Deauville 2023: Peter Dinklage Isn’t Just Game of Thrones, Prove With These 8 Standout Roles

Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Peter Dinklage. It was supposed to be the four actors who won the Deauville talent award during the 49th edition of the festival dedicated to American cinema. But all canceled the visit in solidarity with the actors and screenwriters who have been on strike in Hollywood for several weeks.

Regardless of absence, tribute will still be paid. An opportunity for the festival to review each person’s career. And to look at Peter Dinklage’s She Came to Me poster during this release. A CV that can be summed up as Game of Thrones. wrongly.

Turns in Manhattan (1995)

Behind the Deauville Talent Award given to Peter Dinklage is the idea of ​​a loop that comes full circle. Because the actor was in the acting team of the very first winner of the Grand Prix awarded by the festival: it returns to Manhattan, a comedy against the backdrop of a chaotic shooting that smells of experience.

And in which Tyrion Lannister’s future interpreter takes his first screen role. However, there is Steve Buscemi and a few big names of American independent cinema (Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney). But Peter Dinklage steals the scenes he appears in.

And for good reason: He plays a small-time actor who’s tired of the systematic use of his co-stars in dream sequences. A beautiful effect turquoise costume and a sense of comedy that regularly hit the mark in his career.

The Station Manager (2003)

If Manhattan turned out to be a revelation film, it wasn’t until the next decade that Peter Dinklage was noticed. Thanks to the future winner of the Dadeville Grand Prix with The Visitor: Tom McCarthy, who offered him the lead role of the Station Master.

A dwarf of a lonely man who moves into a New Jersey train station that he inherited after the death of his only friend. In the absence of calm, Cuban is as friendly as the talkative (Bobby Cannavale) and sly and snarky woman (Patricia Clarkson) he finds on the ground. And what will eventually decorate his daily life.

A feature film that has all the hallmarks of American independent cinema: a focus on marginal characters, an alternation of lightness and gravity… but everything works and touches our hearts because Tom McCarthy finds the right balance between these elements and takes full advantage. his actor.

Including Peter Dinklage, who shows a sensitivity that we knew little about at the time, and manages to transport us with this ever-evolving role that (among other things) earned him a nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2004. The cast will reunite. After a few years with Tom McCarthy, the latter had less success.

Because it is to the director that we owe the pilot of Game of Thrones, which was rejected by HBO and entrusted to Timothy Van Patten, the starting point of the phenomenon as we know it. But who knows if Tom McCarthy would have won the Oscar for Best Picture thanks to Spotlight, or if his adventures in Westeros would have been better?

Happy Funeral (2007)

As acclaimed and awarded as it is, Le Chef de gare remains relatively unknown due to its independent status and lack of headlines. It’s not too late to fix this, but we have to admit that Happy Burial is the movie that brought Peter Dinklage to the public.

Seen by more than 250,000 viewers in France, despite being released in 49 prints, Frank Oz’s crazy comedy does not lack surprises and memorable scenes. But it’s hard to forget Peter Dinklage in it.

Without saying too much, because it’s better to know as little as possible in order for the crescendo to work at full speed, know that his character has a special connection with the deceased, whose funeral is the starting point of the story. And that his revelations greatly contribute to the derailment of the situation, until a humorous sequence involving the coffin.

Released in 2007, this English comedy was remade three years later. Featuring a predominantly African-American cast, it includes Peter Dinklage, the only actor to play the same role in both versions.

Penelope (2008)

More so than in Happy Funeral , where it doesn’t match the craziness, Peter Dinklage’s comic timing breaks down Penelope, a fantasy comedy that looked like Tim Burton’s underdog with his decorated young wife with a pig’s nose.

The surprise was all the more beautiful despite the box office taking just over 110,000. The fantasy is smartly dosed, the romance is not too sweet, and the comedy often hits the mark, both in the burlesque aspect and in the exchanges that, all things considered, recall the genre’s great hours in Hollywood’s golden age. in the 30s-50s.

And many of the laughs come from Peter Dinklage, the investigator who takes advantage of his small size to get as close as possible to the heroine’s (Christina Ritchie) family secrets. His scene in the guest room with Nick Frost is one of the funniest, and the actor’s comedic flair comes mainly from his seriousness and stern air, which contrast perfectly with the humor that emerges from the situations.

