The Hidalgo and Appaloosa star has saddled up for a new western set to open May 31.
Twenty years after he galloped across the screen in Hidalgo, the thrilling action-adventure inspired by the exploits of legendary horseman Frank T. Hopkins, and 16 years after he rode alongside Ed Harris in Appaloosa, the C&I reader favorite Western based on the novel by Robert B. Parker, Oscar-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen (Green Book, The Lord of the Rings) is doing triple duty as writer, director and star of another Western drama, The Dead Don’t Hurt.
Scheduled to open May 31 exclusively in theaters, the movie also stars Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) as Vivienne Le Coudy, a fiercely independent French Canadian woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, Vivienne travels with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, where they start a life together. But when the Civil War separates them, Vivienne is left to fend for herself in a place controlled by powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries , his violent wayward son Weston Jeffries, and corrupt mayor Rudolph Schiller. Olsen’s eventual return challenges their relationship as they have to confront, and make peace with, the person each has become.
“My aim,” Mortensen says, “is to do justice to the story of a uniquely resilient woman living in a lawless and isolated part of the U.S. Southwest in the 1860s. Vivienne is a woman for all seasons; courageous, unfailingly honest and direct, yet capable of great empathy. The idea is to not simply have a woman play the leading role in a Western, but to have her lead the way in our story by virtue of her fiercely uncompromising nature.
“Vivienne is a real woman who stands alone in her time and place because of her principled behavior, forward-thinking, and passion for life. We are very fortunate to have the talented Vicky Krieps embody this role, and, with the help of the great team we have assembled thanks to Talipot Studio, we hope to do justice to her exemplary life.”
The supporting cast includes Solly McLeod (HBO’s House of the Dragon, Outlander), Garret Dillahunt (Red Right Hand, Fear the Walking Dead), Colin Morgan (Belfast, Merlin), Ray McKinnon (The Continental, Deadwood), W. Earl Brown (The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett), newcomer Atlas Green, and Danny Huston (The Aviator, Children of Men).
