Judy Davis
Born	(1955-04-23) 23 April 1955 (age 57) Perth, Western Australia
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1977–present
Spouse	Colin Friels (1984–present)

Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Husbands and Wives, Barton Fink, A Passage to India and in the TV miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.

Davis first came to attention for her role as the fiery Sybylla Melvyn in the 1979 film My Brilliant Career. She has won many acting awards, including two Golden Globe Awards, three Emmy Awards, one BAFTA and seven AFI Awards. She has also been nominated twice for an Academy Award.

Personal life[link]

Davis was born in Perth and had a strict Catholic upbringing.^[1][2] She was educated at Loreto Convent and the Western Australian Institute of Technology, and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1977. She has been married to actor and fellow NIDA graduate Colin Friels since 1984. They have two children.^[3]

Career[link]

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First coming to prominence for her role as Sybylla Melvyn in the coming-of-age saga My Brilliant Career (1979), for which she won BAFTA Awards for Best Actress and Best Newcomer, she also played the lead in such Australian New Wave classics as Winter of Our Dreams (1981) (as the waif-like heroin addict) and Heatwave (1982) (as the radical tenant organizer).

Her first foray into international film came in 1981 when she played the younger version of Ingrid Bergman's Golda Meir in the television docudrama A Woman Called Golda, before subsequently playing a terrorist in the British film Who Dares Wins.

In 1984, she was cast as Adela Quested in David Lean's final film A Passage to India, an adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel of the same name: she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She returned to Australian cinema for her next two films, Kangaroo, as a German-born writer's wife, and Hightide, as a foot-loose mother who attempts to reunite with her teenage daughter who is being raised by the paternal grandmother. She earned Australian Film Institute Awards for both roles, and a National Society of Film Critics award for Hightide's brief American theatrical run. In 1990, she played a cameo in Woody Allen's Alice.

In 1991, she was featured in Joel Coen's Barton Fink, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and in David Cronenberg's adaptation of the hallucinogenic novel Naked Lunch. She won an Independent Spirit Award for her work as mannish authoress George Sand in Impromptu and returned to E. M. Forster territory in Where Angels Fear to Tread. She portrayed real-life World War II heroine Mary Lindell in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation One Against the Wind. In 1992, she played a major role in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives as one half of a divorcing couple. For this performance she earned both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for best supporting actress.

Other roles have included the mysterious, schizophrenic mother of a teenager in boarding school in On My Own (1993), the lifelong Australian Communist Party member reacting to the downfall of the Soviet Union in Children of the Revolution (1996), two more Allen films, Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998), a high-strung White House Chief of Staff in Absolute Power (1997), a touching performance as a supportive mother in Swimming Upstream (2003) and supporting roles in two 2006 films, The Break-Up and Marie-Antoinette.

She co-starred with actor Kevin Spacey in the 1994 comedy film The Ref as they portrayed a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks, with actor-comedian Denis Leary playing their ersatz marriage counselor.

Much of her recent work has been on television, where she has a collection of Emmy Award nominations. She won her first Emmy for portraying the woman who gently coaxes rigid militarywoman Glenn Close out of the closet in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, with subsequent nominations for her repressed Australian outback mother in The Echo of Thunder (1998), her portrayal of Lillian Hellman in Dash and Lilly (1999), her frigid society matron in A Cooler Climate (1999) and her interpretation of Nancy Reagan in the controversial biopic The Reagans (2003).

She earned a second Emmy for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the 2001 television biographical film Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. In July 2006, she received her ninth Emmy nomination for her performance in the television film A Little Thing Called Murder. Her tenth nomination came in 2007 for The Starter Wife. Davis went on to win the Emmy, but was not present at the awards ceremony that year.

In August 2007, she appeared opposite Sam Waterston in an episode of ABC's anthology series Masters of Science Fiction, directed by Mark Rydell. She appeared on the TV mini-series, Diamonds from 2008–2009.

In 2011, she appeared in a TV-drama film, Page Eight opposite Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Davis played Dorothy de Lascabanes in the adaptation of Patrick White's novel, The Eye of the Storm opposite Geoffrey Rush and Charlotte Rampling. Davis won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role in 2012. She is due to star in Woody Allen's "To Rome with Love" opposite Allen, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg and Elaine Paige and in "The Surrealist" as Gala and Alan Cumming as Salvidor Dali.

