Viggo Mortensen’s career-defining role as Aragorn was not originally meant to be. In fact, the film trilogy had an entirely different actor cast in the role before a dramatic change had Mortensen flying from America to New Zealand at the last minute to give one of his most memorable performances. And it all came together thanks to a 12-year-old boy.
The original actor
Peter Jackson was said to have considered a number of actors for the role of Aragorn, including Russell Crowe, Nicolas Cage, Dougray Scott, and Daniel Day-Lewis. But it was Irish actor Stuart Townsend who was cast as Aragorn. However, Townsend famously lost the role when Jackson had a breakthrough revelation: the actor was just not right for the part. At 27, he was too young.
Naturally, Townsend wasn’t thrilled. He said he trained for months and was prepared to go, before he was fired just one day before filming was due to begin. As Townsend tells it, he believes Jackson wanted someone older and didn’t realize this until late in the process.
As Jackson himself admits in the Fellowship of the Ring bonus features, “We had a hiccup in the casting process because another actor had been cast in the role of Aragorn. We just came to the realization that we had cast the role a little too young.”
The filmmaker elaborated: “It caused us a lot of headaches because we were now shooting the film; we couldn’t stop shooting it and we only had a very limited number of days that we could shoot without the character of Aragorn.”
Viggo’s son saves the day
So what happened next? Jackson’s team was in a bind–after all, Aragorn is one of the most important characters in the entire trilogy. He is the King that’s referenced in the title Return of the King. Jackson and his team zeroed in on Mortensen, who was in his 40s, and called him from New Zealand to see if he would be interested.
Mortensen said he recalls the phone conversation going something like this: “Do you want to get on a plane tomorrow and go to New Zealand?” At the time, Mortensen had never met Jackson, never been to New Zealand, and hadn’t read The Lord of the Rings books. He was given until later that afternoon to decide.
“We thought he would be really great and we badly wanted him now in this movie. We were in a real bind,” Jackson admitted.
Thankfully, Mortensen’s young son, Henry, was at home with his father when he got the call. Henry asked Viggo what the phone call was about, and Viggo told him a movie version of The Lord of the Rings was in the works and that his dear old dad was the top choice to play Aragorn. Jackson credits Henry, a big fan of the fantasy series, with convincing his father to pick up his life, move to New Zealand for multiple years, and make The Lord of the Rings.
“Henry was about 11 or 12 years old at that time,” Jackson recalled. “He was a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and was absolutely beside himself when he thought his dad could get to play Aragorn.”
Mortensen reflected on this unusual casting process and his son’s involvement, saying, “It was nice to have [Henry’s] blessing.”
What does Townsend think about all this?
Of course, it was less of a joyful moment for Townsend, as he was being replaced at the 11th hour for such a prominent role. Granted, at the time he couldn’t have known just how gigantic the series would become. He told Entertainment Weekly in 2005 that he got “shafted up the a**” for The Lord of the Rings. Not only was he replaced, Townsend said he never got paid.
“I was there rehearsing and training for two months, then was fired the day before filming began. After that I was told they wouldn’t pay me because I was in breach of contract due to not having worked long enough,” he said. “I had been having a rough time with them, so I was almost relieved to be leaving until they told me I wouldn’t be paid.”
“I have no good feelings for those people in charge, I really don’t.” — Townsend on the Lord of the Rings filmmakers
He added: “I have no good feelings for those people in charge, I really don’t. The director [Peter Jackson] wanted me and then apparently thought better of it because he really wanted someone 20 years older than me and completely different.”
We can never know how landing the role of Aragorn might have impacted Townsend’s professional career, but it’s safe to assume his star might have shone brighter. He starred as Dorian Gray in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was released the same year as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. After that, he appeared in episodes of the TV shows Robot Chicken, XIII: The Series, Betrayal, Elementary, and Law & Order. His IMDB page states that Townsend is set to star in four upcoming films.
How did the cast react?
The Lord of the Rings is a series about a tight-knit group of characters who go on an epic journey together, forming lifelong bonds of friendship. The Lord of the Rings bonus features and interviews since the movies came out make it clear that the cast were close as well like their characters were. Townsend getting booted from the film came as a shock to some of the actors, including Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry.
He told the Manchester Evening News that Townsend “left very quickly” and recalled how he and the rest of the hobbits were informed of his ensuring departure.
“We were on set and we were coming towards the end of week one and the producer Barrie Osborne had said to the four hobbits, ‘Can you just wait around on wrap because Peter and I want to talk to you about something.'”
Monaghan said he naively thought he was about to be told that filming that week had gone great and that Jackson wanted to tell him to have a nice weekend. However, that’s not what happened. Monaghan and his castmates were informed that Townsend was off the project.
“We were all stunned, I didn’t think we could get fired at that point, I thought you were in… but it wasn’t the case. And Sean [Astin] said, ‘Well, has he left the project or has he been fired?’ And I think they were trying to protect Stuart as much as they could. They just said, ‘We will let Stuart tell you that, but he’s no longer with us.'”
This was the early 2000s, so it was much more difficult to get in contact with people, Monaghan said. “He just disappeared,” the actor said of Townsend.
“Obviously it was a big blow for him but it was ruthless, we were working all the time, we had one day off a week. Our hours were ridiculous. We didn’t have time to mourn anything, you were desperately trying to learn lines and stay on top of it all,” Monaghan said.
Mortensen’s legacy
The Lord of the Rings proved to be an enormous undertaking (all three films were shot at the same time to save money) and would go on to become an enormous success. Not only were the films critically acclaimed, with Return of the King specifically sweeping at the Oscars, but the trilogy of movieswere box office smashes, too, collectively earning around $3 billion worldwide. Jackson followed these films up with another trilogy for The Hobbit, which was similarly successful at the box office, even if the films were not as fondly received by fans and critics.
As for Mortensen, Aragorn remains one of his best-known roles, and one he’s still talking about to this day, some 20+ years after the films debuted. Just recently, Mortensen said he would come back to play Aragorn in the next Lord of the Rings movie, The Hunt for Gollum, if the story was good enough.
“I like playing that character. I learned a lot playing the character. I enjoyed it a lot. I would only do it if I was right for it in terms of, you know, the age I am now and so forth. I would only do it if I was right for the character. It would be silly to do it otherwise,” he said.
Mortensen’s Lord of the Rings legacy extends to memes and beloved jokes as well. The fact that Mortensen broke his toe in The Two Towers and had the moment captured on film forever is the stuff of internet legend.
Mortensen isn’t just known for playing Aragorn, of course. He’s earned three Academy Award nominations, for his roles in Eastern Promises, Captain Fantastic, and Green Book. It seems he’s still drawn back to The Lord of the Rings, though. He directed and starred in 2023’s The Dead Don’t Hurt, which features Aragorn’s sword, Andúril, in a fun nod to the fantasy franchise.
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