The role Peter Dinklage has always dreamed of playing: “I have a soft spot in my heart”
It can be easy to dismiss Peter Dinklage based on his appearance, but I truly believe that, if we lived in a world that was kinder to people with disabilities, he would be one of the biggest stars on the planet.
He is a phenomenal actor who is well-rounded, compelling, and a master at disappearing into roles, with all the charisma of a top name, and he’s disarmingly handsome to boot.
Even with significant societal hurdles in his way, the Golden Globe winner has been able to play some of the greatest characters in all of fiction. As well as his career-making turn as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, the former punk rocker has been Cyrano de Bergerac on both stage and screen, will be appearing as The Fool in Bernard Rose’s upcoming Lear Rex, and lent his voice to the great Hercule Poirot as part of a series of audio dramas.
There’s still a lot of mileage left in the tank, though, if Dinklage himself is to be believed, and during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit, when he was asked if there was a specific character he would love to play, his answer must have sent a million fanfic writers into overdrive.
“I have a huge soft spot in my heart for Atticus Finch,” he replied, “It’s so hard to say something like that, though. I don’t see myself in the role since Gregory Peck did such a good job with it already”.
The performance to which Dinklage is referring is, of course, from the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee’s immortal novel, where Peck was given the daunting task of establishing Finch as a three-dimensional, humane white lawyer who chooses to defend a Black man on rape charges in the racist Deep South.
Not only did he pass this test, he passed it with flying colours, his performance widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, capturing so much of what made Atticus so compelling on the page. When the American Film Institute made a list of the 100 greatest movie heroes of the 20th century, Finch was right at the very top, ahead of Indiana Jones, Ellen Ripley, and even James Bond.
Peck might have a perceived monopoly over the charismatic lawyer, but he isn’t the only actor to have stepped into his pristine shoes. When Aaron Sorkin adapted the story for the stage, he worked with a number of famous faces to bring Atticus to life, including Jeff Daniels, Rafe Spall, and Ed Harris. Even Homer Simpson took on the character in a season 30 episode of The Simpsons, but despite these cultural heavyweights all taking their turns, however, Peck remains the one-and-only Atticus Finch in most people’s eyes.
Personally, I’d love to see Dinklage take on the role, and while his dwarfism doesn’t fit the conventional view of Atticus as a pure ‘all-American’ type who defends Tom Robinson solely because of his sense of honour, it could add a new wrinkle to the story if handled well. It sounds unlikely on paper, but this is the same actor whose CV includes Richard III, the Toxic Avenger, and a singing goat, so anything is possible.
