Jonathan Pryce

At 77 years old, Jonathan Pryce has this physical status:

Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor and singer.

After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime girlfriend, English actress Kate Fahy, in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s.

His work in theatre, including an award-winning performance in the title role of the Royal Court Theatre's Hamlet, led to several supporting roles in film and television.

His breakthrough screen performance was in Terry Gilliam's 1985 cult film Brazil. Critically lauded for his versatility, Pryce has participated in big-budget films including Evita, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Pirates of the Caribbean as well as independent films including Glengarry Glen Ross, The Age of Innocence, Carrington, The New World, and The Wife.

His career in theatre has also been prolific, and he has won two Tony Awards—the first in 1977 for his Broadway debut in Comedians, the second for his 1991 role as The Engineer in the musical Miss Saigon. Initially in 2015, Pryce was a guest actor in the HBO series Game of Thrones as the High Sparrow before becoming a main cast member in 2016.

Since early 2017, he stars in the series Taboo, playing the role of Sir Stuart Strange.

Early life

Pryce was born John Price on 1 June 1947 in Carmel, Flintshire, the son of Margaret Ellen (née Williams) and Isaac Price, a former coal miner who ran a small general grocery shop with his wife. He has two older sisters and was raised a Welsh Presbyterian. He was educated at Holywell Grammar School and, at the age of 16, went to art college before he started training to be a teacher at Edge Hill College (now Edge Hill University) in Ormskirk, Lancashire. While studying, he took part in a college theatre production. An impressed tutor suggested he should become an actor, and applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) for an application form on his behalf. Pryce was subsequently awarded a scholarship to RADA. When he joined Equity, he took "Jonathan Pryce" as his stage name because his birth name was too similar to that of a performer already represented by Equity. While at RADA, he worked as a door-to-door salesman of velvet paintings.

Personal life

While working at the Everyman Theatre in 1972, Pryce met actress Kate Fahy; after a decades-long relationship, they married in 2015. They live in London and have three children: Patrick (born 1983), Gabriel (born 1986), and Phoebe (born 1990). Pryce was raised in the Christian faith, but is no longer religious.

In 2006, Pryce was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liverpool. He is a fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

Pryce was knighted in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to drama and charity.

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Career

Despite being told by his tutor that he could never intend to do more than playing villains on Z-Cars, Pryce joined the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool after graduation and later became its artistic director. He appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Nottingham Playhouse. He made his first screen appearance in "Fire & Brimstone," a 1972 edition of the science fiction drama series Doomwatch, in order to gain his Equity card. He appeared in two television films directed by Stephen Frears, Daft as a Brush and Playthings. Pryce starred in Sir Richard Eyre's play Comedians in a role specially written for him after leaving Everyman. The revival was staged at the Old Vic Theatre in London. In 1976, Price reprised his role on Broadway, this time directed by Mike Nichols, and for which Price was named Best Featured Actor in a Play, the winner of the 2007 Tony Award. Joseph Manasse played the character Joseph Manasse in the drama Voyage of the Damned, starring Faye Dunaway, it was around this time that he appeared in his first film role. However, Octavius Caesar did not abandon the stage, appearing in The Taming of the Shrew as Petruchio from 1978 to 1979, and Antony and Cleopatra as Octavius Caesar.

An Olivier Award was given to him in 1980 for his role in Hamlet at the Royal Court Theatre, and some commentators have characterized him as the definitive Hamlet of his time. In the 12th episode of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, Pryce had a brief but pivotal role as Zarniwoop, one of the Quintessential Phase, which was broadcast in 2005. Pryce's character explores the "ruler of the Universe," a solipsist who has been chosen to rule presumably because of his inherent manipulation ability or immunity therefrom, according to his philosophical views. He appeared in the film Breaking Glass at the same time in 1980. Pryce appeared in the role of the sinister Mr. Pryce in 1983. This Way Comes, the Dark in Something Wicked is a film based on Ray Bradbury's book of the same name. He made a breakthrough in 1986's Terry Gillyman's Lunch and Martin Luther, Heretic, after appearing in films mostly directed by Ian McEwan, 1987-1985). Pryce appeared in The Doctor and the Devils (1985), and later in the Gene Wilder-directed film Haunted Honeymoon (1986). Pryce continued to perform on stage and gained particular esteem as the prolific but self-doubting writer Trigorin in a London production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in late 1985. Pryce appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Macbeth production, which also starred Sinéad Cusack as Lady Macbeth from 1986 to 1987.

Pryce appeared in "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson" (1988) with Gilliam. The film was a public relations fiasco, with production costing more than $40 million after the initial budget was $23.5 million. Pryce appeared in three of the earliest episodes of the improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? with Paul Merton and John Sessions, and in Uncle Vanya, again a play by Chekhov at the Vaudeville Theatre in the United States.

Pryce wanted to do musicals after seeing his buddy Patti LuPone in the original London production of Les Misérables, after a string of big dramatic roles, including Vanya and Macbeth. In the West End musical Miss Saigon, he returned to the stage and played The Engineer, a Eurasian pimp. His work in England, where he received the Olivier and Variety Club awards, was lauded, but the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) tried to prevent Pryce from portraying The Engineer because, according to their executive secretary, "[t]he casting of a Caucasian actor on a Broadway show [to the Asian community]. Pryce was featured in the London performance, wearing prosthetics to change his eyes and makeup to change the shade of his skin. Cameron Mackintosh, the show's producer, has decided not to cancel the $10 million New York production. Realizing that its decision would result in the loss of many jobs, and after Pryce's coworkers (both Charlton Heston and John Malkovich threatened to leave the union if Pryce was not allowed to attend) Pryce decided to join Mackintosh, allowing Pryce to perform. He was given a Tony Award in 1991 for his role as a composer. Pryce appeared in the ITV mini-series Selling Hitler (1991) as Gerd Heidemann, and was born in the same period. Pryce departed from the London stage the following year to appear in one night only at the Royal Festival Hall for an AIDS charity, alongside Elaine Paige and Lilliane Montivecchi in the 1992 revival of Federico Fellini's Federico Fellini-inspired musical Nine.

