Why Peter Dinklage was reluctant to play Tyrion Lannister (at first)

At first, Peter Dinklage was concerned that playing Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones might support harmful stereotypes. Then he read the script.

Last week, Peter Dinklage stopped by the Telluride Film Festival to talk about his new movie Cyrano, where he plays the iconic character Cyrano de Bergerac, a swashbuckling 17th century wordsmith who buries his love for his childhood friend Roxanne by helping an inarticulate guardsman woo her by writing love letters for him.

Also it’s a musical and apparently Dinklage’s voice is pretty good. I need a trailer yesterday.

But of course, Dinklage was also asked about playing Tyrion Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones, which wrapped up two years ago. Tyrion managed to beat the odds and survive all eight seasons of the show, and played him earned Dinklage a staggering four Emmy awards. It’s a career-defining role for Dinklage, but at first he didn’t know if he wanted it.

Dinklage concern was that Tyrion, a dwarf in a high fantasy show, was going to fall into the stereotype of short characters with “a really long beard and pointy shoes” popularized by stories like The Lord of the Rings. “That is just what followed the fantasy genre for people my size,” Dinklage told Indiewire. “Why do we always have to follow that boring fucking formula of pointy shoes and a beard? Who invented that? Why are we still following that? We don’t need to. I said that to them.”

Of course, this was before he’d read the script or sampled George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. “I didn’t know anything about Tyrion,” Dinklage continued. “I didn’t read the books or anything. I was just being an asshole.”

However you think about Tyrion grand arc on Game of Thrones, the witty, strategy-minded political player certainly didn’t fall into any fantasy stereotypes.

Cyrano, meanwhile, will be released in the U.S. on December 31, 2021. Did I mention how I want a trailer?

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