Viggo Mortensen

An actor, poet, painter and photographer, Viggo Mortensen got into the movies in the mid-1980s, starting with small roles in big movies and big roles in small movies. His big-budget breakthrough was with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas in The Perfect Murder (1998). The same year he co-starred in the Gus Van Sant re-make of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (starring Vince Vaughn). Mortensen became a major star after being cast as the rugged, royal-blooded Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings movies, director Peter Jackson's ambitious trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic. A bankable leading man, he has since starred in Hidalgo (2004) and the David Cronenberg films A History of Violence (2005, with William Hurt) and Eastern Promises (2007, co-starring Naomi Watts).

Extra credit: The three LOTR films were The Fellowship of the Ring (released in 2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003)... Mortensen was once married to punk rock singer Exene Cervenka of the band X (1987-98).