This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Viggo Mortensen has apologized for using a highly offensive racial slur during a panel discussion about his new film, Green Book.

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Mortensen, who is white, appeared in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the event with his co-star, Mahershala Ali, who is black, and director Peter Farrelly, who is white.

In Green Book, Mortensen’s character is hired to drive an African American pianist played by Ali on a concert tour in the American south in 1962. The movie, tipped by some for Oscars recognition, will be released later this month.

According to Dick Schulz, a freelance director who was present and tweeted about the conversation, which was about race in America, Mortensen said: “For instance, no one says ‘nigger’ anymore.”

“The movie is amazing,” Schulz wrote, “but at the Q&A after Viggo Mortensen just dropped the N-Word and the oxygen immediately left the room.”

He added: “I have no idea why this isn’t a big news story. Viggo is wildly talented but that kind of behavior needs to be publicly checked.”

Schulz also wrote that “it was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed”.

Other Twitter users who were present at the Q&A confirmed the events described in Schulz’s tweets, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Mortensen told the Reporter he was making the point that many people casually used the slur in the period in which the movie is set.

He also said he had “no right to even imagine the hurt that is caused by hearing the word in any context”, added that he intended to “speak strongly against racism”, and said he was sorry he used the word.