Viggo Mortensen may be better known for intense performances in films like A History Of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method (all made with director David Cronenberg) and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but in recent years he’s built up a career behind the camera. He’s now directed his second film; we will soon have a Viggio Mortensen western called The Dead Don’t Hurt.
A story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s, The Dead Don’t Hurt shows Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) as a fiercely independent woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holgen Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada, where they start a life together. The outbreak of the U.S. Civil War separates them when Olsen makes a fateful decision to fight for the Union. This leaves Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his unscrupulous business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garrett Dillahunt). His violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances. When Holgen returns home, he and Vivienne must confront and make peace with the person each has become…
In October 2022 it was revealed that Mortensen would direct and star in The Dead Don’t Hurt and he would work once again with a number of people who worked with him on his previous films (including Marcel Zyskind, production designer Carol Spier and art director Jason Clarke, and costume designer Anne Dixon). Krieps described working with Mortensen on the film to The Times as “In the world of westerns there were not many women. So that was very tough. Of all men he is very soft and open and very ‘there’. But still it reminded me why I like to work with women. “The Dead Don’t Hurt” will be released in the US on the 31st May, with a UK release yet to be confirmed.
