Jack Gleeson returns to screens with House of Guinness after a decade away

Jack Gleeson, the Irish actor who rose to worldwide fame as Joffrey Baratheon, has returned to acting after more than a decade away, taking a leading role in Netflix’s House of Guinness. The new series, from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, features Gleeson as Byron Hughes, a character described by Netflix as ambitious, charming and mercurial. The show began streaming globally this week, marking Gleeson’s first major on-screen lead in years and his most prestigious role since his Game of Thrones days.

Gleeson was just 18 when he landed the part of Joffrey, the sadistic boy king who dominated Westeros from 2011 to 2014. After the character’s brutal death in the Purple Wedding, the Cork-born actor stepped away from the spotlight and swore off acting in 2014. He later explained that fame had begun to feel uncomfortable and that his passion for acting had faded rather than the craft itself being hateful. In a talk at University College Dublin, he said acting had become more mechanical and less joyful as he approached the GOT era, adding that money and public attention reshaped his relationship with the work. He also told Entertainment Weekly that the condition of turning acting into a living had altered how he connected to it, and he chose to pursue a quieter path instead of chasing superstardom.

During his years away from television, Gleeson dedicated time to theatre and to the Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, which he developed with fellow actor Aaron Heffernan. The hiatus was not spent in anonymity, but it was characterized by a deliberate withdrawal from the social and media frenzy that surrounded his GOT fame. Gleeson has described his life after Game of Thrones as a deliberate choice to protect his privacy and to rediscover a genuine love for performance outside the glare of the red carpet. He also studied theology and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, a path that reflects a broader artistic curiosity beyond screen work.

His return to screen acting began in the late 2010s, with theatre still a significant part of his career. He appeared in a BBC miniseries in 2020 and later joined projects including a run in Sex Education, a role in the Irish thriller The Land of Saints and Sinners, and the British adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five in 2023. He also appeared in The Sandman as Puck, signaling a broader re-emergence in high-profile projects and a comfort with genre-spanning roles. The Netflix revival of his screen presence culminates in House of Guinness, which casts him as Byron Hughes, a figure who sits at the periphery of a brewing dynasty while maneuvering within rival factions and shifting loyalties.

Gleeson has been deliberately private about his personal life, eschewing social media and limiting interviews. He married his longtime partner, Roisín O’Mahony, in 2022, a personal milestone that aligns with his long-stated preference for a quieter life away from the spotlight. He has often noted that the most difficult part of fame is the way it changes ordinary interactions, recalling in interviews how recognition can intrude on conversations with friends and family. Yet he has repeatedly expressed gratitude for past opportunities, including the financial stability that came with GOT and the chance to pursue other forms of art, including stage work and collaborative, smaller-scale projects.

In discussing House of Guinness, Gleeson described Byron Hughes as a character with a foot in two camps who uses that position to his advantage. He added that the role offered a fresh challenge: a lively, well-rounded man whose charm masks a more complex, perhaps self-serving, side. The actor has also spoken about the enjoyment of collaborating with a strong creative team and how the dynamic energy on set contributed to a sense of freshness in his performances. The experience marks a notable shift from the intense, single-note intensity of Joffrey, illustrating Gleeson’s range and his capacity to embrace roles that demand both wit and menace.

Across interviews over the years, Gleeson has tempered expectations about a return to the kind of global fame that defined his adolescence. He has confessed he once toyed with the idea of academia after GOT and has admitted that acting has to be something he enjoys deeply in order to sustain it. His comments about the celebrity world being superficial reflect a consistent theme in his public statements: he values the craft and the human connections it allows more than the status that comes with it. In Oxford Union remarks that drew millions of views, he argued that the culture around celebrity can be hollow and that he preferred a path where he could remain anonymous in daily life, even if he occasionally found himself recognized in ordinary settings.

With House of Guinness now streaming, Gleeson appears poised to reestablish himself on the global stage while avoiding typecasting as a former child star. The show, a Netflix-original drama centered on a brewing dynasty and fueled by Knight’s distinctive storytelling, positions Gleeson within a pedigree of ambitious contemporary television. It also underscores a broader trend in which actors who began their careers in youth are returning to screen acting after a long pause, bringing with them a maturity and perspective that can enrich high-profile projects.

House of Guinness is available to watch now on Netflix. As Gleeson navigates a role that blends charisma and complexity with a willingness to push into darker emotional terrain, industry observers will watch closely to see whether this marks a durable return to the screen for a performer who has long been associated with one of television’s most infamous characters and one of the most scrutinized arcs in modern TV history.