Thragg speaks! Invincible newcomer Lee Pace on how he's bringing the all-powerful Viltrumite lead...

&34;Oddly enough, I've had Lee in mind for this role almost before the show existed,&34; series cocreator Robert Kirkman tells EW in an exclusive interview with

"Oddly enough, I've had Lee in mind for this role almost before the show existed," series co-creator Robert Kirkman tells EW in an exclusive interview with the "Foundation" star.

Thragg speaks! Invincible newcomer Lee Pace on how he's bringing the all-powerful Viltrumite leader to life (exclusive)

"Oddly enough, I've had Lee in mind for this role almost before the show existed," series co-creator Robert Kirkman tells EW in an exclusive interview with the "Foundation" star.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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October 10, 2025 6:30 p.m. ET

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Lee Pace will voice Thragg on 'Invincible'. Credit:

Neil P. Mockford/Getty; Image Comics

If you thought Conquest was tough, wait till you meet the Grand Regent of the Viltrumites.

The *Invincible* team gathered at New York Comic Con Friday evening to reveal Lee Pace (*Foundation*, the *Hobbit* movies, *Running Man*) as the mystery actor cast in the role of Thragg, a fan-favorite villain of Robert Kirkman's comic books.

Pace's Thragg will make his debut on *Invincible* season 4, which premieres on Amazon's Prime Video in March 2026. Prior to the big panel announcement, Pace and Kirkman (series co-creator and co-showrunner) sat down exclusively with ** to discuss Thragg's arrival and the impending adaptation of the *Viltrumite War* story arc from the comics.

"Oddly enough, I've had Lee in mind for this role almost before the show existed," Kirkman tells EW, noting his love of *Halt and Catch Fire* and *Pushing Daisies*. "To be completely honest, when he was cast in *Foundation*, I was also like, 'Is this [too] close? Am I gonna be able to cast him as Thragg if he's available? Is this gonna work?'"

Lee Pace as Brother Day on 'Foundation' season 2. Helen Sloan/Apple TV+

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On that Apple TV+ sci-fi drama, Pace plays various versions throughout time of Brother Day, one of three differently aged clones of Emperor Cleon who collectively rule the Galactic Empire. "It was great watching that show and seeing there are big differences here," Kirkman adds. "There are a few characters where I've always had an actor in mind, and Thragg was one of those and Lee was the actor."

Thragg is the mustachioed leader of the Viltrumites and also the most powerful one of them all. That may sound unfathomable to any non-comic reader who watched Steven Yeun's Mark Grayson get bludgeoned, maimed, and nearly disemboweled (sorry, Atom Eve) in an episode-long, cities-spanning fight with Thragg's berzerker warrior, Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Since Conquest failed his mission, now Mark and Earth must deal with his handler.

Pace joins previously announced Matthew Rhys (*The Americans*) as a new addition to the *Invincible* cast, which includes veterans like Gillian Jacobs (Atom Eve), Sandra Oh (Debbie Grayson), J.K. Simmons (Omni-Man), and Walton Goggins (Cecil Stedman).**

"Let me just start with that he looks cool as hell! The character looks so badass," Pace says in reference to Thragg's red-and-white uniform, complete with cape, Grecian emperor skirt, and fur shawl. "As I was learning more about the story we were setting up, what I saw was a character with a lot of depth and a lot of different extremes. He goes through a lot. I don't want to say too much about that because we're just at the beginning of it, but I've also never done anything like this before. I've never done a voice-to-character like this."

First look at Thragg (voiced by Lee Pace) on 'Invincible' season 4.

Kirkman offers more insights into the character as Thragg's co-creator.

"The thing that shows power more than anything else is a sense of calm and a sense of confidence," he explains. "Thragg is an extremely complex character in that he is clearly a villain, but he's one of those villains that has a very clear purpose. There's a sense of drive to him where he has compassion for the Viltrumites, and there are things that he wants to accomplish for the Viltrumites that are very deeply important to him. So his motivation comes from a very human place."

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Kirkman complements Pace's voice performance, which the actor has been recording in secret, as "very warm and calm and confident at times when he absolutely shouldn't be." He points out, "When you're around someone that is so powerful, they don't have to do anything to show that power. There's something really, really scary about that, and Lee captures that exceptionally well."

In terms of the parallels between Thragg and Brother Day, Pace jokes, "I just keep getting typecast." In his defense, he also played Elvenking Thranduill in the* Hobbit* trilogy and the world-destroying Ronan the Accuser in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thragg leads the Viltrumites in the 'Invincible' comics.

While the Cleon clones are "messy," "with Thragg, you've got like this extraordinarily powerful person who is up against extraordinarily powerful obstacles, and it brings him to his knees," the actor says. "So you get to watch this organized, strong, disciplined, confident person — not even a person like we think about humans, he's so much higher than that — the story dismantles him."

Similar to past characters, Kirkman and the team, including co-showrunner Simon Racioppa, found ways to expand on what was written for the character in the source material. Kirkman mentions, specifically, "a lot of scenes that aren't present in the comics involving Thragg," while teasing, "There's definitely a lot of things that you will know about the character that you may not have known."

In the meantime, Pace is getting a kick from his internet deep-dive into all the fan-produced Thragg content, from the Reddit threads debating why the character is so powerful to the YouTube videos ranking the top 10 fights.

"I do feel like I'm playing the character like I know him now," Pace says. "We've recorded enough and I've researched him enough, thought about him when I'm going on my runs and been inspired by the comic books, but also the fans' engagement with the character. It all kind of goes in the machine, in a way."**

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