CONLETH HILL — LORD VARYS FROM GAME OF THRONES

CONLETH HILL — LORD VARYS FROM GAME OF THRONES

1. Conleth Seamus Eoin Croiston Hill (born 24 November 1964) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has performed on stage in productions in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. He has won two Laurence Olivier Awards and received two Tony Award nominations. He is best known for his role as Lord Varys in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2019).
2. Conleth Hill was born in Ballycastle in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
3. He has an older brother who works as a cameraman, a sister who is a producer, and a younger brother, Ronan, who is a sound engineer who has won four Emmy Awards for his sound mixing on Game of Thrones.
4. Conleth Hill graduated from St MacNissi’s College, Garron Tower, and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s (Clothworkers Company Scholar) acting program in 1989.
5. Hill made his Broadway debut in Marie Jones’ Stones in His Pockets. For his work in the Canadian production of the play, he received a Dora Mavor Moore Award. He played the German professor Max Staefel in a television adaptation of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002).
6. He played “Mum” to Peter Kay’s character, Geraldine McQueen, in Peter Kay’s Britain’s Got the Pop Factor… and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice,[11] a spoof on the talent show genre of programs. He also played the role of Edward Darby in the television series Suits.
7. From 2011 to 2019, Hill appeared as Varys in the television series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire.
8. Varys was born as a slave in the Free City of Lys and joined a traveling acting troupe. While the troupe was performing in Myr, a sorcerer bought the young Varys from the troupe’s leader, drugged Varys before removing his genitals and burning them in a brazier in a blood magic ritual, and afterward cast him into the streets. Varys turned to beg, prostitution, and ultimately theft to survive, but soon became known in Myr and fled to Pentos.
9. There he befriended a poor sellsword, Illyrio Mopatis, with whom he teamed up to steal valuables from other thieves and return them to their owners for a fee. Varys eventually realized that there was more to gain from stealing secrets instead of valuables and trained his spies to copy information from the wealthy and powerful. Varys and Illyrio became rich, and Varys’ reputation reached the ears of the King of Westeros, Aerys II Targaryen, who appointed Varys as his Master of Whisperers.
10. Jaime claims that Aerys saw traitors everywhere, and Varys was quick to point out any he missed. Apparently, when Rhaegar Targaryen intended to use a Tourney at Harrenhal to call a Great Council to deal with his father’s instability, and possibly dethrone him, Varys warned Aerys, and they attended the tourney. Sometime prior to the Sack of King’s Landing, Varys allegedly had Rhaegar’s infant son Aegon swapped with a lowborn baby and smuggled to Essos to be raised in hiding by Rhaegar’s friend Jon Connington, who was exiled by the Mad King for failing to defeat Robert.
11. Varys remains Master of Whisperers after Robert Baratheon seizes the Iron Throne but his true loyalties are implied to lie with Aegon, with his motivations and reasons for supporting Aegon largely remaining a mystery.
12. Martin hinted, in a February 2013 post on his website, that he thought Hill would be a good choice to play the title character in a TV show based on Martin’s science fiction novel Tuf Voyaging.
13. He appeared in Series 2 episode 2 of Peter Kay’s Car Share as Elsie, the drunk deli counter supervisor dressed as Smurfette.
14. He has a net worth of $2 million.