FOR Viggo Mortensen, acting in big budget Hollywood films is just one form of artistic release.

Voted one of the world's most beautiful men, Mortensen is also an artist, photographer and a jazz musician.

"It is all one thing, there are all different ways of expressing yourself," said Mortensen, in Sydney to promote his Oscar nominated film A History of Violence.

"You don't have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day."

Mortensen, most famous for playing Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has been on the publicity trail for A History of Violence since the film screened at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

The film, based on a graphic horror novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, is directed by David Cronenberg.

It is nominated for two Academy Awards next month - William Hurt for best supporting actor and John Olson for adapted screenplay.

"This is kind of a model movie in a way," said Mortensen, who couldn't speak more highly of Cronenberg as a director.

"I think A History of Violence will be studied in film school - it is that good."

Mortensen plays Tom Stall, a small-town family man who shoots robbers at his diner and becomes a hero, only to find his past coming under intense scrutiny.