Viggo Mortensen Defends Playing A Gay Character In His New Movie

The year is 2020, which means Hollywood has (for the most part) learned some big lessons about who they cast to play who. Like, they’re not casting roles like they did back in…whatever year Breakfast at Tiffany’s was made. Or the dozens of decades that followed. We know that Scarlett Johansson probably shouldn’t play anything but white ladies and trees. Viggo Mortensen agrees with that; he’d never think of playing the role of Eric, Viggo’s Chinese-Hawaiian husband, played by Terry Chen, in Viggo’s directorial debut film, Falling. However, when it came time to cast the role of Eric’s husband, Viggo – a straight guy – didn’t see a problem playing gay onscreen.

In the grand tradition of hetero-identifying actors going LGBTQ for a movie that will no doubt get some buzz around Oscar time, Viggo has directed, written, produced, and is starring in Falling, a movie about a gay man named John who brings his dementia-stricken and homophobic father (Lance Henriksen) to live with him in Los Angeles. Laura Linney is in it too as John’s sister. Viggo explained in a recent interview with Reuters that he’s really not too bothered by anyone who thinks it’s not right for him to have cast himself in a gay role when he’s not a gay man, effectively yanking away an opportunity for a gay actor. via The Advocate:

“There are certain characters I’m not going to play. I wouldn’t play Eric, the Chinese-Hawaiian American.”

The 62-year-old actor made a joke to illustrate his defense. “I apologize to all the proctologists for casting David Cronenberg,” said Mortensen, referring to his casting of the director as a colon surgeon in the film. Mortensen stressed to Reuters that the gay role is not “a gimmick, anchor or some trigger.”

And the main character wasn’t even supposed to be gay. Viggo decided to change him from a straight husband married to a woman, to a gay husband married to a guy, in the name of…furthering LGBTQ representation, I guess?

While he had not initially planned on the character being gay, he was inspired to change his sexual orientation while penning an airport scene in his script where John receives a call from his partner.

“I thought, what if it’s not a wife? What if it’s a husband? I’ll try that. I’ll write the next scene and see how it feels. If it doesn’t work or feels somehow not right for the story, then I won’t use it, but I liked it.”

Originally, Viggo had said that he never intended to play the role at all, but having his name attached was the only way he could secure financing for filming. Is that so? Really? He doesn’t think he couldn’t sell it on Laura Linney’s name?

If Viggo thinks he can play gay, well – the only community he really has to answer to are gay actors who might be texting him today, asking to keep them in mind the next time he writes/directs/produces a movie about a gay man. And I wouldn’t be surprised that if he is getting those types of texts, that he might also get one that includes a helpful list of words that he as a not-gay man should probably keep out of his mouth.

Pic: YouTube