Jonathan Pryce in Slow Horses
Jonathan Pryce plays David Cartwright, the former intelligence officer whose experience helped shape his grandson River’s ambitions. His appearances run through Series 1–5. David’s scenes create a different atmosphere from the workplace: River can ask for advice as a younger agent, but he is also speaking to somebody whose opinion matters beyond professional success.
Pryce gives the early conversations a measured confidence. David can make a question sound reassuring while carefully deciding what his answer should reveal. Opposite Jack Lowden, the performance depends on a shared familiarity that does not need to be explained from the beginning each time. Affection and authority occupy the same small domestic space.
The introduction in Series 1, episode 1 is a useful place to begin. River has just suffered a professional humiliation, and the visit shows why his grandfather’s judgement carries a weight that Lamb’s insults cannot reproduce. Pryce’s contribution is quieter than much of the series’ comic dialogue, giving the story a place to register the personal cost of its institutional failures.
What he has said about David
In a June 2026 interview with TheWrap, Pryce explained that he deliberately avoided reading ahead in the novels. He preferred learning about David’s changing circumstances through the scripts rather than steering every early scene towards developments he already knew were coming.
He also spoke about the responsibility of portraying dementia sympathetically. That concern has practical consequences for the performance: a scene needs to remain about David as a person, rather than turning him into a collection of symptoms. Pryce can preserve moments of pleasure and connection even as the story changes what River is able to expect from him.
Standout scenes and interview: Series 4–5 spoilers
The opening of Series 4 puts David’s deteriorating memory inside a violent intelligence crisis. Later, the finale asks Pryce and Lowden to carry the painful conflict over moving him into residential care. The sequence gives no easy equivalence between loving somebody and agreeing with what they want.
For the care-home visit in Series 5, episode 6, Pryce told TheWrap he wanted David to seem content rather than perpetually distressed. His conversation about bees also helps River identify the continuing threat. The scene lets David retain an individual presence and a useful contribution without pretending that the underlying illness has disappeared.
Career highlights and awards
Pryce’s stage career includes two Tony-winning performances: his Broadway debut in Comedians, recognised in 1977, and the Engineer in Miss Saigon, recognised in 1991. The roles demonstrate markedly different demands, from a play about comedy and its moral choices to the scale and musical discipline of a major theatrical production.
His leading screen role as Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) remains a particularly rewarding companion to Slow Horses. Its bureaucratic nightmare offers another world where institutions become dangerous through their own procedures. Pryce provides the human centre of a film whose machinery continually overwhelms individual intentions.
He played Lytton Strachey in Carrington (1995), Juan Perón in Evita (1996), and media magnate Elliot Carver in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). That last credit gives viewers a striking reversal: instead of a retired intelligence officer advising a younger man, he plays the powerful antagonist constructing an international crisis.
In The Two Popes (2019), Pryce portrayed Jorge Bergoglio, who becomes Pope Francis, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Benedict XVI. The Academy nominated Pryce for Actor in a Leading Role at its 2020 ceremony. This is one Oscar nomination, rather than an Oscar win or a series of nominations; the distinction matters when describing an otherwise extensively honoured career.
Television roles include the High Sparrow in Game of Thrones and Prince Philip in The Crown, beginning with its fifth series in 2022. The Television Academy records his 2024 supporting-actor nomination for The Crown and guest-actor nominations for David Cartwright in 2024 and 2026. The latter nominations identify the Slow Horses episodes “Footprints” and “Scars”.
Across these roles, authority takes very different forms: religious conviction, royal status, financial influence or an intelligence officer’s private knowledge. David is distinctive because that authority is tested inside a family relationship. Pryce’s career makes the contrast rewarding without requiring the character to become a retrospective tribute to his earlier performances.
Where to watch next
Brazil is the first recommendation for viewers drawn to intelligence stories’ distrust of systems. The Two Popes offers an intimate two-actor structure, with conversation doing much of the dramatic work.
Choose Tomorrow Never Dies to see Pryce in a more flamboyant espionage setting as Elliot Carver. The Crown, particularly its fifth and sixth series, supplies a longer television performance as Prince Philip and a further study of public authority carrying private complications.
Questions and answers
Who plays River’s grandfather in Slow Horses?
Jonathan Pryce plays David Cartwright, the retired intelligence officer whose relationship with River connects family history with the Service.
Was Jonathan Pryce nominated for an Oscar for The Two Popes?
Yes. He received a 2020 Actor in a Leading Role nomination for playing Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis.
Which character does Jonathan Pryce play in The Crown?
He portrays Prince Philip in the fifth and sixth series, taking over the role for the drama’s later period.