Viggo Mortensen Thinking Quotations

I suppose a good director is like a teacher. I think that someone like David Cronenberg was very much like a teacher, because there's an openness, but a certain set of rules of behavior, and a certain conduct expected. But there's an atmosphere that's relaxed and conducive to exploration, and that is created by someone like Cronenberg.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren't enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.

I think every family is dysfunctional, and some manage to control it better than others.

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating.

I think that every person has many, many people inside of them. We change our personality depending on who we are talking to or what situation we are in.

I'm optimistic about people and about the planet and about nature. I think it's resilient, like people are.

If in my twenties I'd gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.

I like movies that leave you with something to think about, to discuss, to debate, you know?

I don't think Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell fear competition from me in their arena.

You can't really go back to where you came from. I don't think any of us can.

Every year I hear people complain that the quality of screenplays and movies is declining. In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

I think that people who get to a certain position, and then try to ferociously defend it or build on it, it's kind of a dead-end street. You see people becoming miserable that way.

To be honest, I don't really care about any pope. It's not something I think about much, to be quite honest with you.

I don't think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you're president.

I think, on a surface level, people are surprised to see me playing such a passive role in 'Good.'

When I land in a country and they ask for 'occupation,' I always just put 'artist.' I think that covers all of it.

You see people on the street yelling and think they're crazy, but maybe they're just happy and expressing what they feel at all times.

I think maybe because I do other things and they mean as much to me as movie acting, it takes the onus off me. It's not the end of the world if I can't get a film job, or if a movie doesn't turn out well - even though I don't like it when that happens.

In principle, I think the idea of rewarding a good effort is interesting, but movies are generally different from each other as are performances and the conditions on how the performances are given and how they're edited and so forth.

I campaigned for [Dennis] Kucinich in 2008. I continue to be in touch with him and I really admire him. I think he's very brave and honest - unusually so for a U.S. politician.

I think we're on the wrong path in this country and have been for a while. People are in their camps divided by region, economic situation, race, religion, ideology. And there's a lot of just staying in your camp using technology to bolster your case without actually debating with other people, without discussing.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

If I can get a day to myself, I won't answer the phone, I'll read or go for a walk. Simple, basic things. People think there's always time to do that but there isn't. Life is short.

I have to say that I think Bernie Sanders is the first politician since Dennis Kucinich that I've been truly inspired by. Where you actually are truly speaking truth to power, in a legitimate way and in an unpretentious and very straightforward way.

I want to see what the Green Party looks like. I think if people don't start voting what they feel, if that's something other than the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, then nothing's going to change. You need more political parties that actually have a chance.

It's easy to get depressed and think, "Well, what's the point?" But it's the same as, "Well, we're all going to die, so what's the point in brushing my teeth or even saying hello to anyone or obeying traffic lights." You can do that, but that's certainly not going to take you anywhere.

I played Lucifer once, which is sort of a difficult character to research. I thought to myself, "We all have the potential to be selfish, to be cruel - at least to think evil thoughts, even if we don't ever act out on them. Even if we don't ever think we behave badly, we probably do more than we realize."

I think it's my job to like any character I play - to understand and appreciate a character, to look at the world as much as possible from their point of view. I don't look at it just technically: learn the lines, figure out what gestures I want to bring and play, and that's it. I like to learn as much as I can about the person, and see what happens.

I think you have to be flexible above all as an actor; different characters have different demands, actors that you work with are different in their approach, or how you get along or don't get along with them.

I think the older you get the harder it is to [lose] probably. Your metabolism slows down, whatever, but I'm a pretty active person.

If you tell the story emotionally in a truthful way, then you start naturally looking at the landscape and thinking "Wow, we have to watch out."

There are people that grandstand and seem to be publicly politically engaged because they like the attention, more than because they're genuinely concerned about the world. But I don't think that's the majority.

I think if you don't say something it's lying by omission. I personally think it's immoral.