Charles Dance “Immensely Proud” of His Time on Game of Thrones

When it comes to Charles Dance, what is dead may never die. Since kicking the bucket at the end of Game of Thrones Season 4, he’s gone on to star in the Oscar nominated The Imitation Game, the rather less heralded Dracula Untold, and a good half dozen TV series, including ITV’s period piece The Great Fire, Syfy’s Childhood’s End, where he gave Tim Curry in Legend a run for his money, BBC’s And Then There Were None, the timeless Agatha Christie mystery and now the WWI series Deadline Gallipoli on UKTV. The one thread that connects all these roles? That every last one of them are shades of Tywin Lannister, the stern patrician with less than scrupulous motives.

Charles Dance, in

Childhood’s End

In an interview with The Independent, Dance ruefully says he wishes he could maybe be offered something else. “I’d like to play fewer villains,” Dance exclaims from an armchair in the suite of a London hotel when asked about his acting aspirations. “I used to be a romantic leading man, years ago.”

But Dance’s longevity in the business–he first broke out as the romantic lead in The Jewel in the Crown back in 1983–also brings understanding that this is how the business works. His success as Tywin Lannister means that now casting agents think of him the moment they are told they are looking for a Tywin Lannister like figure. “In this business you are what you are seen to be and if you are seen to be doing something reasonably well the chances are you will be asked to do it again.” Still, he admits to being quite pleased when people meet him and “seem quite pleasantly surprised that I’m not like Tywin Lannister”.

And he’s not really all that sorry. After all, Game of Thrones put him in front of a new generation of viewers. And it’s not a show that comes along very often, with Dance calling it a “benchmark” to which all programs will now aspire. “[T]he production values especially, and the quality of the writing. It’s cinematic – there’s some breathtaking stuff.”

Will Deadline Gallipoli come near that benchmark? Dance doesn’t say, focusing instead on his fascination with the first World War, and what he hopes is his ability to bring sympathy to his character, General Ian Hamilton. Many at the time viewed the General as an authoritarian with little regard for the lives around him, but Dance hopes his portrayal shows the man as less of a Tywin figure, and a bit more like Tyrion–caught between a rock and a hard place, following orders from up high, while trying to make sense of what was happening on the ground. For those interested, it airs in the UK next weekend.

Next: Further Winds of Winter tidbits from George R.R. Martin’s Not A Blog