Peter Dinklage Says Ending ‘GOT’ Was a ‘Relief,’ but ‘Hardest Thing to Walk Away From’
As Peter Dinklage makes the press rounds for his award-nominated title role in Joe Wright’s musical “Cyrano,” inevitably questions about “Game of Thrones” are coming up. Even though the show ended two and a half years ago, George R.R. Martin’s fantasy saga remains the gift that keeps on giving — including with HBO’s upcoming spinoff series, “House of the Dragon.”
While paying a visit to “The Graham Norton Show” on New Year’s Eve (via Insider), Dinklage agreed that it was a “relief,” when asked by the host, when the eight-episode series ended. Dinklage won a Primetime Emmy Award for best supporting actor four times for his role as Tyrion Lannister.
“Yeah,” Dinklage said. “I mean, it’s time to move on, as hard as it is.”
He added that while, on most projects, a cast forms close relationships and “then you don’t see each other again,” but in the case of “Game of Thrones,” the cast was a “family.”
“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,” Dinklage said.
Dinklage also talked about how, early on in the show, the writers attempted to make him “one of those fighter guys” before ultimately ditching that idea. “So the one man I did kill, early on in the show, was about a 70-year-old amputee, so that’s not very heroic,” Dinklage said.
Last month, Dinklage talked about the controversial finale in a sit-down with the New York Times.
“They wanted the pretty white people to ride off into the sunset together,” he said regarding any fan fracas over the finale, in which Bran Stark becomes King of Westeros (a turn that came directly from Martin himself).
Dinklage continued, “By the way, it’s fiction. There’s dragons in it. Move on,” adding after a laugh, “No, but the show subverts what you think, and that’s what I love about it. Yeah, it was called ‘Game of Thrones,’ but at the end, the whole dialogue when people would approach me on the street was, ‘Who’s going to be on the throne?’ I don’t know why that was their takeaway because the show really was more than that.”
