Standing tall among giants

SINGAPORE — Big surprises do come in small packages. This is proven once again in this city when Peter Dinklage (a tongue-twisting surname, isn’t it?) drew ohs and ahs alongside Hugh Jackman and Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, his co-stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (directed by Bryan Singer, currently showing nationwide) on the Blue Carpet leading to a theater at Shaw House for the movie’s world premiere. Peter didn’t have to stand on tip-toe to have “selfie-selfie” with the screaming fans that crowded behind both sides of the barricades; the fans merrily, well, reached down to him.

In X-Men, his first time to star in the hit franchise, the 44-year-old American actor plays military scientist Dr. Bolivar Trask who invented enormous robotic weapons called the Sentinels, aiming to unite the human race by eliminating the mutants, its evolutionary rivals. Surely, it’s a character as challenging as Tyrion Lannister in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones for which Peter has won two Best Supporting Actor awards from the Emmy and the Golden Globes.

At the general presscon the next day at the grand ballroom of Ritz Carlton where the X-Men entourage was billeted, Peter amused the media with his sense of humor as did the ever-witty Jackman. In one scene, Jackman is shown naked rising from bed, leaving his partner fast asleep, and when a journalist asked Jackman how he felt during the shoot, Peter cracked before Jackman could answer, “I was his body double in that scene,” generating laughter and cheers in the hall.

Of course, everybody was too polite and respectful to ask Peter about his “great smallness,” although in an interview sometime in 2003, according to an Internet entry, somebody did and Peter said, “When I was younger, I definitely let it get to me. As an adolescent, I was bitter and angry, and I definitely put up these walls. But the older you get, you realize you just have to have a sense of humor. You just know that it’s not your problem; it’s theirs.”

Two years ago, a New York Times reporter asked Peter whether he saw himself as a spokesman for the rights of “little people,” and he replied, “I don’t know what I would say. Everyone’s different. Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I’m seemingly okay with it, I can’t preach how to be okay with it. I don’t think I still am okay with it. There are days when I’m not.”

Fortunately, Peter was “okay with it” when Conversations did a one-on-one with him later that afternoon. He was an engaging interviewee, with an almost booming voice, and after shaking hands with him at the conclusion of the interview, he seemed to me to stand six-feet tall.

You’re a first-timer on the X-Men franchise. How’s the experience so far?

“It’s great being included in this party. It’s such a thrill. You know, it goes back to the storytelling from this amazing comic books through this whole series of films. I knew I was coming into something safe, a well-oiled machine they call it. It’s a great, complex character that, nine times out of 10, would take a great actor to do it. That’s what the script is looking for.”

(“The idea of a multi-layered villain led to the casting of Dinklage,” producer-screenwriter Simon Kinberg was quoted in the production notes. “Peter brings not just the notion of being different physically but a real depth of emotion and humanity to his work. With Peter, Trask becomes reliable. He’s somebody the audience actually cares about even as they root against him.”)    

Which of the other characters would you have chosen to play aside from Dr. Bolivar Trask?

“Well, it’s been 14 years since I saw my first X-Men film. It was the first movie and I believe that the true die-hard comic-book fans were always waiting for. It was the first film in the superhero comic-book genre that was darker than the ones that came before it because it draws from human history and the complexity of ourselves. Maybe it speaks of a more cynical time but, as I said, it’s the kind of story that the fans have been waiting for. Oh, which other character would I have chosen to play? Still Dr. Bolivar Trask; I love the character.”

What was most memorable to you doing the movie and on the set?

“Oh, you never forget the first moment on a movie like this, seeing all those amazing faces on the set. The first time may be nerve-wracking but, yes, it’s always memorable, especially doing the scenes with the actors, the core group from the original, and the new ones. It was fun.”

You’ve been shuttling between the sets of X-Men and Game of Thrones while doing so many other things. How do you juggle your time?

“I don’t know. You just sort of have to go away and do it and hope for the best. I mean, I have a small staff that helps me with those things, organizing my time. I shot my scenes in X-Men for more than two weeks in Montreal, Canada (the whole filming was wrapped up in two months), and right after that I had to shoot the next season of Game of Thrones. These are two massive projects and it’s incredible how they were able to accommodate my schedule.”

Very obviously, you have fun playing both your X-Men and Thrones characters.

“Great parts!”

You have millions of fans all over the world. Do you get in touch with them through social media?

“I don’t really resort to social media. I prefer getting close to them in person, like what we did yesterday on the Blue Carpet before the screening. I shook hands with them, have photos with them…you know, selfie! It was a mad house but I like it. I live in New York (with his wife Erica Schmidt, a theater director whom he married in 2005; and their only daughter), one of the biggest cities in the world where you face people every day. People love Game of Thrones and X-Men series, so I get approached all the time and it’s always nice.”

What’s the biggest decision you’ve made that radically changed your life?

“Oh boy! I guess it’s the biggest change in my life…being a parent now. And there’s no going back to the life that came before.”

(For more on Peter Dinklage, watch Startalk on GMA this afternoon starting at 4 o’clock.)

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