For fans of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Viggo Mortensen is iconic as Aragorn, aka Strider. However, he might not have captured the role if things had gone differently with a Mission Impossible 2 actor.
Dougray Scott, who played Sean Ambrose in MI:2, was apparently in the running to play the future King of Gondor. Peter Jackson's team sent out the LotR script to a number of actors and agents, and Scott says that he liked the script, but the idea of spending two years in New Zealand was too much for him at the time.
Scott had this to say on the matter in an interview with NME: "They wanted me to go meet Peter Jackson in New Zealand, but to be honest with you I’d just finished doing MI:2 and the idea of spending two years away in New Zealand I just couldn’t quite contemplate."
It's likely for the best that Scott said no to the role with that thought in mind, as the cast ended up spending even more time working on the film courtesy of re-shoots. In any case, it wasn't a straight shot for Jackson to go from Scott to Mortensen for the role. Initially, Stuart Townsend was actually given the position and had already started training for the role when Jackson had a change of heart and sought Mortensen instead.
Source: NME