Lee Pace

An elf king, a cloned emperor and a man who can raise the dead by touch: Lee Pace plays figures slightly outside humanity.

Pace appears in The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum, returning to a world where he had played an isolated and imperious ruler. His screen presence suits such roles: he is physically tall and deliberate, and he plays disdain as boredom rather than as hostility, which is considerably more unsettling.

Background and Influences

He trained at a conservatory drama programme and worked in theatre before screen, and he has continued to return to the stage between projects. His television work includes a whimsical fantasy procedural that became a cult favourite and a drama about the early computing industry that was largely unwatched on broadcast and rediscovered afterwards.

Style and Themes

Recurring subjects: isolation, characters who cannot connect physically or emotionally with others, and authority that conceals loneliness. He plays formality with a suppressed vulnerability underneath, and he is unusually good at making an inhuman character legible without softening it into sympathy.

Legacy and Influence

His fantasy procedural has a devoted following two decades after cancellation, and his computing drama is regularly named among the most underappreciated American series of its period. His franchise work spans fantasy, superhero and science fiction, and his stage career has drawn major theatre nominations.

Who Should Explore Their Work

For viewers who want performers cast for their strangeness. Suited to anyone approaching the fantasy world, and to those who should seek out the computing drama, which almost nobody watched at the time.