While it's an age-old clichéd observance, especially in relation to meeting actors, it still sends you for a loop when you come face to face with someone who you have perceived to be larger than life and they aren't. Case in point, Viggo Mortensen really is a lot shorter than you would expect. But then again, isn't that often the case with most actors? Let's face it, the very nature of cinema is to create an alternate reality and as such the Silver Screen always makes our celluloidal heroes larger than life.

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Physical stature aside, the next thing you notice about Mr. Mortensen is that he's incredibly soft spoken. He talks slowly, in a casually methodical manner that actually let's you see that he is thinking about what he is saying as well as thinking ahead to what he will say next. The result is casually contemplative. In this respect, he's also incredibly down to Earth. Yeah, I know, that's a turn of phrase that is attached to the description of a lot of famous people. Yet in the case of Mortensen, it's aptly accurate. On the day we met in a quiet suite at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, Mortensen was dressed in well-worn blue jeans, a weathered fleece jacket with a hand sewn UN patch over the left breast. His shoes were nowhere to be seen – nothing but socks adorning his feet – and he was drinking tea out of a coconut-sized gourd that had a silver mouthpiece (for easy sipping access) attached to it. He was most un-Hollywood like, completely unpretentious, although a bit tired from his current whirlwind PA tour in support of his latest venture, Hidalgo Speaking of which, while most of his Lord of the Rings compatriots have been rather quiet on the film front (with the exception of Sean Astin in 50 First Dates and Liv Tyler in Jersey Girl), Mortensen immediately followed up his epic turn as Aragorn with another stint in a slightly epic-tinged film. This time around, however, the subject matter is based not on fantasy, but rather on the true story of Frank Hopkins, an American cowboy who traveled to the Middle East to participate in the 3000-mile "Ocean of Fire" horse race.On the surface there are noticeable similarities between the LotR and Hidalgo projects. For starters, Mortensen – who by the way is fluent in several languages – needed to learn the basic nuances of the Lakota language, which he spoke in several scenes during the film. How was learning an almost lost Native American tongue, say in relation to having to learn Elvish for the Lord of the Rings trilogy? "It helps if you know more than one language," Mortensen states. "You have a little head start on adapting, you can get your mouth around certain words and vowel sounds a little easier than if you only come at it from an English speaking background."So, was one harder than the other to pick up? "Elvish or Lakota?" Mortensen asks rhetorically, pauses ever so briefly, before continuing to elaborate. "No. I mean I think they're similar. Not similar languages, but both in like there were some [words] that were harder [to learn] than others, just like there were in Elvish. I don't think that one was harder than the other. They were quite different, actually. Especially when they're sung. They're both quite beautiful."Language lessons aside, Hidalgo also required Mortensen to spend an inordinate amount of time upon a horse, almost more than he spent during the filming of LotR. The film utilized upwards of five different horses to reprise the role of the titular Hidalgo. But it was with the main horse, T.J., that Mortensen developed a lasting bond. In fact, the bond was so strong that Mortensen actually purchased T.J. after the filming concluded.This was not the first time that Mortensen has purchased one of his co-stars, however. "I bought the two horses I rode in Lord of the Rings, as well," he reveals. "I bought the one in Lord of the Rings 'cause I had – even though I wasn't with him all the time, I just developed a real good friendship with him. His name is Eurayus. He kind of came into the movie similar to the way I did. You know, didn't have much preparation and was just thrown in and had to swim, basically. And it was rough on him and it took a while for us to kind of get in sync and for him to be comfortable around the set. So we got to be close and I wanted to stay in touch with him. And, you know, by the end he became almost a real ham. He became so good at it that he was just relaxed and happy. He had been a performing horse, but an equestrian competition horse. So the cameras, lights, and some of the things we had to do...and also the gear. I mean the saddle and chainmail and all that stuff, the battles. So we got through it together and became friends. That was that story."And then there's another horse named Kenny that I ride in the beginning of The Two Towers. He's a chestnut brown-colored horse. And he was just pretty and again it was a situation where we were shooting and they didn't have the right horse and I said, 'Lemme just borrow that one,' and I pointed to one of the wranglers who was riding him. So I just jumped on him, put a Rohan saddle on him and I rode him that day, immediately on camera. But he was very easy and relaxed and I just wanted Eurayus to have a buddy."