Like every "Game of Thrones" fan, Charles Dance was gobsmacked by last season's next-to-last installment.
That episode, "Red Wedding," made good on its title with a massacre staged by the bride's father, Lord Walder Frey, who meant to settle a score with his hall of guests, and did.
"I got quite a shock!" says Dance, speaking for everyone who saw it. "It was bloody in the extreme!"
The fact that Dance was caught off-guard is notable, since he's a star of the show. Indeed, the character he plays, Lord Tywin Lannister, had a hand in the bloodshed.
But he didn't actually appear in that episode, "and when I'm not in it, to be honest with you, I don't read the script," Dance says. "I catch up on what's happening when the episode airs."
If the scale of the series is vast, the source material is no less sprawling: the five-and-counting novels by George R.R. Martin in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.
"I still have not read the books," says Dance. "They frighten me, books that thick. And, anyway, we're dealing with an adaptation. I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from."
On-screen soon-to-be in-laws, Rigg and Dance have known and worked together for decades, including a 1997 British TV adaptation of "Rebecca." Little wonder they get on famously as they meet with a reporter at a Manhattan hotel.
The show's dozens of cast members include Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Jack Gleeson, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Emilia Clarke. Asked what drew him into this elite community, Dance smiles and answers, "The writing was good, the costumes are great and, eventually, the location catering was fantastic."
Tall and imperial, Dance, 67, grew up working-class in England and overcame a teenage stammer to devote himself to theater. His breakout project was the 1984 British TV hit "The Jewel in the Crown," which he followed with such films as "Michael Collins" and "Gosford Park" and the British miniseries "Bleak House," as well as lots of theater.
His first job: working as a dresser in the original West End production of "Fiddler on the Roof."
Then he landed a spot in a London repertory company with a crushing regime: "It was 16 plays in 16 weeks. 'What's my motivation?' 'Your weekly paycheck. Just learn the lines and don't bump into the furniture.'"
Learning the lines wasn't always possible, as when Dance's mind went blank during a performance of "Charley's Aunt." But he was rescued. "A co-star came onstage with a tray. 'Letter for you, sir.' And on the tray was the page I needed from the script."
Rigg and Dance are cracking up at their shared memories of starting out so long ago. But both are caught short by this inquiry: When did you know you had finally made it?
"When I could book a holiday," Dance replies after a bit of thought, "and know there was a job to come back to."
********and a pic by Mr Greenwich...on the set of The great fire
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