We all know that Joffrey Baratheon on HBO’s Game Of Thrones is a real bastard… in every sense of the word. The boy king is hated by audiences so much, that sometimes fans find it hard to differentiate between the loathed character and the actor who portrays him, Jack Gleeson. Just the mere sight of Gleeson’s face, which has provided the background to countless internet memes and novelty t-shirts, incites a negative reaction. Just search Twitter for “King Joffrey” to see what people post about the character and what happens if someone bumps into the 21-year-old Irish actor, who’s a student at Trinity College, Dublin, on the street.

But over and over again, Gleeson proves that he’s a nice guy and even a good sport about the whole thing. A photo posted to Reddit shows the actor smiling while holding up a drawing of King Joffrey with the words “There’s no cure for being a cunt” (a quote about King Joffrey from the show) in a decorative banner around it. Check out the photo here below.

There was no caption, source, or explanation for the photo, just the headline: Jack Gleeson is a good sport.

Because Gleeson plays the hated character so well, author George R.R. Martin, creator of A Song of Ice and Fire book series on which the Game Of Thrones television series is based, reportedly sent the actor a congratulatory letter, stating, “Congratulations on your marvelous performance, everyone hates you.” The author has stated that Gleeson is actually “…really a very nice young man, charming and friendly.”

But, it’s no wonder Gleeson wants to give up acting to pursue an academic career – he’s “nasty King Joffrey” wherever he goes!

Gleeson, who had a small role as “little boy” in 2005’s Batman Begins, probably never thought he’d go the typecasting way of Fonzie and Spock – or should I say, more like The Karate Kid baddie William Zabka. If the young actor, who is actually quite adorable off-screen, had been cast in the Twilight movies instead of Game Of Thrones, he’d be a teen heartthrob instead of universally despised. Hopefully, after taking time off for his studies post-Thrones, Gleeson can return to the acting world and maybe go the way of Gary Oldman or his former Thrones co-star Sean Bean, both of whom were able to break out of their early on-screen villain typecasting.

Amazon.com Widgets

Follow me on Twitter.