Sir Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor. He is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and six Emmy Awards. He was honoured with a knighthood for services to drama in 2021.
After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career as a stage actor in the early 1970s. His work in theatre includes an Olivier Award–winning performance in the title role of the Royal Court Theatre's Hamlet in 1980 and as The Engineer in the stage musical Miss Saigon in 1990. On the Broadway stage he earned two Tony Awards—the first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut role in Comedians (1977), the second for Best Actor in a Musical for the Broadway transfer of the musical Miss Saigon (1991).
His breakthrough screen performance was in Terry Gilliam's satirical dystopian black comedy film Brazil (1985). Critically lauded for his versatility, Pryce has appeared in big-budget films including Evita (1996), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Pirates of the Caribbean series (2003–2007), as well as independent films such as Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), Carrington (1995), The New World (2005) and The Wife (2017). He earned his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Pope Francis in The Two Popes (2019).
For his work on television, he received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his portrayals of Henry Kravis in the HBO film Barbarians at the Gate (1993), a wealthy widower in the BBC series Return to Cranford (2010), Prince Philip in the Netflix series The Crown, and as a retired senior MI5 officer in the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. Pryce also played Thomas Wolsey in the BBC limited series Wolf Hall (2015), the High Sparrow in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2015–2016) and Sir Stuart Strange in the series Taboo (2017).
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 and applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Pryce was subsequently awarded a scholarship to RADA, graduating in 1971, with Acting (RADA Diploma).
He joined Equity, and 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.
Despite finding RADA "strait-laced" and being told by his tutor that he could never aspire to do more than playing villains on Z-Cars, Pryce joined the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool upon graduation and eventually became its artistic director. He performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Nottingham Playhouse. To gain his Equity card, he made his first screen appearance in a minor role in "Fire & Brimstone", a 1972 episode of the science fiction drama series Doomwatch. He then starred in two television films directed by Stephen Frears: Daft as a Brush and Playthings.
After leaving Everyman, Pryce joined Sir Richard Eyre at the Nottingham Playhouse and starred in Trevor Griffiths' play Comedians, in a role specially written for him. The production moved to the Old Vic Theatre in London. Pryce reprised the role on Broadway in 1976, this time directed by Mike Nichols, and for which Pryce won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. It was around this time that he appeared in his first film role, playing the character Joseph Manasse in the drama Voyage of the Damned, starring Faye Dunaway. He did not, however, abandon the stage, appearing from 1978 to 1979 in the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of The Taming of the Shrew as Petruchio, and Antony and Cleopatra as Octavius Caesar.
In 1980, his performance in the title role of Hamlet at the Royal Court Theatre won him an Olivier Award, and was acclaimed by some critics as the definitive Hamlet of his generation. That year, Pryce had a small but pivotal role as Zarniwoop in the 12th episode of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, one that he reprised for the Quintessential Phase which was broadcast in 2005. In his original role as Zarniwoop, Pryce's character questions the "ruler of the Universe", a solipsist who has been chosen to rule arguably because of either his inherent manipulability, or immunity therefrom, on his philosophical opinions. Around the same time, in 1980, he also appeared in the film Breaking Glass. In 1983, Pryce played the role of the sinister Mr Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same title. Afterward, he began appearing mostly in films, such as the Ian McEwan-scripted The Ploughman's Lunch, and Martin Luther, Heretic (both also 1983).
He achieved a breakthrough with his role as the subdued protagonist Sam Lowry in the Terry Gilliam science fiction dystopian dark comedy, Brazil (1985). After Brazil, Pryce appeared in the historical thriller The Doctor and the Devils (also 1985) and then in the Gene Wilder-directed film Haunted Honeymoon (1986). During this period of his life, Pryce continued to perform on stage, and gained particular notice as the successful but self-doubting writer Trigorin in a London production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in late 1985. From 1986 to 1987 Pryce played the lead part in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth, which also starred Sinéad Cusack as Lady Macbeth. Pryce worked once again with Gilliam in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), playing "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson". The film was a notorious financial fiasco, with production costing more than $40 million, when the original budget was $23.5 million. The following year Pryce appeared in three of the earliest episodes of the improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, alongside Paul Merton and John Sessions, and in Uncle Vanya, again a play by Chekhov, at the Vaudeville Theatre. After a series of major dramatic roles on stage, including Vanya and Macbeth, Pryce decided he wanted to do musicals after seeing his friend Patti LuPone in the original London production of Les Misérables.
He successfully returned to the stage in 1990 originating the role of The Engineer, a Eurasian pimp, in the West End musical Miss Saigon. His performance was praised in England where he won the Olivier and Variety Club awards, but when the production transferred to Broadway the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) tried to stop Pryce from portraying The Engineer because, according to their executive secretary, "[t]he casting of a Caucasian actor made up to appear Asian is an affront to the Asian community." The London production featured Pryce in yellowface, wearing prosthetics to alter the shape of his eyes and makeup to alter the colour of his skin. The show's producer, Cameron Mackintosh, decided to cancel the $10 million New York production. Realising that its decision would result in the loss of many jobs, and after Pryce received much support from fellow actors (both Charlton Heston and John Malkovich threatened to leave the union if Pryce was not allowed to perform) the AEA decided to make a deal with Mackintosh, allowing Pryce to appear in the production. He won a Tony Award for his performance in 1991. The controversy over Pryce's casting in Miss Saigon provided playwright David Henry Hwang the inspiration for his plays Face Value and Yellow Face.
Made in the same period, Pryce starred in the ITV mini-series Selling Hitler (1991) as Gerd Heidemann. Pryce returned to the London stage the following year to star for one night only at the Royal Festival Hall for an AIDS charity alongside Elaine Paige and Lilliane Montivecchi in the 1992 revival of the Federico Fellini-inspired musical Nine. He appeared in the film Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), an adaptation of the David Mamet play. Pryce featured, alongside Kathy Burke and Minnie Driver, in the BBC serial Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993), directed by Danny Boyle. Pryce played Henry Kravis in the HBO produced made-for-TV movie Barbarians at the Gate (1993). He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and for a Golden Globe Award for his role. Also during 1993, Pryce appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, and starred alongside River Phoenix and Judy Davis in the unfinished film Dark Blood, but production had to be shut down when, 11 days short of completion, Phoenix died from a drug overdose. Director George Sluizer, who owns the rights to what has been filmed, has made available some of the raw material, which features Pryce and Phoenix on a field in Utah, on his personal website. Between 1993 and 1997, Pryce, on a multimillion-dollar contract became the spokesman for the Infiniti automobile marque in a series of American television commercials, in particular for the Infiniti J30 and Infiniti Q45. In one of these advertisements Pryce appeared alongside jazz singer Nancy Wilson in a Prague nightclub. In 1994, Pryce portrayed Fagin in a revival of the musical Oliver!, and starred alongside Emma Thompson in the film Carrington (1995), which centres on a platonic relationship between gay writer Lytton Strachey and painter Dora Carrington. For his portrayal of Strachey, Pryce received the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. His film roles during this time included Evita (1996) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).