For Viggo Mortensen, criticism against Green Book is “based on a fabric of bullshit”

Peter Farrelly’s film, released in 2018, won 3 Oscars.

Update July 10, 2023: Released five years ago Green Book: On the roads of the south returns this evening on France 3. Rewarded by three Oscars, including that of the best film, the feature film by Peter Farrelly had also generated a great controversy, on which Viggo Mortensen had returned in 2020.

Article from December 7, 2020: This week-end, The Independent returned with the actor Viggo Mortensen on the movie of peter farrellyGreen Book, sreleased in 2018. If the feature film had won great public and critical success with three Oscars, it had also aroused a lot of reservations, in particular about the fact that it features a “white saviour”.

Indeed, the Green Book tells, in the 50s, the story of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen). This Italian-American bouncer from the Bronx is hired to lead and protect Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a world-renowned black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, the birthplace of segregation. A friendship is born between these two solitudes, opposite in every way.

Oscars 2019: How Green Book beat Roma despite controversy

For the actor, “Much of the criticism that was leveled at this film was not only unreasonable, but it was inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible (..) It is based on a tissue of bullshit – grist and nothing else! That Does it affect what I do or how people perceive me as an actor? Maybe it does. But there’s really nothing I can do about it.”

After Green Book, Viggo Mortensen reunites with director Peter Farrelly