February 3 : 2009
New interview with Viggo
Thanks to Paulo Pereira for alerting me to an interview with Viggo Mortensen conducted by Total Film Magazine. There’s an excerpt posted on its website. The announcement just says the full interview is in the “new issue,” which I suppose is either the February or March one.
The excerpt is entirely about The Hobbit and LOTR films. He expresses his willingness to play Aragorn in The Hobbit, if the character does figure in the script. It’s not unthinkable, since Aragorn is living at Rivendell at the time the events of The Hobbit occur. Of course, when Tolkien wrote the novel, Aragorn hadn’t been invented yet, so there’s no mention of him. According to Appendix B of LOTR, Aragorn would have been ten years old when Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves dropped by for a two week visit. Of course, that counts the 17 years between Bilbo’s farewell birthday and Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton. The film version of LOTR doesn’t have that 17-year gap. It’s not clear how long it takes for Gandalf to get to Minas Tirith, read the scroll, and get back to tell Frodo about the Ring. At any rate, assuming it’s less than a year, by the film’s chronology, Aragorn would be about 27 at the time when The Hobbit’s action takes place. Of course, that also assumes that Bilbo will be protrayed as 50 years old in the film, as he is in the book.
So, a young Aragorn could make at least a brief appearance. And with the new de-aging make-up and digital techniques that were used so effectively for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Viggo could be made to plausibly look 27.
Viggo doesn’t sound entirely enthusiastic about the idea, though: “I’m interested in principle, but I’d want to see it done in the right spirit of Tolkien.” Comparing the Hobbit project with LOTR, he adds, “I don’t know if it’ll be as big a circus in terms of several people writing changes at the last minute.”
Viggo also expresses his opinion about changes between The Fellowship of the Ring, which he sees as the most character-oriented of the trilogy’s three parts, and the other two, which he sees as more dominated by special effects. “You can’t argue with the films’ success, but had it been me, I would have focused less on the effects and more on the characterisations.”
He definitely approves of Guillermo as the choice to direct The Hobbit instead of Peter: “He’s strongminded, intelligent and probably just as stubborn.” Judging from GDT’s remarks in the interview I linked to the other day, Viggo may well be right!
