Curtain Call: Julian Glover

During his time on Game of Thrones, Grandmaester Pycelle was on hand for the deaths of no less than two kings, and three Hands of the King. At one point, Tyrion Lannister threw him in the Black Cells beneath the Red Keep. He wormed his way out, and before long was back on the Small Council. Fellow council members Varys and Littlefinger left to pursue other plans, but he stayed. The Queen Mother, Cersei Lannister, took over the Small Council in the wake of her father’s death, was taken prisoner, and was supplanted by her uncle. Still, Pycelle stuck around. And we’re not even talking about his lengthy stay in King’s Landing prior to the beginning of the series. Pycelle was a survivor.

Actor Julian Glover is a survivor, too. He’s been acting professionally since the 1950s, and appearing on film and TV since the ’60s. He did his able best with every role he’s ever had, whether he was playing Hindley Earnshaw in a 1970 adaptation of Wuthering Heights or wearing a silly alien mask in a handful of Doctor Who episodes in 1979.

Glover found his greatest success playing villains in a series of high-profile movies in the ’80s. For example, he scored the role of Bond villain Aristotle Kristatos in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, opposite Roger Moore. He can also say, from now until forever, that he was a part of the original Star Wars saga—he played General Maximillian Veers, one of Darth Vader’s lieutenants, in The Empire Strikes Back.

But outside of his role as Pycelle, Glover may be best known for playing American businessman and Nazi collaborator Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), aka the guy whose face melted off toward the end of the movie. There’s just no forgetting that image.

All that and he voiced Aragog the giant spider in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, too. Before Game of Thrones even began, Glover had a career worthy of being the envy of character actors everywhere.

Like Glover, Pycelle was a great actor, although he wasn’t eager for too many people to know it. True, he was old, but not nearly as frail as he appeared, as we found out in Season 1. In “Fire and Blood,” we check in with Pycelle shortly after he’s had sex with Ros, a prostitute. He mutters absentmindedly about the various kings he’s served, and Ros suffers his company as well as she can before excusing herself. Then, after she’s gone, Pycelle performs a series of limber exercises, shakes himself out, and puts on the mask of the harmless, doddering old counsellor before going out into the world. He has everyone fooled.

The key to Pycelle’s character is a deleted scene from Season 3, embedded below. In this scene, Pycelle still hasn’t been let back on to the Small Council, so he makes his case to Tywin.

“Am I the only one to see through this performance?” Tywin asks. That may be the case. Pycelle has built himself a character so complete that hardly anyone suspects the truth. And when the time comes for him to strike, no one will see it coming.

Of course, none of his careful planning availed Pycelle in the end, when Qyburn and his little birds murdered him on orders from Cersei Lannister. Few could have foreseen that Cersei would act so drastically to secure her place on the throne. Pycelle wasn’t alone in underestimating her.

But even if he didn’t have the last laugh, Pycelle managed to live long enough to have plenty along the way, even if he didn’t share them. We’ll miss him, and we’ll miss seeing Glover work his magic.