Peter Dinklage at the UK premiere of Cyrano. Photo / AP
As he takes the lead in Cyrano, can the 4ft 5in actor reinvent Hollywood's idea of a romantic hero?
Peter Dinklage has always stood out. "Being my size, I get second looks quite often," he says with a sigh. Now 52, he stands at 4ft 5in. "My whole life I've had stares." Born with achondroplasia, a form of short-limbed dwarfism, Dinklage quickly noticed he was different from friends at school. His elder brother, Jonathan, now a musician, kept growing, while he needed a corrective leg operation at the age of five.
He is the only one in his family with the condition: not his salesman father, teacher mother or Jonathan — just Peter. And these days it's still the same, even though he has a family of his own — two primary-school-age children with his writer wife, Erica Schmidt. They can be seen around New York where they live, with Dinklage the same height as his children. People still gawp, but now he does not mind so much. After all, he played Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, stealing the show with his bawdy intellectual wit. He was the best-loved character on the television epic — and that's the reason most people stare.
"Now there's an ownership to someone looking at me or approaching me. It's because of something positive," he says in his wonderful, deep speaking voice, like a tiger's purr. "It's not just my size. It's the work I've done that has afforded them a second look."
He both grins and frowns. Remember when Tyrion used to do that through all those battles with his own awful family of Cersei, Joffrey and a certain disappointed dad? We meet in London. The actor has a beard, a big mess of hair and is cool, calm company. What a terrific talent he is — even his smallest twitch conveys powerful emotion.
Dinklage always wanted to act. It was then as it is now — a chance to be someone else. He did school plays and then drama at college, but struggled for years in bit parts, condescending parts, and even spent some years as a data processor when the acting dried up. Yet he never gave up. Eventually, at 34, he landed the lead role in the indie drama The Station Agent. Then at 42 came Game of Thrones and everything changed.
Next up is Cyrano — a take on Cyrano de Bergerac and the sort of romantic drama an actor of Dinklage's skill would have made earlier if Hollywood was able to envisage a leading man who did not look like a slightly tweaked version of Harrison Ford.
Cyrano is the classic unrequited love yarn popularised when Steve Martin played the big-nosed wordsmith in the 1987 rom-com Roxanne. The writer Edmond Rostand did not call it thisin 1897, but his original story is essentially one of catfishing — it's about pretending to be somebody we are not. In his new take, a musical, Dinklage plays the man who has words to woo Roxanne (Haley Bennett), but not theconfidence, so he helps the nice-but-dim Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr) win her heart instead. Joe Wright's film may be set in the 1600s but it has a thoroughly modern take. Music comes courtesy of Bryce and Aaron Dessner of the cult maudlin band the National, with cutting-edge choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
One war scene was even shot on Mount Etna. "Even though she was spewing lava," Dinklage says, drily. "Usually you move away, but every morning we'd drive to the red glow because they say it's not the lava that gets you, but the earthquakes and the stones that go through you like a bullet."
That was one risk. The other is that Dinklage's Cyrano does not have a large nose, as written by Rostand. Rather his insecurity is caused by his height. It makes this film sadder. "Nine times out of ten," Dinklage says, "Cyrano is played by a handsome actor with a fake nose and you know that he takes it off when they wrap."
Dinklage's film is based on a play that he starred in, written by his wife, who takes screenwriting credit here. "Erica got rid of the nose to make it more universal," Dinklage says. "You set yourself apart from Cyrano because of his nose and have a judgment about him. Granted, someone would probably raise an eyebrow if a very handsome actor without a nose or anything was playing Cyrano, but it really does speak to all of our lack of self-worth in front of a person who loves you." (Interestingly, James McAvoy's stage version, returning to London next month, has the actor as his regular self.)
Dinklage used to dream of playing such leading men when he was younger. A leading man, he thinks, should be defined by his charisma — and he has that in bundles. It was just Hollywood that needed to catch up. As recently as 2003 Dinklage starred in Tiptoes, alongside Gary Oldman playing a dwarf by acting on his knees — "You brought that one up!" the actor says, laughing. It remains one of the industry's last remaining identity taboos.
"The idea of a leading actor is changing now," he says. "Whether racially or whatever. It's about time. We've been stuck with this stereotype of a leading man and it's healthy to open that up. Love life is not the domain of pretty people — everybody has a love life."
So are there roles he took that he wouldn't take now? "Definitely," he says. "But that's a privileged thing to say, because everyone's got to eat. Being choosy is a luxury and also, outside of acting, people do jobs they don't want to do. But you try not to have regrets."
Dinklage does not want to remove old work from circulation just in case it offends people. After all, you don't ignore the past, because it helps you to understand the present. He thinks about this a lot. He mentions The Lord of the Rings, which starred non-dwarf actors in dwarf roles.
"How do you define the borders of political correctness?" he ponders. "Are we saying Lord of the Rings wouldn't be done like that today? It's a sticky wicket." He smiles. "An interesting time. Look, we just have to be really good examples for the next generation. I have a couple of kids and I want to make them proud. I choose parts much more carefully than I did when I was younger. It's to set an example, so that they're proud of their dad's work."
It has been a glorious, busy decade for Dinklage. Two children, Game of Thrones and now the clout to sell a movie. A huge leap up. He credits the Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss and is a fan of the world of Westeros — he will watch the spin-off, House of the Dragon, due later this year. "It would be terrible if I said no," he says, grinning. The series will need a Dinklage. There was something tender about him that gave Thrones humanity amid the bloodshed.
"I do miss Tyrion," he says with a sigh. "He was just lovely, funny and the writers were smart to not only give him the joke that ends up on a T-shirt, but also have him be more than that — in a world prejudiced against him. Every season we'd get all ten scripts at the start, like a novel. I'd go through them ravenously. Not to find out if my character died, but just to enjoy it. It was really such a joy."
When he was in the midst of it, did he avoid the chatter? People took against various aspects. "You try, but that was impossible," he says. "You're reminded of it on a daily basis by the fans. They had deep knowledge, but if somebody loves something they have their version of it in their head, so we got criticism early.
"Then, when we were leaving, they criticised again because they didn't want us to go. Some got angry. But if you appeal to everyone you're doing something wrong. And we offended a lot of people."
To Dinklage Thrones was more than just a show. It gave him the career and respect he had always wanted. He talks tenderly about the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the pathway that shows the entire history of the universe from the Big Bang to our human existence. He loves that humans are only about half an inch at the end. He does not find that terrifying but comforting.
"If you have that sense of insignificance," he says, smiling, "I feel you take greater risks." That line of his reminds me of the sort of thing Tyrion would say. "Life is full of possibilities," said the greatest Lannister (series one, episode two) and the actor who played him is proof. Another line sticks more. "Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not," said the dwarf, who has opened doors for other dwarfs in his industry. "Wear it like armour and it can never be used to hurt you."
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The Wheel of Time (2021-)
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Cyrano is in New Zealand cinemas from February 24.
Written by: Jonathan Dean
© The Times of London
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