I saw an A&E special on LOTR Sunday, and they said that Viggo Mortensen was not the first choice to play Aragorn. Apparently another actor was fired after only a day of shooting. Anyone know who it was?
(And, yes, I saw the BS movie trivia thread, so don’t even try to say it was Bob Sagat. I want a site to back up your statement. :))
A quick trip to IMDb reveals that Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn.
This seems to confirm Stuart Townsend too.
See the movie notes.
Anyone know why he was fired?
I seem to remember reading that Peter Jackson thought he’s just too young (or looked too young) for the role.
Here is the Straight Dope. I read a recent interview with Mortensen and he is Godlike. He is a published poet, a well regarded jazz musician, has had exhibitions at art galleries of both his paintings and photos. Apparently he talked the entire cast and crew of LOTR inro sleeping overnight in the forest so Peter Jackson could get a sunrise shot in the morning. He only took the role of Aragorn because his son was reading the book and told him he had to do it because “Strider is the best character in the book”. When he met Peter Jackson he was carrying copies of the Scandanavian books that formed the basis for LOTR.
This is discussed in a special feature on the Two Towers extended disc. More accurately, he wanted to stay out there with a couple of actors and a cameraman to get the sunrise shot, but when people heard Mortensen was organizing an overnight, it sort of turned into a mass campout by osmosis. Says a lot about how cool everyone found him, and how well-liked and well-respected he was on the set: “Viggo’s doing it? Count me in!” And as I recall, PJ wasn’t even there; it was more of a second-unit situation.
More stories of Viggo coolness…
During the filming of the siege of Helm’s Deep, Viggo got part of his tooth knocked off when an extra clocked him by accident. Viggo wanted them to just glue the tooth back on so he could continue fighting. They had to drag him to the dentist.
The DVD shows how they did 4 takes of the scene where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli see the pile of burning orcs the Rohirrim left behind. Thinking Merry and Pippin were dead, Aragorn kicks a helmet and yells in dismay. They took the last shot because Viggo gave the best yell of pain in it. Then they found out why: he broke his foot when he kicked the helmet.
Sometime I should post the pic of Viggo in costume fly fishing.
Actually, his toe. And then in a bunch of those scenes of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli running across Rohan chasing the Uruk Hai, Viggo was running with a broken toe because he didn’t want his body-double doing the shots because the shot might not look right with a different actor. The dude is certainly dedicated.
Everything I read about Viggo only makes him MORE desirable!
Yummy!
My sister told me that in the scene where Aragorn is floating down the river unconscious, that Viggo almost drowned. He was lucky to kick on a rock and float back to the surface.
Assuming you mean The Kalevala, it would be more accurate to say that it was part of what inspired Tolkien than to say LoTR was based on it. It would also be more accurate to describe it as Finnish than Sacandinavian. While Finland is considered a Scandanavian country by geography, Finnish is not a Scandinavian language (or even an Indo-European language for that matter).
Actually, Orlando Bloom and Brett Beatty (John Rhys-Davis’ size double) were also injured while running–Orli with a broken rib and Brett with some knee troubles.
That’s one of my favorite on-set stories from the LotR:EE DVDs (and that’s saying something, as they’re loaded with great little anecdotes like this one). John Rhys-Davies’ quip about catching no fish, compared to “Aragorn’s three,” is very funny, as well.
And of course you can’t tell this story without mentioning the end result: that gorgeous shot of the Three Hunters running past a spectacular sunrise in The Two Towers. I thought it was nice to that such a great shot was a direct result of the cast and crew having some fun of their own initiative. 
For what it’s worth Entertainment Weekly ran a brief interview with Stuart Townsend at the time his Queen of the Damned was released and he answered a couple of questions on the subject of LOTR: here
Could you post the questions and answers on LOTR (not the full article)? I’ve always been curious about his side but the site wont let me in as I’m not subscribed to EW (oddly enough, cause I’m in Australia).
Somewhere on one of the Extended Edition DVDs there is an interview where Peter Jackson mentioned the “first actor cast as Aragorn” and he really gave the impression that he wasn’t serious about the role and wasn’t willing to put forth the necessary effort. I don’t have the DVDs in front of me, but I think it was on the “Fellowship” disc with the section about casting the primary actors.
Anyway, Viggo is amazing. The guy just lived, breathed, and was Aragorn. I was shocked when I saw him for the first time out of character - he looks more like a schoolteacher than a king.
HI - Has anyone mentioned yet that Jackson’s “official” reason for letting Townsend go was that he was too young for the part? The actor was only a couple years older than the hobbit actors and did not bring enough gravitas to the role.
Whatever the reasons, I think we’re all lucky Viggo got the role
It’s a relatively short article. To avoid the prospect of copyright issues by posting the questions and answers, I’ll summarize that portion of his interview with Liane Bonin in the Entertainment Weekly article from February, 2002, as follows:
a) he rehearsed for two months, then was fired the day before filming began;
b) he was told that he wouldn’t be paid because he was in breach of contract for not having worked long enough; and
c) he does not have good feelings for those in charge although remains friends with Orlando Bloom.
He also says that Peter Jackson wanted someone completely different and “twenty years older”. Overall, he seems philosophical about not having been Aragorn, but is unhappy with the production company.
BTW, do you get EW in Australia? If so, I believe that if you buy it on the stand you may be able to get onto the site.