Jack Gleeson, who plays King Joffrey Baratheon on "Game of Thrones," recently gave a public talk at Oxford University on the plague of celebrity obsession and why he's decided to retire from acting after "Game of Thrones." THE CANADIAN PRESS/ho-HBO Canada
January 19, 2014 - 6:15 AM
Given his pitch-perfect petulance on "Game of Thrones" portraying the truly loathsome King Joffrey Baratheon, you'd think 21-year-old Jack Gleeson would have his pick of roles once he's free from his commitments to the HBO mega hit.
But he says he's had enough.
The Irish actor recently gave a public talk at Oxford University on the plague of celebrity obsession and why he's decided to retire from acting after "Game of Thrones."
It's at about the seven-minute mark of his 30-minute chat that he talks about how his transition from unknown actor into celebrity turned him off acting, perhaps for good.
"(It was) a sharp shock when I realized that I had, unbeknownst to me, signed an invisible contract which required me to enter into a strange new echelon of society," Gleeson said during his very academic speech about charisma and the affliction of "celebrity worship syndrome."
"It was an atmosphere from which I instantly wanted to retreat. I detested the superficial elevation and commodification of it all.... We need to fight against our human instinct to deify our role models but also fight against the instinct to subjugate our own individuality in the process."
http://bit.ly/LgaasW
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What might've happened if the beloved football drama "Friday Night Lights" lived on a little longer?
According to Grey Damon, his character Hastings Ruckle was going to get his own major storylines, but when the decision was made to cancel the show, his close-up was cut.
He tells E! that the show's producers scrambled to give the series a clean ending and had to focus on wrapping up as many existing loose ends as they could.
http://eonli.ne/1cBkSAp
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Speaking of "Friday Night Lights," Kyle Chandler, who played coach Taylor, is the latest star to jump on the Netflix bandwagon. Deadline reports that he's signed up to star in a new Netflix original series, a 13-episode thriller to be made by the same producers who were behind "Damages."
http://bit.ly/19zXFni
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014