Peter Dinklage

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Given the extensive range of roles that character actor Peter Dinklage has inhabited ' many of them intense, angry, or depressed ' it's perhaps no surprise that in person, he is the opposite: casual and easygoing. If your breakout role was playing a depressed dwarf in 2003's The Station Agent, which then segued into a role the same year playing a hilariously pompous children's book author who physically attacks Will Ferrell in Elf, you'd have to have a sense of detachment.

After following that same path in 2007 of following up an indie (Death at a Funeral) with a Hollywood movie (Underdog), this year Dinklage plunges headfirst into a summer blockbuster with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Dinklage plays Trumpkin, this time a dwarf in the fantastical sense, who befriends the four Pevensie children we met in 2005's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

He had been sought after for the role, and accepted it only after meeting the director of both Narnia films, Andrew Adamson. "I met with Andrew Adamson out in L.A., and I wasn't actually completely sold on doing it until I met him," Dinklage says. "I loved the first movie, but I was a little wary of my involvement and my character, because I hadn't read the script yet. I had read the book, but meeting Andrew changed my mind."

Andrew, and the film's preproduction staff. "He brought me into the animation department where they were already storyboarding the movie, and I saw that they were already using my face as a reference for Trumpkin. So there I was all over the walls, and running with a bow and arrow on a computer, and I thought, 'Hm, that's me as a video game. I guess I can't say no. I guess I've got to make their jobs easier.'"

It turned out to be the right decision, as Dinklage can't help but rave about his director. "He's such a creative force and such a nice person, in a great way," Dinklage says. "You meet nice people all the time, but they're sort of nice to just be people-pleasers, and Andrew's nice in such a genuine way, and so talented, I couldn't say no."

Dinklage also managed to put a little of himself in the character this time. "Healthy cynicism" is how he describes Trumpkin's M.O. "A little bit of comedy, too," he says. "I think in this world of wonderment and exploration it's important to have somebody who's like, 'Well I don't want to do that. I want to go, you know, eat a sandwich.' For a Narnian, it's weird to be the character that roots it in reality. It's sort of an oxymoron. But it's fun to be the disgruntled hero, if I can call Trumpkin a hero."

Going into a movie of that scale can be daunting for anyone, especially when most of the crew has already been through it once before. "They welcomed me with big open arms. It's great working with these people," he says. "They already have a built-in relationship that you sort of walk into, right past the meet-and-greet stage. For an actor, a lot of times you sort of meet somebody, and then five seconds later you're doing a love scene with them. It's so disorienting, but for this movie, the people who hadn't been involved in the first movie, like myself and Ben, it felt like we were walking into a whole world that had already been created, and they really welcomed us."

It actually turned out to be rather easy: When you get a sword and bow and arrow and are in armor, it really helps with the make believe. It does a lot of the work for you."

The Ben he mentions is Ben Barnes, who plays the titular prince. The two have many scenes together. "Ben's great. I have a new friend. He's really funny; we have a very similar sense of humor, and that's always important. Movie acting's tricky in that a lot of it you can't tell. I've worked with some great actors, and when you're doing the scene, you can't see their greatness ' and then when you see it on screen, it's amazing. And I think Ben has that quality. He made the eight months much easier. I think he has a great career ahead of him."

But then there were the four actors playing the Pevensie siblings: "They're very eccentric people," he jokes. "They stay in one trailer, all together. They have these pamphlets that they hand out to try to convert us. Some cult called 'The Pevensie Way.' They would chant all lunch break. It was creepy. No. What was the question'"

Dinklage is never one to sit still for very long; aside from jumping effortlessly between big Hollywood productions and independent films, he appears regularly on stage, where he got his start. "I'm going to do a play over the summer, a Chekhov play, summer theater in Upstate New York. And then I'm doing three or four independent films here and in Los Angeles before the next Narnia."

Yes, apparently there will be a role for Trumpkin in the third Narnia film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - in the original book by C.S. Lewis, the character is briefly mentioned, but then re-appears in a minor role in The Silver Chair. That means Dinklage may be able to get outfitted with the weapons and armor for a few years to come. Of course, every role has its downsides ' Trumpkin is also saddled with a massive head of unkempt hair.

"It's all yak hair," Dinklage says. "And human hair. Somewhere in a mountain there's a very cold yak because we used his hair. It was a little toasty."