The cast of “Lord of the Rings” commemorated their time together by taking props from the set and getting tattoos, but Mortensen took it a step further. He adopted two horses from the set of the movies, Eurayus and Kenny, he told IGN in 2004.
“I just developed a real good friendship with [Eurayus]. He kind of came into the movie similar to the way I did. You know, didn’t have much preparation and was just thrown in and had to swim, basically. And it was rough on him and it took a while for us to kind of get in sync and for him to be comfortable around the set. So we got to be close and I wanted to stay in touch with him,” he said.
As for Kenny? “I just wanted Eurayus to have a buddy.”
Mortensen also adopted his costar, TJ, from the 2004 film “Hidalgo.”