Stage[link]

Her stage work has been limited, and mostly confined to Australia. In the earliest stages of her career, she played Juliet opposite Mel Gibson's Romeo. In 1978, she appeared in Visions by Louis Nowra at the Paris Theatre Company in Sydney. In 1980, she portrayed French chanteuse Edith Piaf in the Pam Gems play Piaf at the Perth Playhouse. She played both Cordelia and the Fool in a 1984 staging of King Lear by the Nimrod Theatre Company (also starring in its productions of Strindberg's Miss Julie, Chekhov's The Bear, Louis Nowra's Inside The Island and, in 1986, the title role in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler for the Sydney Theatre Company

In 2004, she starred in and co-directed Howard Barker's play Victory, as a Puritan woman determined to locate her husband's dismembered corpse.^[4] Other stage directorial efforts include Sheridan's The School For Scandal and Barrymore by William Luce (all three were for the Sydney Theatre Company). She created the role of The Actress in Terry Johnson's Insignificance at the Royal Court in London^[5] and appeared in a brief 1989 Los Angeles production of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood.

In 2011, she portrayed the role of fading actress Irina Arkadina in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre.

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Other awards[link]

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• 1994 Film Critics Circle of Australia Award Special Achievement Award ("* For her outstanding body of Australian and international work and for her considerable contribution to the profession of screen acting.")

Nominations

• 1982 Olivier Award Actress of the Year in a New Play (Insignificance)
• 2004 Helpmann Award Best Actress in a Play (Victory)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Judy Davis at the Internet Movie Database
• Judy Davis at the TCM Movie Database
• Judy Davis at AllRovi

Sally Field
Field at the 62nd Academy Awards ceremony, 1990
Born	Sally Margaret Field (1946-11-06) November 6, 1946 (age 65) Pasadena, California, U.S
Occupation	Actress, singer, producer, director, screenwriter
Years active	1962–present
Spouse	Steve Craig (1968–1975) Alan Greisman (1984–1993)

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget (1965–66) or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun (1967–70); in the 1970s, for Sybil (1976), Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Norma Rae (1979); in the 1980s, for Absence of Malice (1981), Places in the Heart (1984) and Steel Magnolias (1989); in the 1990s, for Not Without My Daughter (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Forrest Gump (1994) and Eye for an Eye (1996); and in the 2000s, on the TV shows ER and Brothers & Sisters (2006–11). She has also performed in numerous other roles.

Field won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a leading role on two occasions, Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984). Field's professional achievements also include winning three Emmy Awards: for her role in the TV film Sybil (1976); her guest-starring role on ER in 2000; and for her starring role as Nora Holden Walker on ABC's series Brothers & Sisters in 2007. She has also won two Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. She also won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, for Norma Rae (1979).

Early life[link]

Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California, daughter of Richard Dryden Field, an Army officer, and his wife, actress Margaret Field.^[1] Her parents divorced in 1950, and her mother later married actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney.

Field attended Portola Middle School, followed by Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her classmates included infamous financier Michael Milken, actress Cindy Williams (of Laverne & Shirley fame) and Michael Ovitz of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Walt Disney Studios fame.

Career[link]

Television[link]

Field got her start on television as the boy-crazy surfer girl in the mid-1960s surf culture sitcom series, Gidget. She went on to star as Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun. In an interview included on the DVD release of The Flying Nun, she said that she would have preferred to continue playing Gidget. Field hated being on The Flying Nun because she wasn't treated with respect. After her iconic role on The Flying Nun, she had become typecast. Later, she starred opposite John Davidson in a short-lived series called The Girl with Something Extra (1973–74).

In 1971, Field starred in Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring with David Carradine and a soundtrack by Linda Ronstadt. She played the role of a discouraged teen runaway who returned home after a year on the road with a bearded drug-abusing hippie named "Flack" (David Carradine).

She made several guest appearances, including a recurring role on the western comedy Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel (with whom she had worked on Gidget) and Ben Murphy, plus the Rod Serling's Night Gallery episode "Whisper".

