| Friday, March 5, 2004 |
11:39 - Viggy, Viggy, Viggy... you have been a bad monkey!
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/leigh200403051052.asp
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Viggo Mortensen was hired for his face. John Rhys-Davies wasn't. And it's your assets that get exercise.
Rhys-Davies sees these same themes espoused in The Lord of the Rings, observing, "[J.R.R.] Tolkien knew that civilization is worth fighting for. There are times when a generation is challenged and must fight to defend their civilization from annihilation."
Of course, others on the set didn't see it the same way. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, wore a "No Blood for Oil" T-shirt during a promotional interview for the movie on Charlie Rose's PBS show.
Ironically, Mortensen's character in the movies is a military leader. And many have drawn parallels between the conflict in The Lord of the Rings with the war on terror. With a twinkle in his eye, Rhys-Davies confides that a friend whispered to him while watching Mortensen in The Return of the King, "Does he realize he's George Bush?"
Ouch. That's so mean!
Ah well. Viggy's young and pretty. One day, he might have to start taking roles that don't depend on his face, and then he might have to start exercising other parts of his head:
Rhys-Davies used to be a radical leftist, as a university student in the '60s. He first started to come around when he went to the local hall to hear a young local member of parliament by the name of Margaret Thatcher. "I went to heckle her," Rhys-Davies says. "She shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that I decided I ought for once to shut up and listen."
Hey, it happens to the best of us.
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Brian Tiemann
