In defending his decision to play a gay
role in his directorial film debut, actor Viggo Mortensen suggests he
might not be “completely straight.”
In the Falling, Mortensen, who
is best known for his roles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy
and Green Book, plays a man whose father is suffering from
dementia. The racist and homophobic father comes to live with his son
and husband, who is Chinese-Hawaiian, in Los Angeles.
The movie premiered earlier this month
in Britain.
Activists have criticized straight,
cisgender actors who play LGBT characters. Halle Berry recently
pulled out of a transgender film role over backlash that a
transgender person should be offered the role.
Speaking with UK LGBT glossy Attitude,
Mortensen, who also wrote and directed the film, defended his casting
decisions.
"And how do you know what my life
is? You’re assuming that I’m completely straight. Maybe I am,
maybe I’m not. And it’s frankly none of your business,”
Mortensen, 62, said.
"I want my movie to work, and I
want the character of John to be effective. So if I didn’t think it
was a good idea I wouldn’t do it,” he
said.
In a separate interview with The
Times, he called the debate “healthy.”
“Look, these are the times we’re
living in, and I think it’s healthy that those issues are brought
up,” Mortensen
said. “The short answer is that I didn’t think it was a
problem. And people then ask me, ‘Well what about Terry Chen, who
plays my husband in the film, is he a homosexual?’ And the answer
is I don’t know, and I would never have the temerity to ask someone
if they were, during the casting process."
(Related: Supernova
stars Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci on straight actors playing gay.)