Gwilym Lee stands at the edge of the frame and keeps his face still while the lead does something outrageous. He does it so well we forget it is difficult, and he is never why we watched and never why we stopped.
Fi1m perspective
In The Great (2020), Grigor Dymov watches the emperor take his wife to bed and smiles, because the alternative is a grave. Most actors would play the smile as a mask and let us see the hatred behind it. Gwilym Lee plays it as the whole man: a courtier who has decided that being humiliated is a job, and who does the job well. We laughed at the scene, as Tony McNamara meant us to, and then felt slightly sick, because Lee never once let the smile slip and that was the horror of it.
That is what he does. He is the still one in a room of people behaving badly, and he never seems to be waiting for his line. It comes from the stage; he was acting with the RSC at 16 and spent his early career in classical theatre before television found him. Three series as DS Charlie Nelson in Midsomer Murders (2013–2016) taught him to hold a frame while somebody else has the plot.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) made him better known and did not make him better used. His Brian May is a close likeness, in look and by every account in voice, close enough to be unnerving. But Anthony McCarten's script casts the band as a sitcom family and gives Lee the part of the sensible one, which in a sitcom means the one who objects and is overruled. We scored the film 55 and stand by it; Lee is one of the few things in it that is exactly right, and the film has no idea what to do with him once the resemblance is established. Lee has been dry about what it did for him: "It would be a lie to say that the phone didn't stop ringing and I was turning down scripts endlessly. But there was certainly more interest, and it gives you a reference point."
The Great is the reference point that matters. Across three seasons (2020–2023) he had room to build a character rather than reproduce one, and Grigor got to be a person rather than a running joke. He was still surrounded by louder performers, Nicholas Hoult above all, and he still chose not to compete. The difference is that McNamara wrote the quiet as a plot rather than a gap.
The risk for an actor like this is furniture: handsome, reliable, and cut around. The leads, so far, have gone to other people, and Oddity (2024), Here (2024) and a second series of SAS Rogue Heroes are further ensemble work. Someone should give him a room to himself and see what he does when nobody is taking the light. Until then, watch The Great, an hour at a time, and keep an eye on the man at the edge of the table who is not saying anything.
Biography
Gwilym Lee is a British actor. He was born on 24 November 1983 in Bristol, England, and studied English literature at Cardiff University and drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Lee is known for playing guitarist Brian May in the film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Grigor Dymov in the series The Great (2020–2023). He appeared as DS Charlie Nelson in Midsomer Murders (2013–2016) and has taken roles in Jamestown (2017) and SAS Rogue Heroes (2022).
His stage work includes productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Donmar Warehouse. He received recognition in the Ian Charleson Awards for performances including Edgar in King Lear (2010).
