For newcomers who caught the premiere of HBO’s new fantasy drama “Game of Thrones” on Sunday night, Peter Dinklage, one of the series’ stars, has some advice – withhold your judgment of the characters.
It would be easy to assume that the actor’s on-screen family, the Lannister clan – Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) and Tyrion (Peter) — are evil and corrupt after the way the premiere episode ended on Sunday night.
After all, Jamie did shove the young Brandon Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) out of a high, Winterfell castle window with the remark, “the things I do for love,” a reference to protecting his sister and their incestuous relationship.
“They’re evil? And they’re corrupt? I don’t know. Maybe, a little bit. At the edges a little bit, but, that’s the great thing about this show — nobody’s black and white,” Peter told Access Hollywood as he promoted the series earlier this year at the Television Critics Association Winter Session. “Like life, there’s no villain and hero. Everybody has faults and good things. The Lannisters have that as well.”
Peter said that new fans who continue on with the series, based on the books by George R. R. Martin, will find many shades of gray across the cast – including with the Lannisters.
“We’ve done some bad things, but you know, it’s just very hard to quickly label [people]… That’s what I love about this show — you can’t really label. You think you’ve got somebody labeled and you really don’t,” he said. “I think as people, that’s what we like to do and it really helps us identify people, but I think we’re sort of too quick to do that and I think that’s one of the beauties of this show, is, you will do that at the beginning and you go, ‘Oh, wait. I was wrong!’”
In fact, the actor said many things will unravel throughout the course of the season that will likely shift many people’s views.
“The Lannisters are seemingly a bit corrupt, but there’s a history there that came way before them and there’s a reason why they’ve done the various corrupt things they’ve done,” he added. ” I think that will make you more sympathetic to them and give reason to why they have done certain things.”
“Game of Thrones” airs on Sunday nights at 9 PM ET/PT on HBO.
For more with Peter Dinklage, Click HERE.
To see Access’ interview with series star Sean Bean, Click HERE.
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