Jonathan Pryce

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Bruce Dern, The Driver, 1977.     The casting director said helmer Walter Hill “will be absolutely thrilled and delighted to meet you. You’re exactly what he wants.”   Foolishly, as he now admits, Pryce asked what that was…   “Tall and thin!”
  2. David Warner, Time Bandits, 1981.     Director Terry Gilliam offered the Evil Genius but Pryce was already filming Loophole. Next time Terry called, it was   Yes! – for Sam Lowry in Brazil, 1985
  3. David Warner, Time Bandits, 1980.     On April 17, Terry Gilliam has “positive chats” with Pryce about becoming the Evil Genius in what co-writer Michael Plain called “the extraordinarily confusing richness of the cast.” Pryce, however, was filming Loophole and awaiting Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gilliam understood and gave the role to another stage Hamlet – and Pryce the lead of his next feature, Brazil, 1984.
  4. Richard E Grant, Withnail And I, 1986.     Meeting up on director Martin Scorsese’s costumer, The Age of Innocence, 1992, Grant discovered how his breakthrough role was first offered to Pryce. “They couldn’t get it   financed then…   Lucky for me.”
  5. Paul McGann, Doctor Who (The Movie), TV, 1996.
  6. Eric Roberts, Doctor Who (The Movie), TV, 1996. Hollywood goes Who. Why? For the pilot of a USeries to exhume the BBC science-fiction cult, buried since since it ran out of puff after 26 seasons in 1989. As if to prove this was big deal Hollywood (!) in action, some 63 actors were listed for Doc8 and a further 71 (Dracula, Gandhi, Freddy Krueger, Magnum, Spock) for his foe, The Master. Quite a Bond style hunt! Indeed, so much so, that those on both hero and villain lists included two ex-007s (Timothy Dalton and his successor, Pierce Brosnan) and this (weak) Bond villain.
  7. Christopher Lloyd, Anastasia, 1997.      Pryce and two other Brits – Tim Curry and Patrick Stewart – were up for voicing the mad Russian monk, Rasputin. But Back To The Future’s Doc Brown beat Brazil’s Sam Lowry. Dr Frank-N-Furter (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard.

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  7