of me or me working."

Has your attitude changed?
"No. I don't think so. I mean I'm weary, you know. It would be easier being that I don't have to travel so much and do so much of this interview stuff. I have to fight a little harder to find my personal space. But, there's little things you can do to stay grounded. Keep washing your dishes, clean your own food, keep washing your clothes, carry your own suitcase. I think that you can get lost by celebrity. We all want to be, to some degree, I suppose liked or disliked. But I want people to see me as this. I want to force an image, I want to maintain or cultivate it so that people don't make up their minds about me. And that resistance to have other people define who you are by stubbornly insisting and defining can also be a trap. So I think you just gotta keep doing what you're doing. I mean, Lord of the Rings, if I hadn't gotten that part or the movie wouldn't have been so popular, we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have gotten Hidalgo and the newspapers wouldn't talk to me about anything."

Hidalgo is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2004-03-07
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3719