Max von Sydow

Carl Adolf von Sydow was born in Sweden on 10 April 1929 and built a 70-year career across more than 150 films in multiple languages. Ingmar Bergman cast him as the knight challenging Death in The Seventh Seal in 1957, a role that made him internationally visible and launched a collaboration spanning eleven films - Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Shame, The Touch. He made his American debut playing Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, then carved out a second life in genre pictures and prestige dramas: the priest in The Exorcist, the emperor in Flash Gordon, the sorcerer in Conan the Barbarian, a Bond adversary in Never Say Never Again, supporting turns in Minority Report, Shutter Island, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the Three-Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones. He earned two Oscar nominations - Best Actor for Pelle the Conqueror in 1987, Best Supporting Actor for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2011 - and honors from Cannes, Venice, and the French government. He died 8 March 2020, having moved between art-house austerity and blockbuster mythology without ever breaking stride.