Fans of Game of Thrones know that evil King Joffrey got what he deserved. What is less-known is how uncomfortable actor Jack Gleeson is with our shallow, celebrity-worshipping culture. “Celebrity is revered almost religiously, both the institution and its quickly-growing member base,” he says, and he finds it ironic that some instant celebrities peddle products “whose sell-by dates outlast theirs.”
Gleeson, a philosophy student at Trinity College Dublin, spoke earlier this year at Oxford University about his sudden rise to fame and how it changed people’s attitudes to him, and how he himself changed. “Being a faceless member of a mob is far more comforting than teetering on a brittle pedestal one inch off the ground.”
