Viggo Mortensen has long held a reputation for not holding back—a rarity for a star of his magnitude. The three-time Oscar nominee, who broke out in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has continued to turn in celebrated performances in big-ticket projects while also emerging as a rising director, with two well-received movies now under his belt. The first, Falling, a stark portrait of a dire father-son relationship, premiered at Sundance in 2020, finding admirers amid a tough COVID climate; his most recent, The Dead Don’t Hurt (now available on VOD for digital purchase), earned strong reviews during a modest theatrical release. But both are firmly independent, a category that Mortensen recognizes as especially tenuous right now.

“There are less slots for these films to be shown in movie theaters,” Mortensen says on this week’s Little Gold Men. “Call me old-fashioned, but I like seeing movies in movie theaters—and I like people seeing my movies in theaters.”

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That’s where our conversation begins, a launchpad in many ways for Mortensen to provide his frank assessment of the business. There are the bright spots—getting to see what Vicky Krieps can do as a feisty Western lead in The Dead Don’t Hurt, experiencing a triumphant Oscar campaign for Green Book despite the backlash—but also some worrisome signs. Here, Mortensen speaks out against the “appalling” treatment of Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives by its streamer, the “poor” state of film criticism, the “precarious” nature of social media, and more. Read on or listen below.

Vanity Fair: As someone who’s transitioned to filmmaking in a more tumultuous time for theatrical movies, how have you observed the lives of your films?

Viggo Mortensen: For independent films—especially in Europe, but also in the US to a large extent—film festivals were necessary as a launchpad to either sell them or get decent distribution, and hopefully reach some movie theaters.

You have to work harder than ever as a filmmaker to get it out there. You have to do a lot more Q&As. As hard as it was to make The Dead Don’t Hurt, that whole process was easier than it was to promote it. I mean, I’ve been on the road for months and months and months, and I’ve done 70 to 80 Q&As in different countries and cities and all over the map. I’ve done more press for this movie than I did for all of the Lord of the Rings as an actor.

What have you learned as a filmmaker behind the scenes, even beyond that promotional element, of packaging these kinds of indies?

Making any movie, no matter how well you prepare, how well thought out your plan is for shooting—it’s always about solving little and big problems every day. That’s just making movies. But financing, it’s difficult. With Falling, we had to do the typical thing for an independent film—we had to find it in lots of different places. With The Dead Don’t Hurt, we were unusually fortunate in that we found almost all the financing in one place, Regina Solórzano of Talipot Studio in Mexico. They had seen Falling and were interested in working with me as a director, and they read a couple of different scripts I had, and they liked this one a lot, and so they put their money where their mouth was. It’s not the norm these days. I don’t expect the next experience to be as smooth, but you never know. A lot of times people end up doing it with one of the big streaming companies and maybe they don’t even get their movie into a movie theater, ever. That’s just the landscape now.

Is that something you would consider? Or do you avoid streamers as a director?

Well, I feel the same as an actor and as a director—I feel like I’m part of a filmmaking team and I always want a movie to be seen in the theater, especially if I think it’s a good movie. A case in point was recently, the first time I’d worked on a huge-budget movie in a long time—Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives, which is a really good movie. One of his better movies. That was a movie that MGM made, and when they did their test screenings for that movie, they got the highest scores in the history of that studio, and they got really excited and decided that that year, that November, they were going to put it out worldwide in many, many, many thousands of theaters. Then Amazon bought MGM, initially promised to respect the deal that MGM had made with Ron Howard, and then they went back on that. Basically, you saw that movie for a week in Chicago, New York, and LA, London, and that was that. Then you had the streaming, which I thought was really sad. It’s a really well-shot movie. So it concerns me. If the only way I could, say, direct my next movie was for it to only be streaming, I would have to consider that because otherwise the movie just doesn’t get made.

I hear you on that film. You can see the way that reactions are different when it comes out on streaming. It doesn’t get to have a life with the public in the same way.

They have all their excuses for why they did that, but it comes down to greed. How much money do you need? I think Amazon could certainly have respected the deal, as they said they were going to, and released it widely in theaters and let it have its run. And then they could have also made money streaming. But they figured it would be more cost-effective—i.e., they would make more money—if they didn’t have to bother with spending money on promoting it and putting in theaters, and sharing that money with theaters, frankly. That’s what it comes down to. To me, it’s greed.

I think it’s also very shortsighted, even for these companies.

