The Spotlight Project - Jonathan Pryce

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Jonathan Pryce greeted me at his front door in his dressing gown. 'I'm running a little late. Would you like a coffee?' he asked as he lead me through his gorgeous house. I stammered something back and said I'd set my stuff up in the garden whilst he got dressed. Wow, even the garden was extraordinary. I found myself not star-struck as such but with a voice that's as recognisable as the face you can find yourself struck a little dumb by the uncanniness of the impression he does of his own voice. Does that make sense?

Anyway, when he returned he told me how he had recently had a portrait taken for a project which followed the basic premise of 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' (Andy Gotts work can be found here) which sounded like a brilliant idea, much better than mine. Once set up, I handed him his envelope and we began. As you can see below; the film actor's skill is often in making minute facial gestures speak volumes on the big screen. So no big reactions then. What I was amazed by was how perfectly he was able to copy his own expression from the picture for the front-on portrait I took.

He then told me that he still had the entire box of reproductions of this first headshot in the loft. He had had them done whilst at RADA but when he was snapped up by an agent one of the first things he was asked to do was to get new headshots and so the orignals remained unused. Until I came along. Click on any image to see a larger version.







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.