The Poster Memorabilia blog

My Moment with the Returned High King

One rare Oscars night, one gray-haired king, and the autograph that nearly brought a Tolkien nerd to his knees.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

I've met many celebrities and asked for their autographs for years, but one that I'll always go back to is Viggo Mortensen. Aragorn himself. Despite starring in countless movies since then, he will forever remain the Returned High King of the reunited kingdom of Gondor and Arnor. That's just how good he was in those films.

You gotta give credit to Mortensen for holding down the fort in all three of Peter Jackson's iconic Lord of the Rings films in the early 2000s. Of course, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee, and Ian McKellen as Gandalf deserve praise, too, but Mortensen did something special in those movies.

Look at his performance in The Return of the King, my personal favorite of the three. He powered through all 3 hours and 21 minutes of it, fighting his butt off, romancing Arwen, and returning as the true king of both realms. Not just anybody can do what he did in that movie alone, much less the entire trilogy.

So, of all the LOTR cast members I met over the years, seeing him and getting his autograph moved me the most. This isn't to say I wasn't excited to see the rest of them. Meeting Elijah Wood remains one of my best frequent celebrity encounters, and I had the most fun seeing Hugo Weaving at the Mortal Engines premiere in California in 2018.

At the 2017 Oscars, however, I finally got to meet Aragorn in person. Mortensen was nominated for the Best Actor award for Captain Fantastic, so he made one of his rare appearances at the Academy Awards that night. He may have looked older, and his famous brown locks turned gray and cut short, but he was still every inch the heroic king I loved on screen.

“That night, I saw a man with quiet confidence.”

What really surprised me was how soft-spoken and reserved he was. It's not that he was shy; it's that he's not as bombastic in real life as his Aragorn was. That night, I saw a man with quiet confidence. He commanded attention by simply standing in front of people.

Maybe it was the Scandinavian in him; I don't know. I've met so many celebrities over the years, including most of the LOTR cast, but he stood out as one of the calmer ones. He's definitely a lot quieter compared to the average American movie star.

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Getting Mortensen to sign my Return of the King poster that night is still one of the highlights of my celebrity-obsessed life. I kid you not, I almost knelt down in front of him when he did it. That's how huge a Tolkien nerd I am, as well as how much his performance stayed in my mind after all these years.

No actor could ever play Aragorn apart from Viggo Mortensen. I'm glad the character didn’t appear in that Amazon Prime series I won't name. They couldn't have found anyone who would fill his shoes. And I hope Hollywood never attempts to do it, too.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

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