Peter Dinklage on what he has in common with Tyrion, being a dwarf in Hollywood

In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian, Peter Dinklage sounded off on a great many Game of Thrones-related topics, including the many things he has in common with Tyrion Lannister, how being on the show has changed the conception of what a leading man can is, and how fame has affected his home life.

He also talked a little about Pixels, but like pretty much every publication that talks to a Game of Thrones cast member, The Guardian downplayed non-Game of Thrones projects.

First, Dinklage revealed why his performance as Tyrion is so convincing. In the words of Game of Thrones executive producer Dan Weiss, both Tyrion and Dinklage possess “a core of humanity covered by a shell of sardonic wit,” a claim with which Dinklage can agree. He expanded on why he thought audiences have related to his character.

"I think Tyrion can be the most relatable to the modern sensibility because he’s not a hero and not a villain. He has a sense of humour even in the worst of times. Who relates to Ned Stark? Is he anybody sitting at the dinner table? But Tyrion is one of the dinner party."

Tyrion would probably be a lot more fun at a party than Ned Stark, I’ll grant him that. Dinklage also touched on something that oddly doesn’t get a lot of mention when people talk about Game of Thrones: the fact that the closest thing the show has to a star is played by an achondroplastic drawf. “There is a different definition of the leading man now,” Dinklage said. “It’s fantastic. You look at the leading men of the past and they are very different. Hollywood is finally opening the door wider to more realistic portrayals of who people are. It’s not just about beautiful Hollywood stars.”

I think Dinklage might be reaching when he implicitly excludes himself from the category of “beautiful Hollywood stars,” but it is notable that a dwarf is the leading man of a hugely popular television series (for the record, Dinklage is 4 feet 5 inches tall). I feel like that’s not treated as a breakthrough as often as it should be.

Dinklage also thanked George R.R. Martin for making that breakthrough possible, and brought up The Lord of the Rings for the second time today.

"I loved The Lord of the Rings as books and movies but, like elves, dwarves are presented as another creature. They are not humans in those stories. We don’t have elves walking around, but we do have dwarves like myself. We are real. So it’s nice to be humanised in fiction for once, especially in that genre. George R R was clever enough to make a dwarf a fully fleshed-out human being."

Again, I’m not sure why these kinds of thoughts haven’t really occurred to me before. My only excuse is that Dinklage has gotten me so invested in Tyrion’s story that his status as a dwarf doesn’t even register with me anymore, not unless it’s pointed out.

There’s quite a bit more to the interview, including Dinklage’s reminiscences concerning his early acting career, plus a section on his wife and 3-year-old daughter. The whole thing is well worth a read over at The Guardian.

Next: The sights and sounds from Game of Thrones night on Statan Island