Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage has said the show was the ‘hardest thing to walk away from’ as it had become his life, both on and off-screen.
The actor, 52, portrayed fan favourite Tyrion Lannister for a full decade in the hit fantasy drama series, and in that time, the cast and crew became a family.
Peter, who is also known for his roles in the Death At A Funeral films, appears on the New Year’s Eve episode of The Graham Norton Show, where he made the comments.
He explained that his co-stars and the crew on the show became ‘a family’, as ‘I lived in Ireland, so for me it wasn’t just the show, it was a life, which was the hardest thing to walk away from.’
However, he noted that, as difficult as it was to say goodbye to the show, ‘it was time to move on’.
Peter had played the role of scheming nobleman Tyrion from the show’s first episode in April 2011, until its final installment in May 2019.
Comedian Joe Lycett, also appearing in the special hour-long episode of The Graham Norton Show, revealed he was a long-time fan of the programme but had an ‘issue’ when popstar Ed Sheeran made a cameo appearance.
Joe, 33, said that while he is also a fan of Ed, he ‘didn’t love the Venn diagram where they crossed over’, and suggested Ed’s character should have fought a battle or been killed instead of just singing a song.
Peter joked that the deals for Ed and other cameos to appear on the show were ‘probably done at the pub, and then when they actually turned up it was like “Oh no, now we have to write a scene for them!”‘
As anyone who has ever spoken to a Game Of Thrones fan (or just spent any time at all on the internet) will know, the final series of the once-renowned show was not exactly well-received.
And while Peter happily joked at Joe’s complaint, the actor has recently expressed his annoyance with the continued moaning about how the show ended.
He suggested that the reason ‘there was some backlash about the ending is because they were angry at us for breaking up with them’.
‘We were going off the air and they didn’t know what to do with their Sunday nights anymore. They wanted more, so they backlashed about that.
‘They wanted the pretty white people to ride off into the sunset together.’
Peter added: ‘By the way, it’s fiction. There’s dragons in it. Move on.’
He himself has clearly moved on from the career-defining role, and will next appear as the lead role in musical film Cyrano.
His character becomes entangled in a love triangle when he is too self-conscious to pursue the woman he is in love with and instead helps a young man win her heart by writing love letters on his behalf.
Peter had previously played the role of Cyrano in a stage musical written by his wife Erica Schmidt, itself an adaptation of the French play written by Edmond Rostand.
The Graham Norton Show is on BBC One on Friday December 31 at 10.20pm.
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