Dear Awesome... Those Eyes |
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People who know me know about my fear. There are some individuals out there who are afraid of heights. Some are afraid of spiders. Some are even afraid of clowns. However, my issue is with none of these. (Well, heights are bad for me, but that's a whole other can of worms. Ew... worms.)
Nope, my biggest "fear" is of short men. I don't know what it is about them that causes me to hyperventilate around males under 5'8" (for the record, I'm 5'5" myself) but it's been happening for as long as I can remember. I couldn't imagine myself in the position that Kim Cattrall was in on that one episode from "Sex in the City," that one where she spends a comfortable chat slash flirt session at a bar and when the guy hops off the stool next to her, he's maybe 5'1".
So imagine my surprise that I've become a huge fan of Peter Dinklage. Not just a fan but an UBER fan. A super fan. I love the guy. Not just for his work either, although the fact that he's one of the best actors out there today shouldn't be discounted. Peter Dinklage is one of the hottest men up on the movie screens these days (as well as the television screens which should be playing any of the many DVDs that you can rent) and he's only 4'5" tall.
At 38 years old, Dinklage is full grown. He has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism which is characterized by abnormal bone growth in which you not only have resulting short stature, but shorter legs and arms as well as a disproportionately larger head. But beyond all of the medical technical jargon, Dinklage is an actor. An actor who has a head full of thick, wavy dark hair. An actor with blazing blue eyes that seem to pierce straight through you. An actor with a voice that hangs low to the ground, sneaking up on you at just the right moment, unassuming until it pounces.
I've been reading a lot of interviews with Peter over the last few weeks, ingesting what I could of his life story while I added his movies to my queue and dutifully watched all of them. (I am still waiting on the discs from the defunct series "Threshold," that he starred in with Carla Gugino and Brent Spiner. I'm just not as big of a television fan as I used to be and put lower priority on TV shows than I do movies.) I've poured over details, finding out the basics like height and birth date as well as the stuff people are usually curious about in an actors' history.
Dinklage is one of two sons, born to a music teacher and insurance salesman. His parents and brother are all of "normal" size. His brother is a professional violinist and his grandmother worked in silent films, so Peter's interest in the arts wasn't unusual even if his size in his field was. He graduated from Bennington College in Vermont with a degree in drama and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and the Welsh School of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales. Dinklage is an active member of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) as well as a strict vegetarian (all the food he eats in his movies is meat-free).
Still, all of that seems like jargon to me as well. There's something about Dinklage, an essence that transcends all of the basic information that can be written in static form. I suppose it's because while all of the roles that he's taken have embraced his size, he's also moved beyond that at the same time.
The first role that Peter ever scored was in Tom DiCillo's LIVING IN OBLIVION, one of the most noteworthy independent movies made in the last 20 years. Starring a lesser known Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener, Dinklage was cast as Tito, a dwarf who is as arrogant as he is egotistical, difficult, aggressive and handsome. While there is much to this movie that people love aside from Dinklage's contribution, I doubt that it would have been the same with another actor of short stature.
The next in his line-up of work that I've seen is SAFE MEN, a comedy starring the indie acting heroes, Steve Zahn and Sam Rockwell. While 
On the Right Track |
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Dinklage's part in the movie is minimal at best (I believe that other than the phone conversation that he has with Harvey Fierstein, he has at best 2 lines) it still is visually impressive. He plays Leflore, a hitman hired by a Jewish mafia boss. While in many films Dinklage's casting might be played off as nothing more than a sight gag, that feeling isn't present here. At 4'5", he might be almost 2 feet shorter than most action heroes, but he's just as fearsome walking across a hotel lobby with a sledgehammer in hand.
In 2001's HUMAN NATURE, that film which most people prefer to forget that oddball writer Charlie Kaufman was involved in coming off his BEING JOHN MALKOVICH success, Dinklage again has a very small role. This time he is a genius IQ-possessing, circus ringmaster, friend to tortured leading lady Patricia Arquette. His screen time is limited here as well, but it is important to note his co-star as well as the brief moment that shines, mocking a sociologist assistant who has been faking her French origin. Seeing his blue eyes twinkle as he asks her questions in French that she quite clearly doesn't understand is good for a solid laugh in an otherwise unfunny and uninspired comedy.
In 2002, Dinklage was able to work with actor Steve Buscemi again, this time in Alexandre Rockwell's 13 MOONS. While I found the movie to be highly flawed as a whole, I will give it credit for attempting to be different, even if it pushes its "Different" envelope a little too hard. As Binky, the side-kick clown to Buscemi's popular children's entertainer, Bananas the Clown, Dinklage isn't just some suck-up, do-anything-for-my-buddy cohort. Instead, he's a hustler, looking out primarily for his own interests even if that means pushing another man to the forefront. The cool thing about his role in this movie is that while his short stature is an assumed gag based on the fact that he's a clown, it's never really brought up. No one refers to him as being a "midget" or otherwise and his talent as a manager isn't called into question at any time simply because he looks different.
