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- Viggo Mortensen has come bearing pancake mix. We are curbside at the tiny airport in Syracuse, New York, on a truly dreary day (even by Syracuse standards), and within seconds of hopping into his rented Ford Fusion, I learn two things about him: He's the kind of guy who picks you up at the airport, and he's the kind of guy who brings presents. Pancake mix is a delicacy in upstate New York. "Do you like maple syrup?" Because he brought me some of that, too. He's prepared a gift bag.
- Mortensen has never been like the other boys and girls. He is not in Us Weekly leaving Starbucks with his hand over his face. Not at Lake Como with George and Amal. When he must go on the red carpet, you will not find him in a Dior tuxedo. (He mostly wears vintage. Once, when asked whom he was wearing, Mortensen provided a name—Bambino Veira—and watched in bemusement as members of the Hollywood press dutifully wrote it down. Veira was a soccer player in Argentina.) He lives in Madrid, and he works when he wants to work, doing whatever he feels like doing. Once, it was erroneously reported (and repeated and repeated, which pissed him off, and he is not a guy who gets pissed off, except about the war in Iraq) that he was giving up acting because he said he wanted to take a break. He just wanted to take a break. Give him a fucking break.
user-inactivated · 2886 days ago · link ·
Wow. He's sincere and alive. It's amazing and very inspirational. He seems to have similar kind of ideas about death, in that it inspires him the same way it inspires me. The way he treats life reminds me of Richard Feynman and how, beyond his main passion of physics, he did a lot of wonderful things for the sole sake of enjoying living: playing frigideira (a percussion instrument in Brazil) and drums (going as far as participating in concerts for each instrument), "being" a Native American (dances and drums in the forest, likely in an appropriate garment), learning Japanese (and giving up because of the confusing levels of respect in usage of verbs)...