Game of Thrones star Charles Dance expresses "huge regret" over marriage breakdown: "I had to come clean"

English actor Charles Dance has said his marriage to Joanna Haythorn ended after he “succumbed to some temptations”.

The Game Of Thrones actor, 77, married Haythorn in 1970 and the pair had two children together before they divorced in 2004. Speaking to Gyles Brandreth on the Rosebud podcast, he conceded that he "had to come clean" about what had happened.

Dance said: "For the most part it was a wonderful marriage, but then, unfortunately, I succumbed to some temptations along the way and the marriage ended because of my behaviour really. I eventually had to come clean.

"Because we were living in Somerset, in this enormous place, and Jo had her study at one end and I had mine at the other end, and we became a bit like George and Martha (in the play) Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? really after a while. Eventually I came back and I thought, ‘really, we have to have [a] very serious conversation’. I had to come clean and it came as a shock to Jo, bless her."

With an acting career that started in the 1970s, Dance played the fearsome Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones, catapaulting him into Hollywood stardom. Roles in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Ghostbusters followed, before he took the role of Lord Mountbatten in the Netflix series The Crown.

Reflecting on his behaviour, the actor said: "I don’t want to be seen to be scrabbling around for excuses. I never thought of myself as attractive. I really didn’t.

"I always felt very grateful if girls behaved as if they were attracted to me. But there is no justification for it, you know. In our business, Gyles, temptation is often presented and you have to be pretty together and balanced, and have not a particularly powerful libido to not succumb to that.

"So, the marriage came to an end - huge regret. But after about 18 months, Jo and I, thankfully, became the best of friends, and we remain so, thank God. She had a flat not very far away from where I live and we saw each other quite frequently, and so it kind of all turned out all right in the end."

Asked if he would do anything differently now, he said: "Of course. Oh my goodness, the benefit of hindsight. It took me a long time to learn the law of cause and effect."