Field in 1970s.

Having played mostly comedic characters on television, Field had a difficult time being cast in dramatic roles.^{[citation needed]} She studied with famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who had previously helped Marilyn Monroe go beyond the "bimbo" roles with which her career had begun.

Soon afterward, Field landed the title role in the 1976 TV film Sybil, the first of two films based on the book written by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Field's dramatic portrayal of Sybil, a young woman afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder, in the TV film not only garnered her an Emmy Award^[2] (in 1977) but also enabled her to break through the typecasting she had experienced from her television sitcom roles.

Music[link]

While starring on The Flying Nun, Sally tried her hand at singing. Sally Field sang on the Soundtrack for The Flying Nun in 1967 and she even sang The Flying Nun theme song "Who Needs Wings to Fly". The same year, she cracked the Billboard Hot 100 with one single, Felicidad. Sally revived her singing career in 2008 when she sang on the soundtrack for "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning".

Film[link]

Field had made her film debut in 1962 with a small part in Moon Pilot. Her first major film role was in The Way West (1967). In 1977, she co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed in that year's #2 grossing film, Smokey and the Bandit.^[3] In 1979, she played a union organizer in Norma Rae, a successful film that established her status as a dramatic actress. Vincent Canby, in his review of the film for the New York Times, wrote: "Norma Rae is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular."^[4] She won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Field did three more of Reynolds' films (The End, Hooper and Smokey and the Bandit II). In 1981, Field continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film Back Roads, which received middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office. She won Golden Globe nominations for the 1981 drama Absence of Malice and 1982 comedy Kiss Me Goodbye.

Then came a second Oscar for her starring role in the 1984 drama Places in the Heart. Field's gushing acceptance speech is well remembered for its earnestness. She said, "I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"^[5] The line ending in "...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" is often misquoted as simply, "You like me, you really like me!" which has subsequently been the subject of many parodies. (Field parodied the line herself in a commercial.^{[citation needed]}) The phrase, "You like me" was originally from her wry, understated, famous reply in the film Norma Rae, but many people^{[citation needed]} totally missed the subtle connection in her acceptance speeches, with that point in the film.

The following year, she co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy Murphy's Romance. In A&E's biography of Garner, she cited her on-screen kiss with Garner as the best cinematic kiss she had ever had.

Field appeared on the cover of the March 1986 issue of Playboy magazine, in which she was the interview subject. She did not appear as a pictorial subject inside the magazine, although she did wear the classic leotard and bunny-ears outfit on the cover. That same year she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.^[6]

For her role as the matriarch, M'Lynn, in the film version of Steel Magnolias (1989), she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She had supporting roles in a number of other movies, including Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) in which she played Miranda Hillard, the wife of Robin Williams's character and the love interest of Pierce Brosnan's character Stuart 'Stu' Dunmyer. She followed this with the role of Forrest Gump's mother in Forrest Gump (1994), even though she is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in Punchline.

Her other films in the 1990s included Not Without My Daughter, a controversial suspense film, and Soapdish, a comedy in which Field, playing Celeste Talbert, the pampered star of a television soap opera, heads an all-star cast including Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Shue and Robert Downey, Jr. In 1996, Field was awarded with the Berlinale Camera award at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival for her role as a grieving vigilante mother in Eye for an Eye for director John Schlesinger.^[7] She played Natalie Portman's mother in Where the Heart Is (2000) and appeared opposite Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003).

Recent roles[link]

In November 2009, Sally appeared on an episode of The Doctors to talk about osteoporosis and her Rally With Sally Foundation.

On television, Field had a recurring role on ER in the 2000-01 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother Maggie who suffers from bipolar disorder, a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 2001. After her critically acclaimed stint on the show, she returned to the role in 2003 and 2006. She also starred in the very short-lived 2002 series The Court.

Field's directorial career began with the television film The Christmas Tree (1996). In 1998, she directed the episode The Original Wives' Club of the critically acclaimed TV mini-series From the Earth to the Moon, also portryaing a minor role as Trudy, the wife of astronaut Gordon Cooper. In 2000, she directed the feature film Beautiful.

