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"FacebookPinterest\n\n On Game of Thrones, Joffrey Baratheon inherits the Iron Throne of Westeros as a teenager, wielding his power like a kid using a magnifying glass to incinerate ants. He's not respected or feared by his people, he's simply loathed. This whopper of a role has been a breakout turn for Jack Gleeson, a twenty-year-old Irish student at Dublin's Trinity College, who couldn't be more charming. Where does all the on-screen nasty come from?\n\n\n\n\n\n GQ: What scared you as a child?\n\n Jack Gleeson: There's a big rock called the Skellig Rock, off the West Coast of Ireland, where monks used to go to escape from the Vikings\u2014they'd build their huts on it. I went with my family when I was really young and we had to climb the rock, which is almost vertical at points. That was when I knew that heights really, really freaked me out.\n\n GQ: What scares you now?\n\n Jack Gleeson: I chopped the top of my finger off in a door when I was running away from my cousin about five years ago. Ever since then, I've been very touchy around doors. They scare me a lot.\n\n GQ: Do you have a favorite fictional villain?\n\n Jack Gleeson: The HAL computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's terrifying because it has no empathy, and you can't rationalize with it as you would a human being. As for actors, Rutger Hauer was pretty perfect in Blade Runner. Just his eyes...\n\n GQ: What performances influenced King Joffrey's petulant brand of evil?\n\n Jack Gleeson: A big influence was Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator. Sometimes when I'm sitting on my throne, I think of Phoenix sitting on his, with that smirk on his face.\n\n GQ: Have you ever rooted for a villain?\n\n Jack Gleeson: There's a scene in Psycho, when Norman Bates has just killed Marion and put her in the trunk of a car and he's pushing the car into, like, a lagoon. The scene is so tense and you see his face and he's like, \"Oh, please. Can this car just go under...\" And you're like, \"Yeah, I hope so too, man, and I hope the cops don't come...\" But, wait a second, he just killed this girl for no reason! I was rooting for a murderer.\n\n GQ: When did you figure out you could, well, personify evil?\n\n Jack Gleeson: When I was auditioning for Joffrey. I only had one audition, and the producers and writers were laughing at my performance because I was being so snotty and arrogant. They found it comical. I thought that was good.\n\n GQ: Do you worry about repeating villainous clich\u00E9s?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Definitely. And I think my portrayal of Joffrey is very clich\u00E9d. It's something that's so easy to slip into because I've seen so many villainous characters on TV and onstage and in films. Joffrey is definitely informed by those performances.\n\n GQ: How much of Joffrey was on the page and how much is you?\n\n Jack Gleeson: I have to give all the credit to George R. R. Martin, the writer of the books the show is based on, because the character is so perfectly described and analyzed. I didn't need to create new characteristics or mannerisms, and the hair, makeup, and costumes helped as well.\n\n GQ: Was there one specific piece of his costume?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Joffrey's rings\u2014really decadent gold rings with opals\u2014helped me get into the character. You can play with them. And the crown, of course. It completely abstracts you form everyday life. When I put it on, I feel like everyone is subservient to me.\n\n GQ: Is the preparation different when you play a villain?\n\n Jack Gleeson: I think so. You have to tap into and embrace the negative feelings you try to repress in everyday life.\n\n GQ: Like what?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Feeling superior to everyone, for one thing. Arrogance is a weird emotion to take on, but you have to do it.\n\n GQ: Is that arrogance hard to shake when a scene is over?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Usually not, because after a long day of work, you're just happy to take off all your annoying armor and the costumes and just be yourself again. I'm quite relieved when I can stop being Joffrey.\n\n GQ: Do you think that Joffrey sees himself as a bad guy?\n\n Jack Gleeson: I think he sees himself as the hero of his own tale, the knight in shining armor. You look at the horrendous things he does, but he always justifies them in his head.\n\n GQ: Do you have a favorite Joffrey line?\n\n Jack Gleeson: I do, but it involves an explicit word beginning with \"C.\"\n\n GQ: It's okay. GQ readers can take it.\n\n Jack Gleeson: It's when Arya has just humiliated Joffrey by almost beating him up in season one. He's really embarrassed and says, \"I've got you, you cunt.\" I didn't like saying it to poor Maisie [Williams] but I loved shape of the words. The line was almost onomatopoeic\u2014a way to verbalize anger and embarrassment. Yeah...I really like that line.\n\n GQ: What do you think villains have in common with heroes? \n\n Jack Gleeson: A certain kind of confidence. Both believe that what they are doing is justified. Both villains and heroes need to have a steadfast belief in themselves.\n\n GQ: Do you think villains are born bad or made bad?\n\n Jack Gleeson: With Joffrey, the evil and malicious things he does are byproducts of the setting that he's been brought up, how his family behaves, and what he's been made to believe of himself. To me, he's been made bad.\n\n GQ: How evil, percentage-wise, would you say you are in your life?\n\n Jack Gleeson: A solid three-and-a-half percent. I'd be lying if I said I was zero. I try to be a nice person, but it's difficult sometimes.\n\n GQ: Is there a real-life villain you'd like to play?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Marcus Brutus, who assassinated Julius Caesar. He killed his leader for reasons that he felt to be righteous, so he's a good mix of villain and hero.\n\n GQ: Do you think that onscreen villainy has evolved?\n\n Jack Gleeson: Yes and no. There are certain complexities that you see in contemporary villains that you didn't see in the past. Like, you wouldn't see one-dimensional characters like Nosferatu on TV nowadays. But I was watching No Country for Old Men recently, and the villain in that, Antoine Shigurh [played by Javier Bardem], is quite simple in ways you've seen before. The audience knows little about him\u2014he is just pure evil. I think audiences will always like bad guys who kill for no apparent reason. We just like to hate them.\n\nFacebookPinterestundefined"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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