Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister
by Nur Hussein, staff writer
Today is the birthday of Peter Dinklage, award winning American actor. He is known and loved by fandom as Tyrion Lannister, a beloved character on the HBO show Game of Thrones.
Dinklage was born in New Jersey in 1969. His family lived right next door to Bruce Springsteen’s manager when he was two. Springsteen was only 17 at the time, but he’d come over to his house and play guitar (not that Dinklage remembers any of that).
As an actor, his debut film role was a 1995 movie, Living in Oblivion. He gained popularity when he starred in The Station Agent in 2003, a film about a lonely man with a love of railroads who seeks solace in an abandoned train station. The role got him nominations for the Independent Spirit and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. Dinklage appeared in the British film Death At A Funeral, playing a dwarf named Peter. In 2010 he played the same role again (albeit with a different name for the character: Frank) in the American remake of that movie.
Young Peter Dinklage sporting a mullet. This photo surfaced and made its rounds a few days ago, and this felt like the perfect opportunity to include it in an article.
Dinklage’s involvement in genre projects is wide-spread. He was in Jon Favreau’s film Elf in 2003; the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in 2008; and was a main character on the sci-fi TV show Threshold. He appeared in the comedy-horror film about LARPing, Knights of Badassdom in 2013. Most recently, he can be seen as Bolivar Trask in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past. However, it is his performance as the snarky dwarf Tyrion Lannister that endears him most to his fans (and the Internet being what it is, expresses appreciation in the most hilariously bizzare ways). In 2011, Dinklage won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for his portrayal of Tyrion.
Dinklage has been a vegetarian since he was 16, because he is an animal lover and is opposed to hurting animals in any way. He has supported the charity Farm Sanctuary, which is an organization protecting farm animals from cruelty.
We hope you have a terrific birthday, Peter Dinklage, and may your awesome character Tyrion Lannister live on in legend (for as long as George R.R. Martin allows, anyway).
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Nur is a tinkerer of programmable things, an apprentice in an ancient order of technomages. He enjoys fantasy, sci-fi, comic books, and Lego in his spare time. His favourite authors are Asimov and Tolkien. He also loves Celtic and American folk music. You can follow him on twitter: @nurhussein