Field was a late addition to the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, which debuted in September 2006. In the show's pilot, the role of matriarch Nora Walker had been played by actress Betty Buckley. However, the producers of the show decided to take the character of Nora in another direction, and Field was cast in the role. She won the 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in her role as Nora Walker. The blockbuster soap also stars familiar actresses such as Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths, in the roles of Nora's adult daughters, Kitty Walker and Sarah Walker, respectively, as well as unfamiliar actors, such as Welsh film actor Matthew Rhys tackling the very American role of Nora's son, Kevin Walker, and Dave Annable as Nora's youngest son, Justin Walker.

Field recently had a voice role as Marina del Rey, the primary antagonist in Disney's The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, which was released in August 2008.

Currently, Field can be seen on television as the compensated spokesperson for Roche Laboratories' postmenopausal osteoporosis treatment medication, Boniva.

She has been cast to portray Aunt May in the upcoming Marvel Comics film The Amazing Spider-Man and Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Lincoln, written by Tony Kushner.

Activism[link]

During her 2007 acceptance speech for her 2006-07 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Field made an anti-war statement: "If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place!"^[8] Though the crowd present at the Emmy Awards heard it, viewers watching the telecast in the United States only heard "if mothers ruled the world there would be no ... ," due to the censoring of the rest of the statement (in the rest of the world, her remark was not bleeped). In the 2008 presidential election, she supported Hillary Clinton in her bid for the Democratic Party nomination.

Field is also a dedicated advocate for women's rights. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international women's NGO, and has co-hosted the Global Leadership Awards six times.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Field married Steven Craig in 1968. The couple had two sons, Peter Craig, a novelist, and Eli Craig, an actor and director. They divorced in 1975. Sally Field was romantically involved with Burt Reynolds for many years, during which time they co-starred in several movies, including Smokey and the Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit II, and The End. In 1984, she married film producer Alan Greisman. They had one son, Sam. Field and Greisman divorced in 1993.

On October 29, 1988, she and her family survived a crash after their charter plane lost power on takeoff. They all survived with minor injuries.^[10]

Field suffers from osteoporosis and has become a vocal advocate for women's health issues, encouraging early diagnosis of such conditions through technology such as bone density scans.^[11]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

• "Felicidad" (Billboard Hot 100 #94) / "Find Yourself A Rainbow" -- Colgems (1967)
• "Golden Days" / "You're a Grand Old Flag" -- Colgems (1968)
• "Gonna Build A Mountain" / "Months of The Year" -- Colgems (1968)
• "Just One Mistake" -- Walt Disney Records (2008)
• "Just One Mistake (Reprise)" -- Walt Disney Records (2008)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sally Field

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sally Field

• Sally Field at the Internet Movie Database
• Sally Field at the TCM Movie Database
• Sally Field at AllRovi
• Two Weeks movie site
• Sally Field at Emmys.com
• Actress Sally Field On Hollywood, Family and Aging, an NPR Interview, June 3, 2009 (streaming audio)

Jonathan Pryce
Pryce in London, 2007
Born	John Price (1947-06-01) 1 June 1947 (age 65) Holywell, Flintshire, Wales, United Kingdom
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1970–present
Spouse	Kate Fahy (1974–present)

Jonathan Pryce, CBE (born 1 June 1947) is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s. His work in theatre, including an award-winning performance in the title role of the Royal Court Theatre's Hamlet, led to several supporting roles in film and television. He made his breakthrough screen performance in Terry Gilliam's 1985 cult film Brazil.

Critically lauded for his versatility,^[1][2] Pryce has participated in big-budget films such as Evita, Tomorrow Never Dies, Pirates of the Caribbean and The New World, as well as independent films such as Glengarry Glen Ross and Carrington. His career in theatre has also been prolific, and he has won two Tony Awards—the first in 1977 for his Broadway debut in Comedians, the second for his 1991 role as "The Engineer" in the musical Miss Saigon.

