Viggo Mortensen will direct and star in the western The Dead Don’t Hurt, which will also star Luxembourgish actor Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), per Deadline. Mortensen in a western is about the closest thing we can get to his sweaty, wet, and hot Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so we’ll take it. Mortensen begins directing himself in the project, which he also wrote, next week.
Here’s a description of The Dead Don’t Hurt:
Set in the 1860s, the film stars Krieps stars as the fiercely independent French Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen. After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, Vivienne agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, where they start a life together. The Civil War separates them, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries and his violent, wayward son Weston Jeffries, aided and abetted by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller. Olsen’s eventual return challenges their relationship as they have to confront and make peace with the person each has become.
“My aim is to do justice to the story of a uniquely resilient woman living in a lawless and isolated part of the U.S. Southwest in the 1860s,” Mortensen said in a statement provided to Deadline.
Solly McLeod (House of the Dragon), Danny Huston, Garret Dillahunt, Tom Bateman, Lance Henriksen and W. Earl Brown will appear in The Dead Don’t Hurt alongside Krieps and Mortensen.
(Via Deadline)