Jennifer Aniston Poses Naked For Cover Of January 2009 Issue of GQ

…except for that strategically placed necktie, and she looks absolutely gorgeous!

 

Activists Throw Flour On Lindsay Lohan

Lindsey Lohan is in the news again. It seems she was pelted with a flour bomb on arrival at a Paris nightclub wearing a fur stole.

Animal rights activists showered the 22-year-old actress with flour when she went to the VIP Room Theater in the early hours of Saturday with her friend, disc jockey Samantha Ronson.

The owner of the nightclub helped Lohan dust off her blue sequined dress and black stole before she posed on the red carpet. Ronson went on to spin tracks for a crowd that included reggae rapper Shaggy and "I Kissed a Girl" singer Katy Perry.

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Today's Celebrity Birthdays - November 13, 2008

The following stars were born on Nov. 13:

Actress Madeleine Sherwood (The Flying Nun ) is 86.

Producer-director-actor Garry Marshall is 74.

Country singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard is 62.

Actor Joe Mantegna is 61.

Actress Sheila Frazier (Superfly ) is 60.

Actress Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under ) is 55.

Actor Chris Noth (Law and Order: Criminal Intent,Sex and the City ) is 54.

Actress Whoopi Goldberg is 53.

Actor Rex Linn (CSI: Miami ) is 52.

Actor Neil Flynn (Scrubs ) is 48.

Trumpeter Walter Kibby of Fishbone is 44.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel is 41.

Actor Steve Zahn (Happy, Texas, That Thing You Do! ) is 41.

Bassist Nikolai Fraiture of The Strokes is 30.

Actress Monique Coleman (High School Musical ) is 28.

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List of Emmy Winners In Key Categories

Following is a list of the winners in key categories for the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, U.S. television's highest honors.

The awards were presented at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles during a three-hour ceremony broadcast live on ABC.

BEST DRAMA SERIES

"Mad Men" AMC

BEST LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA

Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad" AMC

BEST LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA

Glenn Close, "Damages" FX

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA

Zeljko Ivanek, "Damages"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA

Dianne Wiest, "In Treatment" HBO

BEST COMEDY SERIES

"30 Rock" NBC

BEST LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY

Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"

BEST LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY

Tina Fey, "30 Rock"

BEST SUPPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY

Jeremy Piven, "Entourage" HBO

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY

Jean Smart, "Samantha Who?" ABC

BEST MINISERIES

"John Adams" HBO

BEST MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE

"Recount" HBO

BEST LEAD ACTOR, MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE

Paul Giamatti "John Adams"

BEST LEAD ACTRESS, MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE

Laura Linney, "John Adams"

BEST VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SERIES

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" Comedy Central

BEST VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIAL

"Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project" HBO

BEST REALITY PROGRAM

"Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" Bravo

BEST REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM

"The Amazing Race" CBS

BEST REALITY COMPETITION HOST

Jeff Probst "Survivor" CBS

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Today's Celebrity Birthdays, September 22

Spiral Journal sends out very Happy Birthday wishes to the following celebrities:

• "Harry Potter" nemesis Tom Felton (1987)
• British pop singer Billie Piper (1982)
• Taking Back Sunday singer Adam Lazzara (1981)
• Brazilian supermodel Fernanda Tavares (1980)
• rapper Mystikal (1975)
• British one-hit-wonder Chesney Hawkes (1971)
• "Match Point" actor Rupert Penry-Jones (1970)
• Weezer bassist Matt Sharp (1969)
• "Cheaper By The Dozen" actress Bonnie Hunt (1961)
• "Charles In Charge" actor Scott Baio (1961)
• rocker Joan Jett (1958)
• Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli (1958)
• Australian singer Nick Cave (1957)
• singer Debby Boone (1956)
• singer/actress Shari Belafonte (1954)
• Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale (1951)
• Nigerian singer King Sunny Ade (1946)
• Mickey singer Toni Basil (1943)

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Ernest Borgnine Reveals His Secret of Life

Ernest Borgnine - who is 91 years old - looks very young for his age. When asked how he does it, he revealed his secret.

Estelle Getty Dies at 84

This is very sad news for me, because I have always loved "The Golden Girls," especially Getty's character, Sophia.

Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 84.

Getty, who had advanced dementia, died about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," former "Golden Girls" co-star Rue McClanahan said. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."

