Less than thesping - Game of Thrones bad acting roll-call

Warning: Spoiler Alert! And by that, I mean not only will I allude to things that happened in Season 4, but my churlishness may lead to accusations of being a spoil-sport.

Friends of ours who are fellow fans of Game of Thrones are divided over Season 4.

“It was filler. It’s setting the story up for later seasons.”

“It was boring.”

“It had too many scenes of women being abused. More rape than I was comfortable watching in a TV show – even if it IS HBO.”

“Best fight scenes ever.”

“Joffrey gets it. Awse.”

“There were too many stories competing for our interest.”

Having just finished watching Season 4 on DVD (yes, Muddy and I are the only people left who buy and watch TV shows LEGALLY), I concur with all of these comments. My love for the show hasn’t diminished at all, but it was difficult to stay focused some of the time because of the strange ebb and flow of the story and the introduction of sidebar characters. Season 4 was the proverbial mixed bag of nuts – some salted roast cashews mixed in with the stale raw hazelnuts.

One thing I noticed, and not for the first time, is how unreliable the acting is throughout the show. Some actors are consistently good while others are consistently awful. In this regard, Game of Thrones is not unlike Rome or The Tudors – people are cast according to acting skill, OR how they fill out (or fall out of) a toga/caftan/starched neck ruff/full body armour OR their sheer physicality OR to satisfy the local actors’ union equity rules. In small roles, it’s not really an issue, but when you have a pivotal character played by an oxygenated mannequin, you’re in trouble.

So, here is my list of the Top 5 Best Actors on Game of Thrones and the Top 5 Crappiest Actors on Game of Thrones (who aren’t bad enough to bring down a whole show, but bad enough to warrant making it to this list).

Top 5 Best Actors

1.       Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister). Whether skinning a deer while lecturing his shallow pretty-boy son about his responsibilities, or quizzing his dumb-arse grandson about what makes a good king, Dance makes acting your pants off look easy. He has presence, a steely blue-eyed gaze and the automatic respect of the other characters in the show, as well as the audience. But even when he’s not reminding everyone who’s boss of King’s Landing, Dance exposes his character’s weakness and vulnerability just as effectively – and more subtly. In Season 1, when he faces off against Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) over a long table and carafe of wine, you see Tywin’s dawning awareness that this ‘imp’, this monster he despises, might actually be the smart, strategic son Jaime will never be. In Season 4, when Cersei confesses she’s been shagging her brother and her children are not Baratheons, you can sense the split-second of hesitation before Tywin remembers who he is and hits Green on his Denial Button. Face it - who else but Charles Dance could look dignified while getting killed on the bog.

2.       Iain Glen  (Ser Jorah Mormont).  I will confess to being a long-time fan of Iain Glen since watching him in the television show The Fear. The very pretty, feline blonde 80s hottie has morphed into a ruggedly handsome and weather-beaten middle-aged man. The leading man potential he showed in the 80s has dimmed, relegating him to supporting status in television and independent films. No matter, he still possesses more actorly authority in his little finger than most actors working today – or the ones on Game of Thrones. Ser Jorah’s guilty feelings over his initial deceit, his open admiration for Dani as he gently coaches her in the ways of Realpolitik and his suppressed love for her are wonderful to watch. Glen mines the character’s ambiguity to great effect. It was heartbreaking to see the dismay (followed immediately by stoic acceptance) on his face when he was finally exposed and confronted for his betrayal at the end of Season 4. How does one face convey so much conflicting emotion so well?

3.       Dame Diana Rigg (Olenna Tyrell). No explanations required. Dame Diana’s matriarch makes all the pretty young things look amateurish and strained. Only Natalie Dormer’s Margaery can hold her own in a one-to-one with this talented old bird. Watching Diana Rigg and Charles Dance do their joint thesping thing is a joy to behold.

