Wait, we haven’t done JONATHAN PRYCE yet??!! This venerable Welsh actor has done a ton of frock flick roles, although granted none of them uber shiny. But he’s a great actor, and we must honor him!
Roles I can’t find visual evidence of include:
- Fr. Pawlak in Panorama: “Two Weeks in Winter: How the Army Took Over Poland” (1982)
- Rev Richard Hopkins in Tickets for the Titanic (1987-88)
- Dr. Ted Philips in Deadly Advice (1994)
- Gabe in De-Lovely (2004)
Donald in Daft As a Brush (1975)
“1947. The new postman in an English village has a few secrets from the war, but contrives to become part of the community and marries a local schoolmistress,” per IMDB.
Joseph Manasse in Voyage of the Damned (1976)
The based-on-a-true-story voyage of the SS St. Louis, which tried to bring Jewish refugees to the Americas in 1939. I tried to watch it but it was so very 1970s.
King Herod in The Day Christ Died (1980)
A TV movie about the crucifixion.
Timon in Timon of Athens (1981)
A TV adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s less-known plays.
Luther in Martin Luther, Heretic (1983)
A TV movie biopic about the 15th/16th century priest+ who helped to lead the Protestant Reformation.
Robert Fallon in The Doctor and the Devils (1985)
A fictionalized take on mid-19th century doctors looking for corpses for medical research.
Charles in Haunted Honeymoon (1986)
A Gene Wilder comedic movie about two radio actors getting married and trapped in a haunted mansion; appears to be set in the 1930s or 1940s.
King in The Storyteller: “The Three Ravens” (1997)
“A witch weds a widowed king. Finding that his children pose a threat to her, she transforms the three boys into ravens. The girl escapes but is told she must remain silent for three years, or the boys will be trapped in raven form forever,” per IMDB.
The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
The Baron Munchausen tells many tall tales of his adventures; somewhat set in the Regency era with major fantasy elements.
William Wallace in Screen Two: “The Man from the Pru” (1990)
“The story of a famous real-life murder case in which an employee of the Prudential Insurance Company was suspected of killing his wife,” per IMDB.
John Wroe in Mr. Wroe’s Virgins (1993)
A fictionalized story of various women who lived with a real-life 19th century cult leader/evangelist.
Rivière in The Age of Innocence (1993)
He’s the detective who trails the two lovers in this fabulous Edith Wharton adaptation.
Lytton Strachey in Carrington (1995)
A biopic about English painter Dora Carrington.
Juan Perón in Evita (1996)
He plays the fascist dictator of Argentina in the musical about his famous wife, Eva Perón.
Saul in David (1997)
A TV miniseries about an Old Testament (biblical) story.
Capt. William Rivers in Behind the Lines (1997)
World War I soldiers are sent to an asylum to treat shell shock.
Bourne in The Game of Death (2000)
“A man joins a secret club for those who are seeking to end their lives, only to rediscover his will to live upon meeting the club’s only female member,” per IMDB. The fact that I can find NO images from this tells me a lot.
King Leopold I of Belgium in Victoria & Albert (2001)
He plays Queen Victoria’s uncle, who strongly promoted her marriage to Albert. Thankfully, he’s not the King Leopold who was responsible for horrors in the Congo (that would be his son, Leopold II).
Gustav Mahler in Bride of the Wind (2001)
He plays the Austro-Bohemian composer in this biopic of his wife, Alma, a composer, author, editor, and socialite.
Cardinal Louis de Rohan in The Affair of the Necklace (2001)
He’s great as the scheming cardinal, who is pivotal in this based-on-a-true-story film about a swindle involving Marie-Antoinette and a certain diamond necklace.
Master Schoenmacker in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (2002)
The Cinderella story told from the perspective of one of her “ugly” step-sisters.
Governor Weatherby Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), & Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
He’s the father of Keira Knightley’s character in this series about pirates.
Delatombe in The Brothers Grimm (2005)
He’s the occupying French general who orders the Grimm brothers to find out why young girls are going missing in this supernatural take on the famous German folklorists.
King James in The New World (2005)
He plays King James VI/I of Scotland/England, at the end of the film when Pocahontas goes to visit England.
James Clavel/Scarpia in The Moon and the Stars (2007)
Set in Rome during World War II, a group of filmmakers are making a movie adaptation of Tosca (the Puccini opera).
Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars (2007)
The famous late-19th-century fictional detective, obvs.
CC Frazier in Leatherheads (2008)
A comedic film about football set in the 1920s.
Mr. Buxton in Cranford (2009)
I didn’t make it to season 2 of this 1830s-set adaptation of several Elizabeth Gaskell novellas, so I’m not sure what exactly his role entailed.
Dr. Robert Dalrymple in Hysteria (2011)
He’s the doctor who trains Hugh Dancy’s character to give orgasms to female clients in order to relieve their “hysteria.”
King Lear in King Lear (2012)
Shakespeare!
Mayor Nathan Keane in The Salvation (2014)
A Danish western, in which Mads Mikkleson does some western-y things in the early 1870s. The mayor is the baddie, naturally.
Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall (2015)
He’s Henry VIII’s political brain and mentor, until Anne Boleyn and various other forces push him out.
Shylock in The Complete Walk: The Merchant of Venice (2016)
More Shakespeare!
Patrick Brontë in To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters (2016)
He plays the father of the Brontë sisters/writers.
Sir Stuart Strange in Taboo (2017)
He’s the baddie running the extra-evil East India Company in this gritty weird TV series.
Mr. John Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
He plays the father of Charles Dickens in this fictionalized take on Dickens’ writing of A Christmas Carol.
Don Quixote in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
An adventure/comedy by quirky director Terry Gilliam set in early 17th century Spain.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown (2022-23)
He plays the older version of Queen Elizabeth II’s husband and father of Charles et al.
And coming up…
? in William Tell (2024)
An adaptation of the German play, about “the greater Swiss struggle for independence from the Habsburg Empire in the early 14th century” (Wikipedia) – but it hasn’t yet been announced what his role will be. And, weirdly, this film was supposed to come out in 2024 but hasn’t yet. Okay, wait, looks like it’s been shown at film festivals. Still, need more details! And I can’t find any images of Pryce from the movie, so instead I give you grubby man on horse:
Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (2024)
He’ll reprise his role as Henry VIII’s advisor in the next season.
What’s your favorite of Jonathan Pryce’s many frock flick roles?
Though Cranford/series 2 isn’t as strong, it’s still worth watching. Though nothing comes close to the scenes between Michael Gambon and Judi Dench.
The costumes remain great, as does the acting.
I agree , it’s lovely – and with other well known names popping up – Tom Hiddleston, Jodie Whittaker Michelle Dockery and Tim Curry!
(shame they recast Martin Shaw’s character but understand he might not have wanted to commit to more than the cameo in the previous series!)
I enjoy it, but it’s definitely not as strong as the first. When I read “I don’t know what his role was”, all I could think was “scenery chewing”.
He’s been in so many films I’ve seen, it’s hard to choose only one. Since I don’t often see “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” referenced, I’ll go with that since overall, it’s one of the most creative and idiosyncratic films ever made, but I suppose that is true of nearly everything Terry Gilliam directed. Pryce certainly acted circles around Madonna in “Evita.” He was about the only thing I really enjoyed about that film.
Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)? It doesn’t have a lot in the way of distinctive costuming, but it is set in the early 20th century.
Also, he’s doing brilliant work in Slow Horses right now (a modern series, yes, but his performance this season is mind-blowingly good).
Mr. Dark! He’s the character I always think of when I hear Jonathan Pryce’s name. “Something Wicked This Way Comes” was published in 1962, with the events of the story taking place in the 1950s, so it sounds like it would fit the FrockFlicks time requirements :) As a huge fan of the book, I don’t think a film can truly capture its dream-like intensity, but Jonathan Pryce was a fantastic Mr. Dark – very creepy indeed!
I agree about Slow Horses, too – I’ve been reading the books and he suits the “OB” perfectly. All the casting choices are brilliant, though!
I was just trying to remember who played lytton strachey in Carrington last night after finishing his bio on Queen Victoria (which is short and very good btw…bits of humor on the old queen) and meant to look it up this morning. He was great in that role, also as Patrick Bronte and many others of these…
Lytton Strachey in Carrington.
I need to see more of these.
I agree about “Carrington”; he’s delightful as Lytton Strachey and very like him physically, unlike a lot of his other bio-pic/historical roles. Who’s Pryce going to play next: Churchill? (Everyone else has.)
Yikes, spare me another William Tell movie! The story is pure legend, that is well established now, and it’s completely inaccurate regarding Swiss history. Basically a chronist adapted an earlier Danish legend over a 100 years after Tell was supposed to have lived, and presented it as fact to make his local history appear the way it was seen then. He and his contemporaries needed a reason to present Swiss people and history in a more heroic way and paint the Habsburgs in a bad light. Historical propaganda, and the world keeps falling for it…
Such is the Power of an Almighty Theme Tune – it was William Tell’s before it belonged to The Lone Ranger!
Given your suggestion that the legend has Danish roots, it’s amusing that the ‘Man on a Horse’ in the picture above seems to be Mr Klaes Bang of DRACULA and THE NORTHMAN (Himself a Dane, if memory serves).
“Hysteria” was a a great film, a fictional take on the invention of the vibrator…you should really watch it!
It is a fun movie…Hugh dancy good too
Minor correction but The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is set in present day; Pryce plays Javier Sanchez, a shoemaker who appeared in the main character’s (Adam Driver) student film playing Quixote and in the intervening years became convinced he actually was Quixote.
The original version of the film that Gilliam started in 1998 with French actor Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp was set in the 17th century, with Depp’s character being from the present day and somehow sent back in time, but by the time the film was actually finished, it had switched to being set in the present day with Javier/Quixote just believing he was living in the 17th century.
But what about Brazil? That Terry Gilliam film made him somewhat famous (at least in the US)!
Not a frock flick!