Originally written for Little White Lies in February 2012. Read the original article here.

Having become something of a household name courtesy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo Mortensen’s career has gone from strength to strength over the past decade. One of the most formidable actors currently working in Hollywood, A Dangerous Method marks his welcome return after a three-year absence, reuniting him for a third time with director David Cronenberg. I caught up with Mortensen recently to discuss his fascination with Sigmund Freud and the status on that mooted follow-up to Eastern Promises.

Freud is an enormously complex character. How did you go about preparing for the role? 

Mortensen: Well fortunately there’s a lot to read about Freud and, obviously, by him. I thought I knew a lot about him, but I didn’t really until I took on this role. Sometimes it’s good to be pushed and challenged. When I was first offered the role I was kind of sceptical about it to be honest. If it had been another director I don’t know if I would have taken the plunge. I mean, for me, in a way every actor’s different, but for me it was quite a stretch to play him. More so, in a way than other roles including Eastern Promises, which took a lot of preparation and research as well.

But I’m glad I took it on because I learned a lot, not only about Freud but also different ways of working as an actor to build a character. But I read what I had read before and I read many things that hadn’t that were by him that I could get my hands on. He’s still, to this day, a pretty controversial figure. I’m amazed sometimes by how vitriolic the conflict seems to be between the two camps, between Jung and Freud. But in the end when you look at the two men, I feel anyway, that there wasn’t that much of a difference between them. It was interesting to see how much of it was to do with upbringing, personality differences and much more so I felt, at least at the time that we represent in this movie, than actual science.

Do you think that those preconceptions could impact people’s responses to the film?

It might. It might. I mean people who feel very strongly one way or another about Freud or about Jung have plenty to look at or listen to in the movie to back up their claims or to be annoyed about I suppose. I don’t know, but in the end it’s not an academic exercise. That would have been pretty dull. It’s intellectually sound, historically sound. I mean, Christopher Hampton wrote a great screenplay, which makes my job a lot easier as an actor. It’s a pleasure to speak his words. But it’s really about personality differences, as I say. It’s a drama. The tragic thing is that they could have made up I suppose, as Keira Knightley’s character brings up in the movie, that they really should have found a way to get together again because they had a lot of offer people and it’s a shame that they didn’t. So that kind of thing’s much more universal, it’s not some kind of intellectual exercise.

You mentioned working with David again for a third time. How has that familiar working relationship helped you with your performance?

Well having prior knowledge about the way he works, having done two movies with him before this one was very helpful to me as an actor. I knew that as difficult as the role would be, to do it properly and to do justice to the character, I knew that David’s way of working was comfortable for me. We already had a good shorthand and I imagine for him it was one less worry. He knew that I would show up prepared with at least something to offer that he could use to guide me in my direction, so that helped a lot.

I mean, one thing I knew going in was that he’d have his usual great crew; very professional, very creative people, not a lot of shouting, just getting it done. And I knew that I would be working with Vincent Cassel again, which was fun. I think he’ll surprise people with the way he plays Otto Gross. On paper it was a very disturbing character, but he did it with a quietness that’s perhaps even more disturbing than what I thought he’d do.

You mentioned Eastern Promises. What’s the status on the alleged sequel? Is there any truth to that? 

Yeah. Steven Knight has been working on a script that, I think he’s close to being ready to show and reveal. And as far as I’ve heard, as far as I know that’s a real possibility. I think that David’s interested in it. And I’m not a big fan of sequels normally, they don’t always turn out well. Yes, I was in three Lord of the Rings movies but I always felt that that was one movie, just as it’s one big book with parts. I guess this would be something different it would be more akin to The Godfather: Part II, hopefully. I mean the first part ends in a way that is not unlike it. A man comes in to a position of power out of his own ambition and through accident, to some degree. And then he’s sitting there, isolated, sort of caught between two sides. What happens next? You know, there’s potential there to make a good sequel and David I don’t think would do anything but an interesting job of that.

The first part of The Hobbit’s due out this year. There’s no chance of Aragorn coming back but…

Well, it’s 60 odd years before The Lord of the Rings. Now, that’s not much in the life of someone like Aragorn, but he’s not in The Hobbit. He could be in some sort of bridge movie. They’re making two I hear, at least two of them, but I haven’t heard anything, so I think I would have heard right now if I’d been requested. [Laughs].