In the BBC drama Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993), directed by Danny Boyle, Pryce appeared alongside Kathy Burke and Minnie Driver. Henry Kravis appeared in the HBO-produced made-for-TV film Barbarians at the Gate (1993). For his service, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Pryce appeared alongside River Phoenix and Judy Davis in the unfinished film Dark Blood in 1993, but the operation had to be stopped when, 11 days before completion, Phoenix died from a drug overdose. On his personal website, director George Sluizer, who owns the rights to what has been shot, has posted a portion of the raw material that includes Pryce and Phoenix on a Utah field. Pryce, a multimillion-dollar employee, became Pryce's spokesperson for the Infiniti car marque in a series of American television commercials, particularly for the Infiniti J30 and Infiniti Q45. In one of these advertisements, Pryce appeared alongside jazz singer Nancy Wilson in a Prague nightclub. Pryce portrayed Fagin in a revival of the musical Oliver in 1994, and she appeared in the film Carrington (1995), which focuses on a platonic friendship between gay writer Lytton Strachey and painter Dora Carrington. Pryce received the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Strachey.

Pryce appeared and appeared in a number of films during the early 2000s, including The Affair of the Necklace (2001), Unconditional Love (2004), What a Girl Wants (2003), and Terry Gilliam's aborted attempt, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Though the success of any of these films was uneventful, observers lauded My Fair Lady and Professor Henry Higgins' portrayal. During a large portion of the show's run, Martine McCutcheon, who portrayed Eliza Doolittle, was sick. McCutcheon was replaced by her understudy Alexandra Jay, who would also miss an hour before a show, prompting her understudy Kerry Ellis to take the lead. Pryce introduced Ellis to the audience on her first night by announcing that this will be your first Eliza, my second today and third this week. Any member of the audience interested in playing Eliza will find applications at the door. "The matinee and Wednesday matinee are both available." Pryce was a member of the Elizas on a 14-month contract. On 2001, the show was selected for four Laurence Olivier Awards: Best Actor in a Musical for Martine McCutcheon, Outstanding Musical Production, Best Theatre Choreographer, and Best Actor in a Musical for Pryce. Pryce lost to Philip Quast, and McCutcheon took the top prize in her class.

With A Reckoning, a book by American dramatist Wesley Moore, Pryce returned to the non-musical stage in April 2003. Flora Montgomery co-starred and after premiering at the Soho Theatre in London, The Daily Telegraph described the play as "one of the most exciting and provocative new American plays to have opened since David Mamet's Oleanna." Pryce appeared in The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), in which he played a fictional Governor of Jamaica, Weatherby Swann, in a film he has referred to as "one of those why-not movies." Pryce appeared in several large-scale motion pictures, including De-Lovely (2004), his second musical film, a chronicle of songwriter Cole Porter's life, for which Kevin Kline and Pryce covered a Porter song called "Blow, Gabriel, Blow." The Brothers Grimm (2005), Pryce's third completed film with Terry Gilliam, starred Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, and The New World (2005), in which he appeared as King James I. Pryce was nominated for another Olivier Award in 2005 London's Where is Sylvia, where he starred Martin, a goat-lover who must face the retaliation of his cheating-on wife Kate Fahy, played by his real-life wife Kate Fahy. Pryce's appearance was lauded, but he lost the Olivier to Richard Griffiths.

Pryce lent his voice to Renaissance (2006), a French animated film, which he said he wanted to do because he had never "done anything quite like it before." Governor Weatherby Swann played a part in the Caribbean sequel Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Pirates of the Caribbean (2006): At World's End (2007). Both were shot at the same time but a year later. Lawrence Jameson, who appeared in the musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels from January to July 2006, returned to the Broadway stage as Lawrence Jameson. Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars was first broadcast in early 2007, with Pryce in the lead. Shelly Levene appeared in a new West End production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, from September 2007 to June 2008. Pryce appeared in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, playing Marshall Robert Bingham alongside Tim Curry, J.K. Simmons, George Takei, and several other veteran actors.

In 2015, he became the High Sparrow in Season 5 of HBO's Game of Thrones. Pryce confessed that one of the main reasons for his selection was because of how popular the character is plot-wise. Pryce had a change of heart after his positive experiences on the Thrones sets, despite being initially skeptical of "sword and sorcery" shows. In 2015, he appeared in The Merchant of Venice as Shylock. Jessica Shylock, Phoebe's real life daughter, appeared in Shylock's daughter Jessica. He appeared in The Healer, starring Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Camilla Luddington, and Jorge Garcia in 2015.

Pryce appeared in Florian Zeller's play The Heart of the Storm at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End in 2018, generating a slew of raves. The Guardian named the performance as the year's best play of the year. The play was revived on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre Club in September, with Pryce and Atkins reprising their roles. Critics in New York applauded the play and its performances.

In the acclaimed Netflix film The Two Popes, directed by Fernando Meirelles, Pryce portrayed Pope Francis, opposite Anthony Hopkins in Pope Benedict XVI, which was released on Netflix late last year. Critical acclaim was given to the film and their performances. He received his first-ever Academy Award nomination for the film.

Pryce will play Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the final two seasons of Netflix's The Crown in August 2020.

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