It’s always a good day when I get to write about Viggo Mortensen. And surprisingly, this story isn’t all about some movie I’ll never watch or about Viggo’s political views (okay, it’s not ENTIRELY about his politics). Viggo is (still) promoting his film Far From Men, which he’s been hyping at various film festivals for months now. The film got a VOD release and it will have a limited theatrical release on May 1. But really, Viggo is great because even when he’s promoting a particular film, he rarely stays on-message and ends up talking about lots of different things. Like how he was offered Wolverine in the first X-Men movie. Like what he thinks of the murder of Walter Scott. You can read the full interview here. Some highlights:

Viggo was offered Wolverine: “I was offered Wolverine, actually, for the first movie—I guess it would’ve been for the franchise then. That was just before I got Lord of the Rings. I was flattered. I remember going to that meeting with the director, Bryan Singer, with my son who was a total comic book expert. He was about 10 at the time. Henry came, and Singer showed us all these models and storyboards, and Henry was instructing the director, saying, “Oh, you’re going to change this thing right here.” I believe it coincided with another project, and I couldn’t do it.”

He was offered other big films: “Every once in a while I’m offered something like that. I was offered two different parts in the last Superman movie they made [Man of Steel], but I wasn’t available to do that either. And The Huntsman in Snow White and the Huntsman, which isn’t a comic book but is almost like a comic book…. They changed it a lot. When they offered it to me, it was a different story and seemed more justified to be called Snow White and the Huntsman. The movie they ended up making should have been called Snow White and the Wicked Witch. The original script was a lot funnier and there was a longer apprenticeship. It was almost like The African Queen a little bit.”

On the murder of Walter Scott: “South Carolina. Yes, I’ve been following it. That was great what happened there, that he was caught on video, but let’s see what they do. Look at what happened in Ferguson or Staten Island, where the guy was choked to death. That was all caught on a phone, but the guy wasn’t even taken to trial! Because all these things have been happening, it’s going to be hard for that police department in Charleston to let the guy get away with it.

Privacy, technology: “What Edward Snowden has warned about is the equivalent of what George Orwell was warning about, and I think that documentary Citizenfour is equivalent to 1984 in its importance. And I think Snowden is like Winston Smith—the character who fights Big Brother. There are serious issues with it, not just the trivial, “Get out of my face with that camera, it’s so irritating,” but it can also be good. I think young people are also learning things very fast, and if they want to, it’s good for getting out the vote and making people conscious of what’s going on, but they’re great tools to inform.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Viggo also goes on a lengthy discussion about social media, saying that it bugs him that people aren’t “present” in the world, that they’re always checking in with social media and all of that. He says he doesn’t believe Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are the end of civilization, but they need to be used differently and people need to be able to take a break from them.

I’m surprised that Viggo is so open with discussing the films he’s passed on – I honestly didn’t know he was up for Wolverine, or Man of Steel, or Snow White and the Huntsman. He would have made an interesting Wolverine, but I’m not sure Viggo would have stuck with the character like Hugh Jackman has. What was Viggo offered in Man of Steel? I could see him getting offers for Jor-El (Russell Crowe) or General Zod (Michael Shannon). That’s just my theory, I don’t know what he was offered. But I’m glad he refused SWATH. That would have been bad.

Photos of Viggo at a February event in Barcelona, courtesy of WENN & Fame/Flynet.