Size Doesn’t Matter: Big Show Says He Takes Inspiration From Game Of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage
The Big Show recently revealed that he looks up to Peter Dinklage, proving once and for all that size doesn’t matter and it’s how you use it.
Big Show is the “World’s Largest Athlete,” but he says he is taking some acting cues from Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, who is afflicted with dwarfism, in teaching him about how to combat issues on set as it pertains to size difficulty.
Big Show, real name Paul Wight, would even go so far as to call Peter Dinklage a “hero” of his when speaking to TheWrap.
“As an actor, I look at someone like Peter Dinklage, which you’d think is the opposite end of the spectrum,” he said. “But no, because Peter Dinklage is such a good actor, he is able to take parts that originally weren’t written for a little person and a smaller person and he’s transcended that so that it doesn’t matter. You see how he interacts with his environment, but at the same time, it adds flavor to the dialogue that’s written. So if I can do that as a big guy and come to change the perception a little bit that it’s OK for big guys to actually have talent and actually be able to tell stories, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
He continued, “It’s tough to convince people [otherwise], especially because Hollywood is more of a money business than pro wrestling. If they’re going to invest millions of dollars into a project to put this movie out, they’re going to invest in somebody who can put people in seats or are going to [make them want to] buy it or who people are going to buy the downloads [for]. That’s who they are investing in to pull this part off. And it’s not one of those things like, ‘I have a dream!’ They don’t give two craps about your dream. They want to make sure that the investment is good.”
As far as size is concerned, Dinklage himself says he’s not looking to change the world. Much like Big Show, Dinklage would like to be remembered for his body of work and not so much the stature of his body.
“That would be putting me before the work,” Dinklage once told Independent in the UK. “It’s just bad writing to make that the dominant character trait. It’s not my dominant character trait. It has to be part of a complex portrait that informs other pieces of your personality.”
Most recently, Big Show was punted in the head by Randy Orton. His Netflix series, The Big Show Show, currently has eight episodes available for binge-watching and at least two more on the way.
