A maternity nurse, Anna (Naomi Watts) deals with a pregnant, physically traumatised and unconscious 14-year-old girl whose child has to be delivered during an emergency caesarian.

The baby survives, but the patient dies. Anna discovers a diary, written in Russian, hidden in the deceased girl's clothing, and asks her late father's brother, a Russian immigrant, to translate its contents.

She further investigates the girl's background, in order to return the baby to its ancestors, and, in so doing, meets a driver who's in the employ of the Russian underworld (Viggo Mortensen).

American actor Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, says he would happily reprise his role for Peter Jackson if asked.

"I'd rather not have another actor play the part that I started out playing for Peter Jackson. And I had a lot of friends from that experience, so it would be nice to work with them again," Mortensen told website Reelz Channel.

The Hobbit and a second film detailing 60 years between the end of The Hobbit and the start of The Lord of the Rings, will be largely shot in Wellington in 2010.

Aragorn does not appear in The Hobbit, but the second film might include the first time Aragorn meets elf princess Arwen – played by Liv Tyler in The Lord of the Rings, when he meets Gandalf the wizard and when he fights for the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor under the alias of Thorongil.

"It's possible that they might ask me and some of the others to be part of it."

Guillermo del Toro, the director of the two films, has said he was in talks with Mortensen and others, but Mortensen said he had not heard directly from anyone involved. [Source]

Although Viggo Mortensen actually made his big screen debut way back in 1985 opposite Harrison Ford in Witness, it took nearly two decades before the actor was given a chance to headline Hollywood movies. As Aragorn in Peter Jackson's epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, Mortensen won the hearts of fans and acclaim of critics, quickly catapulting him to the Hollywood A-List.

Thankfully, stardom hasn't changed Mortensen a bit, who remains as soft-spoken down to Earth as he's always been. Walking between screenings at the Cinevegas festival last week, I passed by Mortensen, dressed unassumingly in jeans and a t-shirt. He was just there as a fan, checking out some of the movies.

Cinevegas honored Mortensen with the Half Life award this year and ReelzChannel.com got the chance to chat with the busy actor, who has three projects hitting screens in 2008.

To start off our chat, I asked Mortensen if he had any fond memories of Las Vegas he could talk about. He responded with a whopper of a story: "A Vegas moment would be standing in line in 1999 with my son, who was then 11. He wanted to see Cher with Cyndi Lauper opening for her. There was a lady dressed in a silvery-white beautiful gown and a lot of jewelry -- not like in a tacky way, [but] a quite beautiful get-up she had on. She put a hand on her chest and turned and very demurely threw up into one of those ash trays, into that white beautiful sand and I remember that going all over the rug. And then she sort of pulled a little handkerchief out of her purse and [wiped her mouth] and then went back in line. She was probably really hammered, I guess, but just determined to see Cher. And she went in as far as I know. That's my most vivid memory." (Laughs)

2008-June-20 - CineVegas 2008 Film Festival Portraits - Day 9. If you take the photos, credits goes to viggo-online.com

2008-June-20 - Planet Hollywood Hosts CineVegas 2008 Honoree Party. If you take the photos, credits goes to viggo-online.com

One of my concerns when I started doing this column was that each forthcoming adaptation I covered would equate to a new movie losing the ability to surprise me. What more effective way to strip oneself of the thrill of cinematic discovery, I thought, than to pore over the source material before watching? Ultimately I decided that the prospect of literary discovery along with the chance to write the column more than compensated for that risk, but here's some evidence that maybe I shouldn't have worried at all: having read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, I'm more excited to see John Hillcoat's adaptation – coming this November -- than I ever would have been otherwise.


It's not that I consider The Road to be a great book; it's more that I think it's a very good book that could make a great film. At its core is something deeply profound: a father-son relationship of such truth and purity that it keeps the characters – known only as "the man" and "the boy" -- alive when there would seem to be nothing to do but wish for death. It's an epic struggle between love and despair, taking the form of an adventure story set in a vivid, horrifying post-apocalyptic America, and it's riveting and heartbreaking.

