Small Council: Who was the best actor from Game of Thrones Season 6?

Some weeks back, we talked about who was the best supporting actor from Game of Thrones Season 6. (Robert Aramayo as Young Ned Stark won the contest by a hair.) This week, we talk about the Best Actor. Which performer most impressed us during the past 10 episodes of the show? Read our takes, tell us yours, and vote in our poll!

DAN: This was a big year for Jon Snow, which meant it was a big year for Kit Harington. When I first started watching the show, I didn’t think much of his acting. I didn’t think he was expressive enough. But he got better, particularly after acting opposite Rose Leslie (Ygritte) in Seasons 2 and 3. I think she brought out new qualities in him. By Season 4, he’d refined his abilities considerably, and was ready for the huge load the producers placed on his shoulders in Season 6.

I was struck by the physicality of Harington’s performance this year. The moment that jumps out immediately to me is the one at the top of Episode 3, “Oathbreaker,” where Jon wakes up from his sleep of death and looks down at his mutilated body, his breath ragged and short, his eyes wide and wild. Harington actually convinced me that this is how someone would react if put in Jon’s situation. And let’s remember that Jon’s situation is an impossible situation. That’s impressive.

Harington’s other high point from the year, and the one that landed him his Emmy nomination, was his performance in “Battle of the Bastards.” Again, Harington gave a very physical performance, with that long unbroken shot of Jon Snow tumbling through the thick of battle being the pièce de résistance. When people think of good acting, they don’t immediately think of acting with the body. I think TV and movies and trained us to focus in on the face. But it is very, very difficult to move the way Harington moved during these sequences, in his heavy armor and flailing his sword around his head. And later, after he survived a stampede by his own men, he emerged covered in muck, his eyes ablaze, and I was fearful for Ramsay for a second.

I’m still a little miffed Harington wasn’t rewarded for his work with an Emmy, but I’m thrilled he’s stepped up his game.

SARAH: Before I share my choice, I just want to agree with Dan regarding Kit’s physicality. He is a strong, graceful fighter who shines during battle scenes, and makes Ramsay’s assertion that Jon Snow is ‘the greatest swordsman who ever walked’ very easy to believe.

That said, my pick for best actor of Season 6 is Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon). Hear me out.

Firstly, I want to make it clear that I’m not denying the talent of the show’s veterans—and more obvious choices—like Liam Cunningham or Peter Dinklage. I’m also not suggesting that Chapman is better than they are. My contention is simply this: he is talented enough to hold his own in a cast that includes people like Cunningham and Dinklage. That makes him a breakout star in my eyes.

For me, a lot of it comes down to material and what the actor can do with what they’re given. Tommen was given a meaty role in Season 6, and here the writers clearly learned from the Dornish disaster in Season 5. Myrcella’s death was sad, but lacked major impact because we hadn’t been given the time to get to know her. With Tommen, the writers changed tack. They gave him room to develop, and dug into thoughts, feelings and motivations that had largely gone unexplored before. Chapman took this material and hit it right out of the park.

Tommen is a flat-on-paper kind of character, especially when compared to the people around him in King’s Landing. His lack of sinister undertones and secret agendas put him at risk of being forgettable, but Chapman breathed life into Cersei’s youngest and sweetest child. His earnest and emotive portrayal of a young king in conflict with himself was lovely to watch, and Chapman ended Cersei’s terrifying massacre in “The Winds of Winter” on a poignant, heartbreaking note. Bravo, Dean-Charles Chapman. May you live forever in a hundred memes.

RAZOR: While Kit Harington really deserves this award, it would be a travesty not to mention Iwan Rheon’s work as perhaps the greatest villain on the show…and that’s saying a lot! Other actors have turned in fantastic performances as villains, but none have maintained a cold and cruel veneer while showing us the complexity of character underneath. And none of those qualities would have been evident had Iwan Rheon not been chosen to play Ramsay Bolton.

