Naomi Watts

Can you get to know a movie star on the basis of a couple of press junket interviews? Not really. But that’s all I could look back on today after the tragic news of Heath Ledger’s passing in New York City bounced across my computer screen.

But none of these imminent 5-0 folks can match Viggo Mortensen who, heading in to the second half of his life, has bagged his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg’s Anglo-Russian underworld thriller Eastern Promises. Thanks to the Lord of the Rings series, Mortensen is...