It was only tabloid gossip, but relatives in Denmark rejoiced when they read that Viggo Mortensen was dating his A Perfect Murder costar Gwyneth Paltrow a few years back. "Maybe she'll make you pay more attention to your own grooming," they told him. Not a chance. The Manhattan-born actor, 43 (his father is Danish, his mother American), prefers painting—his canvases fetch up to $5,000—to primping. On the Neva! Zealand set of The Lord of the Rings, in which he played the princely Aragorn, the 5'11" Mortensen wasn't even upset when he chipped a front tooth during a sword-fighting scene, blithely suggesting Super Glue as a fix. His dressing room mirror was covered with so many photos of son Henry, 14 (whose mom is Mortensen's ex-wife, punk singer Exene Cervenka), "there wasn't one little speck left for him to look," costar Liv Tyler told Details. Let others do the staring. "He has mesmerizing green-blue eyes," says director Tony Goldwyn, who cast him in 1999's A Walk on the Moon. "That cliché about the eyes being the windows to the soul? With Viggo, you've got a clear shot right there."
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