Peter Dinklage names his favourite Christmas movie
Christmas time, to quote the Vince Guaraldi Trio, is here. It means that it is at last acceptable for us to spend our evenings curled up on the sofa watching festive films. Christmas movies, especially the sickly sweet kind, can be divisive, but everyone has their favourite. Even people who hate Christmas look forward to their annual double-bill of Die Hard I and II, neither of which, let’s be honest, really count as Christmas films. Ah, ah, ah – don’t disagree. They’re films about terrorism that happen to be set at Christmas, there’s a big difference. Anyway, here we join Game of Thrones and Cyrano actor Peter Dinklage as he names his favourite Christmas movie of all.
Born in Morristown, New Jersey, Peter Dinklage made his screen debut in 1995’s Living Oblivion before going on to star in festive favourite Elf, in which he played an acclaimed book author, as well as Find Me Guilty, Death At A Funeral, Penelope, and Narnia: Prince Caspian. Of course, it was HBO’s Game of Thrones, the first season of which aired in 2011, that provided Dinklage with his worldwide breakthrough. Since the series came to an end, the actor has appeared in a variety of indie films, including the 2017 picture Three Christs, as well as major Hollywood production such as Cyrano.
During a short interview with The Radio Times, Dinklage was asked to name his favourite festive movie. “I like the old Alistair Sim Christmas Carol, Scrooge, the old black and white one,” he began. “That’s one of my favourites. And I also like A Christmas Story, with Peter Billingsley the little blonde kid, you know, the tongue stuck on the frozen pole. That’s a real fun one as well.”
Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, Scrooge is one of the most poignant screen adaptations of Charles Dickens’s festive parable, A Christmas Carol, which tells the story of penny-pinching miser Ebeneezer Scrooge and his evolution into a man of generosity and merriment. The classic tale is made all the more ghostly by Hurst’s minimalist monochrome cinematography. It is also one of those rare Carol adaptations which manages to expand the source material without sacrificing the concision of Dicken’s original tale.
Dinklage’s second pick, A Christmas Story, sits in stark contrast to his first. Released in 1983, this maximalist family comedy provides a deep dive into the “traditional” Christmas of an average American family with an emphasis on the absurd. Set in the 1940s, it tells the story of Ralphie Parker, who, when he’s not dodging the fists of the local bullies, spends his time daydreaming about his ideal Christmas gift, the coveted “Red Ryder air rifle”. As the big day approaches, Ralphie does his best to persuade his parents that he’s deserving of this gift or gifts.