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Jason Priestley Will Not Return to "90210"

Bad news “90210” fans, it seems Jason Priestley will not be returning to the halls of West Beverly as blue-eyed man candy Brandon Walsh, in the new version of the show.

“I think I sort of ran the gamut with Brandon – 249 episodes” Priestley told Access Hollywood on Thursday, while promoting the episode he directed of ABC’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” “I think Brandon did his time.”

Priestley confirmed he had been asked to reprise his role as Brenda Walsh’s twin brother on the CW’s version of “90210.” While he declined the offer, he may return behind the scenes – as a director.

“They’re talking to my people about seeing if they can slot me in over there,” he said. “I directed more episodes of ‘90210’ than anybody. I directed 18 episodes.”

With his former co-worker Jennie Garth set to return and Shannen Doherty in talks to head back to Beverly Hills, Priestley was excited by the idea of potentially directing his old castmates.

“That would be fun! That would be a ton of fun,” Priestley enthused. “That would be awesome to see.”

Though, like Luke Perry, Priestley has no plans to appear on the show at this time, he has nothing but well wishes for the program.

“I think it’s fantastic [they are doing it],” he said.

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Trump mansion sells for $100M

The real estate market might be slumping, but not for Donald Trump, who sold his Palm Beach mansion for $100 million, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"In an age of so many people getting hurt in real estate, it shows that you can still do well in real estate," Trump told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

His spokeswoman says $100 million is the most ever paid for an estate in the U.S., though there is no way to verify that claim.

Russian fertilizer billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased the roughly 60,000 square-foot oceanfront home, which Trump fixed up after buying it for about $41 million in 2004.

He assigned renovations to "Apprentice" winner Kendra Todd, who dressed it up with marble and 24-karat gold fixtures, even in the bathrooms. The home, called Maison de L'Amitie, is spread over several buildings and includes separate coat closets and bathrooms for men and women off the main entryway for easy entertaining. A mammoth fountain greets guests from the front along with 475 feet of ocean in the back.

"I think it's a great sign for the area, a great sign for Palm Beach and all that Palm Beach represents," Trump said.

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Katie Holmes to return to TV

Former "Dawson's Creek" star Katie Holmes will revisit her TV roots with a guest role on "Eli Stone" this fall.

Holmes was courted by Greg Berlanti, who was a producer on "Dawson's Creek" and is the co-creator and executive producer of ABC's drama about a lawyer (Jonny Lee Miller) who gains prophetic powers.

The idea of bringing Holmes aboard came up in a discussion about how to expand the show's audience in its sophomore year. Berlanti told his fellow producers he was willing to approach Holmes.

"I went and I begged her and she said, `I'd love to,"' Berlanti told a meeting of the Television Critics Association. He called Holmes "an incredible actress and a good friend."

The episode with Holmes, in which she displays her singing and dancing skills, is the season's second and will air Oct. 21. Berlanti declined to detail the story line.

"Eli Stone" has turned musical in the past, with pop star George Michael performing in the series' debut episode. There are plans for Michael to return, possibly on a December episode, Berlanti said.

Holmes, who played Joey Potter on "Dawson's Creek" from 1998 to 2003, has worked in films including "Batman Begins" and "Thank You for Smoking" and is married to Tom Cruise. She's scheduled to make her Broadway debut Sept. 18 in a revival of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons."

Miller can boast a high-profile ex-wife: Angelina Jolie, who gave birth last week to twins with partner Brad Pitt.

When a reporter asked whether Jolie might appear on "Eli Stone" and if Miller would be willing to call her, the actor replied: "You'll have to call her, I'm afraid."

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Andy Dick Faces Drug and Sex Charges

Andy Dick was arrested early Wednesday for investigation of drug use and sexual battery after the comedian allegedly pulled down a teenager's tank top, police said.

The former co-star of the TV sitcom "NewsRadio" was released from a detention center after posting $5,000 bail. Calls to his representatives seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Police were called to the Buffalo Wild Wings in Murrieta, California, at about 1:13 a.m. to investigate a report of "an intoxicated male" urinating outside the bar and causing a disturbance, according to a police statement.

When they arrived, a 17-year-old girl told police that she was outside when Dick left the bar, walked up, "grabbed her tank top and bra and pulled them down and exposed her breasts," the statement said.

