Viggo's Nikolai named top 10 screen mobster

Michael Ordoña of the San Francisco Chronicle named his picks for The top 10 best screen mobsters yesterday. Making his appearance as #6 on the list was Nikolai Luzhin, Viggo Mortensen's character in Eastern Promises:

If you had never seen Mortensen before this film, you'd think he was that guy, that the filmmakers had just pulled some Russian dude out of a high-end London nightclub. Equal parts preening macho narcissist and cold-blooded hatchet man, he tops even Borat for best naked fight.

Our only question: why wasn't he ranked #1? :)

The Road official trailer is out

The official theatrical trailer for The Road was released yesterday. The film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Garret Dillahunt, is now scheduled for an October 16th, 2009, release.

Click on the "HD" button to watch a nice big shiny version.

Based on Cormac McCarthy's best-selling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road is the epic post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth. I've been worried that it would be just quietly depressing but it looks as though there is a lot of action adventure to balance the quiet. I'm expecting this to be another incredible Viggo performance. Is it October yet?

Urgent request from 1, 2, 3... Hi Baby!

Over the past year, Brego.net and other Viggo Mortensen websites, including Just Viggo, Obsession, Viggo-Works, and Virtual Viggo, in conjunction with Friends On Board, have helped support the 1,2,3 ... Hi Baby! program at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Today we received the following urgent request for assistance, and we hope some of you can help out.

I am writing this email to you because you and many others have contributed to 1, 2, 3... Hi Baby!, Inc., a non-profit organization over recent months, in so many ways, from the occasional monetary gift, hand-made baby items, diapers, formula, infants and children's clothing... Some have even sent coupons to help with infant care essentials.

Today I am urgently asking you for help.

1, 2, 3... Hi Baby! works every day to reduce the infant mortality of Indian People of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, ensuring healthy pregnancies, healthy children and families by providing individualized case management services. We integrate case management services to provide culturally appropriate case management services for pregnant and postpartum women and their children through four years within the health care system of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation bridging the cultural gap between professional health care providers and our clients, advocating on behalf of women to enhance the delivery of culturally competent prenatal health care.

While transporting a client to a health care related appointment yesterday, 4/20/09, the transmission of our Ford Windstar van gave out and needs a $2,300 repair / rebuild. This is the first major repair this vehicle has ever needed, most likely because of the regular maintenance and care we've given it. But we desperately need this van to perform daily home visits and provide transportation for our clients to health care appointments and case management home visits, both of which are vital in the prevention of infant mortality throughout the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Please help us with this unexpected, necessary expense. We are asking for donations in the amount of $100 or what ever you can afford. Won't you please help us? Any and all donations will be very greatly appreciated. Your generous donations can be made via check, money order, or online at PayPal.com to hibaby123@goldenwest.net.

Thank you.

Urgently Requested,

Frederick Cedar Face, President
Cedar Face Foundation - 1, 2, 3.... Hi Baby!, Inc.
P O Box 6031
Pine Ridge, SD 57770
605-867-6265
www.123hibaby.org

Cedar Face Foundation - 1, 2, 3.... Hi Baby!, Inc. - Passionately and personally engaged in reducing infant mortality of Indian Peoples through advocacy and promoting increased Maternal, Child and Family Healthcare.

If you would like more information about our non-profit organization or would like to learn more about what you can do to help us help families raise healthy children and decrease infant mortality of Indian people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, give us a call at 605-867-6265 or email us at hibaby123@goldenwest.net. We'd love to visit with you in greater detail.

Viggo Mortensen taking a break from acting

In an interview with Kevin Maher published April 2, 2009, in the London Times, Viggo Mortensen talked about the grueling schedule of travel associated with film promotion and stated that he is taking an indefinite break from movie acting:

"In the past week I've been from LA to Japan to Korea to Poland to here," he hisses, describing in near disbelief the travel itinerary for his current promotional tour. "It's ridiculous! It's not a healthy way to be. But, as it happens, I'm taking measures to change that." Which are? "No more movies. I haven't said yes to one in over a year. I've been in all these well-received movies and it seems like I should be doing some more, but there's other things I want to do. It's not the right time."

