Charles Dance: Had BBC made Game of Thrones, they would have canceled it

Charles Dance has been a big name in film and TV since the ’80s, when he starred in the miniseries The Jewel in the Crown, about the last days of the British Raj. But most fans today know him for playing Tywin Lannister, the implacable head of the Lannister family, on Game of Thrones.

“I had no idea where it was going to go,” Dance told The Guardian of the show. “None of us had any idea that it was going to be the most successful television series ever made. Especially as the pilot wasn’t great. If it had been made by the BBC, they would have pulled the plug. But Sky and HBO nursed it and we began to be aware that we were dealing with a pretty class act. I still had no idea that it would become this charming monster.”

The Game of Thrones pilot was indeed famously bad to the point where it had to be extensively reshot. But all’s well that ends well.

No, Charles Dance never tried out to play James Bond

Dance took the opportunity of the interview to dispel a few rumors about his career, including that he’d once been asked to play James Bond and turned it down. “No, of course I didn’t turn down James Bond! What happened was, my agent called and said: ‘I urge you not to do it. Just think how you’ll feel if you don’t get it. It will kill your career stone-dead.’ She was probably right. If I’d got it, I would have probably fucked it up.”

So Dance didn’t even audition; if he had been offered the part of the famous cinematic super-spy, he almost certainly would have taken it, because he’s not the type to turn down work. “The problem is, I just like working, so I’m perhaps not as choosy as I could have been,” he said.

"I’m lucky enough to do a job that I love. There are many, many people who do jobs to put food on the table and pay the bills. And there is always a bit of me that feels guilty when I turn down work. I think: who am I to say no?"

Hey, we’re not complaining; Dance’s latest project, the political thriller Rabbit Hole, just premiered on Paramount+.

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