Friends escorted Dick to a truck, which officers stopped at a nearby Sam's Club, police said.

Dick was identified by the teenager and a witness, police said.

Marijuana and the drug Xanax were found his pants pockets during a search and he appeared "extremely intoxicated," police said.

Dick, 42, was booked at Southwest Detention Center in French Valley, California, on suspicion of felony possession of a controlled substance, misdemeanor sexual battery and misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

Dick has a reputation for crude behavior. He has been reported to have exposed himself to audiences at least twice. He was forcibly removed from the set of the show "Jimmy Kimmel Live" last year after he repeatedly touched guest Ivanka Trump without her permission.

Also last year, Dick was cited in Columbus, Ohio, for urinating on the sidewalk. A comedy club owner in the city said the actor also made inappropriate comments while onstage, groped patrons, took women into the men's room and urinated on the floor and on at least one person.

In 1999, Dick was arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana after driving his car into a telephone pole in Hollywood, California. He pleaded guilty but the charges were dismissed after he went into a diversion program.

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Angelina Jolie Gives Birth To Twins!

The world's most famous twins have arrived, finally!

According to the Associated Press, Angelina Jolie's doctor confirmed the superstar gave birth to a boy and a girl, ending a day of conflicting reports.

While a French newspaper and In Touch Weekly reported Saturday that Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins at a French hospital in Nice, the entertainment program "Extra" was quick to say just the opposite.

"It is wrong information," Nadine Bauer, a spokeswoman for the hospital, told "Extra."

And just to add to the confusion, the celebrity Web site Stargina.com reported that the babies had been born - and given the names Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

The proof? Jolie's lawyers apparently snapped up the Internet domain names KnoxLeon.com and VivienneMarcheline.com.

In Touch Weekly and Usmagazine.com reported that Jolie gave birth yesterday to two baby girls. Us later retracted its report.

But the Nice-Matin newspaper in France wrote that Jolie delivered a boy and a girl, while providing the babies' names and weight and even quoting the gynecologist.

Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline were born via Caesarean section shortly before 8 p.m. (French time), the paper said, quoting Dr. Michel Sussmann.

The much-ballyhooed twins were born in good health with Jolie's beau, Brad Pitt, in the delivery room, a source told In Touch.

The twins' birth would bring Jolie and Pitt's growing brood now stands at six. The celebrity couple has three adopted children, Maddox, 6; Pax, 4;, and Zahara, 3, as well as a biological daughter, 23-month-old Shiloh.

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Madonna denies affair and says not seeking divorce

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna denied having an affair with Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez and said in a statement to People magazine on Sunday she is not planning to get divorced from her British husband Guy Ritchie.

Rumors that the London-based couple planned to split have been circulating for months, fueled most recently by reports that she had hired a lawyer to divorce film maker Ritchie.

"My husband and I are not planning on getting a divorce," the singer said in a statement to People.

"I brought my kids to a Yankee game. I am not romantically involved in any way with Alex Rodriguez. I have nothing to do with the state of his marriage or what spiritual path he may choose to study," she said.

People magazine reported on Sunday that Rodriguez's wife, Cynthia, had left the Yankee baseball star over the alleged affair with Madonna, citing sources close to the situation.

The speculation about Madonna's marriage reached a fever pitch in the last two weeks in London, where the Daily Mirror newspaper dedicated two front pages to the plight of the couple's relationship.

Madonna, 49, and Ritchie, 39, married in December 2000 at Skibo Castle in northeast Scotland. They met at a party hosted by ex-Police frontman Sting and his wife Trudie Styler.

Their son, Rocco, was several months old on their wedding day, and in 2006 Madonna applied to adopt David Banda, a boy from Malawi whose mother had died shortly after his birth. The adoption was approved by a Malawian court in May.

Madonna also has a daughter, Lourdes, from an earlier relationship. She was married once before, to Hollywood actor Sean Penn, in the 1980s.

Madonna is one of the most successful rock stars of all time, with global album sales estimated at more than 200 million copies. A multi-Grammy award winner, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March.

Ritchie is best known for his movies "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (1998) and "Snatch" (2000), but he has come in for critical maulings since then, most notably when he directed Madonna in "Swept Away" (2002).

Madonna brushed off the rumors as media fabrication.

"I have learned over the years not to take accusations and the many false reports about me very seriously," she told People.