This fairly modern and still very little-known tale reminds us of him, because his character’s constant bad mood is part of what makes us happy on screen. Paradoxically.

GAME OF THRONES (2011 – 2019)

Can we talk about Peter Dinklage’s career without mentioning Game of Thrones? If we are talking only about movies, yes. It’s simply not possible otherwise, as his CV is forever marked as one of the last examples of a true television phenomenon that endures over time and ignites passions to the point that many get up at 3am to discover each new episode. alive

For eight seasons, Peter Dinklage brilliantly played Tyrion Lannister. For many (including the author of these lines), he is the best character in the HBO series. Insufferable at first with his repeated provocations, he quickly gained a place and established himself in the hearts of the audience as the fairest heroes.

The only one who stays straight in his boots and stays true to his act, in a world of treachery where power can quickly turn (and fall) heads. And who even knew how to show tenderness in his relationship with Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). If the series finale was disappointing, it’s not because of Tyrion.

X-MEN – DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014)

Before Marvel, there was… Marvel. already. Before playing Eitri, the forger of Thor’s new weapon in Avengers Infinity War, Peter Dinklage was Bolivar Trask in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Bryan Singer’s (successful) return to the franchise he started on film in 2000.

Set in the 70s, the feature film is presented as a sequel to the first three installments, and continues as a prequel to X-Men The Beginning. And Peter Dinklage stars as Bolivar Trask, a man fiercely opposed to mutants who has created sentinel robots to hunt them down and defeat them.

An antagonist, on paper, who doesn’t see himself that way. “I didn’t want to play the villain”– said the actor Entertainment Weekly In October 2013, a few months before the release. “He’s a man of science. A man of invention. He sees what he does as something good—blinded by his ambition and quite arrogant. He’s fought all his life to be respected and cared for.”

Having a small actor in the role reinforces this idea and creates a closeness between the mutants and him, so much so that in the background of the weather trip in this opus, in the end, there is not really a villain. Bolivar Trask may not be as memorable as expected, but Peter Dinklage’s performance brings nuance and humanity to it.

My Dinner with Hervés (2018)

Peter Dinklage on HBO is obviously Game of Thrones. Entourage season 2 episode where he plays himself. and the TV movie My Dinner with Hervé, which centers on the meeting between a journalist struggling with alcohol addiction and actor Hervé Wilchaise in the early 90s.

It was less than two decades after the release of James Bond’s The Man with the Golden Gun and the Fantasy Island series that helped spread it. In the registry, which, especially 007, was very often the case “Service Dwarf”A prejudice that Peter Dinklage fought against, it turns out, in Manhattan.

An alternate interview and flashback to the life of Hervé Villechaise, the featurette shifts from humor to seriousness as the character, a down-to-earth character, recalls the worst moments of his existence and blames himself for ruining his career. Journalist Danny Tate. which did not exist.

Director Sacha Gervase (Hitchcock) Yes, and it is inspired by his own experience. Because it was he who met Hervé Wilchaise a few weeks before he committed suicide. An experience that makes this story, classic in its form, even more honest and personal. And the actors, Peter Dinklage and Jamie Dornan in the lead roles, are no strangers to overall success.

CYRANO (2022)

After the French actor (Hervé Villechaise), Peter Dinklage takes on the French icon. In the musical, which fully reflects his feelings, to songs written by Bryce and Aaron Dessner, members of the band The National. In the category of risky projects, not to mention kamikazes, Cyrano appears there.

But it took Joe Wright’s formalistic flair to get the job done. “An irreverent ode to life, a love letter to love”Born on stage. Before there was a movie, it was a play by Erica Schmidt, Peter Dinklage’s partner (the musical), who was already playing the lead role.

It’s only natural that she turns the cover on the big screen, alongside Haley Bennett, Joe Wright’s companion, who reprises her role as Roxanne. And inherits the most destabilizing scenes, where the supposed kitsch is reminiscent of Mylène Farmer clips. But the overall success of the film is also due to its sincerity and conviction, which is reflected in its narration and sentimentality.

Even if it means stepping up to get better in an absolutely heartbreaking sequence on the war front. In the title role, Peter Dinklage takes on the enormous challenge presented to him by giving Cyrano another facet of marginality. And reveals another facet of his talent, now prized at Deauville.