Peter Hayden Dinklage (; born June 11, 1969) is an American actor. Portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times. Dinklage also received a Golden Globe Award in 2011 and an Actor Award in 2020 for the role.
Born in the North Jersey region of New Jersey, Dinklage studied acting at Bennington College, performing in a number of amateur stage productions. He made his film debut in the black comedy film Living in Oblivion (1995), and had his breakthrough with a starring role in the 2003 comedy-drama The Station Agent. Dinklage's other films include Elf (2003), Lassie and The Baxter (both in 2005), Find Me Guilty (2006), Penelope (2006), Death at a Funeral (2007), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Death at a Funeral (2010), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), The Thicket (2024), and Wicked (2024). In 2018, he appeared as Eitri in the Marvel film Avengers: Infinity War, and as Hervé Villechaize in the biopic film My Dinner with Hervé. Dinklage also provided voice-acting for the video game Destiny, and in 2023, he voiced Scourge in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. On television, Dinklage also starred in the series Dexter: Resurrection in 2025.
Dinklage has also performed in theater, with roles including the title character in Richard III (2003) at the Public Theatre, Rakitin in A Month in the Country (2015) at Classic Stage Company, and Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano at the Daryl Roth Theatre in 2019.
Early life
Dinklage was born on June 11, 1969, in the North Jersey region of New Jersey, to John Carl Dinklage, an insurance salesman, and Diane Dinklage, an elementary school music teacher of German and Irish descent. He grew up in the historic Brookside section of Mendham Township, with his parents and older brother Jonathan. Dinklage is the only member of his family with achondroplasia. He was raised Catholic.
As a child, Dinklage and his brother Jonathan performed puppet musicals for people in their neighborhood. Dinklage has described his brother as "the real performer of the family", saying that Jonathan's passion for the violin was the only thing that kept him from pursuing acting. Jonathan graduated from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and served as violinist and concertmaster for the musical Hamilton.
Dinklage had his first theatrical success in a fifth-grade production of The Velveteen Rabbit. Playing the lead, Dinklage was delighted by the audience's response to the show. He attended Delbarton School, a Catholic preparatory school for boys, where he developed his acting skills. In 1984, Dinklage was inspired to pursue an acting career by a production of Sam Shepard's play True West.
Dinklage attended Bennington College, where he studied for a drama degree and appeared in numerous productions before graduating in 1991. Dinklage moved to New York City with his friend Ian Bell to build a theater company; failing to pay the rent, they had to move out of their apartment. He subsequently lived in New York for 20 years in Williamsburg and the West Village, then worked six years for a data-processing company before again pursuing a full-time acting career.
Career
Early career (1995–2002)
Dinklage initially struggled to find acting work, partially because he refused to take the roles typically offered to actors with his condition, such as "elves or leprechauns".
He had a credited film debut in the low-budget independent comedy-drama Living in Oblivion (1995), where he starred alongside Steve Buscemi. It tells the story of a director, crew, and cast filming a low-budget independent film in New York City. Dinklage's role was that of a frustrated actor with dwarfism who complains about his clichéd roles. The next year, he appeared as a building manager in the crime drama Bullet starring rapper Tupac Shakur. Even after his well-received performance in Living in Oblivion, Dinklage could not find someone willing to be his agent. After a recommendation from Buscemi to director Alexandre Rockwell, Dinklage was cast in the comedy 13 Moons (2002). When later interviewed for a theater website, he was asked what his ideal role was, and he replied "to play the romantic lead and get the girl".
Breakthrough (2003–2010)
Dinklage found his breakthrough playing Finbar McBride, who is a quiet, withdrawn, unmarried man in the 2003 Tom McCarthy-directed film The Station Agent. According to co-star Bobby Cannavale, the film took three years to make and was not at first written with Dinklage in mind. Cannavale said that McCarthy "set out to tell a story about a guy who was a train enthusiast who had chosen to isolate himself from the world", but when McCarthy actually started "putting pen to paper" for the screenplay, he decided to write the role for Dinklage. Speaking about the role, Dinklage noted that usually "roles written for someone my size are a little flat"—often either comical or "sort of Lord of the Rings" type characters filled with wisdom; further: "They're not sexual, they're not romantic" and "they're not flawed." What attracted him to the character McCarthy had written was that it was not one of the stereotypical roles people with dwarfism play; rather, McBride has "romantic feelings" as well as "anger and... flaws". The role earned him the Independent Spirit Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor nominations. In the New York Observer, reviewer Andrew Sarris wrote, "Dinklage projects both size and intelligence in the fascinating reticence of his face." Besides being Dinklage's highest-rated film on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Station Agent was modestly successful at the box office, earning over $8 million against its small budget.
Dinklage later appeared in the direct-to-DVD film Tiptoes (2003) with Gary Oldman and Matthew McConaughey. The film met with negative reviews, particularly Oldman's role as a person with dwarfism. According to Dinklage, the original cut of the film was "gorgeous", but the director was fired shortly after turning it in, and the film was re-cut into a "rom-com with dwarfs". Speaking on the Oldman controversy, Dinklage said, "There was some flak: 'Why would you put Gary Oldman on his knees? That's almost like blackface.' And I have my own opinions about political correctness, but I was just like, 'It's Gary Oldman. He can do whatever he wants, and I'm so happy to be here.'"
That year, Dinklage also starred in several off-Broadway productions, such as Richard III. Dinklage appeared in the Christmas comedy film Elf as Miles Finch, an irritable children's author who beats up Buddy Hobbs (Will Ferrell) after he mistakes Finch for an elf. In 2005, he starred in the short-lived CBS science fiction series Threshold and appeared as a wedding planner in the comedy film The Baxter. He also made an appearance in the adventure comedy-drama Lassie as a traveling circus performer.
In 2006, Dinklage co-starred with Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty, a courtroom drama directed by Sidney Lumet. The film tells the true story of the longest Mafia trial in American history; Dinklage played Ben Klandis, the lead defense attorney. Critical reaction to the film was mostly positive, though it was a commercial failure. Writing for Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert praised Dinklage's performance, saying that the character he plays stands apart as "concise, articulate and professional". The same year, he portrayed the character Marlowe Sawyer in episodes of Nip/Tuck. He played a fictionalized version of himself in an episode of the HBO series Entourage and appeared in NBC's 30 Rock as Stewart. The same year, Dinklage appeared in the British romantic comedy Penelope playing Lemon, a tabloid reporter. The film received…