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- Lee Pace’s Injury Ended His Love Of Swimming
- How Lee Pace Became An Actor
Lee Pace has become one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood thanks to playing Ronan The Accuser in the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel as well as the Elven King Thranduil in the much-maligned Hobbit movies. But his die-hard fans are far more acquainted with his acclaimed leading role in ABCs Pushing Daisies. Then there’s also Halt and Catch Fire, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Lincoln, Wonderfalls, and his tremendous career in theater.
Point is, Lee Pace is an actor through and through. But in an interview with Vulture, he revealed that becoming an actor wasn’t his first dream. In fact, he only became an actor after his first dream was shattered…
Lee Pace’s Injury Ended His Love Of Swimming
Lee Pace did not have an ordinary childhood. While his mother, Charlotte, was a schoolteacher, his father, James, was an engineer in the oil business. This took him from Chickasha, Oklahoma to Saudi Arabia, where he spent quite a few years of his youth. Pace’s family later moved back to the States, but to Houston. So, there was a lot of moving around.
“We would be in a place for about two years and then move on, so I didn’t have many friends,” Lee Pace admitted in an interview with Vulture.
It makes sense that Pace connected with fiction as it offered him company as well as a way to escape his loneliness.
“A lot of the people I connected to were characters in stories I read and watched. One of my favorite movies, that I’ve probably seen more than any other movie, is Labyrinth,” he continued.
But as much as stories moved him, joining the theater or film industry wasn’t his dream. At least, not yet.
When Lee Pace was young, he really wanted to be a swimmer. And he was getting really good at it until he was forced to stop…
“I was a competitive swimmer for years. Then came a time, right before seventh grade, when I had a lot of damage in my ears,” Pace admitted to Vulture. “They’d have to poke a hole in my eardrum every year. It was so painful. I had to stop swimming, and I was devastated about it. I thought my life was over. You know how it is at that age. I thought I was going to die. And my mother responded by saying, ‘Well, you’re real dramatic! Why don’t you try theater arts?'”
How Lee Pace Became An Actor
While Lee Pace’s initial dream was to become a swimmer, he soon fell into acting. This was mostly due to the damage to his eardrums but also because his mother encouraged him to compete in drama tournaments. This was perfect for Pace as he was still extremely competitive from his swimming days.
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In his interview with Vulture, the MCU star admitted to “fighting like hell” to win these drama competitions.
“There would be drama tournaments where you would do about ten minutes of a dramatic play or a humorous play, and you would have to play all the characters. You would be having a dialogue with yourself. It was absurd! You would show up in these math classrooms, and one of the other kid’s moms would be the judge, and you would just act your face off!” Pace explained to Vulture.
During this time, Pace was attending a large high school in Texas that had an advanced drama department. This is where he not only found an element of the community but really developed a knowledge of his future craft.
“We would pass around Stanislavsky and Uta Hagen. It was the first time I read Angels in America because at that time it was just coming off-Broadway. I was exposed to all these other people I had a lot in common with, and I felt an aspiration toward these characters I would read in plays. I’d feel like, I know nothing about being a man whose marriage is falling apart, but I want to try that on for a while.”
From there, Pace literally didn’t want to do anything else with his life. He was consumed with acting and the world of theater.
“I was very determined once I started doing it, and I wasn’t good at anything else. I had no other options!” Lee Pace admitted to Vulture. “I actually started working with the Alley Theatre in Houston. They cast me in some stuff my senior year of high school, so I stopped going to school and started doing that instead. My parents were probably really concerned for me, but I wasn’t listening. I think they appreciated my foolish, driven, I’m gonna do this insane thing with my life attitude.”
Pace’s parents may have felt momentary relief when he was accepted to the prestigious Juilliard, where he attended from 1997 to 2001. It was the only school he auditioned for. But he was so competitive and so determined to get in. He could imagine no other avenue.
“It’s insane, actually, that I was pinning my future on that.”
Lee Pace’s time at Juilliard opened the door to the world of theater. But it also got him into Hollywood. His first role was in a Showtime movie called Soldier’s Girl in 2003. This was followed up by Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland’s Wonderfalls, which effectively launched his career in showbiz.