"Fiction and fact seem to be perceived as one and the same by people who read both newspapers and the Internet.."

(Writing by Anthony Boadle, editing by Sandra Maler)

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Shannen Doherty In Talks To Return To ‘90210’

It appears Shannen Doherty might be headed back to her old stomping grounds.

Shannen is “in talks” to reprise her role as Brenda Walsh in The CW’s upcoming spin-off series, “90210,” a source close to the show has confirmed to Access Hollywood.

Doherty originally starred as Brenda in “Beverly Hills, 90210” from 1990 – 1994.

She was fired from the series in 1994 after being reportedly difficult on set and reportedly clashing with her co-stars.

According to EW.com, “90210” producers Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah have met with Doherty, however, the actress “wants to know what the story is going to be first.”

Another hang up in brining Brenda back could be the dollars at hand, as Doherty also wants more money than what is being offered, EW.com reported.

If she does re-enlist for more “90210” duty, Doherty would join former castmates Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling, who have also signed on for the new series.

Garth will reprise her role as Kelly Taylor, who reportedly returns as a guidance counselor at West Beverly High School.

Spelling’s character, Donna Martin, will return as “the owner of one of the coolest stores in Beverly Hills,” The CW previously announced.

However, one alum who won’t be returning is Luke Perry, who played teen heartthrob Dylan McKay in the original series.

“I can’t re-imagine it currently,” Luke told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush during an interview for “The Billy Bush Show.” “It’s just not something that I’ve thought about to be quite honest. I don’t see it happening.”

The new “90210” will debut in the fall.

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Today's Celebrity Birthdays

A big fat "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" goes out today to Richard Lewis, who is 61, and Gary Busey, 64. I had no idea either one of these guys were in their sixties. Wow.

$300m divorce for Madonna

THE marriage between material mum Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie is over, with confirmation they are living in different countries and are set to divorce.

They have agreed to divorce and lawyers have been engaged to split her estimated $300 million fortune.

Ritchie is prepared to take a $50 million settlement with visitation rights to Madonna's three children – one of which, seven-year-old son Rocco, is his own – says the Daily Mirror newspaper in London.

Madonna, 49, has moved back to her New York apartment with Rocco, her daughter Lourdes, 11, and adopted African two-year-old, David.

Ritchie, 39, is living at a country estate in England. He was contemplating flying to New York this weekend in a last-ditch bid to save the marriage, said the Sun newspaper, but friends said it was too late.

Rumours that the seven-year marriage was on the rocks have swirled for several weeks, but appear to have been confirmed by comments by friends apparently deliberately leaked to the media yesterday.

"Madonna told Guy, 'I'm sorry, I want a divorce'. And he agreed. It was quite painless but very sad," one insider told the Mirror.

The singer and Ritchie have not been photographed together since June 2.

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Comedian George Carlin Has Died

I have been a huge fan of George Carlin since I was a teenager. In fact, he has always been my favorite comedian. I am sad to report that he has passed away at the age of 71 yesterday, June 22, 2008, of heart failure. His passing truly breaks my heart. His clever stand-up routines have had me rolling with laughter over the years and I feel like I have lost a family member.

Back in March, my daughter and I watched his latest HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya," and I remember her making a comment that this would probably be his last HBO special. Looks like she was right. We are both so sad. She grew up watching his shows with me, so she has always had a special affection for him too.

Goodbye George. You will forever be missed by millions of fans.

Watch the news report:


Watch George Carlin's last HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya" - 2008

Patrick Swayze Diagnosed With Pancreatic Cancer

This morning, I was watching CNN and they announced that Patrick Swayze, who is only 55 years old, was diagnosed last month with pancreatic cancer. This is quite serious because from what I understand, 95% of all patients diagnosed with this kind of cancer usually die within a year. By the time you have any pain or symptoms, it is usually too late. However, Swayze's spokespeople claim that he has a "limited amount" of the disease, so maybe he will make it. I sure hope so. This is the same kind of cancer that took the life of Michael Landon, may he rest in peace. When I was a little girl, Little Joe Cartwright was my hero. But I digress...

This is the second time we've heard bad news about someone who played in the movie "Roadhouse." Does anyone else find it a bit strange that Patrick Swayze's illness was announced the same week of Jeff Healey's death? That's another sad story. I loved Jeff Healey's music so much. He was so talented. I was so sad to hear of his passing.

