Dinklage’s stand against heightism

Peter Dinklage refuses to be defined by his height, said Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone. As a child, his parents didn’t make a big deal of his dwarfism. In fact, they never explained the condition to him. “What do you need to explain?” says the Game of Thrones star. “It’s like explaining your hands. You grow up with it, it’s part of who you are.” When Dinklage moved to New York in the early ’90s to pursue an acting career, he refused to take any roles that exploited his 4-foot-5 stature. He told producers he wouldn’t play elves or leprechauns—even though those jobs paid well and would have allowed Dinklage to move out of his rat-infested apartment. “I feel it’s the responsibility of people my size to persevere a bit more about what they do,’’ he says. “Because it will just perpetuate itself if you agree to do these things.” A similarly short friend of his recently appeared in the Snow White movie Mirror Mirror. “He was like, ‘Why did I do this?’ You look on the top of the cabs in New York and the ad was seven dwarfs.’’ Dinklage shakes his head. “I can’t do it. I have to play a person.”

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