Early life[link]

Pryce was born John Price in Carmel near Holywell, Wales, the son of Margaret Ellen (née Williams) and Isaac Price, a former coal miner who, along with his wife, ran a small general grocery shop. He changed the spelling of his last name from Price to Pryce in order to join Equity, the English actors' trade union, because Equity can only have one actor with any particular name on its books. Pryce has two older sisters. He was educated at Holywell Grammar School (today Holywell High School), and, at the age of 16, he went to art college and then started training to be a teacher at Edge Hill College (now Edge Hill University) in Ormskirk. While studying, he took part in a college theatre production. An impressed tutor suggested he became an actor and on Pryce's behalf sent off to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for an application form, and Pryce was awarded a scholarship to RADA.^[3][4][5] While at RADA Pryce worked as a door-to-door salesman of velvet paintings.^[6] Pryce was part of 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Bruce Payne, Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Kenneth Branagh and Fiona Shaw.

Despite finding RADA "straight-laced",^[5] and being told by his tutor that he could never aspire to do more than playing villains in Z-Cars,^[7] when he graduated he joined the Everyman Theatre Liverpool Company, eventually becoming the theatre's Artistic Director.^[8][9]

While working at the Everyman Theatre in 1972 Pryce met actress Kate Fahy. They based their home in London, where they currently live. They have three children: Patrick (b. 1983), Gabriel (b. 1986) and Phoebe (b. 1990).^[10] In order to gain his Equity card to work in Liverpool, he made his first screen appearance in a minor role on a 1972 episode of the British science fiction programme Doomwatch, called Fire & Brimstone. He then starred in 2 television films, both directed by Stephen Frears, "Daft as a Brush" and 'Playthings" . After the Everyman, Pryce joined the director Sir Richard Eyre at the Nottingham Playhouse and starred in the Trevor Griffiths play "Comedians" in a role specially written for his talents " Gethin Price". The production then transferred to London's Old Vic Theatre and in 1976 he reprised his. role on Broadway, this time directed by Mike Nichols and in 1977 won his first Tony Award as Best Actor. It was around this time that he appeared in his first movie role, playing the character Joseph Manasse in the film drama Voyage of the Damned, starring Faye Dunaway. He did not, however, abandon the stage, appearing from 1978 to 1979 on the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of The Taming of the Shrew as Petruchio, and Antony and Cleopatra as Octavius Caesar.^[11][12]

1980s[link]

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.^[13][14] That year he also appeared in the film Breaking Glass, a film that is remarkable in that it featured in the cast (sometimes in small roles) many actors who would eventually become stars of film and television, such as Jim Broadbent, Richard Griffiths and Phil Daniels. Also during this 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, and memorable, 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.

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. After appearing mostly in TV films, such as the Ian McEwan-scripted The Ploughman's Lunch, and Martin Luther, Heretic, he achieved a breakthrough with his role as the subdued protagonist Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam's 1985 film, Brazil. The film, set in a world similar to the one depicted in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, was acclaimed in Europe and won two BAFTA Film Awards. In the American version, Universal Pictures tried to remove numerous scenes in order to make the film shorter and more consumer-friendly, though they eventually relented.^[15] The movie was also well received in the United States and won three awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and two Academy Award nominations. Brazil has since become a cult film,^[16][17] and is still frequently mentioned in "best film" lists and rankings, such as Time magazine's list of the 100 best films of all time and Total Film magazine's 2004 list of the 20 greatest British movies of all time (which Brazil topped).^[18] The film was described by Harlan Ellison as "the finest SF movie ever made"^[15] and it holds a 98% freshness rate at Rotten Tomatoes.^[19] After Brazil, Pryce appeared in the historical thriller The Doctor and the Devils and then in the Gene Wilder-directed film Haunted Honeymoon. During this period of his life, Pryce continued to perform on stage, and was particularly noteworthy as the successful but self-doubting writer Trigorin in a London production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in late 1985.^[20] From 1986 to 1987 Pryce played the lead part on the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth, which also starred Sinéad Cusack as Lady Macbeth.^[21] Also in 1986 he starred in the film Jumping Jack Flash

In 1988 Pryce worked once again with Gilliam in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, playing "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson". The film was a notorious financial fiasco,^[22] with production costing more than $40 million, when the original budget was $23.5 million.^[23][24] The film has gained cult favorite status over time, however, and in a commentary track on the DVD edition of his 2007 feature Tideland, Gilliam now says that Munchausen is one of the films that his fans most often cite as a favorite (along with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).^[25] 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.,^[26] and in another play by Chekhov, this time Uncle Vanya at the Vaudeville Theatre.^[27]

