The actor Jack Gleeson said that being in Game of Thrones, where he played one of the most hated characters on TV, made him lose interest in acting.
In the HBO fantasy show, the Irish actor played the bad guy, King Joffrey Baratheon, the bad heir to the throne in 2011.
Even though Gleeson was in one of the most popular TV shows in the world, he said that it made him less “passionate” about acting as it became his full-time job.
After he was done filming the HBO fantasy epic, Gleeson gave a talk at University College Dublin where he talked about his decision to stop acting.
It really come down to just not deriving as much enjoyment as I did from acting as I used to,
he told the students that he had started acting for fun when he was a child.
Even though he got his dream job, Gleeson found that it was very different from what he thought it would be.
I started acting when I was eight and really really loved it, you know. All I wanted to be was an actor when I grew up,
He was talking about his roles in 2005’s Batman Begins with Christian Bale and 2007’s Reign of Fire with Gerard Butler, which was also about dragons.
He admitted:
For some reason, I don’t know it became a bit kind of mechanical and less kind of passionate when I started Game of Thrones.
After starting the show when he was only 19, the actor started to lose interest in it as he got older.
He said it had nothing to do with how Game of Thrones was made, though.
I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the way they film it,
he added, saying:
I think when it became less of a recreation and more of a profession, it kind of put more pressure on the acting itself and made it a tiny bit less enjoyable.
Gleeson stopped acting after his character was brutally killed at his own wedding. He even went to school to become a teacher.
Even though he hasn’t said so, the Irish actor has been in a few projects since leaving the show in the fourth season.
He is even going to be in the upcoming thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners with Taken’s Liam Neeson and Kerry Condon, who has won a Bafta award.
We’re glad to see Jack Gleeson back on our screens, no matter what he does next.
