Glen's big screen debut came in the 1988 film
Paris by Night, alongside
Charlotte Rampling and
Michael Gambon. That year he was cast as
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in
Tom Stoppard's
film adaptation of his play
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which won the
Golden Lion at the
Venice Film Festival. In 1998, Glen was nominated for the
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in
The Blue Room starring opposite
Nicole Kidman. In 2002, Glen starred with
Emilia Fox in the Italian-French-British romance-drama film
The Soul Keeper, directed by
Roberto Faenza. In 2008, Glen was Samson in the
BBC Radio 3 production of
Samson Agonistes directed by
John Tydeman. Glen starred as
John Fielding in the 2008 British TV mini-series
City of Vice.
Ian McDiarmid plays
Henry Fielding (author of the novel
Tom Jones) who along with his brother, John, started London's first professional police force. In 2009, it was announced that Glen had joined the cast of the
HBO series
Game of Thrones, starring as
Ser Jorah Mormont, a knight in exile from
Westeros, who becomes adviser to
Daenerys Targaryen (played by
Emilia Clarke) when she joins the
Dothraki. In 2010, he played the role of Father Octavian, leader of a sect of clerics who were on a mission against the
Weeping Angels in "
The Time of Angels" and "
Flesh and Stone", a two-episode story which formed part of the fifth season of the revived television series
Doctor Who (played by
Matt Smith). From 2010 to 2016, Glen played the title character in the Irish TV crime series
Jack Taylor, adapted from the novels by
Ken Bruen, and set in
Galway, Ireland. In the 2012 BBC drama series ''
Prisoners' Wives, he plays Paul, the husband of Francesca, whose comfortable life comes crashing down when he is imprisoned for drug trafficking. The same year, he starred in a new four-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo'', written by
Sebastian Baczkiewicz, and directed by
Jeremy Mortimer and
Sasha Yevtushenko. From December 2013 until early January 2014, Glen starred alongside
Richard McCabe in ''
Fortune's Fool'' at
the Old Vic, directed by
Lucy Bailey. He had been due to appear in the full run until late February 2014, but was forced to withdraw early to recover from illness, with his role taken by his understudy
Patrick Cremin and then by
William Houston, who joined the cast at around the same time as Glen's departure. In 2019, it was revealed that Glen would be portraying
Bruce Wayne on the
DC Universe TV series
Titans. In 2023, Glen starred as Magnus MacMillan, in charge of the Kinloch Bravo oil rig in
The Rig, in a cast that included
Emily Hampshire,
Martin Compston and
Mark Addy. The same year, he starred as William Carr in
Operation Napoleon, a thriller directed by
Óskar Þór Axelsson and based on
Arnaldur Indriðason's best selling book of the same name. Glen plays Leonard in the upcoming Belgian film
The Last Front, a story about a broken man who takes a stand during the
First World War. Glen has received numerous nominations and awards for his performance in
Game of Thrones. Notably, he won the Best Actor award at the 2016
Taormina Film Fest. == Personal life ==