1990s[link]

After a series of dramatic roles on stage, most notably Vanya and Macbeth, Pryce decided he wanted to do musicals after seeing his friend Patti LuPone in the original London production of Les Misérables.^[28] He would successfully return to the stage originating the role of The Engineer, an Eurasian pimp in the award winning West End musical Miss Saigon. His performance was praised in England where he won the Olivier and Variety Club awards,^[29][30] but when the production transferred to Broadway the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) would not allow Pryce to portray 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".^[31] Cameron Mackintosh, the show's producer, decided to cancel the $10 million New York production because, he said, he would not let the freedom of artistic expression be attacked.^[32] Realizing that its decision would result in the loss of many jobs, and after Pryce received much support from the acting community (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 would then, in 1991, win a Tony Award for his performance.^[33][34] Also in 1991 Pryce starred in the ITV mini-series Selling Hitler 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.^[35]

In 1993 Pryce featured, alongside Kathy Burke and Minnie Driver, in the BBC mini-series Mr. Wroe's Virgins, directed by Oscar winner Danny Boyle. Later that same year Pryce was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and for a Golden Globe Award for his work as Henry Kravis in the HBO produced made-for-TV movie Barbarians at the Gate.^[36] Also during 1993, Pryce was set to star alongside River Phoenix and Judy Davis in the film Dark Blood, but production had to be shut down when, 11 days shy of completing production, Phoenix died of a drug overdose.^[37] 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.^[38] Between 1993 and 1997, Pryce, on a multi million dollar contract became the spokesman for Infiniti in a series of American television commercials, notably for the Infiniti J30 and Infiniti Q45. These advertisements were notable for their sophistication with Pryce even appearing alongside jazz singer Nancy Wilson in a Prague nightclub.^[39] These commercials were hilariously parodied on Saturday Night Live in 1993, with Mike Myers doing an impersonation of Pryce, spokesmodeling for sleek luxury toilets instead of automobiles.^[40] In 1994, Pryce portrayed Fagin in a revival of the musical Oliver!,^[41] and would star the following year alongside Emma Thompson in the film Carrington, which centres on a platonic relationship between gay writer Lytton Strachey and painter Dora Carrington. Pryce's portrayal of Strachey gained him the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.^[42]

The following year Pryce starred with Madonna and Antonio Banderas in his first musical film, Evita. In this Oscar-winning adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical, Pryce portrayed the Argentinian president Juan Perón. The movie's soundtrack was an international success. It contains over 30 songs sung mainly by Madonna, Banderas and Pryce, of which two are solos for Pryce: "She Is A Diamond" and "On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada". After Evita, Pryce went on to portray a James Bond arch-villain, the power-mad, billionaire media mogul Elliot Carver, in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies. During the rest of the decade Pryce would play to his new acquired villain fame, portraying an assassin in Ronin, a corrupt Cardinal in the controversial Stigmata and, for Comic Relief, the Master in the Doctor Who special, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death. About this time Pryce sang at The Hollywood Bowl alongside opera singer Lesley Garrett in highlights from My Fair Lady and in 1998, he performed in Cameron Mackintosh's gala concert Hey, Mr Producer!, also as Professor Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady and reprising his role as the Engineer from Miss Saigon.^[43]

2000s[link]

During the early 2000s Pryce starred and participated in a variety of movies, such as The Affair of the Necklace, What a Girl Wants, Unconditional Love and Terry Gilliam's unfinished The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. While the success of some of these films was variable, the 2001 London stage production of My Fair Lady and his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins was being acclaimed by the media.^[44] This production turned up to be very stressful for Pryce because Martine McCutcheon, who portrayed Eliza Doolittle, was sick during much of the show's run. McCutcheon was replaced by her understudy Alexandra Jay, who would also fall sick hours before a performance, forcing her understudy, Kerry Ellis, to take the lead. Pryce was understandably upset and on her first night introduced Ellis to the audience before the show by saying "This will be your first Eliza, my second today and my third this week. Any member of the audience interested in playing Eliza can find applications at the door. Wednesday and Saturday matinee available."^[45] Pryce ended up dealing with four Elizas during the course of 14 months. Nevertheless, the show was nominated for four Laurence Olivier Awards on 2001: Best Actress in a Musical for Martine McCutcheon, Outstanding Musical Production, Best Theatre Choreographer and Best Actor in a Musical for Pryce. Pryce lost to Philip Quast, although ironically McCutcheon won in her category having played fewer performances than any of her understudies. Pryce did express interest in doing My Fair Lady in New York, but when asked if he would do it with McCutcheon he said that "there's as much chance of me getting a date with Julia Roberts as doing My Fair Lady in New York with Martine McCutcheon".^[27]

