Viggo Mortensen is returning to the director’s chair after 2020’s Falling, having signed on to write, direct and star in a new Western called The Dead Don’t Hurt.
The film will see Mortensen starring alongside Vicky Krieps, Solly McLeod (House of the Dragon), Danny Huston (Worlds Apart), Garret Dillahunt (Blonde), Tom Bateman (Death on the Nile), Lance Henriksen (Falling), and W. Earl Brown (The Unforgivable), and will mark his second directorial feature after the award-winning Falling.
Per Deadline, The Dead Don’t Hurt has Krieps staring as “the fiercely independent French Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, Vivienne agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, where they start a life together. The Civil War separates them, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries and his violent, wayward son Weston Jeffries (McLeod), aided and abetted by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller. Olsen’s eventual return challenges their relationship as they have to confront and make peace with the person each has become.”
“My aim is to do justice to the story of a uniquely resilient woman living in a lawless and isolated part of the U.S. Southwest in the 1860s,” states Mortensen. “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,” he continues. “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 will start filming next week in Canada.
