Viggo Mortensen Got Peter Jackson's Permission To Use LOTR Sword For New Movie

The Lord of the Rings films are more than 20 years old but the former stars of the history-making franchise still find ways to integrate them into new projects. In his latest film, Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen called upon Aragorn's sword once again in a scene for a blink-and-you-miss-it moment.

The Dead Don’t Hurt, a Western set in the 1860s, follows free-spirited Vivienne (Vicky Krieps), a Franco-Canadian who falls in love with Holger (Mortensen), a Danish rancher. When Holger goes off to fight in the American Civil War, Vivienne is left alone to fight in her own war at home. Speaking to British GQ, Mortensen mentioned that in one dream sequence, his character needed a sword and luckily he had the perfect one at home.

"We had everything for this sequence with a knight. We had found this great, spirited horse, the right kind of saddle, and we made a medieval kind of blanket, and we had the costume for the knight. Everything was right, and then I said, well, we should have a sword," the actor explained. "I did look and there were some good ones and I thought, well, it might be kind of good to use this one that I had because it's really good."

Mortensen wanted to make sure if he did use it, everything would be copacetic with director Peter Jackson, and asked permission from him as well as the studio.

"So I did ask Peter Jackson if he'd be all right with it, and he said, 'Well, is it very important in the story?' I said, no, it's not, actually. You hardly notice it, but somebody will, probably. He said it was okay with him but that I should ask the movie company. So I contacted them and they were fine with it. They realized it wasn't essential, it wasn't going to draw a lot of attention to itself. And they were very nice about it, and they gave us permission. That's why we did it, just because it seemed right. It was kind of a last-minute accident."

The Dead Don't Hurt marks Mortensen attempting to not only star in a production, but write, direct, produce, and even score it, much like he did with 2020's Falling. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and will be arriving in theaters this week.