Peter Dinklage, the 49-year-old actor shot his final scenes as Tyrion Lannister in July and admitted it was particularly difficult to draw the project to a close because he had “developed deep roots” in many of the areas he shot the drama in because it was so far away from the home he shares with wife Erica Schmidt and their two children.
Speaking backstage at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater after winning the Supporting Actor in a Drama Emmy Award on Monday (17.09.18), he told reporters: “I had my last day on set in July, just over two months ago now and it was very sad.
“This is not only a great TV show to be a part of, but it was an enormous family to be a part of. “I’m sure you’ve heard that before from actors but in this case I was far from home, I live in New York and we shot the show in Europe, so many times I had to stay there and couldn’t go home on the weekends and I really developed deep roots in the community of Ireland and some of the other countries we shot in.
“It was definitely hard to say goodbye, because it wasn’t just saying goodbye to the show, I was saying goodbye to a life over there.”
And the actor admitted it will be hard to “top” both the success and the experience he had working on the fantasy saga.
He said: “How do I top this? You just keep searching, hoping the next writer you come across is equally as talented as David Benioff and Dan Weiss.”
Though Peter could never have predicted the success of the show – which scooped the Outstanding Drama prize at the Primetime Emmys – he praised the response of audiences as “beautiful”.
He said: “I absolutely adored this character and the stories we were telling so it’s so beautiful when other people end up feeling the same way you do.”
And the actor also admitted he initially had some “concerns” about taking on his role.
He said: “I had concerns about this genre, I wasn’t familiar with the books or the complexity of Tyrion before this because unfortunately before this character, many times people my size weren’t interesting enough for me to be interested in doing it.
“I had done it one or two times before and it sort of didn’t you know, grab me but they relieved by concerns very quickly.”