Viggo Mortensen: Not just hired for his looks!

Currently, BeirutNTSC has no original content... But in the meantime, here are some very funny quotes from Viggo Mortensen:

ON BEING VOTED THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE So there are a lot of dead men who are sexier? (2006)

ON TREES I look at them as I look at people. I get along well with most trees. If I get into arguments with them, it's probably my own fault (2008)

ON BEING HOT PROPERTY I've been told I've arrived so many times, I don't know where I ever went (1999)

ON NOT WINNING AN OSCAR FOR "EASTERN PROMISES" Ninety-nine per cent of the [other] losers didn't want to do the losers' dance with me. They also sort of ran from me like I was some shitfaced drunk (2009)

ON HIS PAINTINGS A couple of days ago, l looked at all of them and I was like, "I don't know what these are." Then it snowballed: "What kind of actor am I anyway? What kind of father? God, I'm such a vain, self-involved creature, and I should just stop making these things and inflicting them on people!" I can see why people jump out of windows (1999)

ON MISSING HIS HORSES WHILE AWAY FILMING They're terrible at writing letters (2006)

ON LIFE'S LITTLE PLEASURES I usually pee outside my house. There's nothing nicer than peeing at night, looking at the stars, smoking a cigarette (2009)

ON LOSING SOME OF HIS POEMS There is no point in trying to remember and rebuild the word houses, word hills, word dams and word skeletons (2004)

ON NUDITY I don't mind doing nude scenes in movies. Actors who say they do are lying (2001)

ASKED HIS FAVOURITE JOKE Me (2009)

HIS POEM "CHACO" "I shit in the forest / like the monkeys / with their teeth / perfect and yellow / having no fear / of any tiger" (1995)

WHILE MAKING THE FILM "PRISON" After this movie wraps, I'm thinking of going into goat-herding, like my mother and her mother before her (1987)

TO ELVES ON THE SET OF "LORD OF THE RINGS" When you are done with your nails, we are being attacked (2001)

ON THE INVASION OF IRAQ It was obvious to everyone that it was a movie that was green-lit (2004)

ASKED WHERE HE'S BASED Planet earth – mostly (2008)