The Lord of the Rings Moment Viggo Mortensen Loves Most Still Gives Me Chills

Case in point: Viggo Mortensen just picked his favorite moment in the entire trilogy, and it is not a cave troll or a Balrog. It is Boromir’s death… and the way they pulled it off is sneakily simple.

How Sean Bean simplified a complicated death

In a recent chat with Empire, Mortensen sat down with Sean Bean to revisit Boromir’s final stand. The plan, at first, sounded like a whole production: a rig to riddle Bean with Orc arrows, wires, old-school tricks, lots of setup. Bean’s solution? Cut the fuss, trust the performance.

"Just stick it in and I’ll pretend it just hit me and I’ll do one after the other."

That’s essentially what they did. Here’s the neat part you might not consciously clock: you never actually see an arrow fly into Boromir. The camera cuts, the sound lands, Bean reacts, and your brain fills in the rest. Clean, unfussy, and way more effective than over-engineering the moment.

Why the scene still crushes

Boromir’s ending works because his arc is messy. Earlier in Fellowship, he reads like he could tip into villain territory under the Ring’s pull. When the Uruk-hai close in, he does the thing the fellowship needs most: he throws himself between the enemy and the hobbits, defending the mission and, by extension, the One Ring. It is redemption, not a heel turn.

For Bean—an actor who has made an art of dying on screen—this is the one he calls his favorite on-screen death. Not just the rhythm of the hits, but the quiet coda after: Aragorn reaching him, the two men finally aligned as Boromir slips away.

Mortensen’s pick for best scene in the trilogy

Mortensen goes further than that. He says his favorite scene in the entire trilogy is the final exchange between Aragorn and Boromir. His why is kind of perfect: no effects shots, no imaginary monsters—just two people from the same world (Gondor pride and all) who spent the film butting heads, finally seeing each other clearly. It is simple, direct, and it lands.

The small choices that make it big

• The original plan used a complicated wire rig to pepper Bean with Orc arrows; Bean pitched a do-it-in-camera approach instead.
• You never actually see an arrow strike Boromir—performance, sound, and editing sell every hit.
• The arc flirts with a villain turn early, then pivots to sacrifice: he protects the hobbits and the fellowship’s goal.
• Bean calls it his favorite on-screen death; Mortensen says the Aragorn-Boromir farewell is his favorite moment across all three films.
• Amid a franchise famous for scale, the scene hits because of restraint: no VFX fireworks, just character.

Boromir isn’t in the films all that much, but his exit lingers. That’s the power of a well-built moment: it reshapes everything that comes after it. A quarter-century later, Jackson’s trilogy still gets dissected frame by frame, but this one stands out for how little it needs—two actors, a few cuts, and a story that knows exactly where to land the blow.