Peter Dinklage Biography

Peter Dinklage is the Emmy-winning star of the television version of George R. R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones — and a fan favorite for his role as the scheming dwarf Tyrion Lannister.

Dinklage is a graduate of Vermont’s Bennington College, and after graduating in 1991, he moved to New York to pursue a career in serious theater.

For more than a decade, he was the storied starving artist, working an office job and picking up occasional acting roles, and, more pointedly, turning down stereotypical dwarf roles in movies and TV commercials.

He had a small but memorable role in the Steve Buscemi movie Living in Oblivion (1995), but his breakout role was in Tom McCarthy‘s 2003 film The Station Agent (opposite Patricia Clarkson).

The accolades from that role gave Dinklage employment and exposure, but it was his role in Game of Thrones that made him a bona fide star.

As a silver-tongued royal who “put the imp in pimp,” Tyrion was one of the most sympathetic characters in the show; his popularity was such that by the second season of the show, Dinklage was considered the biggest star of a huge, ensemble cast.

Dinklage’s other film credits include Elf  (2003, starring Will Ferrell), Death at a Funeral (2007), A Little Bit of Heaven (2011, starring Kate Hudson), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Dinklage is also a voice in The Boss (2016) and The Angry Birds Movie (2016).