9. Jack Gleeson Joffrey Baratheon
Episode One: The North Remembers Commentators: Co-executive producers/co-creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss When actors play characters that are pricks exceptionally well, it's easy to assume that their skill comes from a lifetime worth of real experience from which to draw inspiration. Vince Vaughn is actually an asshole in real life, you say? I suppose next you'll tell me there's no such thing as Santa Claus! But just because someone is adept at playing a certain character type doesn't necessarily mean that they are that way once the cameras stop rolling. Sometimes it just means that they're exceptional actors. Case in point: Jack Gleeson, who plays arguably the most unlikable character currently on TV. Loved only when he's being slapped repeatedly, Joffrey Baratheon is the embodiment of remorseless evil, which is quite ironic considering he's portrayed by an actor that Benioff and Weiss describe as 'one of the nicest, gentlest, best read guys.' Despite his spectacular work on Game of Thrones, Gleeson doesn't want to pursue acting as a lifetime career. The 21-year old Gleeson, who allegedly likes smoking a pipe and reading Kierkegaard, instead wants to enter academia and is apparently on the fast track to excel at that as well. When he's not acting, Gleeson is a Trinity College Dublin Scholar. Benioff and Weiss don't go into detail as to what this means, so I'm going to step outside the bounds of the information that commentary provides in order to emphasize how impressive that accomplishment actually is. First off, there are over 4600 colleges/universities in the world and Trinity College in Dublin is ranked 65th and 110th by QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings respectively. Candidates for Scholarship at Trinity must be of 'exceptional ability' and past Scholars have included playwright/novelist/poet Samuel Beckett and Nobel laureate in Physics Ernest Walton. Gleeson's Scholarship is coming in the subject of Two Subject Moderatorship, which essentially means he's getting degrees in two different subjects at the same time. So, getting two degrees at the same time to earn one of the most prestigious awards offered by one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world? Kinda makes me feel like Gleeson would have somewhat of a valid claim if we would scream that everyone is his to torment.