Max von Sydow

Max von Sydow (vɒn_ˈsiːdoʊ; Swedish: fɔn ˈsyːdɔv; born Carl Adolf von Sydow; 10 April 1929) is a Swedish actor who became a French citizen in 2002. He has appeared in many films in many languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. He received the Royal Foundation of Sweden's Cultural Award in 1954, was made a in 2005, and was named a on 17 October 2012. Sydow has appeared in well over a hundred films and TV shows. Some of his most memorable film roles include Knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957), the first of his eleven films with Bergman and the film that includes the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death; Martin in Through a Glass Darkly (1961); Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Oktober in The Quiller Memorandum (1966); Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants (1971); Roy Lindberg in The Apple War (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975); Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983); Liet-Kynes in Dune (1984); Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990); Lamar Burgess in Minority Report (2002); Josiah Kane in Solomon Kane (2009); Sir Walter Loxley in Robin Hood (2010); The Renter in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2012), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination; and Lor San Tekka in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). In 2016, Sydow joined the cast of HBO's hit series Game of Thrones, playing the role of the Three-eyed Raven for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.