Double Fantasy

Peter Dinklage on playing Hervé Villechaize and saying good-bye to Tyrion Lannister.

- David Marchese

IN A HOTEL ROOM above midtown Manhattan, Peter Dinklage is discussing, among other things, his present—that’d be HBO’s My Dinner With Hervé, in which he plays the late Fantasy Island star Hervé Villechaize. (The TV movie is based on a real-life encounter between Villechaize and its writer director, Sacha Gervasi.) And on the sidewalk down below, some fans are waiting, clutching mementos of his past. That is, they’re hoping the actor will sign their Game of Thrones memorabilia when he leaves. (The show, in which he plays Tyrion Lannister, wrapped the shooting of its final season this past summer.) “I take more of an issue with fame than Hervé did,” says the 49-year-old Dinklage, who’s aware of the ways in which Villechaize’s celebrity was a precursor of his own. “It’s a dance, but one you can never control. As an actor, the best you can do is try to bring some honesty into your parts and hope people will follow.”

What did Hervé represent to you when you first became aware of him?

Well, Hervé and I had nothing in common but our height, but I remember thinking, He’s underused. I’d become aware of him around the same time everybody else did: I saw Fantasy Island. Later, when I became a teenager, my thinking about him got translated with more anger, like he was being used a certain way because of his size. But the funny thing is, I think I minded that much more than Hervé did, because he seemed to have genuine joy in being on Fantasy Island. And who was I as a young person living in New Jersey to judge that? Hervé was complicated, and this was the first time I’d played someone who’d been a living person. It challenged my judgments.

What were those judgments?