Charles Dance

Walter Charles Dance is an English actor. He is known for playing intimidating, authoritarian characters and villains. Dance started his career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company before appearing in film and television. For his services to drama he was appointed an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.
He made his feature film debut in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. He has since acted in a string of critically acclaimed period films such as Michael Collins, Gosford Park, The Imitation Game, Mank, and The King's Man. He has also appeared in the films The Golden Child, Alien 3, Last Action Hero, Dracula Untold, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He made his directorial film debut with the drama film Ladies in Lavender, which he also wrote and executive produced.
On television, Dance played Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown, Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, and Lord Mountbatten in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

Early life

Walter Charles Dance was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, on 10 October 1946, the younger son of Eleanor Marion, a cook, and Walter Dance, an electrical engineer who served as a sergeant in the 2nd Regular Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers during the Second Boer War and who was in his 70s when his son was born. By his father's previous marriage, Dance had two older half-sisters, Norah and Mary. On his maternal side, he also has an elder half-brother, Michael.
During filming of an episode for the genealogical series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2016, Dance discovered that his mother had Belgian ancestry, which traced back to the city of Spa. His immigrant ancestor Charles François Futvoye had been a pioneer in the art of japanning during the early half of the 19th century. Growing up in Plymouth, Dance attended the now-defunct Widey Technical School for Boys in Crownhill. He later attended the Plymouth Drawing School and Leicester College of Arts, where he studied graphic design and photography.

Career

Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

Dance was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company during the mid-to-late 1970s and was in many of their productions in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Later he returned to the RSC to take the title role in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon and Newcastle in 1989, and at the Barbican Theatre in 1990. He received rave reviews and a Critics' Circle Best Actor award for his performance as C. S. Lewis in William Nicholson's Shadowlands, in the 2007 stage revival.

Television and film

Dance made his screen debut in 1974, in the ITV series Father Brown as Commandant Neil O'Brien in "The Secret Garden". Other small parts followed, including a 1983 cameo as a South African assassin in The Professionals, but his big break came the following year when he played Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown, an adaptation of Paul Scott's novels that also made stars of Geraldine James and Art Malik. Dance made one of his earliest big-screen appearances in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only as evil henchman Claus. Though he turned down the opportunity to screen test for the James Bond role, in 1989 he played Bond creator Ian Fleming in Anglia Television's dramatised biography directed by Don Boyd, Goldeneye.
He has also starred in many other British television dramas such as Edward the Seventh, Murder Rooms, Randall and Hopkirk, Rebecca, The Phantom of the Opera, Fingersmith and Bleak House. He was name-checked in the British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, as being slated to play the title character in The Life of Jesus Christ 2, which was filming in Morocco at the same time as the main characters of the series were there for a photo shoot. He also played Guy Spencer, the pro-Hitler propagandist, in the second instalment of Foyle's War, and had an ongoing role as Dr. Maltravers in the ITV drama Trinity.
Dance made a guest appearance on the BBC drama series Merlin as the Witchfinder Aredian, and as a vainglorious version of himself in the third series of Jam & Jerusalem. He played Lord Vetinari in the 2010 Sky adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, and the Russian oligarch Aleksandr Borinski in Paris Connections. He played the role of Tywin Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin. Dance was wooed for the role by the producers while filming Your Highness in Belfast. Dance also played Conrad Knox on the British television series Strike Back: Vengeance as the primary villain in the series.
Since 2012, Dance has had a recurring role in The Big Fat Quiz of the Year reading excerpts from books, such as Fifty Shades of Grey or the autobiographies of English media personalities, in a deadpan manner. On 30 June 2013, Dance appeared with other celebrities in an episode of the BBC's Top Gear as a "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" for the debut of the Vauxhall Astra. In summer 2018, Dance narrated a documentary entitled Spitfire, which featured the legendary Supermarine Spitfire and recounted the efforts of the RAF pilots who flew them during the Second World War.
In February 2017, Dance participated as a featured guest at the inaugural Saudi Comic Con in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, alongside fellow Game of Thrones actor Julian Glover.
In 2019 he played an antagonist in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and appeared as Lord Mountbatten in series 3 of The Crown in the same year. In 2020, Dance portrayed William Randolph Hearst in David Fincher's Mank, co-starring alongside Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried. In January 2021, Dance was cast in the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman.
In 2024 Dance starred as Michelangelo in the BBC docu-drama Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty.

Screenwriting and directing

Dance's debut film as a screenwriter and director was Ladies in Lavender, which starred Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. In 2009, he directed his own adaptation of Alice Thomas Ellis's The Inn at the Edge of the World.

Personal life

Dance married Joanna Haythorn in 1970, and they had a son named Oliver and a daughter named Rebecca before divorcing in 2004. He later dated Eleanor Boorman from 2008 to 2014, and they had a daughter named Rose. He is in a relationship with Italian production manager and former actress Alessandra Masi, whom he met in Italy in 2018.
As of 2018, Dance resides in Kentish Town, London.

