Viggo Mortensen wishes his mother was alive to see his Oscar nomination.
Viggo Mortensen
The 58-year-old actor is incredibly proud to have made the shortlist for
Best Actor in a Leading Role for the second time thanks to his role in 'Captain Fantastic' and has praised the project as one of the "finest" he has ever worked on.
He said:
"I'm thrilled that 'Captain Fantastic' has been included among this year's Academy nominees! Our movie has heart and brains. It entertains, inspires, and encourages honest communication in equal measures. I'm extremely proud to represent Matt Ross' extraordinary story. It is one of the finest collective efforts I've ever been a part of. YES WE CAN!
"I wish my mother, who loved movies and taught me about them, was still here to enjoy this moment."
Viggo previously revealed his six young co-stars who played his children in the movie nicknamed him their "Summer Dad" after they developed a close bond while practising yoga, gutting animals and learning to climb in preparation for the movie, in which he played Ben, who has been raising his kids in a forest cut off from the world following his wife's diagnosis with bipolar disorder.
He said "It was a very serious period of training, where we did martial arts together and yoga, we had to learn how to guy and skin animals - well some of them, the girls. The rock climbing was pretty adventurous, I have to say it wasn't my favourite thing ... That period of getting ready was wonderful, by the first day of shooting we knew each other really well. They gave me the moniker 'Summer Dad', they anointed me with that, which was a very nice title."
Viggo also had to play the bagpipes in the movie - directed by Matt Ross - as many scenes required the unconventional family to play music together but he never mastered the tricky wind instrument leading to some painful attempts at tunes on set.
He added: "We played a lot of music together. I learned the bag pipes, of a fashion. I think playing the pipes badly is worse than playing any other instrument badly."
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