I am made Hand of the King which gives me an enormous amount of power, which I use quite ruthlessly - but skilfully - and Dame Diana Rigg joins us [playing political mastermind the Queen of Thorns] and we have a couple of really good sparring moments.

Charles Dance

Categorized in : Kings Couple Queens

I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.

Charles Dance

mud looks way

It's a question of keeping one's eyes and ears open and watching how other people play the game. They're watching me too, to see what my attitude is like.

Charles Dance

eye games attitude

I was a window dresser for Burton's once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you're a natch at this.

Charles Dance

charles-i window thinking

I've done a couple of fan conventions and [the fans] are legion. They're rather like Star Wars or Star Trek fans. We're very glad of the loyal fans - but it's a strange way to spend your life, dressing up like Star Wars. At least we change our costumes - I don't spend 40 years dressed up as Tywin Lannister.

Charles Dance

couple stars war

On an independent film you're lucky if you get one, but ostensibly the job is the same. There's very little difference, apart from the knowledge that there's a captive audience at the end of it - which you can't always guarantee with a movie.

Charles Dance

independent differences jobs

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

Charles Dance

about-yourself objectives

I spent a lot of time [between takes] apologising to Peter Dinklage [Dance's on-screen son, Tyrion Lannister] because I treat him appallingly.

Charles Dance

peter treats son

I have to admit that I haven't read any of the books [of George Martin's "Game of Thrones"] and I don't refer to them. Apart from anything else they're very thick [in size] and they frighten me. A terrifying prospect.

Charles Dance

thrones games book

I don't think I've ever been asked to act out bad sex. It's not my style. I've been blessed with good rhythm.

Charles Dance

blessed sex thinking

I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

Charles Dance

clout roles giving

But the quality of writing in the series [game of Thrones] is paramount. That's probably why all of us are involved in this and all of us are quite so loyal to it, because we don't have to expend a lot of energy trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. The quality of the writing is really good, and that's what makes playing a character so enjoyable, whether he's heroic or villainous.

Charles Dance

writing pigs character

When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out.

Charles Dance

certain age

We get a successful television series or something, and next season they give you less time and less money, which is something I've never really understood. That doesn't happen with Game of Thrones.

Charles Dance

successful games giving

You have to be selfish to be an actor.

Charles Dance

selfishness selfish actors

If I talk about Charles Dance I am talking about something else, something I operate and wind up and have to make an impression with and use to transmit someone else's screenplay.

Charles Dance

use talking wind

A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.

Charles Dance

landing romantic men

Most films are written and made with a hero around 35, or even 25.

Charles Dance

film hero made

Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.

Charles Dance

conclusion next-day writing

A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?

Charles Dance

pick-me-up car names

Because [writers] Dan Weiss and David Benioff have done such a great job in adapting them, that's what we work with. It serves no purpose to anybody for actors to come onto a set with a well-thumbed copy of the source material and start querying why this or that line has been left out of the script. It's probably been left out for a good reason.

Charles Dance

actors purpose jobs