A slim, sad-eyed and intense performer of stage, screen and TV, Pryce won a Best Supporting Actor Tony for his 1976 Broadway debut in "Comedians". The Welsh-born Pryce (who changed the spelling of his birth name, Price, to join Actors' Equity) began his career onstage in Liverpool and by the mid-1970s was appearing in London productions. With the Royal Court, National and Old Vic theatre companies, Pryce made impressions as a particularly rowdy Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew" (1978), in the title role of "Hamlet" (1980) and as Astrov in "Uncle Vanya" (1988). Pryce became a figure of controversy in August 1990, when the American Actors' Equity barred him from reprising his acclaimed West End performance as a Eurasian pimp in the Broadway version of the hit musical "Miss Saigon" (Equity objected to a Caucasian actor portraying a Eurasian character). The ruling was subsequently overturned (when the producers threatened to cancel the production) and Pryce went on to win a second Tony Award for his performance.
Pryce has made a handful of TV-movies since 1980, when he played Herod in "The Day Christ Died" (CBS). He appeared in the British productions "Praying Mantis" (shown on PBS in 1985), "The Man from the Pru" (shown on PBS in 1991) and "Thicker Than Water" (shown on A&E in 1994), as well as the American-made "Agatha Christie's 'Murder is Easy'" (CBS, 1982) and "Barbarians at the Gate" (HBO, 1993). Pryce's only TV series thus far has been the British comedy "Roger Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1982-83).
Feature films, as both star and character player, have kept Pryce busy on both sides of the Atlantic. His debut was in a small part in "Voyage of the Damned" (1976), about refugee Jews. Pryce marked time in such projects as "Breaking Glass" (1980) and "Loophole" (1981) before making his first impression as a manipulative journalist in Peter Greenaway's "The Ploughman's Lunch" (1983) and as the hapless clerk at the center of Terry Gilliam's dystopian epic "Brazil" (1985). Pryce's best showcases have been the 1985 historical thriller "The Doctor and the Devils", the dramatic ensemble piece "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), Martin Scorsese's lushly beautiful "The Age of Innocence" (1993) and his subtle, nuanced portrayal of British author Lytton Strachey in Christopher Hampton's "Carrington" (1995).
After his 1995 successes Pryce landed the role of Juan Peron opposite Madonna's "Evita" (1996), the long-awaited film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical, directed by Alan Parker. He continued as a psychiatrist deeply affected by the WWI soldiers he is treating in Gillies MacKinnon's "Regeneration" and landed the key villain role in "Tomorrow Never Dies" (both 1997), Pierce Brosnan's second outing as James Bond. After another eye-catching character turns in "Ronin" (1998) and "Stigmata" (1999) Pryce appeared in several UK productions, foreign films and television projects before returning to the big screen as Cardinal Louis de Rohan in "The Affair of the Necklace" (2001) opposite Hilary Swank. In 2003 Pryce was a welcome presence in the US/Brit teen comedy "What a Girl Wants" starring Amanda Bynes and "The Pirates of the Caribbean," as Keira Knightley's aristocratic father. After a stint playing a musical theater producer in the Cole Porter biopic "De-Lovely" (2004) Pryce reunited with Terry Gilliam to play the evil French general Delatombe in the director's fictionalized fantasy "The Brothers Grimm" (2005).
He next revived the befuddled Governor Weatherby Swann for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (2006), an energetic and worthy addition to the swashbuckling franchise that went on to break several box office records, including biggest single-day gross and biggest opening weekend ever, paving the way for the third installment, “Pirates of the Caribbean 3,” which was shot simultaneously with the second.