Mandy Patinkin
Credit: 20th Century Fox
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Few lines from cinema are as perfect as Inigo Montoya’s vow of revenge from The Princess Bride. Then again, few movies have as many great lines as that Rob Reiner comedy romance. When he finally finds the Six-Fingered Man, they duel and Inigo is badly injured, but his years of sword fighting practice pay off. He disarms his father’s killer and slashes him across both cheeks.
The Six-Fingered man offers him gold, power. Anything his heart desires, if only he’ll spare his life. “I want my father back, you son of a bitch,” Inigo says, and runs him through. I loved this movie as a kid and I love it still (it’s on my Best Rob Reiner films list at the very top) and I adored Mandy Patinkin’s portrayal of the Spaniard. Patinkin went on to do many other roles, from a villain in Elmo in Grouchland to CIA handler, Saul Berenson, in the spy thriller series, Homeland, which recently dropped on Netflix.
Now the Juilliard-trained thespian is trying his hand at a very different kind of part. Patinkin has been cast as the Norse god, Odin, in Sony’s God Of War TV show adaptation. This follows news that Max Parker (Boots) will play the god, Heimdall, and Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy) will play Kratos. Hurst played Thor in the video game, which makes his casting somewhat ironic.
Odin, the All-Father and king of the Aesir, is one of the various antagonist arrayed against Kratos in the video games. He’s manipulative and cunning and cruel, and more than a little paranoid. Patinkin is a terrific choice for the role, though I certainly never considered him in any of my fantasy cast musings.
Richard Schiff played Odin in the game, and while that was a voice-acting role, Schiff certainly has the acting chops to pull off a live-action version of the character. The two actors are roughly the same age. Still, Patinkin is a great actor and if it isn’t going to be Schiff it may as well be him.