I hope Patrick Swayze will be able to fight this deadly disease and go on to live many more years and bring us many more great films.

Here's a few videos for you to enjoy:

Patrick Swayze & Chris Farley in "Chippendales" skit on SNL


"She's Like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze


"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by Jeff Healey

Orlando Bloom To Go Indy

Things have been a little quiet for Orlando Bloom since he finished the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Now, rather than leap into another blockbuster, he's taken the interesting step of signing up for a much smaller independent movie.

Bloom will take a supporting role in "An Education," the latest film by Lone Scherfig, which is described by Variety as a coming-of-age film set in 1960s London. The story follows newcomer Kate Mulligan as a witty 17-year-old who's whisked into a romance by a high-flying 30-something (Peter Sarsgaard). There's no word on who Bloom will play, but the cast also includes Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson and Olivia Williams.

Nick Hornby wrote the script for the film, which is set to shoot in London in March and April.

Empire Online

Viggo Mortensen Wearing His Heart On His Sleeve

Oscar nominee known for wearing his heart, and his politics, on his sleeve

Is that a yawn? OK, so Viggo Mortensen's yawning. He's seriously tired and in some kind of mood, and let's respect that, roll with it, because the hours he's keeping here in New Mexico have just been preposterous.

First, there are the 4:00 a.m. wake-up calls he's grimly endured on the set of “Appaloosa.” And the locals hired to work Mortensen's cowboy picture (who plainly adore him) say they've never seen such a hard-partying cast and crew as the Appaloosans, and God only knows what happened last night, but there he goes again. Another yawn. This is his only day off and it kind of got shot and he didn't get to do some stuff he really wanted to do, and then, his obscure Argentine-concert CD got stuck in the player inside his trailer, because he's never not two-timing the movies with all the rest of his esoteric interests. Some union characters finally smashed the thing open and fished the CD out and he tipped them mighty good, but he's still got an hour-and-a-half drive ahead of him back to Santa Fe in his Dodge pickup — that is, after he figures out just where and how we're going to while away the next few hours together.

The frostbite-blue eyes snap onto mine for a split second. If the brow is a two-way mirror to the soul, his is cracked in several places by Despair and Inner Torment. Mortensen is justly celebrated in Hollywood for how he telegraphs both, which are reading in his face right now. A face rendered (almost) unrecognizable with that distracting droop of a Wild West mustache, the familiar starburst cleft in his chin forested over by a neat beard. In his black skullcap and flannel shirt, jeans and dirt-caked Tasmanian sheep-station boots, Mortensen, 49, has the sullen affect of a man who's just found a ticket on his windshield.

There had been talk of a country drive, but the sun hit the deck at 5:00 p.m., and so we trudge upstairs at the Abiquiu Inn, a 10-minute drive from Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch, and attempt to make ourselves comfortable in this spare attic that is one of New Mexico's ubiquitous art galleries. Some folding chairs are produced.

His sideline business is coffee-table books — or perhaps that's Mortensen's principal business, and acting the actual sideline that supports a pretty expensive habit. A book is handed over, page after page filled with his photography and poetry and published by his own Perceval Press imprint back in Los Angeles (which he calls home). The work is meticulously accomplished and high-production-value, a library of drawings, paintings, photographs, and music by those he's talent-scouted over the years, some strangers, some friends (and even an ex-girlfriend, Julian Schnabel's daughter Lola). It is only when he contemplates Perceval Press's jammed-up assembly line that his voice, a shy, exhausted mumble at the moment, dials up a notch. "I have things I have to finish. Because of this movie, there are four books that my press didn't put out this fall. Which is not a big deal, but—." He sighs and his whole body seems to deflate as he considers the debut artists and authors he's let down.

At first, Mortensen is so fiercely contained that you can't help but wonder if he's one of those Method fanatics who prefers to live in character. He's been reading “The Life of John Wesley Hardin.” An outlaw and a gunslinger, Hardin once shot a man for snoring — but always claimed he never killed anyone who didn't need killing. In “Appaloosa,” Mortensen's a gun for hire, deputy to actor-director Ed Harris's marshal. "Sort of like a lethal butler" is how Mortensen sees his character, Everett Hitch. But you won't hear Hitch saying ain't like the rest of them: He's a West Point man — though without a doubt, the black sheep of the family. Or that's how Mortensen imagines him.

