2000s
During the early 2000s Pryce starred and participated in a variety of movies, such as The Affair of the Necklace, What a Girl Wants, Unconditional Love and Terry Gilliam's unfinished The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. While the success of some of these films was variable, the 2001 London stage production of My Fair Lady and his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins was being acclaimed by the media. This production turned out to be very stressful for Pryce because Martine McCutcheon, who portrayed Eliza Doolittle, was sick during much of the show's run. McCutcheon was replaced by her understudy Alexandra Jay, who would also fall sick hours before a performance, forcing her understudy, Kerry Ellis, to take the lead. Pryce was understandably upset and on her first night introduced Ellis to the audience before the show by saying "This will be your first Eliza, my second today and my third this week. Any member of the audience interested in playing Eliza can find applications at the door. Wednesday and Saturday matinee available." Pryce ended up dealing with four Elizas during the course of 14 months. Nevertheless, the show was nominated for four Laurence Olivier Awards on 2001: Best Actress in a Musical for Martine McCutcheon, Outstanding Musical Production, Best Theatre Choreographer and Best Actor in a Musical for Pryce. Pryce lost to Philip Quast, although ironically McCutcheon won in her category having played fewer performances than any of her understudies. Pryce did express interest in doing My Fair Lady in New York, but when asked if he would do it with McCutcheon he said that "there's as much chance of me getting a date with Julia Roberts as doing My Fair Lady in New York with Martine McCutcheon".
In April 2003 Pryce returned to the non-musical stage with A Reckoning, written by American dramatist Wesley Moore. The play co-starred Flora Montgomery and after premiering at the Soho Theatre in London was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of the most powerful and provocative new American plays to have opened since David Mamet's Oleanna." That year Pryce also landed a role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where he portrayed a fictional Governor of Jamaica, Weatherby Swann, a movie he described as "one of those why-not movies". After Pirates Pryce has appeared in several large-scale productions, such as De-Lovely (Pryce's second musical film), a chronicle of the life of songwriter Cole Porter, for which Kevin Kline and Pryce covered a Porter song called "Blow, Gabriel, Blow", The Brothers Grimm, Pryce's third film with Terry Gilliam, starred Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, and The New World, in which he had a cameo role as King James I. In 2005, Pryce was nominated for another Olivier Award in the best actor category for his role in the 2004 London production of The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, where he played Martin, a goat-lover who has to face the recriminations of his cheated-on wife, played by his real life wife Kate Fahy. Pryce's performance was highly praised, but he lost the Olivier to Richard Griffiths.
The following year, Pryce voiced over the French animated film, Renaissance, which he stated he wanted to do because he had never "done anything quite like it before". That same year he reprised the role of Governor Weatherby Swann for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Both were filmed at the same time but released a year apart. Also, during 2006, Pryce returned to the Broadway stage replacing John Lithgow, from January to July, as Lawrence Jameson in the musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. During early 2007 Pryce played Sherlock Holmes in a TV miniseries, the BBC production Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars. From September 2007 through June 2008, he returned to the theatre scene appearing as Shelly Levene in a new West End production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross at London's Apollo Theatre. He later appeared in the BBC Three comedy series Clone as Dr. Victor Blenkinsop also starring Stuart McLoughlin and Mark Gatiss. In 2009 he appeared at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in the title role of Dimetos written by Athol Fugard, and later that year made a sentimental journey back to Liverpool to appear as Davies in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker directed by veteran director Christopher Morahan. This transferred to London's Trafalgar Studios in early 2010. On television in 2009 he appeared as Mr Buxton in the critically acclaimed Return to Cranford and was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor in a Mini Series.
In 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Liverpool. He is a fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He is a patron of the children's charity Friendship Works and of the surgical charity Saving Faces. Pryce was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.
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