Go to Bat with Viggo Mortensen: My films that deserve more love

Actor picks the credits that didn’t get their moment in the sun

Go to Bat is a video series from The Independent that sees an actor or director pick a film from their back catalogue they think deserves more love.

So often, stars are asked about the films they’re synonymous with – but this series provides them with a chance to talk about the projects that were either unfairly maligned upon release or generally underseen.

Every episode will see a guest pick the one or two films or TV shows they think fits this bracket. The latest guest is three-time Oscar nominated actor Viggo Mortensen.

The American star is perhaps best known as Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. His other credits include David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence and Eastern Promises as well as Captain Fantastic and Best Picture winner Green Book.

Mortensen was in the UK to promote his new Western The Dead Don’t Hurt, which he writes, directs, composes and stars in. The film follows Vicky Krieps’s Vivienne who must fend for herself when the man she loves (Mortensen) goes off to fight in the Civil War.

Find out which films Mortensen has gone to bat for – and why – in the video interview above.

Elsewhere in the interview, the actor revealed which 1980s film he got fired from without being told.