Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage is making the rounds promoting My Dinner with Hervé, an HBO movie where he plays Fantasy Island star Hervé Villechaize. It looks like an interesting movie, but with the final season of Game of Thrones fast approaching, a lot of us are more interested in what he has to say about the fate of Tyrion Lannister and the end of the show. Speaking to Vulture, he said plenty, including a look at his final day on set:
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.
I’m guessing the young cast member Dinklage is talking about is Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), who said she “bawled my eyes out” when she shot her final scene. “I couldn’t stop shaking and crying for hours.” It’s cool that the cast members showed up to wish each other goodbye.
As for Tyrion’s fate, Dinklage dropped a few cryptic hints. Beware: there could be SPOILERS in here, although it’s impossible to be sure. “[Tyrion] certainly developed a deeper sense of responsibility over the course of the show,” Dinklage said. “He was a pretty irresponsible character to begin with. He used his position as the outcast of his family like an adolescent would. He pushed it in their [the Lannisters’] faces. The beauty of Tyrion is that he grew out of that mode in a couple of seasons and developed a strong sense of responsibility. Not morality, because he always had that, but what to do with his intelligence.”
And how does he feel about where Tyrion is left at the end of the show?
I feel very, very — I’m trying to find the right word. I think he was given a very good conclusion. No matter what that is — death can be a great way out.
“Death can be a great way out.” The interviewer noted that, from where he was sitting, Dinklage didn’t necessarily mean to suggest that Tyrion would die, but rather to “leave open the possibility that the character might meet that fate.” Still, rumors about Tyrion’s ultimate fate have been swirling lately. You can judge for yourself how to interpret this.
Dinklage also ruminated on what Game of Thrones has meant to him more generally, both the good and the bad. “I’m glad the show happened in my life when it happened,” he said. “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.”
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.
And while Dinklage loves the work of acting, he seems uncomfortable with the fame part of it — he’s known for rarely giving interviews, and admitted to only giving this one because he wants to spread the word about My Dinner with Hervé. He joked that, after he left the interview, “I’ll get something yelled at me ten times: something from the show, my character’s name. All things considered, ten is not that much, given that there are millions of people outside on Fifth Avenue. And for the most part, it’s done with joy. But it’s this thing of that’s what you are. That’s what Hervé was: Tattoo. ‘Ze plane, ze plane.’”
What line do people most often yell at him? Perhaps you can guess.
“I drink and I know things.” It’s strange: There are tattoos of Tyrion. But Tyrion is also me, so people have tattoos of my face on them. It’s like, “Oh, okay. You made that choice. It has nothing to do with me.”
He’s right about the tattoos:
The nature of fame is at the center of My Dinner with Hervé, Hervé Villechaize being a guy who indulged in it to the point of excess. “I think perhaps fame was controlling Hervé,” Dinklage said. “You have to be in charge of yourself and tune everything else out. It’s getting harder to tune things out because of social media and everybody knowing everything about everyone. Growing up, I didn’t know anything about my favorite actors. Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin — I didn’t know what they had for breakfast. But now it’s like, ‘Look what I had for breakfast!’ And you don’t really want to know because it chips away at the magic of the character they’re portraying.”
Dinklage doesn’t use social media, so he practices what he preaches. “Not knowing about the actor helps in believing in their performance. I worry about actors revealing what’s behind the curtain. Yes, I’m talking to you here, but we’re talking about a project. I wouldn’t even imagine beginning to talk about my personal life. It’s no one’s business. That’s my life. You lead yours.”
LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 17: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Peter Dinklage poses in the press room during the 70th Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 17, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Of course, there are some nice things about notoriety: the multiple Emmy Awards, for instance.
It’s really nice. [Laughs.] I don’t know. That’s all I can say: It’s really nice. And I say it’s nice because, all kidding aside, I love Tyrion, I love that show, and I love everything about being on that show. But that doesn’t mean it was going to be recognized artistically. I’ve been involved with projects that I felt passionate about that nobody saw and didn’t win any awards. I don’t know exactly what it was that people chose to reward Game of Thrones for, but I know it’s not about the dragons. I think it’s about these beautifully drawn characters and the work that [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] have done on those characters. So yeah, the Emmy was nice. It was hard to get it home on the airplane. It’s a very big award.
You can read more of the interview here. It’s very thorough, and includes more about My Dinner with Hervé and Dinklage’s thoughts on dwarfism. And in the meantime, feel free to debate his comments below!
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