Mr Fantastic

He writes poetry, composes music, speaks multiple languages – and makes the kind of movies that get people talking. Best of all, finds Martha Hayes, Viggo Mortensen loves a cuppa.

When Viggo Mortensen was travelling the world to promote The Lord Of The Rings films in the early 2000s, he’d frequently get pulled aside by officials querying the ziplock bag of suspicious looking herbs he took with him wherever he went. ‘It was like, “We’re going to bring the dogs in!”’ he recalls with a sheepish grin. Today, in a London hotel suite, old habits die hard; nothing comes between the Danish-American actor and a cup of fresh green tea. He’s even brought his own tiny metal cup and matching metal straw.

It’s easy to be taken aback by how eccentric, warm and funny Mortensen, 60, is in person. It’s not how you imagine stoic Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings IRL; and it’s certainly not the vibe you get from the sinister characters he’s inhabited in a trio of David Cronenberg films (from A History Of Violence to A Dangerous Method; he’s starred in more than anyone else). That’s not to suggest an actor’s film choices are ever indicative of their personality, but Mortensen’s career spans more than 30 years now, and his reputation for being conscientious and painfully diffident could precede him.

But he’s full of surprises, and none more so than his latest role in Green Book, a film written and directed by Peter Farrelly, the brains behind There’s Something About Mary and Dumb And Dumber. Not that Viggo Mortensen is doing a Jim Carrey – that would be a stretch too far – because this is Farrelly’s first drama. Goosebumpily moving but punctuated with LOLs, it’s a joyful masterpiece inspired by the real-life friendship between wheeler-dealer New York City bouncer Tony Lip (Mortensen) and well spoken world-class black pianist Dr Don Shirley (Moonlight star Mahershala Ali).