On Sunday, legendary screen and television actor Max von Sydow passed away at the age of 90, his family has announced. He played the Three-Eyed Raven on Game of Thrones season 6, for which he nabbed a Best Guest Actor Emmy nomination.
During his long and storied career, the Swedish-born actor took on a wide variety of roles. He played chess with Death in director Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist, Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, and Liet Kynes in David Lynch’s Dune. He was a Bond villain in Never Say Never Again, a judge in Judge Dredd, a lord in director Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, a corrupt policeman in Minority Report, and even had a small role as the Force-mystic Lor San Tekka in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Being involved with so many different kinds of projects, the depth of his skill as an actor speaks for itself.
Von Sydow was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Actor for his role as Lassefar Karlsson in Pelle the Conqueror, and the other for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
It’s hard for me to pick one of von Sydow’s roles as my favorite, so I won’t even attempt it, but I did love him in everything I saw him in. He always raised the bar for whatever he worked on.
That said, I absolutely found him to be fascinating as the Three-Eyed Raven in just three episodes of Game of Thrones. He gave a nuanced performance for a character who has yet to be fleshed out in George R.R. Martin’s books. That was his last appearance on television.
Max von Sydow!!! The Godfather of acting!!!
— Pilou Asbaek (@PilouAsbaek) March 9, 2020
We shall never see his like again. And now his watch is ended.
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h/t BBC