Actor Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film series, has revealed that Peter Jackson filmed another scene with Aragorn and Arwen (Liv Tyler) that aimed to show more of their young love, but it was ultimately cut.
Asked by NME if there was any part of Aragorn’s story that he would have liked to explore more, Mortensen referenced a flashback scene with Aragorn and Arwen. Aragorn was dressed like an elf in this scene, he he was clean-shaven and “prettied up” for the flashback sequence.
“There was a scene that we shot as a sort of memory flashback. It was from the courtship days when he first met Arwen–and we shot it just before we were taking a break so I was clean-shaven and prettied up,” he said. “They’d tried to make me look as young as possible. I had different hair and I was dressed like an elf.”
The scene in question featured Aragorn and Arwen walking through a flowery meadow, meant to further demonstrate the love and the bond between the two characters. Mortensen remarked that this was a “beautiful sequence,” but he agreed that it wasn’t essential to telling the story.
“I’ve never seen it but I enjoyed shooting that scene. It’d be nice to see it actually, it’s not in the extended editions either,” Mortensen said.
The recent 4K re-releases of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit do not contain any new scenes or bonus features, but in 2021, the two packages are being bundled together with extra “bonus content.” Whether or not this includes previously unreleased scenes like the one Mortensen is talking about remains to be seen.
Mortensen came to Lord of the Rings very late. Peter Jackson began filming with a different actor, Stuart Townsend, playing Aragorn, but he was replaced by Mortensen who was whisked away to New Zealand to film the trilogy at the last minute.
Aragorn is now one of Mortensen’s most iconic roles. He has also earned Academy Award nominations for his leading roles in Eastern Promises, Captain Fantastic, and Green Book.
No new Lord of the Rings movies have been announced, but Amazon is producing a new TV series. Just recently, the TV show added 20 new cast members.