He's also bagged the lead in the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's “The Road,” which director John Hillcoat, a newcomer from Australia, starts shooting this fall. "Now we just have to find a great kid," Mortensen says, referring to his putative costar, the boy who will play his boy, as imagined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. "That's going to make it. Or break it," he says. "Hopefully it won't totally depress people," he adds.

He didn't know McCarthy actually lives in Santa Fe. "Hunh. I should look him up. I'd be stupid not to," he says. (He's known for his Ph.D.-level research. Prepping for his next major release, “Good,” which wrapped several months ago, Mortensen tried to visit all the concentration camps in Poland to better play the film's lead, a university professor who finds himself tangled up in the issue of euthanasia in Nazi Germany. "They're kind of hard to get to, and I have to say, apart from Auschwitz, I don't think the Polish make it that easy to find them.")

In the McCarthy book, some nuclear episode has reduced the world to a gray-skied ash heap. A father and his only son wander the earth as hobos, survivalists trying to avoid a macabre fate as a feast for any of several roving bands of cannibals, Mortensen is saying, revving for book talk just as his tomato-and-mozzarella salad arrives, which he'll eat Indian-style on the hard wood floor. Food in the belly, he stretches out on the ground as if on some psychiatrist's chaise, his wool cap tucked under his head, eyes annealed to some comfortable middle distance. Arms remain folded across the chest, but answers miraculously turn essay length.

One reason he admires “The Road” is that the child teaches the father a thing or two, particularly about compassion. "You do learn from your kid, if you're open to it," Mortensen says. He has one son, Henry, from a while-ago only marriage to pink-haired punk-rock-pioneer Exene Cervenka. Now a sophomore attending a good college in New York City, Henry has a history-of-punk radio show he deejays. "I just think of myself at that age," says Mortensen, who wound up at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, a Spanish literature and government major. "I didn't have it as together as he does. He's more social. He's got more friends. He sort of interacts with people more easily — or he's more interested in doing so. Not that I couldn't; I just wasn't so interested."

Though he was born in New York City, the Argentine soccer-fan scarf looped around his neck immediately flags Mortensen's affinity for the great elsewhere — his favorite team (somehow unsurprisingly) is San Lorenzo, by tradition Argentina's underdogs. Before they divorced when he was 11, his American mother and Danish father trooped their three boys (Viggo's the eldest) through Argentina, Venezuela, and Denmark, where his father managed farms.

Viggo's handy too — he can cook, do laundry, mend his shirts and whatnot. He spends quite a bit of time with his parents; his father is now pretty much retired and lives on a farm. Like the father in “The Road,” Viggo has an outdoorsman's self-sufficiency. "I'd like to learn more about how to fix engines," he says. "I have a 1948 pickup truck, and that's a very simple engine. But today, I think you need to be some kind of specialist."

Before the stage scooped him up, he sold flowers on the street, moved furniture, was a longshoreman. It has always helped that he looks like a Round Table knight; parts abound for the handsome hero-rescuer waving a literal or metaphorical sword. In the business, he's that worldly poetic soul who can do credible justice to gangland Russian, Sioux, or Elvish dialects. That guy who looks great on a horse. That guy who never kills anyone who doesn't need killing.

In David Cronenberg's “A History of Violence,” he is Tom Stall, an upstanding family man who has somehow, somewhere learned to break a man as easily as he pours him a cup of coffee at his diner. Called back from the reserves to star in Cronenberg's “Eastern Promises,” Mortensen is Nikolai the chauffeur, whose tattoos advertise a moderately successful, mid-level career in the Russian mafia while the wraparound shades mask surprising humanitarian impulses. The Russian underworld types he found to school him in their ways finally relaxed "once they realized I wasn't going to make fun of them," he says.

He also went for a walkabout in the Urals. "We kind of worried he'd never come back and we'd never find out what happened to him, until we'd probably find him running the country eventually," says Cronenberg, who insists Mortensen "takes the best out of Method and leaves the bullshit behind." As Aragorn, a caped crusader in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, he supposedly slept for weeks in his medieval getup. Cronenberg suggests this had less to do with any Methodmania (as was conjectured) than it was an attempt to render the costume less obviously a costume. On the set of “Eastern Promises,” Mortensen had wanted to wear Nikolai's shoes around, break them in so they'd look right. Feel right.

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