Lee Pace

Lee Grinner Pace (born March 25, 1979) is an American actor. Pace has been featured in film, stage and television. He currently stars as protagonist Joe MacMillan in AMC's Halt and Catch Fire. He also played Roy Walker/the Masked Bandit in the 2006 film The Fall. He has appeared in film series, including The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 as Garrett and The Hobbit trilogy as Thranduil. He played villain Ronan the Accuser in the film Guardians of the Galaxy, and starred as Ned in the ABC series Pushing Daisies for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2008.

Early life

Pace was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of Charlotte (née Kloeckler), a schoolteacher, and James Roy Pace, an engineer. He has two siblings, a sister named Sally and a younger brother named Willam Pace. As a child, Pace spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked in the oil business; the family later moved to Houston, Texas. Pace attended Klein High School in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, with future fellow actor Matt Bomer. Pace temporarily quit high school to act at Houston's Alley Theatre before returning to graduate. At the Alley, he appeared in productions of The Spider's Web and The Greeks. In 1997, Pace was accepted by the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of Group 30 (1997–2001), which also included actors Anthony Mackie and Tracie Thoms. While there, he acted in several plays, including Romeo and Juliet as Romeo, Richard III in the title role, and Julius Caesar as Cassius. He graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.