In Conversation: Peter Dinklage

In a hotel room high above midtown Manhattan, Peter Dinklage is discussing, among other things, his present — that’d be HBO’s My Dinner With Hervé, in which he plays the late Fantasy Island star Hervé Villechaize. (Based on a real-life encounter between Villechaize and writer-director Sacha Gervasi, the TV-movie premieres on October 20.) And on the sidewalk down below, a group of fans is waiting, clutching mementos of his past. That is, they’re hoping the actor will sign their Game of Thrones memorabilia when he leaves. (The show, in which he plays Tyrion Lannister, wrapped shooting its final season this past summer.) “I take more of an issue with fame than Hervé did,” says the 49-year-old Dinklage, who’s aware of the ways in which Villechaize’s celebrity was a precursor to his own. “It’s a dance, but one you can never really control. As an actor, the best you can do is try to bring some honesty into your parts and hope people will follow.”

What did Hervé represent to you when you first became aware of him?

Well, Hervé and I had nothing in common but our height, but I remember thinking, He’s underused. I’d become aware of him around the same time everybody else did: I saw Fantasy Island. It was a wild show, like a combination of The Twilight Zone and The Love Boat. And I’d seen The Man With the Golden Gun. Later, when I became a teenager, my thinking about him got translated with a bit more anger, like he was being used a certain way because of his size. But the funny thing is, I think I minded that much more than Hervé did, because he seemed to have genuine joy in being on Fantasy Island. And who was I as a young person living in New Jersey to judge that? Hervé was complicated, and this was the first time I’d ever played someone who’d been a living, breathing person. It challenged my judgments. (...)

Were you aware as a teenager of the idea of acting as a way to own the attention you were getting? Or did you only realize that later?

I think probably I was aware of it. Not wanting unwanted attention but commanding it on my terms. I don’t know. It’s hard to trace back the psychology. What goes through a kid’s mind? But it’s about having your hand on the dial. You’re turning it up when you want and turning it down when you want. As an actor, you can do that. And for someone the least bit physically different, I guess you want to be in control of that dial. But as a kid, I just loved the creative joy of acting and, yes, the attention — on my terms.

I read the commencement speech that you gave at Bennington.

Oh, God.

It was lovely.

Most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. I had never been asked to give a speech before.

There are parts in that speech where you talk about the lessons you took from your immediate postcollege life, when you were in New York and struggling to be an actor. It’s clear that you’ve figured out what those lean years mean for the larger story of your life. I’m curious if you have any sense, now that you’re done filming, of what the Game of Thrones years mean for you and your path?

Even though it’s only been a couple of months since we finished, I would like to think that I already have some capacity to look back on it. I’m glad the show happened in my life when it happened. I’m glad I wasn’t much younger or older. I’d done a lot of work before getting the show that I think informed what I wound up doing on Game of Thrones, and, hopefully, I still have a lot of work left in me, which will be informed by Game of Thrones. The show was a beautiful experience — doesn’t happen all the time. But it was such a long shoot, so it’s hard to separate the TV show from my life.

Tell me more about that.

It was my life, far away in Ireland. People think I’ll miss the TV show — yes, of course I’ll miss it, but I also lived in a foreign country for many years and developed deep roots. That’s a big part of me, and suddenly it’s just like, Yep, that’s over. Back home now. Wait, what? Really? Actors do these things and then we move on or go back home. You keep in touch — or lose touch — with the group of people you were very close with. It’s strange. I wonder how healthy that is. Probably it’s unhealthy.

How did you find being an American in Europe over the last few years? Did people keep asking you to explain our politics?

Oh, sure. They basically have the opinion of “what’s wrong with you people? What’s up with you people and the guns?” My experience is that people have nothing but love and respect for our country — a lot of them dream of coming here and working here, especially in the film community — but gun culture is a big question mark. The longer you stay away from America, the more it can look like the Wild West.

But as far as the arc of your career, you’re not in the part of it where you’re trying to establish yourself and —

That’s still happening.

Is it?

I think so. (...)

Do you see your path leading to a place where you don’t act anymore?

No, no. If somebody like Jonathan Glazer or David Fincher or Spike Jonze calls up, I’ll be there in a heartbeat. But for the most part, I’d like to help create from the beginning.

What you were saying before about the strangeness of saying good-bye to the people with whom you’ve worked so intensely — when you were wrapping on Game of Thrones, how emotionally conscious were you of the experience coming to an end?

On a personal level? With the character?

Both. How did you say good-bye?

It’s always anticlimactic for the character’s last day. Nothing is shot chronologically, so you don’t get some big mountaintop scene or anything. It’s just, “That’s a wrap on Peter Dinklage.” But as anticlimactic as it was, my last day was also beautifully bittersweet. A lot of people whom I love were on set that day. Even if they weren’t working, they came to set, which was beautiful. I tried to do the same thing when other [Game of Thrones] actors were wrapping out. If it was their day, you would go to set to say good-bye. It was really hard. I won’t say their name or their character’s name, but one of the young people on the show wrapped this past season and everybody was a wreck. This person had grown up on the show, you know? They were a child and now they were an adult. And then they’re done. It’s like we were witnessing this person saying good-bye to their childhood. I know Game of Thrones is just a TV show, la-di-da, but it was our life.

What about Tyrion? Was it hard to say good-bye to the character?

I don’t know if I’m [a] Method [actor] in that way. I was a little Method with Hervé — staying in that voice. But you can’t really be Method for nine seasons of a TV show. You’d go nuts. And there’s a difference between being Method and indulgent. You can smell that ego thing a mile away. It’s good to stay in the zone, but if it’s about showing off your peacock feathers, I’m not buying it. Acting is a trick. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. Elements of it are. For me, the fame thing is. But the work itself — we’re not digging ditches for a living. I think acting is one of the professions where everybody who’s doing it wants to be doing it. That’s not true for every job.

I know this is a cliché, but if you can find consistent enjoyment in your work, you’ve solved one of the keys to life.

Yeah, that reminds me of the Jim Jarmusch film, Night on Earth. Gena Rowlands plays this high-powered Hollywood executive, and Winona Ryder plays her cab driver from the airport. At the end, she offers Winona Ryder the lead in her movie, and Winona’s character is like, “No, I’m not interested.” “What? Everybody wants to be a famous actress.” “I like being a cab driver.” I think about that. How beautiful is that?

by David Marchese, Vulture | Read more:
Image: Bobby Doherty