Peter Dinklage NPR Interview

Peter Dinklage was interviewed by NPR’s All Things Considered about playing Tyrion Lannister and Game of Thrones. 

On his initial reservation about starring in a fantasy series:

I hadn’t read the books, so I wasn’t too familiar with it, but I knew David Benioff and Dan Weiss and they sort of set me straight about this character, because I had some severe reservations about going into the realm of fantasy.
CORNISH: Why?
DINKLAGE: I don’t know. My own silly prejudice, I guess, against the genre in terms of someone my height. Usually it’s a bit – how do I say this politely without offending anybody else’s work in amazing things? It’s bearded and pointy-shoed. And this character, Tyrion Lannister, isn’t that way at all.

On the emphasis, or non-emphasis, of Tyrion’s physicality:

DINKLAGE: Well, I don’t have a problem playing those characters as long as it’s told intelligently. It would be stupid if he wasn’t addressed as an imp or something in this world, given the surroundings. It does address the size issue, but it doesn’t knock you over the head with it, because you don’t really need to. And I find all the scripts that I get that I’m not very interested in, it’s a constant reminder, every single page. Almost every single line is geared towards your height. And I just, in my day-to-day life, and any person who is my size’s day-to-day life, it happens, but it’s not a constant.

Listen to / download the full interview here: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/21/153198363/peter-dinklage-on-thrones-and-on-his-own-terms

NPR Fresh Air’s Interview with Sherlock’s Co-Creator Steven Moffat

On embracing current technology on Sherlock:

Well, the thing about Sherlock Holmes in the original is that he’s very, very techno-literate. I mean to a contemporary Victorian reader he was a sort of cutting-edge scientist. He was well up with all the stuff. He was also born for the Internet age because he loves research. He loves acquiring knowledge. So I just imagined that, you know, the Sherlock would be lurking on the chat rooms and forums and finding out what’s going on. So far from being a difficult thing to embrace, it was a joy because he would love it.

Moffat insulting Cumberbatch’s name. Hah! Not very diplomatic, sir.

That’s his name. Benedict Cumberbatch is actually his actual real name. I know, isn’t that great? How often is Sherlock Holmes played by someone with an even stupider name?

On Watson’s importance to the show:

Because if you look at the stories, you look you look at any good version of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson is every bit as important a character as Sherlock Holmes, and some would argue more so because he’s our conduit to Sherlock Holmes. He’s the person to whom the story in a way happens. We are more emotionally resonant with Dr. Watson that we are with Sherlock Holmes because Sherlock Holmes is, you know, a hard man to empathize with.

On Sherlock’s future, now that Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbath are bigger stars, busy with other projects:

Yes, but we have their families trapped in a cellar. (Laugh) They are both, I can honestly say, very, very keen to carry on with “Sherlock” as it stands. Thing is, we do a limited amount of “Sherlock.” That’s the way we do it. Every year or so we get together and do three movies. So you are free to do other things. And I think it’ll do them both good to descend from their mighty star status in L.A. and New Zealand and get back in a small caravan in Wales and make some more “Sherlock.”

Listen to /download the interview here: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151938002/the-man-who-revitalized-doctor-who-and-sherlock

Hugh Laurie Interview on NPR Fresh Air

Interesting interview with Hugh Laurie on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. It’s weird hearing him in his English accent for a lengthy interview; I’ve only heard him in short snippets before.

On directing Robert Sean Leonard (Wilson):

But I also do – I defer to others. You know, if I’m doing a scene with Robert Sean Leonard – he’s a man I would put my life in his hands, and almost have on occasion. And I would say to him, you know, did that seem all right to you, and he will definitely say not quite, or he’ll say yes.

On the decision to end House M.D:

Yes, I did have a vote, although it never really came to that, you know, the paper, scissors, stone moment. It was a sort of consensus that we had run our course. And it occurred to me the other day that I suppose one of the problems is that the character is so inherently self-destructive, to the point of being virtually suicidal. A person cannot be a character – a fictional character cannot sustain that suicidal tension indefinitely. You can’t have a man on a window ledge threatening to jump forever. At some point, he’s either got to jump or get back into the building because the crowd below, who are either urging him to jump or not jump, eventually will lose interest.

On his father, who actually was a doctor:

I think – well, first of all, with great affection obviously, but also I think my father gave me, bequeathed to me a great reverence for medical science. He was about as opposite to the personality of House as one could imagine. He was the most polite and gentle and easygoing of men, and would have gone to great lengths to make his patients feel attended to and heard and sympathized with. And he probably would have been somewhat horrified at House’s behavior, but at the same time he had a sort of steely honesty about medical and psychological truth, that there are certain things – one must be humble in the face of facts. And he was not someone who would allow sentiment to cloud an issue.

On playing an American character:

The great trap for non-American actors trying to play Americans, I think, is to start thinking of American-ness as a characteristic. It isn’t. It is no more a character trait than height. It is just a physical fact and that’s all there is to it. It says nothing about the psychology of a character, and you therefore have to not let it overpower the character and walk – you know, I’m going to walk around in an American way. That’s obviously absurd.

You can listen or download the interview here: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151354373/hugh-lauries-house-no-pain-no-gain