It's said that massive Hollywood fame only comes to those who seek it with fervour. Only by bloody-minded persistence and constant networking and self-promotion can you scale the heights of the film world. Or so the theory goes. The case of Viggo Mortensen would appear to prove otherwise. As Aragorn, the warrior-heart of Peter Jackson's awe-inspiring Lord Of The Rings trilogy, he's achieved a worldwide recognition that few have ever managed. Yet he's far removed from the archetypal fame-hungry wannabe. As an accomplished painter, photographer, poet and musician, he's more of a Renaissance Man, deeply rooted in underground culture. His success is thus something of a happy accident, arriving both because of and despite his artistic efforts. In this, his achievements are a lesson to us all.

He was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on the 20th of October, 1958. His father, Viggo Sr, was Danish, while his mother was American. The couple had met in Norway and married in Holland, in a Lutheran ceremony. Though he came from farming stock in Denmark, Viggo Sr was set on becoming a businessman and, hoping to make his fortune, in 1960 moved his family

o has two younger brothers) to South America. Here they would shift between Buenos Aires in Argentina and Venezuela, often spending holidays back in Denmark, on the Mortensen family