Viggo Mortensen Monologues

I can't become king if someone else already sits on the throne.

Sentimental value? Ah. I heard of that.

Your uncle is fine, he is in Edinburgh, in a 5-Star Hotel. I was ordered to send him to Heaven with a bullet in his brain... instead I gave him a first class ticket to Scotland. He is old-school, he understands things... exile or death.

Forget any of this happened. Stay away from people like me.

Kirill, we don't kill little babies.

I need you to take Semyon out of the picture. I want you to arrest him.

Rape. The girl was 14.

She is dead, but she had Semyon's baby. If you can prove baby was his, and girl was underage, that is statutory rape. You have baby, you need Semyon's DNA. For poetic reasons, I suggest you take his blood.

Okay. Now I'm going to do his teeth and cut off his fingers. You might want to leave room.

Anger is dangerous. It makes people do stupid things.

I'm just a driver.

Sometimes, if things are closed, you just, open them up.

Stay alive a little longer.

Dasvidaniya, Anna Inanovna.

Are you finished cutting his hair?

I thought you might want $6.50 from his pocket.

So what do you care? Slaves give birth to slaves.

I told the boy when you dream about bad things happening, it means you're still fighting and you're still alive. It's when you start to dream about good things that you should start to worry.

All I know is that the boy was my charge. And if he was not the word of God. Then God never spoke.

If I were God, I would have made the world just so and no different. And so I have you... I have you.

Listen, we have to talk. That man back there… There's not many good guys left, that's all. We have to watch out for the bad guys. We have to just… keep carrying the fire.

The fire inside you.

Yes, we're still the good guys. Of course we are.

Always will.

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calender for years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived, and all the crops are long gone. Someday all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts, and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food.

Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food, always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice, difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant, and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke.

I will kill anyone who touches you. Because that's my job.

Maybe. But you won't. Because that bullet will be through your head and in your brain before you can hear it. To hear it, you'll need a frontal lobe, and things with names like "colliculus" and "temporal gyrus". And you won't have 'em anymore, because they'll just be soup.

Today, the boy is dead. And in his place... is a man.

My face is mine, my hands are mine, my mouth is mine, but I'm not. I'm yours.

First of all, Leslie practiced Buddhism, which to her was a philosophy and not an organized religion. In fact, Leslie abhorred all organized religions. To her, they were the most dangerous fairy tales ever invented, designed to elicit blind obedience, and strike fear into the hearts of the innocent and the uninformed. To her, the only thing worse than death would have been the knowledge that her rotting flesh was to be trapped for all eternity inside a big box, and buried in the middle of a fucking golf course. Although the absurdity of being eulogized by someone that didn't even know her has exactly the kind of comedic flourish that Leslie would have cherished. If nothing else, she had a sense of humor. I want to read something to all of you, so you'll know what I mean.

Leslie's last will and testament. And I quote, "in the event of my death, I, Leslie Abigail Cash, as a Buddhist, wish to be cremated. My funeral, such as it is, shall be a celebration of the life cycle, with music and dancing. After, it is my expressed desire that my ashes shall be taken to a nondescript location, preferably public and heavily populated. At which point my ashes, promptly and unceremoniously, are to be flushed down the nearest toilet." End quote. Now that's comedy.

We can't go to mommy's funeral. We have to do what we're told. Some fights, you can't win. The powerful control the lives of the powerless. That's the way the world works. It's unjust and it's unfair. But that's just too damn bad. We have to shut up and accept it.

Is knowing how to set a broken bone or how to treat a severe burn ridiculous? Knowing how to navigate by the stars in total darkness, that's ridiculous? How to identify edible plants, how to make clothes from animal skins, how to survive in the forest with nothing but a knife? That's ridiculous to you?

The world's full of lonely people afraid to make the first move.

You know, my father used to say, whatever you do, do it 100%. When you work, work. When you laugh, laugh. When you eat, eat like it's your last meal.

It's amazing you said that. "How 'bout some quiet time?" Dolores, my wife, used to say that all the time... Well, not all the time but, y'know, she says it when, when I come home from work sometime, you know, she been with the kids all day and she'll say, "Tony? How 'bout some quiet time?" Exactly like how you said it! I mean, it's amazing...

It's like what your friend the President said, "Ask not... Your country, what you could do for it. Ask what you do for yourself." Y'know?

Trained? What are you, a seal? People love what you do! Anyone can sound like Beethoven or Joe Pan or them other guys you said. But your music, what you do? Only you can do that!

Of course I don't want you to miss a show, you ungrateful bastard! You think I'm doing this for my health? Tonight I saved your ass! So show a little appreciation, maybe! Besides, I told you never to go nowhere without me!

You're saying just 'cause I'm white and they're white? You know, that's a very prejudiced thing you just said there. A very prejudiced thing. I got more in common with the Hymies at 2nd Avenue Deli than I do with these hillbilly pricks down here.

Dear Dolores, how are you? I am fine. I'm eating real good. Hamburgers mostly. So don't worry about me not eating good. I saw Dr. Shirley play the piano tonight. He don't play like a colored guy. He plays like Liberace, but better. He's like a genius, I think. When I look at him in the rear-view mirror, I can tell he's always thinking about stuff in his head. I guess that's what geniuses do. But it don't look fun to be that smart. I miss you very, very much.