Game of Thrones star Jack Gleeson has finally cleared up the rumor about why he stepped away from acting after the show.
Many Netflix viewers tuning in to watch House of Guinness may be surprised to see the 33-year-old back on their screens.
Gleeson, best known for playing the sadistic King Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO show, stars in the new series as Byron Hedges.
The drama follows the Guinness family’s struggle for power after the death of patriarch Benjamin Guinness.
While Gleeson doesn’t play one of the Guinness children at the center of the plot or the main antagonist, portrayed by James Norton, his role marks his biggest screen part since being killed off on Game of Thrones.
A decade away from the screen
After his four‑season stint on Game of Thrones, where Joffrey became one of television’s most hated villains, Gleeson seemed poised for a major career.
But following his exit from the show, he largely disappeared from Hollywood, appearing only in a small indie film and a few TV episodes over the next ten years.
In a recent interview at the House of Guinness premiere, the Sandman star broke his silence on the long‑standing rumors about his absence from screen acting.
“Well, I can say, thankfully, it wasn't because I received any sort of abuse from anybody," he shared. "I know that can happen... I don't know, it can happen. People confuse the character with the actor. But after Game of Thrones, or even during, I was continuing to act."
"But it was more just with a theatre company I had set up with some friends in Dublin. And I don't know, I was just more into that at that time. But then I started to miss screen acting and I got back into it," he added.
Clearing up the ‘retirement’ talk
Gleeson’s comments echo and clarify remarks he made to Entertainment Weekly back in 2014 after Joffrey’s death, when he publicly said he was retiring from acting at 21.
At the time, he explained he’d been acting since he was eight years old, saying: “I just stopped enjoying it as much as I used to.
“Now there's the prospect of doing it for a living, whereas up until now it was always something I did for recreation with my friends, or in the summer for some fun. I enjoyed it.
“When you make a living from something, it changes your relationship with it. It's not like I hate it, it's just not what I want to do," he explained.
During his hiatus, Gleeson attended Trinity College Dublin and co‑founded a theatre company with friends - the same group he referenced at the Netflix premiere.
With the new Netflix series, Gleeson is once again taking on a significant screen role - his first since stepping back from Hollywood.
The series puts him alongside the Guinness family: Arthur (Anthony Boyle), Edward (Louis Partridge), Anne (Emily Fairn), and Ben (Fionn O’Shea).
House of Guinness is now streaming on Netflix.