I think my mom drove by a nuclear power plant when she was pregnant. But I wouldn't be in 'The Station Agent' if she hadn't.
— Peter Dinklage
Even 'Lord of the Rings' had dwarf-tossing jokes in it. It's like, 'Really?'
Animals used for food are treated like unfeeling machinery.
We're not environmentally doing very good things to this planet, and we might not be around too long.
Jen Lawrence is quite a fan of 'Game of Thrones.'
I don't like people being cautious and tentative and choosing their words carefully around me because I'm a dwarf.
I have a need to always make people laugh. I have a desperate need. I love a great sense of humor. The people I sort of surround myself with have that.
I've been to Sundance before, but I'd never seen a lot of screenings.
Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.
I dress and eat like a fifth-grader, basically. I like sandwiches and cereal and hooded sweatshirts.
I'm on 'Game Of Thrones,' and every time we have someone new coming on our show, we welcome them with open arms and get revitalised by this new presence. Then we kill them off very quickly.
I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.
I should call people back more readily. I'm not the best friend sometimes in terms of that. I do follow that white balloon and get distracted a lot.
I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent.
Being on television, playing the same character for many years, for me, I think that would get a little tedious.
I think if actors are successful at one thing, they paint themselves into a corner sometimes, and what's the fun in that?
My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.
When people are infected by my charm, they don't see my size. My piercing deep blue eyes are distracting.
I knew David Benioff a bit socially. I knew his wife, Amanda Peet. He's a smart guy, so I always sought him out at dinner parties.
There's a thing at the Museum of Natural History in New York, where I live: they have a stairwell where you follow the beginning and the course of this planet, and it's a very long stairwell, and you follow, and you follow, and then you reach the top, and we're, like, half a step on the stairwell - the timeline for us on this planet.
I'm one of those who can't read the books after they've seen the movie.
I am this guy who's four and a half feet tall, but my life doesn't constantly address it.
A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.
I have a big cynical side to me.
The leads are often the boring part.
I was a sullen kid who smoked cigarettes and wore black every day, and I went to a school that was lacrosse players and Izods.
My favourite superhero? I have a soft spot for Batman, because he doesn't have any super powers - he's just a person. And he's pretty dark.
I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I'd heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader.
I just think the less you know about an actor, the more serious you'll take them as an actor because they will disappear a little bit.
What I really want is to play the romantic lead and get the girl.
I think a lot of great male comic actors are introspective, quiet personalities, which I really admire. But they are really able to turn it up when the camera's on.
I never lived in an abandoned railroad station.
'Game of Thrones' is an amazing show, and I have no problem speaking of the virtues of HBO.
I spend my nights just sitting and reading a book and drinking my tea and walking my dog. That's about as exciting as my life gets.
As an adolescent, I was bitter and angry, and I definitely put up these walls.
Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.
We, as Americans, at least - I mean, I love my country - but we're so self-righteous sometimes, in terms of, like, our nationality, our country. But we're people from somewhere else; the true 'Americans' are the original peoples. It's funny, but we're a very territorial species.
I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there's good people that sometimes make mistakes.
I guess the word to call me is my name, Pete.
I've felt like an outsider. I've had to struggle.
A lot of parts written for people of my size, dwarfs, are either foolish idiots or, like, these sages that are all-knowing, and they're very, sort of, come-to-them-for-answers.
I think 'No' is a very powerful word in our business that is very hard to use early on in your career. But I also think I was pretty arrogant when I was younger... I used that word maybe too much, but it did help me with finding roles that I did like.
Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
I was born in 1969, believe it or not, so I was a child in the '70s.
My brother, who's a violinist now, was the real ham, the real performer of the family. His passion for the violin is the only thing that kept him from being an actor.
I'm a private person in many ways.
George Martin is an incredible writer.
That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?
Maybe everyone is a little too reassuring that things are going to be OK to college graduates. It gives them a false sort of security.
Bad guys are complicated characters. It's always fun to play them. You get away with a lot more. You don't have a heroic code you have to live by.
