He didn’t hold back in any of his countless violent scenes nor shy away from the jaw-dropping events that lay on the script before him.
George R. R. Martin, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and the writing team deserve a lot of credit for this of course, but Iwan Rheon really brought their words and direction to life.
King Joffrey looked to have things sewn up in the “petulant, spoilt, malevolent heir” stakes in Game of Thrones, but, over the past few seasons Ramsay Bolton has become the most reviled and therefore, looking at him dispassionately, revered villain in the show.
A gleeful, cackling villain is nothing new of course, but Rheon portrayed Bolton with such unbelievably maniacal cheeriness, delivering the news that he’s about to peel your fingernails off with the chirpy, quotidian intonation of an invite to a tea party.