Under-the-Radar Hunk Lee Pace Makes Waves with 'Foundation' Trailer
Out actor Lee Pace could be considered Hollywood's most under-the-radar out hunk. The 6'5" actor is currently turning heads with his all-too-brief shirtless moments in the trailer for Season 2 of AppleTV+'s "Foundation," which dropped this week ahead of its streaming next summer.
The show's 10-episode first season ran from October through November last year. Loosely based on the "Foundation" series of stories by Isaac Asimov, Pace plays an all-powerful leader of the 12,000-year-old Galactic Empire. The show has a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In his positive review Critic Max Covill recommends the series, writing: "For me, the two other most compelling characters are easily those played by Lee Pace and Jared Harris. Whenever these two actors are giving elaborate speeches or chewing the scenery, 'Foundation' soars to its epic science-fiction heights."
The 43-year-old Pace can also be seen in A24's "Bodies Bodies Bodies," a 2022 American black comedy horror film directed by Halina Reijn in which he plays a mysterious older boyfriend to millennial Rachel Sennott. The film was described by Owen Gleiberman in Variety this way: "'Bodies Bodies Bodies,' with its restless camera movement and improv-style acting and general overdramatic rambunctiousness, is like 'And Then There Were None' staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram."
He has been working for some 20 years, as the French website Têtu.com pointed out.
While confidently out, Pace wasn't able to control his going public about his sexuality. As reported by the website Bustle in 2014, Ian McKellan, Pace's co-star in "The Hobbit," inadvertently outed the actor when mentioning gay actors he had worked with. Two of them, Stephen Fry and Luke Evans, were publicly out; Pace was not.
Over his career, he has also appeared on Broadway in two iconic queer roles: Bruce Niles in Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" in 2011, and as Prior Walker in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" in 2018.
Check out some pics from Pace's IG: