Hollywood
Viggo Mortensen sneaked his Aragorn sword from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ into his new film
He needed a sword, and he had one at hand: Viggo Mortensen asked Peter Jackson for permission to use a Middle-Earth sword into one of his new movies.
Viggo Mortensen, the famous actor who gave life to Aragorn in the film trilogy of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, has revealed that he sneaked his iconic Andúril sword in his new movie ‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’, a western that he directs and stars in. This was shared by the actor himself in a recent interview with GQ, ensuring that he asked permission from Peter Jackson himself, director of the original trilogy and the ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy, to use his weapon in another film that has nothing to do with medieval fantasy.
A medieval sword in a western?
It has been more than two decades since Aragorn used his sword to fight against Sauron’s armies in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’, something that Viggo Mortensen doesn’t seem to have forgotten. So much so, that the actor and director made the decision to use it again in a totally different context, that is, in his latest film. ‘The dead don’t hurt’:
“We had everything for this sequence with a knight. We had found this great, spirited horse, the right kind of saddle, and we made a medieval kind of blanket, and we had the costume for the knight. Everything was right, and then I said, well, we should have a sword,” explains Mortensen.
Without hesitation, Mortensen recalled that he still had Andúril in his possession, from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, so he thought he could use it to film that scene for his western: “I did ask Peter Jackson if he’d be all right with it, and he said, ‘Well, is it very important in the story?’ I said, no, it’s not, actually,’ You hardly notice it, but somebody will, probably. He said it was okay with him but that I should ask the movie company. So I contacted them and they were fine with it.”
“They realized it wasn’t essential, it wasn’t going to draw a lot of attention to itself. And they were very nice about it, and they gave us permission. That’s why we did it, just because it seemed right. It was kind of a last-minute accident” concludes Mortensen. Thus, Andúril’s presence in a Western is not an easter egg. Rather, it is an emergency solution during filming that Tolkien fans will love.