Viggo Mortensen can't seem to get enough of playing military leaders or horse riders it seems now that the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is all done.

Las Horas Perdidas repors that the "Hidalgo" star is up for the leading role of Capitán Alatriste together with "Y Tu Mama Tambien" hunk Gael García Bernal who will take the role of his young companion Iñigo de Balboa in a new big budget Spanish film from Director Agustín Díaz Yanes.

Jean Reno, Leonor Watlig and Demián Bichir are all for now unconfirmed attachments to the 20 million Euro-budgeted project - an adaptation of the whole book saga by Arturo Pérez Reverte ("The Ninth Gate") which narrated the life and death of Alatriste, an adventurer of the Spanish 17th century as well as serving as a meticulous portrait of Spanish society of that time.

Of Viggo, Yanes says "He has the age, the profesionalism, the look, the body and he's one of the few action heroes there are on the cinema. Alatriste is a solitary guy who fights with everybody and has his own conduct of law".      

Reverte says the movie will be shot in Spanish even though "if it was in English it would be easier but the merit of Alatriste consists in respecting the language in which it was concieved (ie. 17th century Spanish) ". F ilming will start in September around Toledo, Ciudad Real, Úbeda, Baeza, Jaén, Sevilla and Cádiz.

Thanks to 'Javier'