4.       Aidan Gillen  (Lord Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish). The part of King's Landing’s chief pimp and money-grubber is the tastiest one on the show (with Varys the eunuch a close second), so theoretically, the worst actor in the world couldn’t fuck this up. Thank God then for Aidan Gillen, who most certainly can act and put on a flat, regionless BBC accent that cleverly conceals his Irish brogue (as thick as just-poured Guinness), but only some of the time – his ‘r’s have that lovely Celtic drag. Scumbag procurer, betrayer, casual murderer and bullshit artist of the first order, Gillen’s Littlefinger is really just the emotionally wounded little boy channelling his childish fury at Catelyn Stark for failing to notice him. Could the whole problems of Westeros be sheeted to one tiny nerd who hasn’t got over being ignored by the most popular girl in school?

5.       Liam Cunningham  (Davos Seaworth). A wonderful presence and great foil to the also terrific but woefully underused Stephen Dillane (Stannis Baratheon). Where Dillane is expected to do no more than scowl 24/7 (proving Stannis is little more than a cipher and giving Dillane nothing to work with), Cunningham’s Seaworth is the wily, scrappy, second-in-charge who has to use everything in his arsenal to convince his boss to stop being a dickhead. His scenes with Stannis’ adorable daughter Shireen in Seasons 3 and 4 provide warmth and much-needed light relief – they’re two wise old souls shaking their heads at everybody else’s stupidity and susceptibility.

Special mentions: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister); Peter Vaughan (Blind Maester Aemon Targaryen) and Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell).

Top 5 Worst Actors

1.       Lena Headey (Cersei Baratheon nee Lannister) There’s no doubt this woman looks great in a quasi-medieval gown – she’s tall, has good posture and a graceful neck. She wears her wig of tresses with aplomb. But Lena Headey is a seriously crappy actress. It’s easy to say Cersei is a straightforward evil conniving bitch - all Headey has to do is deliver her mean lines in a mean voice and take mean slurps of wine in between mean pauses. Wrong. Cersei’s also a clever, strategic woman justifiably bitter at being underestimated by her father, husband, brother and just about every other bloke she comes across. There’s complexity in the character - but absolutely none in Headey’s performance. Hell, there’s more complexity in the red cordial she sloshes around. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, her acting ‘has two moves’: Eyebrows Knit 1 and Eyebrows Purl 1.

2.       Emilia Clarke  (Daenerys ‘Dani’ Targaryen). Oh boy. From her Season 1 performance as a stunned mullet child-bride to her Season 4 performance as a stunned mullet child-queen, Ms Clarke has displayed the complex range of emotions expected from someone hired because she looks great in cut-out dresses. These emotions consist of “Blink”, “Don’t-Blink”, “Dead-eyed Stare” and “Vaguely Worried”. Her uber-femininity set against the physicality of the Dothrakis highlighted her vulnerability in Season 1, but Dani’s evolution from scared pawn to scary Empress needs a defter actress – especially someone who can hold her own against two acting stalwarts Iain Glen and Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan Selmy).

3.       Kit Harington  (Jon Snow). He rocks a beard and a mane of hair and wears his armour well, but I will continue to call him “Fifty Shades of Frown”. He broods and he fumes. He does fuck-all else. He and Lena Headey should challenge each other to a brow-off.

4.       Gwendoline Christie  (Brienne of Tarth). I don’t want her on this list, really. She’s such a one-of-a-kind presence – huge at 6’3” and built like the proverbial brick shithouse – and has been mentored by the likes of acting legend Simon Callow, but she is a severely limited actress. To be fair, not much is asked for her except that she look impressive in her gear and ride a horse convincingly, be honourable and steadfast and all that chivalrous shit. But still, her acting arsenal consists of frowning, fuming and clenching her jaw. Not unlike Kit Harington (Jon Snow).

5.       Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei). She keeps excellent company with Emilia Clarke which is probably why she was cast as Dani Targaryen’s scribe/interpreter. Proof you can land an acting gig on any tits-and-toga / sword-and-sorcery / butts-and-battles HBO epic provided you can go bra-less.

Special mentions: Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark) and Sibel Kekilli (Shae).