Viggo Mortensen: Aragorn’s return for The Hunt of Gollum depends on script

One does not simply sign on for a movie for the paycheck…OK, so a lot of people in Hollywood do, but as Viggo Mortensen put it, it’s going to take something far more important than a salary for him to reprise Aragorn in the forthcoming The Hunt for Gollum.

A fan favorite, Aragorn would certainly be a welcome addition to The Hunt for Gollum, but Viggo Mortensen can’t guarantee anything at this point. After all, he hasn’t even been sent a screenplay. As he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I haven’t read a script. So I don’t know. The script is the most important thing to me unless I’m broke, I have no money and I’m lucky to get any job. So it depends…Lately, I’ve been lucky and it hasn’t for a while.”

We don’t foresee Viggo Mortensen in the unemployment line lately, so a lot is truly riding on The Hunt for Gollum’s script if we are going to see Aragorn – or any beloved Lord of the Rings character – return. With original trilogy writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens returning for scriptwriting duties, many fans of the series do have confidence on that front. But would bringing characters like Aragorn, Frodo and more be natural or would it feel as if they were shoehorned in just to make fans applaud? As of now, Andy Serkis – who will also be directing – has teased that “there may be characters that we recognize that might be coming back.”

Viggo Mortensen has been open about returning as Aragorn for The Hunt for Gollum before, expressing that he is such a fan of the character that he wouldn’t object to playing him again if it made sense for him and the story. While much of the rest of the original Lord of the Rings cast has kept relatively quiet on the matter, it might just take one star to rule them all and pull them back in for one more outing.

Peter Jackson previously explained why now was the time to explore Gollum more than he previously has been and whether or not we will see some familiar faces. “I think he connects with readers and film audiences alike, because there’s a little bit of both of them in all of us. We really want to explore his backstory and delve into those parts of his journey we didn’t have time to cover in the earlier films. It’s too soon to know who will cross his path, but suffice to say we will take our lead from Professor Tolkien.“

Do you think The Hunt for Gollum needs other Lord of the Rings characters to be a success or can a complete story be built around the character? Give us your thoughts below.