I'll briefly mention the other movie Dinklage was in in 2002, another independent film named JUST A KISS. As a man on the street who accosts another actor for getting a commercial role that he believed was his, Dinklage again adds a laugh to an otherwise very unfunny movie.
By 2003, Dinklage was 34 years old and had more years of education and training than the ages of most of the starlets getting cast in big budget flicks. It was also the year that he got his "big break" in the form of the role of Finbar McBride, a quiet man who inherits an old train depot in rural New Jersey, in THE STATION AGENT. The movie does place focus on the fact that Dinklage's character is a dwarf, acknowledging the fact and at times making it seem the central focus and yet eschewing from the natural order of all things cinematic when dealing with dwarfs.
Finbar is seen as being different, but just as much for being an outsider as he is of short stature. He's different for wanting to live alone in the depot, for not being as social as his nosy daytime neighbor would like (an absolutely excellent turn by Bobby Cannavale as the hot dog vendor, Joe) and for being a man of simple needs and desires, something practically taboo in this day and age of technological gluttony. This is the first time that Dinklage was outwardly positioned to appear as a sex symbol, with frank mentions of his sexual encounters and with scenes in which he kisses both Patricia Clarkson and later, Michelle Williams.
You would be hard pressed to find another independent movie which is so light on plot and yet so intricate in character study. Much of what we learn about Finbar is assumed through Dinklage's subtle facial expressions and deadpan delivery of lines. We end up embracing a character which we have been told virtually nothing about through verbal communication. Not only does 
Lucky, Lucky Woman |
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he awaken people to the daily abasement that people affected with dwarfism must endure, he also manages to get people to look past that very thing that makes him unique by being so entirely UNunique.
Later that same year a movie called TIPTOES was quietly muffled by the studios. Directed by Matthew Bright, the demented genius behind the blackly hysterical FREEWAY, TIPTOES was re-edited after the studios fired Bright, leaving a product that has been denounced by the director and left as a disjointed mess. In theory, the movie was a good idea: a "normal" sized man and his girlfriend find out that she's pregnant. Then she finds out that he's from a family of dwarfs and that their child has a very high likelihood of being a dwarf as well. Moral questions abound.
Dinklage is cast as the French Marxist, Maurice, his accent full-bodied and dead-on. Loud and obnoxious, chewing up every scene that he's in, Dinklage shares the screen again with Patricia Arquette, this time as the lover to her wacky hippie, Lucy. The romance between the two is played for a joke, a welcome diversion from the otherwise After-School Special nature of the flick, but it is also believable and sincere. When Dinklage leans over the babbling Arquette and looks at her with his piercing blue-eyed stare, I guarantee I wasn't the only woman who got a shiver from it.
While THE STATION AGENT brought Dinklage to the attention of most hardcore movie-goers, it was his turn as a serious children's author in the family friendly Will Ferrell picture, ELF that got mainstream audiences to pay attention. Barreling down the conference room table at the nearly 6'4" Ferrell, Dinklage once again was the highlight of a great sight gag. Only instead of being seen as helpless, he's cast as the muscle, something that his character is only reduced to once he feels overly insulted. I can respect this role even if it was used primarily as a joke because Dinklage carries a serious tone up until the beating occurs.
Dinklage has found steady and (hopefully) lucrative work since then, cast in many independent features as well as several television shows. (As I was writing this, I did receive my email notification that the 4 "Threshold" discs are due to arrive in my mailbox tomorrow.) One of which was THE BAXTER, again another independent comedy which is mostly unfunny but features a hysterical turn by Dinklage as a gay wedding planner named - yes - Benson Hedges. Another is his dramatic turn in FIND ME GUILTY in which he stars as a lawyer during one of the longest mafia trials in American court history. It is unclear to me in my research of the role of Ben Klandis, the lead defensive attorney in the movie, if the lawyer in real-life was a dwarf as well. If this wasn't the case, then my hat is completely off to Sidney Lumet for recognizing the right actor for the job, regardless of his physical appearance.
With a romantic role on last season's basic cable television show "Nip/Tuck," a movie stealing turn as Simon Barsinister in the recent flop (things aren't looking so good for ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS now are they, Jason?) UNDERDOG, a role in the just released DEATH AT A FUNERAL in which his part was prominently featured in the theatrical trailers (I'm still waiting for a free moment to go see that), another role in the continually postponed PENELOPE, the prominent role of Trumpkin in the currently "in-production" THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN, and a slew of other opportunities to put his talent and engaging blue-eyed stare to, Peter Dinklage has a lot in front of him.
It is this which consoles me after finding out that he eloped with theater director Erica Schmidt back in April of 2005.
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
*The title comes from a comment that Dinklage made about his affinity for playing villains and that they were more fun than the "good" guys.*
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