Peter Dinklage

Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor and producer. He is perhaps best known for his role as Tyrion Lannister in the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). He also voiced Captain Gutt, the main antagonist of the 2012 Blue Sky Studios film Ice Age: Continental Drift and Mighty Eagle in the 2016 Sony Pictures animated film The Angry Birds Movie and its 2019 sequel.

For Disney, he portrayed Dr. Simon BarSinister, the main antagonist of the 2007 live-action adaptation of Underdog, Trumpkin in the 2008 Walden Media film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Eitri in the 2018 Marvel film Avengers: Infinity War. He also played Finbar McBride in the 2003 Miramax film The Station Agent.

Dinklage was born at the Jersey Shore region in Morristown, 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. He is the only member of his family with achondroplasia and was raised Catholic. As a child, Dinklage and his brother performed puppet musicals for people in their neighborhood. He has described his brother Jonathan as being the "real performer of the family", saying that his brother's passion for the violin was the only thing that kept him from pursuing acting.

Dinklage had his first theatrical success in a fifth-grade production of The Velveteen Rabbit. Playing the lead, he 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, he was inspired by a production of the play True West to pursue an acting career. He then attended Bennington College, where he studied for a drama degree and appeared in numerous productions before graduating in 1991. He moved to New York City with his friend Ian Bell to build a theater company. Failing to pay the rent, they moved out of their apartment. He lived in New York for 20 years in Williamsburg and the West Village. He then worked at a data-processing company for six years before pursuing a career as a full-time actor.