Viggo Mortensen

“More often than not, the experience of shooting the movie has been disappointing and the end product has been a mere shadow of what I hoped it would be. But immersing myself in the story - t...”

“I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.”

“With few exceptions, one ought always do what one is afraid of.”

“I have a publishing company of books by me and books of others. It drew people to poetry readings and photo exhibitions and painting exhibitions that I've been doing for years before that.”

“Photography, painting or poetry - those are just extensions of me, how I perceive things; they are my way of communicating.”

“I think that people who get to a certain position, and then try to ferociously defend it or build on it, it's kind of a dead-end street. You see people becoming miserable that way.”

“The first decade of your life is really important; it's formative.”

“Freud was the son of a Jewish merchant who had to move his whole family to Vienna because he couldn't get work. He, as a boy, had to watch his father be mocked and abused on the street for b...”

“You know, Freud accepted his lot very stoically and very well and with a sense of humor. He aged and died gracefully, and there's a lot to be said for that.”

“'The Road' was a movie that has a good reputation, even though it wasn't released very well, but that's a movie I'm very proud of.”

“It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.”

“I'm an optimist; I always hope that each new script is going to be a great story.”

“I'm not that involved in personal grooming. But I try not to be offensive to people.”

“There's no sense in doing something, especially if it's a hard job, if you can't have a little fun.”

“When we shot 'The Lord of the Rings,' we had special permission to film in wild areas of New Zealand that could be accessed only by helicopter. They would drop us off and we would work all d...”

“Like most people I can be lazy, so it's nice to have a goal or deadline or reason to work out. I feel better when I get to exercise, or when I'm outdoors. I like to hike, swim and run, and I...”

“In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.”

“Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.”

“When I heard Puerto Ricans in New York City, it sounded very strange. And the first time I heard someone from Spain, I thought they had a speech impediment!”

“In a lot of places in the United States and certainly even more places around the world, the image of the cowboy has become, for some people, a negative one. The word 'cowboy' implies a stro...”