Actor Max von Sydow died on Sunday, March 8, 2020 at the age of 90.

The actor, who consistently worked over the course of 70 years, was well known for performances in The Seventh Seal, Flash Gordon, The Exorcist, and more recently in Game of Thrones. He was nominated for Academy Awards for Pelle the Conqueror and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Born Carol Adolf von Sydow in Lund, Sweden, he studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. His onscreen career goes back to 1949 with his first credited role in Only a Mother. Sydow gained early praise for his role in The Seventh Seal as the 14th century knight who challenges Death to a game of chess.

He made his Hollywood film debut playing Jesus Christ in the 1965 epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told. This was followed by roles in Hawaii, The Kremlin Letter, and The Touch. In The Exorcist, largely considered among the scariest movies of all-time, Sydow portrayed Father Merrin, a priest who is called to exorcise a demon from the body of a preteen girl.

In 1980, he played the villainess Emperor Ming the Merciless in the adventure/sci-fi cult hit Flash Gordon. He was in Conan the Barbarian, Hannah and Her Sisters, and in Pelle the Conqueror he played the parent in a father-son story about Swedish emigrants moving to a Danish island.

Sydow starred as the antagonist Leland Gaunt in the Needful Things film adaptation. He was in Judge Dredd, Minority Report, guest starred in The Tudors, and was in Shutter Island. His second Oscar nod was for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, the drama about a boy investigating his father’s death on September 11. Sydow’s later roles were playing Lor San Tekka in The Force Awakens and was the Three-Eyed Raven for three episodes of Game of Thrones.