Rheon did such an amazing job playing Ramsay that I actually missed him once he was killed off. Think about it for a moment. Rheon’s craftsmanship was so good that HBO didn’t need to show Ramsay that much in Season 6. He stole the spotlight whenever he was onscreen, even when he played opposite Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton), as in the scene where Ramsay kills his father.

Rheon’s performance in “Battle of the Bastards” was a masterclass in acting. First there’s the parlay scene where he casually confirms he has Rickon held captive by tossing Shaggydog’s head onto the ground. He coolly and evenly addresses Jon Snow as “bastard” the entire time, attempting to draw out that classic Stark temper and goad Jon into doing something foolish (and it worked until the Knights of the Vale showed up). And although it was sad to see Rickon die, his death scene was absolutely beautiful. It was classic Ramsay, toying with his food before he killed it.

Obviously, Ramsay Bolton had to die, especially with the show coming to an end, but I will miss Iwan Rheon’s portrayal of him very much.

KATIE: In such a smashing ensemble cast, it’s sometimes difficult to pick the best of the best. Of course, some performances are still overshadowed by others, and not necessarily because one actor is more skilled than another. The characters in Game of Thrones are so varied, many of their separate experiences are incomparable.

Take my pick, Alfie Allen, for example. How can we compare his portrayal of Theon’s resurgance to Harington’s work showing us Jon Snow’s resurrection? Both characters started off as privileged but out-of-sorts in the Stark household, and have been trying to make a name for themselves ever since. Jon has been more succesful in that regard, as he’s been crowned King in the North. Meanwhile, Theon continues to make his way back to himself.

Allen is consistently underrated, perhaps because his role relies more on subtlety than fan favorites like Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister, a character who’s clever, direct, and somehow manages to stay poised even after drinking his way through a vineyard. Dinklage has certainly earned the praise he’s received, but when it comes to Allen’s work as Theon, you have to peel back a few layers before you can appreciate him.

That was my experience, anyway. When you take Theon at surface level—as the audience is wont to do prior to his torture—he’s not exactly likable or interesting. I didn’t much care about him until he was put under pressure, and Allen absolutely thrived under that duress. He speaks through his body language more than through dialogue, and in doing so he brings Theon to life. Since becoming Reek, Allen mastered the nervous twitch, hunched posture, and inability to maintain eye contact. Throughout Season 6, these characteristics remain, but there are obvious cracks in the foundation Ramsay laid. Allen develops his character carefully, and challenges the audience to pay close attention to Theon’s movements more than his words. He shoulders a unique responsibility with Theon—a posh, privileged male character who was broken, beaten, and abused every which way. Now, we see Theon emerging from that pain to become someone who isn’t defined by it, as he had been for years. Allen plays the effects of extreme abuse accurately and recognizably, and creates an incredibly affecting performance.

ANI: I’m going to go with that might seem like a weird choice at first, but hear me out: Isaac Hempstead Wight.

Listen, the kids who were cast on this show back in 2009 have had a hell of an education on Game of Thrones. I remember Maisie Williams saying that watching the early seasons is hard because all her acting growing pains and mistakes wound up on camera. But one advantage she, Sophie Turner, Jack Gleeson and others had is that they got to come back year after year. They never had to stop and wait.

Isaac Hempstead Wright, on the other hand, had a year off. While he was off, puberty hit him hard. He basically left the show at the end of Season 4 a child and returned in Season 6 an adult. You know how some kids have problems making the transition from child to adult actor in real life because audiences have trouble accepting them? Imagine trying to do it on the same show.

And yet, Hempstead Wright did it with grace and aplomb. In many ways, his was a thankless role this year. There was a lot of lying there twitching. And worse, there was a lot of teenage whining and protesting and sulking and misbehaving, resulting in the death of one of the most beloved characters in Westeros. That is not easy to pull off. A lesser actor would have resorted to facial ticks and other acting crutches. But Hempstead Wright never did. He was fantastic through and through, and compeltely beliavable in his transition from teen to tree wizard. If there’s anyone this season who deserves a recognizition for his work, it’s that kid.

Draw me like one of your french girls.