On the other hand, I seem to be the only person in the world who's not enamored of Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) as a prose stylist, at least here: Some of his passages are downright obscurantist, and his attempts to make his writing resemble the barren landscapes of his story often give it an awkward, affected feel. (Also, as a newcomer to McCarthy, I gotta ask: what does the man have against quotation marks?)

Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Road,” takes place in a world that, because of some unexplained catastrophe, has just about ended. The sky is gray, the rivers are black, and color is just a memory. The landscape is covered in ash, with soot falling perpetually from the air. The cities are blasted and abandoned. The roads are littered with corpses either charred or melted, their dreams, Mr. McCarthy writes, “ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.”

For the crew that has just finished filming the movie version of “The Road” — a joint production of 2929 and Bob Weinstein’s Dimension Films, set to open in November — that meant an upending of the usual rules of making a movie on location. Bad weather was good and good weather bad. “A little fog, a little drizzle — those are the good days,” Mark Forker, the movie’s director of special effects, remarked one morning in late April while the crew was shooting some of the final scenes in the book on a stretch of scraggly duneland by the shore of Lake Erie here. “Today is a bad day,” he added, shaking his head and squinting.

The sky was blue, the sun so bright that crew members were smearing on sunscreen. A breeze was carrying away the fog pumping feebly from a smoke machine. Even worse, green grass was sprouting everywhere, and there were buds on the trees. Some of the crew had hand-stripped a little sapling of greenery, but the rest of the job would have to be done electronically by Mr. Forker, who was also in charge of sky replacement.

The NYT reports that the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy is being made into a film.

The film will star Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the father and son team.

John Hillcoat is the director. Oh, and it can’t hurt that Charlize Theron also stars in it, as the man’s wife.

The article notes that filming began in February and was shot near Pittsburgh “because it’s one of the many states that give tax breaks and rebates to film companies and, not incidentally, because it offered such a pleasing array of post-apocalyptic scenery: deserted coalfields, run-down parts of Pittsburgh, windswept dunes,” Nick Wechsler, who is one of the producers said. [Source]

We already know that Guillermo del Toro is working on getting Sir Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis back as Gandalf and Gollum respectively for The Hobbit. Tonight Variety added another returning cast member into the mix. Apparently director Guillermo del Toro is also reaching out to Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, to reprise his role for one of the two Hobbit films.

If you’ve read The Hobbit you’re probably trying to figure out where the heck Aragorn fits in, since he’s not actually in the book. Odds are he won’t be in the first movie, but the un second one, which will be cobbled together mostly out of ancillary Tolkien material that fills in the gaps between “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” books. In those Aragorn figures prominently, used by Gandalf to capture and question Gollum and wooing the lovely Arwen who becomes his bride at the end of Return of the King. It’s likely that’s what del Toro is wooing Viggo for.

Everyone in the Lord of the Rings cast has seemed open in the past to returning for more work on any future film. Viggo in particular has always seemed especially dedicated to his character, and I can’t imagine him letting anyone else portray Aragorn son of Arathorn, as long as he has anything to say about it. If del Toro wants him, I’m willing to be Viggo signs up. [Source]

No matter how many times Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson mention bringing back every Lord of the Rings cast member they possibly can, it causes a flurry of excitement. Even if it remains unconfirmed, everyone is just so excited that it might as well be signed into contract.

And this time is no exception. Del Toro casually mentioned to Variety that talks have begun with Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis and Ian McKellen -- or, at least, preliminary contact has been made. There's not much talk of recasting, either, should someone be unavailable. "I am all for keeping the actors who originated the parts, as much as availability and their willingness will allow."

Pre-production is about to begin on The Hobbit, with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens tackling the screenplay under the direction of Jackson and del Toro. "We will all be involved in the script in some fashion but the exact definition is about a week away." So, there might be some very cool announcements made during that Hobbit chat. (Have you sent your questions, yet?)

I feel like I'm calling a golf tournament with Hobbit news sometimes, like I should be whispering "preliminary contact has been made." But please don't mistake that for careless sarcasm. The thought of Viggo Mortensen returning as Aragorn, son of Arathorn, is enough to keep me awake at night. I love that character. Tolkien could have devoted ten books to him, and I would have never gotten sick of him. [Source]