Viggo Mortensen has signed on to direct new Western romance The Dead Don't Hurt. The Lord of the Rings actor will also star in the film, opposite Phantom Thread's Vicky Krieps, having co-written the screenplay with Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas.
Set in the 1860s, the movie will see Krieps play Vivienne Le Coudy, a French Canadian who gets involved with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen). Soon after the pair meet in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home in Elk Flats, and they start a life together – but the Civil War winds up separating them, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself in the quiet town. It's a task that proves even more difficult when she clashes with Alfred Jeffries, a powerful rancher who controls the land, his violent son Weston (House of the Dragon's Solly McLeod), and corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller.
Danny Huston, Garret Dillahunt, Tom Bateman, Lance Henriksen, and W. Earl Brown round out the supporting cast. Regina Solórzano will produce alongside Thomas and Mortensen. Filming will reportedly begin on October 12 in Canada, before moving the majority of the shoot to Durango, Mexico.
"My aim is to do justice to the story of a uniquely resilient woman living in a lawless and isolated part of the US Southwest in the 1860s," Mortensen said in a statement (via Deadline).
"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 Dead Don't Hurt revolutionizes the codes of the Western genre, leaving the concept of the war of men aside to witness a love story free of archetypes, and the struggle and determination of a woman to win the most epic of battles: surviving abuse and extreme violence without ever betraying herself," Solórzano added.
The Dead Don't Hurt marks a reunion of sorts between Mortensen and several of the crew members he worked with on his 2020 outing Falling; cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, production designer Carol Spier, art director Jason Clarke, and costume designer Anne Dixon. The filmmaker has also worked with Thomas before, on David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method.
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