Page 502 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

Where else have you seen Jacob

Fortune-Lloyd?

While The Queen's Gambit is his most prominent role, Fortune-Lloyd

has also had recurring roles on Medici, as Medici family enemy
Francesco Salviati, and in the 2015 Golden Globe-winning BBC/PBS
miniseries Wolf Hall. On the big screen, you may have spotted him in
the 2017 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Crooked House or
in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, although he unfortunately
joined the series on the wrong side of history, as a Sith fleet officer.

Offscreen, Fortune-Lloyd is a prolific stage actor. On top of the many
roles he held during his time at Guildhall, he starred as Jack Worthing
in a 2018 West End revival of The Importance of Being Earnest—for
which he received rave reviews—and in Royal Shakespeare Company
performances of Othello and The Merchant of Venice.

How did he prepare for The Queen's

Gambit?

Fortune-Lloyd hasn't actually given any interviews about his part in
the hit miniseries, but according to his costars, his onscreen chess
moves were backed by actual expertise. In a recent interview in which
Melling and Brodie-Sangster admitted that they had no idea what they
were doing as they moved their chess pieces around in The Queen's
Gambit, they agreed that Fortune-Lloyd was "really good" and "played
properly."

While his costars didn't mention whether Fortune-Lloyd arrived on
set as a fully formed chess whiz, or if he learned to play specifically for
the role, totally immersing himself in his roles is kind of the actor's
M.O. In an interview on the set of Medici, for example, Fortune-Lloyd
shared that he achieved Salviati's particularly serpentine way of
moving and speaking by studying literal snakes—and most
notably The Jungle Book's Kaa.