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Canwest News Service
Steve Buscemi might not seem like a Hollywood type with a lot of pull, but fellow actor Peter Dinklage says he's the reason he signed on for a part in a new comedy called Saint John of Las Vegas.
"I've known him for about 20 years," says Dinklage over the phone from his home in New York. "He said come on down and be in our movie. If he's in something and he wants you to be a part of it, you follow him."
The film, which opens in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver this Friday, stars Buscemi as a gambling addict, trying to stay straight while working for an auto insurance company in Albuquerque, N.M. He is lured back to his old lifestyle when he must investigate a claim for an accident that took place near Las Vegas.
The eclectic cast includes Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco and Tim Blake Nelson. Dinklage plays Buscemi's boss, Mr. Townsend, the kind of manager who smiles a lot but never lets you know if he's serious or joking. Dinklage says the character, drawn from a real ex-boss by writer-director
Hue Rhodes, was a cinch to play.
"He basically has worked for this guy," Dinklage says. "I'd never met the man, but … I've worked for people like that."
An interesting facet of the role is that it doesn't rely on Dinklage's most obvious physical characteristic. The actor is a dwarf who stands just 4-foot-5. Many of his roles (including his most well known, as a recluse in 2003's The Station Agent) require an actor of short stature. Mr. Townsend, however, could be any size, which suits Dinklage.
"I enjoy playing characters where it's not a defining aspect of their character," he says. "I can't let my size limit me or define me or pigeonhole me." So, although you can see him in a small part in the Will Ferrell comedy Elf, he has turned down roles that seemed to rely too much on his stature.
"It would entail me being lazy, and I'm not interested in that," he says. "It just becomes uninteresting for me and I think it becomes uninteresting for an audience." Having said that, he notes: "There are great roles that are written for dwarves."
That would include his current project, a planned HBO series called Game of Thrones, based on the popular fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. Dinklage plays the diminutive Tyrion Lannister in the pilot episode.
Dinklage is also keeping busy with theatre work, which remains his first love. "That's where you start," he says. "The films and TV are sort of afterthoughts to theatre. You start doing both if you're lucky enough. But I never treated theatre as a stepping stone."
He'll also be appearing April 16 in the film Death at a Funeral, an odd project in that it's an American remake of a British movie that came out just three years ago. "It was a little bit strange," Dinklage says of being the only actor to play the same part in both films. "I wasn't going to do it, but I heard Chris Rock was involved and that changed my mind."
Finally, Dinklage, who turned 40 last year, plans to move into producing. He has one project in which he also hopes to star, based on the 1944 novel The Dwarf by Swedish Nobel laureate Pär Lagerkvist. The story is told from the point of view of a dwarf at an Italian court during the Renaissance. Since the character is described as being 26 inches in height, Dinklage is more than twice as tall as the role requires. Don't expect that to stop him.
