A true character actor in the best sense of the word, offbeat British thesp Peter Vaughan's hefty frame could appear intimidating or marshmallow benevolent; his beady, hollow eyes menacing or tender; his mere presence menacing or avuncular. Adept at playing both sides of the law, his characters usually possessed a strange, somewhat wary ...
There are at least two Peters. One is shy and reticent, the other is the wild Peter - with a great sense of humour.
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Luckily I'm not beautiful - otherwise I might have starved.
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If you're a character actor, you don't need to wait for the next leading role. But if you are a leading man you have to wait for the next part. Sometimes that means long periods without work.
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I have always approached every part I have done as if it will be my last, and that it's the one I will be judged by.
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(On Game of Thrones (2011)) "You never know who's going to have their head chopped off next! As far as anything as complex as that goes, if you're playing a part in it, the best thing to do is to concentrate on your own aspect of it, which for me was as Custodian of the Wall. So I really concentrated on all that and kept away from some of the other storylines - if you tried to keep abreast of everything that's going on, you'd drive yourself mad and not be quite so effective in your own performance. In my case, anyway, that's the way I've always worked."
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(On Porridge (1974)) "I was in just three episodes and, of course, the feature film, so I have to thank the writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais for the fact I'm one of the characters people always remember when they talk about Porridge (1974) because Grouty is so prominent - even though I'm not there. Everybody's frightened to death of him, so they talked about him a lot and so it was a huge character but I didn't have to be there. I more or less accidentally turned up in something special."
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(On Porridge (1974)) "I still get people saying 'Let you out, have they, Grouty?"
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(On Frank Sinatra) "The great thing about Frank was that you had to stand up to him very quickly. If you did that, he respected you, otherwise he'd walk all over you,"
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Obviously one's experiences inform one's acting. I think the more experience you have of life, the better it is for an actor. In terms of the parts I played, I think my face had more to do with it. Clearly I wasn't ever going to play romantic leads.
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Fact
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Is the father in law of Scottish actor Gregor Fisher.
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He was considered for many guest roles in Doctor Who (1963) - General Grugger in "Meglos", Aukon in "State of Decay", Sir Robert Muir in "Black Orchid", Ranulf in "The King's Demons", Colonel George Wolsey in "The Awakening", Lord Ravensworth in "The Mark of the Rani", Shockeye in "The Two Doctors", Orcini in "Revelation of the Daleks", Gavrok in "Delta and the Bannermen" and De Flores in "Silver Nemesis".
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Considered for Fallanda, Bukovsky, Dr.Armstrong and Sir Percy in Lifeforce (1985).
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Appeared in Game of Thrones (2011) with Sean Bean. Bean played Boromir in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, while Vaughan played Denethor - Boromir's father - in the BBC Radio drama.
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Had twice played a character who uses wheelchair in need of assistance in the restroom, once in Brazil (1985) and again in Death at a Funeral (2007).
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Had appeared in three different film versions of The Crucible as a different character each time.
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His brilliant performance as Denethor in the BBC radio dramatization of "The Lord of the Rings" is considered by some to be the unsurpassed and defining portrayal of this character.
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