Peter Dinklage is discussing his career while taking on the spicy wings of death.
The 55-year-old Game of Thrones alum made an appearance on Hot Ones with Sean Evans, where he answered burning questions while eating wings covered in increasingly spicy hot sauces.
During the discussion, the two talked about acting, directing, the importance of dialogue, Game of Thrones co-stars, and his perseverance in the industry.
Keep reading to find out more…
On what defines a great actor’s director:
“You shouldn’t have to talk to an actor much if you hired them. You saw something in them that you want for the part and that can lead to chaos and you need to make sure everybody knows your vision is very clear, cause they’ll take over. We’ll spot a weakness in a director and go oh ok, I got this…all actors want to direct…and there has to be one captain to keep that vision clear…”
On the importance of dialogue and the genre of comedy:
“You can have the greatest idea for a film…but as an actor, what am I saying, you know what’s our dialogue? What’s the ease or tension in the wordplay that you’re putting on the page. I always like to rattle the cage of genres because people in comedies don’t know they’re being funny. So I like my comedies like really straight…Alan Arkin…he was my favorite. He was so funny because he just played it as like somebody who doesn’t think anything is funny…so anything that sort of points the finger at ‘this is funny’, writing wise…like a punchline in a movie doesn’t really work cause it doesn’t really work in life…”
On being in punk band before acting:
“We were Beastie Boys rip-offs but yeah, we had fun…it was a couple years doing it, I got a cool scar on my temple…”
On Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) apologizing in between takes on Game of Thrones:
“I love Charlie Dance, he’s one of my favorite human beings and he played my father on the show and all my father…did on the show was humiliate me and sentence me to death…so he made a habit, ’cause we would get really invested in those things…talk about great dialogue. Dan Wiess and David Benioff gave us the greatest dialogue, so it really felt really lived in…just like between every take, he would come over and just gently touch me on the shoulder. We wouldn’t hug it out ’cause of time, and it felt very paternal too. He played a horrible human being, but he’s one of my favorite human beings and it was a shame how that one ended, on the toilet…”
On having perseverance to stick with acting:
“I was angry, I think, too angry for a long time…I just knew what the entertainment business was serving up people who are my size and that to me wasn’t acting. But I surrounded myself with really brilliant people. Not intentionally, but just friendships. I call it the tribe and we just carried that friendship and working environment sort of one in the same, into the future together. Cause you can’t do it alone, I couldn’t do it alone and that’s the beauty of what i do for a living, is the collaboration. So I was just lucky to find really great people who inspired me more so everyday.
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