He was born as a consequence of a love affair in the Norwegian mountains one Easter. Now Viggo Mortensen is thinking about getting a Norwegian girl-friend.

"I am almost as much Norwegian as I am Danish. I have been to Norway a lot. I have visited my uncle Fredrik, travelled with the coastal steamer, hiked in the mountains and on the Finnmarksvidda," says Viggo Mortensen (47). The Danish international pride of the movies is sitting in a hotel room in Copenhagen, but is talking about mountains in Norway.
Do you have a Norwegian girl friend, too?
"Not yet," he says, rather shyly. "But I wouldn`t mind having one."

Mortensen is touring Europe promoting his latest film “A History of Violence”, which opened in Norway last Friday. In Hollywood there are whisperings about an Oscar-nomination, but Mortensen is both soft-spoken and modest.
"I had a better director than on most of the other films. He allowed both me and the other actors to be rich in nuances. That is why I seem to be doing a better job."

“A History of Violence” is directed by David Cronenberg, Canadian cult director, known from “Scanners”, “The Fly”, “Videodrome” and “Crash".

Mortensen plays a peaceful American family father that one day is visited by criminals. "Any other director would have made the movie into a shallow party of violence, but Cronenberg has made a story about love, violence and anti-violence," says Mortensen.
Then he mutters that he himself could commit murder.
"I would kill if my kids were in danger or my girl-friend was being raped. It would have been hard not to. But I have never beaten anybody, and never been beaten, probably because I try to avoid confrontations with people."
How did you do that when you were small?
"I ran away," he says, barely able to speak between laughing.
You were a coward?
"Not necessarily, I was just being very smart!"
In USA Mortensen is being labelled a weirdo.
He walks around the house barefooted with paintings under his arms, writes poetry, and hates to be present at showings of his art.
Mortensen smiles a little. "Yes, rumours are that I am a bit special. I am a bit opposite other people. I don`t like opening nights, limelight and red carpets. I prefer looking at a film in a theatre and have nothing to do with those things."

His first movie was “Witness” in 1985 and since then he has made many sparkling performances in films like “Carlito`s Way” , “A Perfect Murder” and “A Walk on the Moon”. But it was as Aragorn in “The Lord of the Rings” he got world famous, sex-symbol and one of “the world`s most beautiful people” according to the magazine “People”.

"I thought that now will my mother be happy. Apart from that it is idiotic to take things like that seriously. You might as well make a list over the most beautiful people in Stavanger."
Come on! You were screaming from happiness in front of the mirror!
"No, no! I mean, what does a thing like that really mean? I`m sure that my mom and my agent thought it was great, but for me, honestly, no."

Mortensen has an American mother and a Danish father. They lived in South-America and on Manhattan, before they split up when Viggo was 11. But they met at Easter time in the Norwegian mountains in 1954.

"My father lived in Norway, because he went skiing a lot, and he was actually Danish cross country champion. My mother was working at the American Embassy in Norway, and they met during Easter Holliday."

After High School he left for Denmark, where he made a living of selling flowers on the street. Then it was drama studies and actress wife in Los Angeles, then divorce. Now he lives in remote Topanga Valley at the outskirts of Los Angeles, and says that friends would call him “someone who likes to be on his own, is stubborn, but loyal to his friends."

Why so much alone?
"Life is short, and you cant`t always see what happens around you through other people. When one is alone, you recharge your mind."
Is it hard to be oneself in Hollywood?
"I have chosen to avoid the movie business. I , of course, make movies now and then, but it is only then I see movie people. Apart from that, I never see them."

For his son, Henry, Mortensen has only one advice:
“Be good”. Because violence, terror and malice makes him “sad”, says the star of HOV
"Where there are people, there is violence. But the human being, contrary to the animals, can choose trying not to use violence. Maybe you don`t make it, but you can surely try."