A Little ‘Eastern Promise’ among the Bardem Lovers
“I’m far away. I’m in Javier Bardem’s country,” Viggo Mortensen told the Baguette when he called to chat about his best acting Oscar nomination for “Eastern Promises.” Mr. Mortensen was in Madrid to finish editing books for his small press, percevalpress.com, and he told the Baguette that all the talk today was about Mr. Bardem’s nomination. “People are very happy about him here, and they’re sort of happy about me being nominated,” he said, as “a wayward adoptive son I suppose because I’ve done a few movies here and I’ve done a few movies in Spanish.”
He found out about his nomination from turning on the television. “They were just announcing the main acting category but they kept repeating the supporting actor because it was Bardem, and they repeated it again and again,” he laughed. “It was great!” But when they announced the lead actor nominations, they said his name just once, and he nearly missed it.
The Oscar race is “a bit of a game of chance that you’re not usually included in, and for some reason I am this time,” he said. “Dark horse is probably an understatement,” he said, laughing.
Mr. Mortensen said the nomination was bitter sweet because of the omission of the director, David Cronenberg. “People appreciate him, but they can’t quite pull the trigger or something, which was true of ‘History of Violence.”
Mr. Mortensen said the best part of the nomination was seeing how others reaction. “It’s nice to see people that you work with be happy, and it’s nice to see your family be happy about something that’s to some degree a crap shoot, obviously, but it’s still is nice, you know, and if you don’t usually get included in that stuff, and for reason I got lucky today, and I do acknowledge that and appreciate it.”