Daily Times

It’s time to break out the pie and wine; the king has returned. After leaving mainstream acting following his departure from “Game of Thrones” in 2014, King Joffrey himself, actor Jack Gleeson, is coming back to TV. The Irish actor has been announced in the cast of “Out of Her Mind,” a six-part comedy made by Stolen Picture for BBC Two.

The series, from comedian Sara Pascoe, is said to subvert traditional sitcom elements while exploring “heartbreak, family and how to survive them.”

Surviving wasn’t exactly Gleeson’s strong suit in “Game of Thrones,” considering his character was poisoned to death at his own wedding. Hopefully, things will be different this time around.

Following his “Game of Thrones” demise, Gleeson talked to Entertainment Weekly about his decision to retire from acting, saying he just “stopped enjoying it” as much as he used to:

Now there’s the prospect of doing it for a living, whereas up until now it was always something I did for recreation with my friends, or in the summer for some fun. I enjoyed it. When you make a living from something, it changes your relationship with it. It’s not like I hate it, it’s just not what I want to do.

Since that time, the actor has also talked about his discomfort with fame, telling Vulture in 2016, “Some people when they become famous, they feel better, they feel more worthy. That’s what makes me feel really uncomfortable. I try to eschew that as much as possible.”

In the years after the HBO show, though “retired” and staying away from mainstream TV and film projects, Gleeson remained involved with his theater company Collapsing Horse, which brought its show “Bears in Space” to the US in 2016.

Gleeson’s portrayal of the sadistic Joffrey Baratheon has had a lasting impact on TV audiences. Even now, about six years after his “Game of Thrones” death, Joffrey is continually brought up as one of the most hated characters ever on TV, a hostility that Gleeson didn’t seem entirely prepared for.

“I didn’t really gauge the reaction of the book readers before the show came out, so I didn’t know the kind of vitriol people had for the character,” he previously said at University College Dublin.

With a date for “Out of Her Mind” still not announced, expect fans to go purple in the face waiting.