They certainly could have had a run at awards and prestige for themselves. I agree—I think it’s shortsighted. For a guy with such a storied career like Ron Howard, who has made so much money for studios, who was so deservedly well recognized as a filmmaker historically—to do that to a guy like him I think is appalling. He’s a very nice guy, so he hasn’t gone out there complaining about it, but I’m happy to do it for him. I’m not speaking for him, I’m just speaking for myself. I think it was shameful what they did.

In both of your movies, you’ve cast these powerhouse actors to play opposite of, with Vicky Krieps here and Lance Henriksen, who is brilliant in Falling. That must inform both the shape of the movie and of your performance. How do they impact you on both sides of the camera?

With the case of Falling, we found maybe half the financing, and it didn’t look like we were going to find the rest, and so I just made a choice to play his son, which I enjoyed doing. He was great to act with. I was hoping not to have to do that, but as I say, I don’t regret it.

In this case, I definitely was not going to do it, and we had cast another actor opposite Vicky, and that’s how we raised the money. Unfortunately, after several months of working together and starting to explore together, that actor decided not to do the movie, and it was late enough in the process of preproduction that although I tried to replace the actor with an actor of the same type—same age and so forth, who was name enough for the financiers to keep the financing together—they weren’t available. It got so late in the game that I said to my coproducers, “Well, I could play the part. I’d have to change him. He’d have to be older. It’d just be different.” They said, “Oh, that would work. We could do that.”

The main thing was, I’d have to ask Vicky if she’s okay with it, because it’s a different character then, and it’s also her director. Fortunately, she liked the idea. The experience of working with her was great, both as a director and as an actor. I really enjoyed it.

She brings incredible humor to it, especially in your early scenes together. The look on her face says everything.

Yeah, she’s no-nonsense. After they spend their first night together and [day breaks], the way he starts talking and prancing on—you can tell she’s thinking, God, this guy’s a bit of an idiot. How can I get rid of him? And he sort of stubbornly says, “Well, I’m not going anywhere.” And she finds that interesting. “Okay, well, he’s got some guts, let’s see.” My hope was that this character would be engaging, that you would be able to transmit a lot even in silence. You can dream that, but if you don’t have the right actress in that role, you’re limited in how much you can do in that regard. So that worked out really well, and she went beyond my dreams for the part. She really did a lot with it. It’s beautiful, her work.

It sounds, though, like the nature of independent film is what explains why you’ve starred in both of your movies so far.

Yeah, so far. The other scripts I’ve written, there really isn’t a character I could play, so I don’t think I’ll be in that same position. I’ll have to find the financing no matter what. But hopefully as calling cards, my first two movies show that I can direct to some degree and that maybe someone will have faith in the next one I want to tell. That’s what I’m hoping anyway.

You’ve worked with many iconic filmmakers as an actor. With a frequent collaborator like David Cronenberg, what’s the biggest takeaway from a relationship like that that you can bring into your own films?

David Cronenberg puts a lot of stock in how he’s cast his movies, and so he trusts what they bring to the table. He doesn’t rehearse his actors at all, doesn’t do read-throughs, doesn’t do any of that, but he’s open to what they have to say and what they think about their roles. He’s happy to answer any question as best he can, but on the set, if what you’re doing works, it’s what he wants, or maybe it’s different but he likes it; he’s probably not going to say much of anything to you. On Crimes of the Future, there was hardly anybody in the cast or crew that had worked with him before. I remember talking with one of the actors, and the question came up as to, “Is there something wrong? Is there something else he wants? Should I be worried that he’s not talking to me very much?” And I said, “No. That means he likes what you’re doing.” Kind of hard to get used to that sometimes, because some directors really want to mark their territory and make it clear that they’re in charge, and they want to intellectualize and give lots of instructions, even when they’re not needed. Just to say, I guess, subconsciously, “I’m in charge. This is my idea.” Someone like David Cronenberg does not feel that. He’s not insecure in that sense at all. He’s open to surprises.

I know you’ve talked about how this is a director who generally has not gotten his due—

Especially at the Academy. I mean, he’s had movies win Oscars for makeup and stuff, but…

It is crazy to me he has never received an Oscar nomination.

He’s never been nominated as a writer or a director, which I think is stunning. Especially when you consider year after year, some of the rather mediocre efforts that are not only nominated, but sometimes win. You can’t take it too seriously. I don’t think he does. I think he would be pleased if he was recognized, but I don’t think he loses a lot of sleep over it. He just continues to make his kinds of movies.

How closely do you pay attention to things like reviews and media coverage?

