June 1 - Jonathan Pryce

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On this day, in 1947, John Price was born in Carmel, Flintshire, Wales. Growing up the son of grocers, John began attending Edge Hill College at the age of 16, intending to become a teacher. But, like so many stories of successful actors, he got a role in one of the college’s theater productions and that was the end of the education degree. An Edge Hill professor, impressed with his performance, helped him apply to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was accepted, received a scholarship to boot and changed his professional name to Jonathan Pryce to satisfy Equity name rules. In spite of having to sell velvet paintings door-to-door in order to cover the rest of his tuition and having a professor who declared he would never amount to more than second rate villains on mediocre British television shows, Jonathan graduated from RADA, taking his place in a group of alumni that includes Alan Rickman and Kenneth Branagh.

Following graduation, Jonathan became part of the Liverpool branch of Everyman Theater Company, spending some time as its Artistic Director before moving on to the Nottingham Playhouse and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Throughout the Seventies, his stage highlights include Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, Octavio Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra and Angelo in Measure for Measure. At the same time, Jonathan was building a reputation on various British television shows, taking both dramatic (Play for Today) and comedic roles (Chalk and Cheese). His film debut came in 1976 as Joseph Manasse in Voyage of the Damned starring Faye Dunaway and James Mason. All of that would have been enough to refute his RADA professor, but Jonathan went even further. He starred in a play called Comedians. It started at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1975, moved to London’s Old Vic Theatre and then went on to Broadway in 1976. The following year, Jonathan won his first Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. And he wasn’t even all that well known yet. 

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During the Eighties, Jonathan continued to prove his talent and grow in the public’s eye. He started by winning an Olivier Award as the lead in RSC’s Hamlet (not a bad way to begin a decade). From there he appeared in a handful of movies like Breaking Glass and The Ploughman’s Lunch with Tim Curry. His breakthrough role is widely considered to have come in 1985, as Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Other highlights of the period include playing Herod in The Day Christ Died, working with Gene Wilder on Haunted Honeymoon and starring opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. He continued winning accolades on the stage appearing as Trigorin in a London production of Chekov’s The Seagull and playing the lead in RSC’s Macbeth. And for those who like improve, he appeared on no less than three early episodes of the British version of Whose Line Is it Anyway? Then, just as the me decade was coming to an end, he fell into the role of a lifetime and a controversy to match it. 

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Jonathan decided to have a go at musical theater and broke into the genre in a big way. He managed to win the role of The Engineer in the original production of Miss Saigon on London’s West End, starring opposite Lea Salonga. Both Jonathan and Lea would win Oliviers for their performances. The production then prepared to jump the Pond to Broadway, taking its two stars with it. That’s when the public relations nightmare began. The character of The Engineer is half French, half Vietnamese. Actor’s Equity, the American stage union, refused to allow Jonathan, who is Caucasian, to play the role of an Asian. The fighting between Cameron Mackintosh (who threatened to cancel the $10 million production altogether) and Actor’s Equity got ugly. Equity finally caved in to pressure from the public and many of its own prominent members (John Malkovich was among those threatening to withdraw from the union) and allowed him to perform. A smaller controversy erupted around Lea Salonga’s involvement with the show. Equity felt that an American or British actor should have the role for Broadway (Lea is Filipina). However, an extensive search was made for a replacement and none could be found. An arbitrator ruled against Equity and Lea was also allowed to perform. Regardless of what you think of the show (it has pretty racist overtones to it), both Jonathan and Lea won Tony Awards for their performances and the show is currently the 13^th longest running Broadway show ever. 

Jonathan followed up Miss Saigon with the role of Henry Kravis in HBO’s 1993 film Barbarians at the Gate, earning both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The same year he started production on what would be River Phoenix’s last film, Dark Blood (River died before the film was completed and it’s never been shown). He then became the highly paid spokesman for Infinity cars for four years and starred in a Broadway revival of Oliver! In 1995, Jonathan won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Lynton Strachey opposite Emma Thompson in Carrington. In 1997, he played a Bond villain (a bit higher on the food chain than his RADA professor predicted), Elliot Carver, in Tomorrow Never Dies and spent the remainder of the decade cashing in on similar roles in Ronin and Stigmata. 

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Jonathan joined the Disney family in 1983 as part of one of my favorite films as a kid, Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the story by Ray Bradbury.  It was his American movie debut. His performance as Mr. Dark, the proprietor of a sinister carnival, earned him a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Most Disney fans, however, will recognize him from a much different role, Weatherby Swann, the fictional Governor of Jamaica in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He’s appeared as the somewhat hapless, but ultimately kind, Swann in 2003’s Curse of the Black Pearl, 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest and 2007’s At World’s End. Jonathan also made his musical film debut with the company in the 1996 Hollywood Pictures production of Evita. His depiction of Colonel Juan Peron, opposite Madonna’s Eva, not only earned him critical praise but opened him up to an even wider audience when the soundtrack album sold over 11 million copies worldwide. 

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In recent years, Jonathan has continued to shine on both stages and screens around the world. He appeared on Broadway in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and in no less than seven London productions, among them The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? for which he was again nominated for an Olivier Award. In 2015, he joined the cast of the HBO juggernaut Game of Thrones in Season 5 as the High Sparrow. The same year he portrayed Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theater. Later this year Jonathan will be portraying Pope Francis (who he bears a striking resemblance to) in a Netflix biopic called The Pope opposite Anthony Hopkins and he is scheduled to reappear on Broadway this fall in the play The Height of the Storm as Andre, a role he originated last year in London. If only that professor were still around to see the 72 year old still at the top of his game. Happy birthday, Jonathan!