2024 Rewind: See Why Fans Went Wild When Lee Pace Shared Poolside 45th Birthday Pic

Pace is best-known for his role of elven king Thranduil in the "Hobbit" franchise and Ronan the Accuser in "Guardians of the Galaxy," though he's not a stranger to queer roles, including a career-making turn as transgender showgirl Calpernia Addams the television film "A Soldier's Girl" some 21 years ago. The film followed Addams' tragic relationship with U.S. Army soldier Barry Winchell (played by Tony Garity). In Variety critic David Rooney wrote: "Both Garity and newcomer Pace give complex, controlled performances, full-bodied and richly empathetic, making the union between this unlikely couple seem entirely plausible and natural." Pace won a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor for the performance. Five years later he had a featured role in Tom Ford's "A Single Man" just prior to his work in the three "Hobbit" films. For his starring role on ABC's short-lived fantasy series "Pushing Daisies," Pace was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2008. In addition to "Foundation," which has been renewed for a third season, Pace starred as tech innovator Joe MacMillan in "Halt and Catch Fire," which played on AMC for three seasons beginning in 2014. In this fictionalized account, MacMillan was a businessman and entrepreneur who helped usher in the computer revolution and the internet in the 1980s.