The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards were dominated by the HBO series, “Game of Thrones,” with none other than House Lannister leading the conquest. Among the winners was Peter Dinklage, who accepted his second Emmy that evening for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role as Tyrion Lannister.
The win was a shock for Dinklage, whose first words at the microphone were, “I wasn’t prepared at all. I was even chewing gum.” The actor went on to compliment the other contenders in his category, followed by thanking his writers and other team members on the show. The speech was brief and concise, to say the least.
While the win may be hard for Dinklage to believe, it isn’t unexpected news for his loyal fans, who have watched the actor patiently construct his career through hard work and unconditional dedication to the art form throughout his budding years.
As Dinklage explains in his interview with Rolling Stone, the climb to success first began when he was six or seven years old in the basement of his parents’ suburban New Jersey home. His older brother and he would, as Dinklage recalls, “do a puppet Quadrophenia” for “neighborhood elderly people, with up little drum kits with tuna fish cans and a whole show and tickets for a bottle cap.” The memory is “a sad visual” for the actor now, but he agrees that every actor has a similar story to turn to when reflecting on his childhood.
Performing on stage quickly became a sanctuary for Dinklage as he journeyed through his all-boys Catholic high school. The actor remembers, “I was a sullen kid who smoked cigarettes and wore black every day, and I went to a school that was lacrosse players and Izods.” His teenage years were undesirable, making the school’s theater his only option for comfort.
In his junior year, Dinklage’s drama teacher realized the actor’s talent and decided to showcase his abilities by producing the Irish play “Sharon’s Grave.” It was the first time Dinklage was cast as a character written for his size. The experience planted a seed inside and got him thinking about the possibility of a career in acting, working in a market that did indeed exist for him.
After studying drama at Bennington College, the aspiring actor moved to an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with his classmate and friend, Ian Ball. Dinklage was, ironically, completely uninterested in the film or television field. In his Rolling Stone interview Dinklage recalls, “I wanted to be doing Beckett plays in barns or something... I certainly did not want to be on television. I didn’t have a TV. TV? Kill me. What’s on TV? I was a fuckin’ snob.” Work, however, was hard to come by. Ball left for Seattle, where he now works as a successful actor and director, and Dinklage was still struggling to find an agent. In fact, to this day, he still operates without one. He explains,
“I just wasn’t a type that agents were looking for [. . .] I was too specific. They didn’t have the imagination to send me on auditions for things that weren’t written for a dwarf. They would only see ads at Christmastime, and it I didn’t want to do those, what business would I bring them?”
Yet, despite the obstacles, Dinklage eventually landed his breakout role in the 2003 film, “The Station Agent.” Dinklage would go on to appear in numerous off-Broadway productions, small films and in the comedy hit “Elf,” alongside Will Ferrell, where Dinklage plays an arrogant children’s book author. The actor makes it clear he isn’t against selecting roles that acknowledge his stature, so long as they do not exploit the fact. When describing his job selection process with Rolling Stone, Dinklage explained,
“I just feel like it’s the responsibility of people my size to persevere a bit more about what they do. Because it will just perpetuate itself if you agree to do these things. “Mirror Mirror” – I have a friend who was in that movie, and he was like, ‘Why did I do this?’ You look on the top of cabs in New York, and the ad was seven dwarfs. Really, Snow White? Come on. I just can’t do it. I have to play a person. I can’t play an adjective.”
Dinklage had explicitly made the point earlier back in 2012 during the 69th Golden Globe Awards. At the end of his acceptance speech, the winner impulsively added, “I want to mention a gentleman I’ve been thinking about, in England. His name is Martin Henderson. Google him.” Henderson is a 4-foot-2, 37-year-old man who had been picked up and thrown in Somerset, England back in October of 2011. The unruly act of prejudice left him suffering partial paralysis and in need of a walker for the rest of his life. Henderson instantly became a trending topic online after Dinklage’s speech. The actor explains in his interview with the New York Times,
“I just wanted to go, ‘This is screwed up.’ Dwarves are still the butt of jokes. It’s one of the last bastions of acceptable prejudice. Not just by people who’ve had too much to drink in England and throw a person. But by the media, everything.”
And other actors his size can help by thinking twice about the roles they accept. As Dinklage adds, “You can say no. You can not be the object of ridicule.”
The strong image Dinklage constructed for himself over the years as a professional with standards would finally pay off when he was cast as Tyrion Lannister on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” The character is full of the complexity and realism Dinklage was consistently searching to work with. He had been the first and only choice, as show co-creators, David Benioff and Dan Weiss had become increasingly aware of Dinklage’s reputation as performer. Additionally, Weiss added, “Dinklage’s core of humanity, covered by a shall of sardonic dry wit, is pretty well in keeping with the character.”
However, Dinklage needed some convincing. The TV show’s fantasy genre turned him off at first. He explained,
“Dwarves in these genres always have this look. My guard was up. Not even my guard -- my metal fence, my barbed wire was up. [. . .] [But Tyrion] is somebody who turns that on its head. No beard, no pointy shoes, a romantic, real human being.”
Dinklage became the perfect fit and the show has achieved tremendous success. In this year alone the series was nominated for 24 awards at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, taking home 12 titles and setting the record for most Emmy wins by a series in a single year. Looking back on how far he has come, Dinklage stated in his New York Times interview,
“I feel really lucky, although I hate that word ‘lucky.’ It cheapens a lot of hard work. Living in Brooklyn in an apartment without any heat and paying for dinner at the bodega with dimes – I don’t think I felt myself lucky back then. Doing plays for 50 bucks and trying to be true to myself as an artist and turning down commercials where they wanted a leprechaun. Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who’s freezing his ass off in Brooklyn. So I won’t say I’m lucky. I’m fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.”
As for the rest of us, we are certainly fortunate to have found Peter Dinklage and his talent. Congratulations to the actor and his “Game of Thrones” team and here’s to many more successful, fulfilling performances in the future.
