10 Best Performances In Game Of Thrones

No one commands the screen quite like Charles Dance. A legendary actor who oozes sophistication and prowess into every scene he's in, Dance played the patriarch of the Lannister family and Hand of the King Tywin Lannister for four seasons on Thrones.

A cold and calculated mastermind, everyone bent to his whim and he was ruler of the Seven Kingdoms in all but name. A role like Tywin can almost be too big to cast. What is demanded of such a character can be tricky to accomplish when you're trying to convince an audience that this man is essentially untouchable.

Dance smashes the part, he lives and breathes intensity and he manages to steal nearly every sequence he'd part of. He'd probably place far higher if the character had more opportunity to show range but that's okay because instead we get an excellent portrayal of a man always in control until the moment he wasn't.

Of all the various deaths on Thrones, no one's absence is felt as strongly as Tywin's. The perfectly cast Lord of Casterly Rock.