Carl Adolf "Max" von Sydow (10 April 1929 – 9 March 2020) was a Swedish veteran character actor with a career spanning more than six decades.
After getting his break in Swedish movies, notably in Ingmar Bergman's works such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Through a Glass Darkly, he began working internationally in the mid-'60s. Through the decades, he played (among many others) Jesus, a fairly badass servant of Jesus, Satan, Blofeld, Ming the Merciless, Liet-Kynes, and Robin Hood's dad, and all in half a dozen different languages. While he never won an Academy Award, he was nominated twice, for Pelle the Conqueror in 1987 and for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2012. He also received two Golden Globe Award nominations and two Primetime Emmy Award nominations during his career.
Von Sydow spent his final years in France and held dual Swedish and French citizenship. Despite appearances he was, by his own admission, an awful chess player.
Partial filmography:
- Miss Julie (1951)
- The Seventh Seal (1957)
- Wild Strawberries (1957)
- Brink of Life (1958)
- The Virgin Spring (1960)
- Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
- Winter Light (1963)
- The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
- Hour of the Wolf (1968)
- Skammen (1968)
- En Passion (1969)
- The Emigrants (1971)
- The Touch (1971)
- The New Land (1972)
- The Exorcist (1973)
- Three Days of the Condor (1975)
- Illustrious Corpses (1976)
- Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
- Brass Target (1978)
- Flash Gordon (1980)
- Death Watch (1980)
- Conan the Barbarian (1982)
- Flight of the Eagle (1982)
- Strange Brew (1983)
- Never Say Never Again (1983)
- Dune (1984)
- The Last Place on Earth (1985)
- Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- Pelle the Conqueror (1987)
- Ghostbusters II (1989)
- The Ox (1991)
- The Best Intentions (1992)
- The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1993)
- Needful Things (1993)
- Citizen X (1995)
- Judge Dredd (1995)
- Hercules (1997) (the Swedish voice of Zeus)
- What Dreams May Come (1998)
- Minority Report (2002)
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
- Rush Hour 3 (2007)
- Robin Hood (2010)
- Shutter Island (2010)
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
- The Force Awakens (2015)
- Game of Thrones (Season 6, 2016)
Associated Tropes
- The Big Guy: He stood at 6'4 and usually towered over many of his co-stars.
- Cool Old Guy: Many of his later roles had him play parts like this.
- Icy Blue Eyes: His striking blue eyes were a major part of his appeal.
- Irony as She Is Cast: He is one of a select few actors ever to play both God and Satan. In Real Life, he was an agnostic.
- Large and in Charge: His naturally commanding presence was aided by his imposing stature.
