Lee Pace

Actor

• Born: March 25, 1979
• Birthplace: Chickasha, Oklahoma

Contribution: Lee Pace is an Emmy-nominated American actor best known for his roles on the television series Pushing Daisies (2007–9) and Halt and Catch Fire (2014–17) as well as films such as The Fall (2006), the Hobbit trilogy (2012–14), and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

Background

Lee Grinner Pace was born on March 25, 1979, in Chickasha, Oklahoma. When he was a young child, his family lived for several years in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where his father had a job with an oil company. After returning to the United States, the family settled in Texas. Pace attended Klein High School, where he became interested in theater and acting after chronic earaches forced him to give up competitive swimming. He began auditioning for and performing in various local theater productions at Houston's Alley Theatre as a teenager.

After graduating from high school in 1997, Pace was accepted into the Juilliard School's highly competitive acting program in New York. During his studies there, he performed in productions of Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, and Julius Caesar. Pace graduated in 2001 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in performing arts. Soon after he appeared in an Off-Broadway production of The Credeaux Canvas at Playwrights Horizons' Anne G. Wilder Theater.

Career

In 2003 Pace made his television debut when he starred in the Showtime biopic Soldier's Girl. Pace portrayed Calpernia Addams, a real-life transgender nightclub performer whose relationship with US Army soldier Barry Winchell caused Winchell's fellow soldiers to harass and eventually murder him. Pace was universally praised for his performance, earning a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a motion picture made for television. In 2004, Pace's performance in a Playwrights Horizons production of Small Tragedy earned him a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for outstanding actor.

Pace quickly came to prominence, and in 2004 he took on a starring role on the new Fox series Wonderfalls. The show, a fantasy drama set at a gift shop at Niagara Falls, failed to find an audience and was canceled midseason.

After Wonderfalls went off the air, Pace quickly found supporting roles in features such as The White Countess (2005) and Infamous (2006). After starring in the independent adventure film The Fall (2006), Pace landed a small supporting role in Robert De Niro's historical spy film The Good Shepherd (2006), about the founding of the Central Intelligence Agency. Pace earned his second Lucille Lortel Award nomination for outstanding actor in 2007 for his performance in the Culture Project's production of Guardians.

Pace had his mainstream television breakthrough when he was cast in the lead role of Ned on the ABC series Pushing Daisies, which first aired in October 2007. Ned is a baker who possesses the ability to resurrect the dead. The show received critical praise for its unusual premise and style and its talented acting pool. In 2008 Pace was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series and a Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in a television series. Pushing Daisies suffered from declining viewership in its second season, however, and ABC canceled the series in 2009.

Pace remained active after the show ended with a supporting role in the 2009 drama A Single Man, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. After playing a small part in the romantic comedy When in Rome the following year, Pace starred in the comedy Marmaduke, a film based on the comic strip of the same name.

Over the next few years, Pace had appearances in several independent films, including Ceremony (2010) and The Resident (2011). Pace made his Broadway debut in 2011 in the Tony Award–winning revival of The Normal Heart at the John Golden Theatre. Pace then was cast in a small role in the final installment of the hugely popular Twilight Saga film series, Breaking Dawn Part 2. He then landed a minor role in Steven Spielberg's 2012 historical drama Lincoln, portraying US congressional representative Fernando Wood. Pace rounded out 2012 by starring as composer Vincenzo Bellini in Terrence McNally's Off-Broadway production of Golden Age at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Pace next appeared as the elf Thranduil in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), the first installment of director Peter Jackson's trilogy of films based on J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit. He would reprise the role in the subsequent entries in the series, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). In 2014 Pace also had a lead role as the villain Ronan the Accuser in the hit superhero movie Guardians of the Galaxy, part of the extremely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe. That same year he also began starring in the AMC cable series Halt and Catch Fire, which would run for four seasons into 2017. The critically acclaimed series dramatizes the emergence of personal computers in the 1980s and the subsequent rise of the World Wide Web in the 1990s.

Pace continued to appear in a variety of films, including both Hollywood fare such as the drama The Book of Henry (2017) and Driven (2018) and more independent works, such as the sci-fi action movie Revolt (2017) and the drama The Party's Just Beginning (2018). In 2018 he also returned to the stage in the key role of Joe Pitt in a production of the acclaimed Tony Kushner play Angels in America by the National Theatre beginning in 2018. Pace returned to the role of Ronan the Accuser in the blockbuster Captain Marvel (2019).

Impact

A classically trained actor, Pace made a successful career out of playing both comedic and dramatic parts in film and television as well as on the stage. He became known for fully committing himself to roles and largely avoiding the celebrity status given to other actors.

Personal Life

In his spare time, Pace was known to enjoy biking, reading novels, playing video games, and spending time with his dog. He publicly came out as a member of the queer community in 2018, noting the potential to be an inspiration for others, after previously maintaining a high level of privacy about his personal life.

Principal Works

Film

Infamous, 2006

The Fall, 2006

Possession, 2008

Marmaduke, 2010

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn–Part 2, 2012

Lincoln, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 2012

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 2013

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014

The Program, 2015

The Keeping Hours, 2017

The Book of Henry, 2017

Revolt, 2017

The Party's Just Beginning, 2018

Driven, 2018

Captain Marvel, 2019

Television

Soldier's Girl, 2003

Wonderfalls, 2004

Pushing Daisies, 2007–9

Halt and Catch Fire, 2014–17

Stage

Small Tragedy, 2004

Guardians, 2006

The Normal Heart, 2011

Golden Age, 2012

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, 2018

Bibliography

Pace, Lee. "Keeping Up with Lee Pace." Interview by Gillian Mohney. Interview. Interview Magazine, Aug. 2004. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.

Pace, Lee. "Lee Pace Is Living in His Golden Age of Acting." Interview by Brian Scott Lipton. TheaterMania. TheaterMania.com, 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.

Pace, Lee. "Lee Pace: Tall People Just Shouldn't Dance." Interview by Jarett Wieselman. New York Post. NYP Holdings, 7 Mar. 2011. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.

Pace, Lee. "Stage and Screen Actor Lee Pace Talks Shop." Interview with Nell Alk. BlackBook. BlackBook, 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 Aug. 2013.

Piepenburg, Erik. "Sicilian Prelude to a Stage Actor's Work." New York Times 25 Nov. 2012: AR6. Print.

Schneier, Matthew. "Lee Pace Came Out Seven Times a Week. Then He Came Out for Real." The New York Times, 4 June 2018,www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/style/gay-actors-on-broadway-lee-pace.html. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.