Pryce at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 2006

In April 2003 Pryce returned to the non-musical stage with A Reckoning, written by American dramatist Wesley Moore. The play co-starred Flora Montgomery and after premiering at the Soho Theatre in London was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of the most powerful and provocative new American plays to have opened since David Mamet's Oleanna."^[46] That year Pryce also landed a role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where he portrayed a fictional Governor of Jamaica, Weatherby Swann, a movie he described as "one of those why-not movies".^[27] After Pirates Pryce has appeared in several large-scale productions, such as De-Lovely (Pryce's second musical film), a chronicle of the life of songwriter Cole Porter, for which Kevin Kline and Pryce covered a Porter song called "Blow, Gabriel, Blow", The Brothers Grimm, Pryce's third film with Terry Gilliam, starred Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, and The New World, in which he had a cameo role as King James I. In 2005, Pryce was nominated for another Olivier Award in the best actor category for his role in the 2004 London production of The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, where he played Martin, a goat-lover that has to face the recriminations of his cheated-on wife, played by his real life wife Kate Fahy. Pryce's performance was highly praised, but he lost the Olivier to Richard Griffiths.^[47][48][49]

The following year, Pryce voiced over the French animated film, Renaissance, which he stated wanted to do because he had never "done anything quite like it before".^[50] That same year he reprised the role of Governor Weatherby Swann for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Both were filmed at the same time but released a year apart.^[51] Also, during 2006, Pryce returned to the Broadway stage replacing John Lithgow, from January to July, as Lawrence Jameson in the musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.^[52] During early 2007 Pryce played Sherlock Holmes in a TV miniseries, the BBC production Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.^[8] From September 2007 through June 2008, he returned to the theatre scene appearing as Shelly Levene in a new West End production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross at London's Apollo Theatre.^[53] He Later appeared in the BBC Three comedy series Clone as Dr. Victor Blenkinsop also starring Stuart McLoughlin and Mark Gatiss.In 2009 he appeared at the Donmar Theatre in the title role of Dimetos written by Athol Fugard and later that year made a sentimental journey back to Liverpool to appear as Davies in Pinter's 'The Caretaker' directed by veteran director Christopher Morahan. This transferred to London's Trafalgar Theater in early 2010. On television in 2009 he appeared as 'Mr Buxton" in the critically acclaimed 'Return to Cranford' and was nominated for an Emmy as Best Actor in a Mini Series.

He has an Honorary Doctorate from Liverpool University, is a fellow of WCMD and a companion of LIPA. He is a patron of the children's charity Friendship Works and of the surgical charity Saving Faces. Pryce was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.^[54]

Work[link]

Stage[link]

Incomplete list

• The Churchill Play (1974) as Mike McCulloch
• Comedians (1975) as Gethin Price (first appearance in America, 1977)
• Measure for Measure RSC (1979)
• Hamlet (1980) as Hamlet - Olivier Award for Best Actor
• Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1984) as The Fool
• Uncle Vanya (1989) as Astrov
• Miss Saigon (1989) as The Engineer - Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical
• Nine (1992 London concert performance) as Guido Contini
• Oliver! (1994 revival) as Fagin - Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical
• My Fair Lady (2001 revival) as Professor Higgins - Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical
• A Reckoning (2003) as Spencer
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2006) as Lawrence Jameson
• Glengarry Glen Ross (2007 London production) as Shelly Levene
• Dimetos (2009 at the Donmar Warehouse in London) as Dimetos
• The Caretaker (2010 at Trafalgar Studios) as Davies

Filmography[link]