More and more these days, what passes for critical thinking in terms of reviews is pretty poor. In terms of the reviewer having some understanding of film history, how movies are made—the level is really low. There are some good reviewers—some really interesting conversations are had from journalists in terms of their reactions to films—but it’s not great. As a director, certainly as a director-producer, I pay attention. It matters to me more, a lot more than as an actor because the fate of the movie, whether it’s going to be distributed well, whether it’s going to be seen in movie theaters—a lot hangs in the balance as to how it’s received critically.

Along those lines, I did want to ask you about Green Book. I’m curious how you reflect on an Oscar campaign like that, which was in many ways obviously triumphant—you win best picture, Mahershala Ali wins best supporting actor—but it had this negative element attached to it. How did you experience it at the time, and how does it sit in your mind now, reflecting on those kinds of reactions?

It was frustrating to me, as part of the filmmaking team, to see that the studio was somewhat cowed by the disingenuous criticism of the movie, of it being not historically accurate, so forth, or unfair in some way—being cowed by that kind of rumor-mongering that spread like wildfire because of the way social media is these days, and which rival studios greatly enjoyed and propagated as much as they could. That’s what happened. I thought they should have been bolder about refuting it. They eventually did what we—Peter Farrelly, me, and others—wished they had done early on: put out the recordings that show that this is actually a true story and that this happened.

Anywhere I go, when people show up with pictures or DVDs and things, I see as much Green Book material to this day as I do Lord of the Rings material. People loved that movie. The studio, if they’d been bolder and reacted properly early on, they would’ve made even more money in the box office. It’s a movie that did really well. Social media is a precarious place. I remember being asked about racism generally, and I said, “I think racism will always be there. It doesn’t matter how many laws you put in and how much progress is made, it’s just human nature. The target of racism and the vocabulary used changes from generation to generation, sometimes from year to year, and you always have to be wary. Every new generation of children has to be shown somehow, taught by example, to not fear that which is different.” And even that was taken out of context, and I found that to be really unfortunate. But this movie is going to be—is already and it will be—remembered as a small classic.

Does the frustration ever make you just kind of want to bow out of it? Stop giving interviews, stop reading the coverage, etc.?

Yeah. Yeah, it does. Talking about Green Book, for example, I ended up having to do months of interviews where every interview I had to address that issue. I’m like, “There’s nothing there, you guys. It’s actually based on a real relationship. It’s a true story. It’s a good story. I don’t know why I have to keep answering,” but I did.

You can ask any director I’ve worked with, I’ve always worked just as hard to try to promote the story that I’ve committed to helping tell as actually shooting it. I think it’s important. It’s part of the job, as you’re a professional member of the filmmaking team. That’s just all there is to it, and that’s just what goes with it. You have to take on board the nonsense and the people who are either ill-informed or ignorant as far as what filmmaking is about or the history of movies, or who are ill-intentioned and are doing it for other reasons—to get attention for themselves or in some indirect way working for other interests that are contrary to the interests of the project you’re promoting. You have to do what you can to dispel untruths and nasty rumors and inaccuracies. You can only do it conversation by conversation, and if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, well, you tried and that’s all there’s to it. That’s how I see my job.

You mentioned Lord of the Rings a few times. Looking back at your filmography a little bit, you haven’t been a part of any franchise since then—and LOTR was itself a very singular, artistically driven trilogy. Is that a deliberate choice on your part, to avoid that part of Hollywood?

I don’t really look for or avoid any kind of genre or any size budget. I just look for interesting stories. It doesn’t matter to me what the genre is or what the budget is or who’s making them. I would never do a movie just because so-and-so is directing it. It has to be about the story. And if I think I’m right for the character, that always comes first. That goes for franchises. If somebody came to me with X movie, the third part or the ninth part, and I thought it was a great character and I wanted to play that character and I thought I had something to contribute, I’d do it. I’m not against it. But they’re not usually that good. I mean, to me, they’re not usually that well written. They’re kind of predictable. I mean, of course there’s always the issue of if I run out of money.

You’re leading into my next question, which is how do you balance those greater financial opportunities with making the movies you love?

As long as I can pay the rent and make my personal life work, then I hold out until I find something that I think is a great challenge and something I’m going to learn from. I’ve come close a few times to, Well, oops, I’ve got to do something. Hopefully I can find something that’s halfway decent. But I don’t have a giant corporation that I’m running. I don’t have to think, Well, I can’t do this small movie because I have to make a movie where they pay me millions of dollars. I’ve never looked at looking for work that way at all.

This interview has been edited and condensed.