‘Hey, they were in Game of Thrones’—Where else have you seen these 50 GoT cast members?
40) JONATHAN PRYCE
Jonathan Pryce is another one of the old lions of the acting world — his screen credits stretch back to 1972. Yet he told The Telegraph in 2015 that he gets more fan mail for Game of Thrones than for anything else he’s done in his long career (just like Julian Glover), and he almost passed up the show:
"It’s a genre I don’t really respond to very well: swords, sorcery, fantasy things … But … when they sent the script and it was the role of High Sparrow … He has a very good storyline, a great character, and I could see no reason for not doing it. … Nobody emailed saying, ‘Marvellous, you’re doing King Lear, darling!’ But I did get, ‘Wow, you’re doing Game of Thrones!’ (amused) There was a feeling that I’d really made it at last."
A sampling of Pryce’s many film roles includes Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1985), Juan Peron in Evita (1996), Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Governor Weatherby Swan in Disney’s The Pirates of The Caribbean film series (3003-2007, above). He hasn’t neglected TV, appearing on notable series such as Roger Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1981), Selling Hitler (1991), Clone (2008), Wolf Hall (2015) and Taboo (2017, currently airing, with a slew of Thrones alumni).
One of Pryce’s best-remembered performances is of Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985, above, with Charles McKeown). He’s also conquered the stage at the highest levels, with leading roles in classics like Hamlet (for which he won a 1980 Laurence Olivier Award), The Merchant of Venice and King Lear. Like Thrones castmate Julian Glover, Pryce was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire “for his services to drama.”
In 2017, Pryce can be seen in The Wife and The Man Who Invented Christmas. He’ll be in Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in 2018.