VIGGO MORTENSEN - MORTENSEN STILL HURT OVER PLATOON OMISSION

Actor VIGGO MORTENSEN was devastated when he was axed from the PLATOON cast at the last minute - because he'd spent a year preparing for the 1986 war film. Mortensen - who last month (22Jan08) received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance in Eastern Promises - knew the Vietnam-based drama was destined for critical and commercial success, so he worked "rigorously" to master the role of Sergeant Elias Grodin. But shortly before shooting was due to commence on the movie, he was replaced by Willem Dafoe - because filmmakers had the budget to cast a bigger name. He tells British film magazine Empire, "I can totally understand why it didn't happen. It's just that I laboured for a year or more under the illusion that I had the part, and so I spent a year reading every paper, every book, every essay, watching every film, every documentary about Vietnam. "I don't regret it because I learned a lot, but I was so ready to play the part. I prepared for that as rigorously as anything I've ever worked on and it didn't happen. It was frustrating."