Political views

Dance has described his political views as "very left-of-centre" and "a bit left of centre-left". He supported the UK remaining in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum, and expressed his wish for the country to be closer to Europe to avoid "being a little satellite of America". In a 2020 interview with the Financial Times, he felt NHS workers were not being offered a decent enough pay rise and labelled Boris Johnson a "bumbling buffoon".
In October 2023, after the Gaza war began, Dance was one of over two thousand to sign an "Artists for Palestine" letter calling for a ceasefire and accusing western governments of "not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them." In January 2024, Dance contributed to a video published by the Palestine Festival of Literature in support of South Africa's legal motion accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. In September 2025, Dance signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people." Later that month, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dance said that anyone with a conscience should be obsessed with the war and that "there would not be peace in the Middle East until the Balfour Declaration is unpicked... France and England need to announce: ‘Sorry, we f***ed up’."

Honours

Dance was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 17 June 2006.

Acting credits

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	For Your Eyes Only	Claus
1985	Plenty	Raymond Brock
1986	The Golden Child	Sardo Numspa
1987	White Mischief	Josslyn Hay
1987	Good Morning, Babylon	D. W. Griffith
1987	Hidden City	James Richards
1988	Pascali's Island	Anthony Bowles
1992	Alien 3	Jonathan Clemens
1992	Kalkstein	Surveyor
1993	Last Action Hero	Mr. Benedict
1993	Century	Professor Mandry
1994	China Moon	Rupert Munro
1994	Kabloonak	Robert J. Flaherty	Paris Film Festival Award for Best Actor
1994	Shortcut to Paradise	Quinn
1995		Dr. Ed Mittlesbay
1996	Space Truckers	Nabel / Macanudo
1996	Michael Collins	Soames
1997	The Blood Oranges	Cyril
1998	What Rats Won't Do	Gerald
1998	Hilary and Jackie	Derek Du Pré
1999	Don't Go Breaking My Heart	Frank
2001	Gosford Park	Raymond Stockbridge
2001	Jurij	Padre di Jurij
2001	Dark Blue World	Wing Commander Bentley
2002	Black and White	Roderic Chamberlain
2002	Ali G Indahouse	David Carlton
2003	Swimming Pool	John Bosload
2003	Labyrinth	Charles Lushington
2003	City and Crimes	Cox William
2003	Ladies in Lavender		Director, writer and executive producer only
2006	Dolls	Narrator	Voice; short film
2006	Scoop	Mr. Malcolm
2006	Twice Upon a Time	Master of Ceremonies
2006	Starter for 10	Michael Harbinson
2007	The Contractor	DCS Andrew Windsor	Direct-to-DVD
2007	Intervention	Private Investigator
2010	Paris Connections	Aleksandr Borinski
2010	The Commuter	Traffic Warden	Short film
2011	Ironclad	Archbishop Langton
2011	Your Highness	King Tallious
2011	There Be Dragons	Monsignor Solano
2012	Midnight's Children	William Methwold
2012	Underworld: Awakening	Thomas
2012	St George's Day	Trenchard
2013	Patrick	Doctor Roget
2013	Justin and the Knights of Valour	Legantir	Voice
2014	Viy	Lord Dudley	Credited by his name in
2014	Dracula Untold	Master Vampire
2014	The Imitation Game	Commander Alastair Denniston
2015	Victor Frankenstein	Baron Frankenstein
2015	And Then There Were None	Judge Lawrence “Justice” Wargrave
2015	Michiel de Ruyter	Charles II
2015	Woman in Gold	Sherman
2015	Child 44	Major Grachev
2016	Pride and Prejudice and Zombies	Mr. Bennet
2016	Me Before You	Stephen Traynor
2016	Ghostbusters	Harold Filmore
2016	Despite the Falling Snow	Old Alexander
2016	Underworld: Blood Wars	Thomas
2017	Euphoria	Mr. Daren
2017	That Good Night	The Visitor
2018	Johnny English Strikes Again	Agent Seven	Cameo
2018	Happy New Year, Colin Burstead	Bertie
2019	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	Alan Jonah
2019	Viy 2: Journey to China	Lord Dudley
2019	Fanny Lye Deliver'd	John Lye
2020	The Book of Vision	Johan Anmuth
2020	Mank	William Randolph Hearst
2021	The King's Man	Lord Kitchener
2022	Against the Ice	Neergaard
2022	Lancaster	Narrator
2022	The Hanging Sun	Jacob
2024	The First Omen	Father Harris	Cameo
2024	Rumours	Edison Wolcott
2024	Samana Sunrise	Noah Blum
2025	Frankenstein	Baron Leopold Frankenstein
2025	Wildcat	Frasier Mahoney
			Post-production
			Post-production