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Viggo Mortensen has revealed why he hasn’t starred in a major Hollywood franchise after the Lord of the Rings.
Mortensen, who played Aragorn in the iconic trilogy in the 2000s, said his main priority when picking a movie was that it had to be written well, and not necessarily the budget.
The Green Book actor said he had nothing against doing franchises, but that they were usually just not “that good”.
“I don’t really look for or avoid any kind of genre or any size budget. I just look for interesting stories. It doesn’t matter to me what the genre is or what the budget is or who is making it. I would never do a movie just because so-and-so is directing it. It has to be about the story. And if I think I’m right for the character, that always comes first,” he told Vanity Fair.
“That goes for franchises. If somebody came to me with X movie, the third part or the ninth part, and I thought it was a great character and I wanted to play that character and I thought I had something to contribute, I’d do it. I’m not against it. But they’re not usually that good. I mean, to me, they’re not usually that well-written. They are kind of predictable. I mean, of course there’s always the issue of if I run out of money.”
Mortensen revealed earlier this year that there was a Lord of the Rings Easter egg in his last film The Dead Don’t Hurt.
The actor said he was filming a sequence with a knight on horseback when he realised he was missing a key item and ended up using Aragon’s sword, which he had kept after filming ended.
Mortensen put his return to the Lord of the Rings universe in doubt saying he would not consider reprising his role unless the script was good enough.
Asked if there were any plans for him to make an appearance in The Hunt for Gollum, which is in development, he told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year: “I haven’t read a script. So I don’t know. The script is the most important thing to me unless I’m broke, I have no money and I’m lucky to get any job. So it depends.”
