Delving into Russian culture pays off for Mortensen
Nikolai, the character Viggo Mortensen plays in the intense crime drama "Eastern Promises," stands ramrod straight, says very little and wears black suits and sunglasses like they're a suit of armor.
"He's on guard," Mortensen said. "Not much gets by him."
Until, that is, a scene roughly halfway through the film, when he is surprised in a bathhouse by two armed thugs. Nikolai, realizing he's let himself be double-crossed, now must fight off two men for his very life -- while completely naked.
The visceral and bloody scene is a key moment for the film -- it has already been compared to the legendary car chase in "The French Connection" -- and for Mortensen's character.
"He's very good at protecting himself and being a step ahead of everyone else," said Mortensen, discussing the film with reporters in advance of its release Sunday on DVD. "But as it turns out, (his enemy) is a step ahead of him. When that scene happens, you know that everything's changed."
"Eastern Promises" takes place in present-day London inside the closed world of the Russian mob. Mortensen's character is an up-and-coming soldier in a crime family led by the cruel Seymon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose position is threatened when a nurse (Naomi Watts) comes into possession of a diary that incriminates members of the family.
The film has earned three Golden Globe nominations -- for best picture, best actor (Mortensen) and best score. It's Mortensen's second collaboration with director David Cronenberg; the two worked together on 2005's "A History of Violence."
Like that earlier film, "Promises" uses the crime genre to explore notions of family and identity. And it ends on a note that's similarly ambiguous. For Mortensen, that's one of the movie's strengths.
"What's good about this movie in the same sense as 'A History of Violence' … is that at the end of the story, you feel that it will continue," he said. "And if you're particularly impatient, you might feel it's incomplete. Well, life is never 'complete.'"
Mortensen spent weeks in Russia researching the part of Nikolai -- watching Russian films, studying the language and generally immersing himself in the culture. He said he wanted to get all of the outer, physical details of the character exactly right. The effort has resulted in positive reviews from Russian journalists, he said.
"Several have complimented us on going to great lengths to try to be accurate in some ways about behavior, and in some cases language, because they're accustomed to seeing us do a really bad job, seeing just Europeans that are not Russians."
As for the accolades Mortensen has received for his performance in the film, he's quick to deflect the credit to his director.
"There's only a handful of directors that can do what David Cronenberg can do, that are as great as artists," he said. "I don't think it's an accident that actors generally do their best work, or close to it, for him."