Viggo Mortensen is one of those actors that all Scandinavians love. As far as we are concerned he is a Scandinavian actor and keeps up the Nordic cool for us abroad. His dedication to and his performance in the role of Aragorn in LOTR was nothing less than amazing. He threw himself headlong into it and pulled off a performance most actors can only dream of achieving. He literally became Aragorn.
He is very popular and respected here. So hearing him referenced on American TV shows is always interesting.
When I was watchng NCIS:LA recently I did a double take when I heard his name. In episode 4x18 Deeks is in a spa and states he is waiting for:"Viggo Mortensen to jump out and start pummeling him". I will probably never ever get what he was meant to be referring to as there were certainly no spas involved in LOTR and I have yet to hear of Mortensen randomly pummeling people on the news.
In episode 5x05 of NCIS they have a Russian character with the pseudonym Viggo. So Abby happily references to him as:"Viggo as in Mortenses". My first thought when I heard her say this was: "Wow she knows who Viggo Mortensen is". And then I remembered he is famous in America. So silly of me.
But two things about those references to Mortensen got me as:
-The name Viggo was pronounced like 'Veegoh' which is not right. In Scandinavia it is pronounced Viggo with an 'i' sound like in Hitler and short o at the end.
-The name Viggo is a crappy name for a Russian going undercover. It is a distinctly Scandinavian name, not Russian. It is like naming an Italian going undercover Vegas. It is something you notice.
I tend to be very ba when it comes to cultural references on TV shows but I did get the Mortensen one :) And they have references 'The Girl with the dragon tattoo' an incredible Swedish book! So yay for Scandinavian references on TV.
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