When asked when it might be the right time to come back to film-making, he could only answer that he didn't know. This doesn't mean that Viggo will be idle.

He says that, of course, life goes on, and that he’s a busy man. As well as a new collection of published poems, called Songs of Winter, there is also a Spanish language production of Ariel Dorfman's play Purgatorio that he plans to perform in Madrid this winter. "I haven’t done theatre in 20 years," he says. "And that terrifies me more than death."

Viggo Mortensen also talks about the just-released Good, which he is currently promoting.

"Everywhere I've seen this movie play, it ends, the lights go on, and people are completely unsure," he says, beaming with pride. "They don't know what to think. And I'm like: 'That's OK. This movie doesn't give you that tragic finale so common in the Holocaust genre. That's because it’s as much about us, the viewers, as it is about Germany or the Germans.'"

Mortensen gets a kick out of this. He likes the way the movie tricks us, and asks us what we would have done, and at what point we would have said no to the Nazi war machine. He also likes the tricks that the movie plays with his image, how people expect a square-jawed hero on screen, and how shocked they are to find Middle Earth's unswerving Aragorn as a dithering Nazi puppet. "People have expectations of me, I suspect," he says. "And here those expectations are, um, subverted."

We suspect that anyone who has seen Viggo Mortensen in his wide range of roles, from the whiny Lalin in Carlito's Way to the seductive hippie Walker in Walk on the Moon to the tough, disciplined and even brutal Master Chief Urgayle in G.I. Jane, would not be at all surprised at his ability to play this character—or any character, for that matter.

For more on the film, visit our Good page. For the full interview (well worth reading), visit the Times Online.

Good is playing in limited theaters

We're disappointed that Good will not be distributed widely, but it is showing in "select" theaters. Find the theater list at the official Good website.

Cronenberg working on Eastern Promises sequel

In an exclusive interview with MTV News, David Cronenberg indicated that he is exploring the possibilities of a sequel to Eastern Promises. Said Cronenberg,

It's the first time I've ever been in a situation where I actually want to do a sequel to something. I've never had the desire to do that before. But in this case, I thought we had unfinished business with those characters. I didn't feel that we had finished with Nikolai and we had done a lot of research that was more than we could stuff into that one movie.

Cronenberg indicated that Viggo Mortensen's character, Nikolai, will be the focus of the new movie but that it is too early to tell whether other central characters from Eastern Promises would be included.

According to MTV News,

Cronenberg is simply intrigued by the opportunity to reunite with Mortensen for a third film. "Viggo is a very special guy," said Cronenberg. "I consider him a personal friend and we communicate all the time. That doesn't always happen with actors. He's very serious about his acting. But he's really a funny guy. We laugh a lot. We giggle a lot."

Hope this pans out as we also want to know what happens next with Nikolai!

Viggo Mortensen on Biography Channel March 22

From the Viggo-Works forum:

The USA Biography Channel ran this program 3 or 4 months ago. The name of the show is called Famous and they show 2 half hour episodes featuring 2 different actors. It's usually on Sunday mornings 7-8 ET.

It isn't really a Biography of their lives, but is more about their movies. It featured several old interviews with Viggo talking about his films, including, American Yakuza and The Prophecy. Needless to say, he was gorgeous!

The episode of Famous with Viggo Mortensen is scheduled for Sunday, March 22nd at 7 a.m. ET on the Biography channel. Check your local listings for times in your area. And enjoy!

p.s. Just noticed that following Viggo's 1/2 hour, at 7:30 a.m., is Clive Owen! A great two-fer. :)

Viggo Mortensen on the Early Show

Viggo Mortensen seemed a bit sleepy in his appearance on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday, Sept. 10. I really enjoyed his comments about carrying around the 8 gauge shotgun.

The first day I said to Ed, "Look, I know it's in the book; it's an important part of the character. But it's a big gun, and it's going to be a long couple of months if I've got to do this every day." But by the second day I kinda liked it. And I said I want to have it everywhere. I want to have it when I'm in bed, when I'm having dinner, when I'm walking down the street. And it is kind of intimidating. It was like my scary friend, you know. It had a psychological effect. It's like that thing that you fight sometimes—the obstacle becomes your friend. So it was all right.