Peter Dinklage & Kit Harington | Actors on Actors

The first thing I did while the show was airing was go to rehab. If Tyrion's so smart, why is he wearing these clothing in this heat? I'm weirdly doing a lot of nudity at the moment and sex scenes. The more I do it, the more I think, I think I should stop. Are we filming? Yes. This is the show. This is it. Hi Kit Harington. Hi Peter Dinklage. Those are our names. Just so you know, we haven't seen each other in about seven years. This might get awkward. How have you been? Good. You look good. Shocking. You look no different from when I last saw you. A lot of work. It has been. I was saying before this, this was... Pucks. This is where we can figure out how much we've changed. Okay, let's go through it. I don't remember much back then. It was a fog. Here's something. Oh boy. This is going to be painful for you. Let's embarrass the **** out of each other. I am now the age... Oh ****, I hate this. I am now the age that you were when I first met you. Wow. I thought you were going to say, I am now the age where Liam Cunningham first started. I love you Liam. Grandad. No one knows what age Liam Cunningham is. No, he's Irish age. I love Ireland. Yeah, that's so crazy to think about. Because that show, it's a show called Game of Thrones. If anybody ever remembers. There were like the really young people, like Isaac and Maisie and Soph. These guys in their 20s, fresh out of drama school. My era, which was like 40s. And then the old timers. And it was such a great dynamic between all those different sort of stages of life. Yeah. And now, sadly, we've lost a few of the old timers. That's how long it's been and how elderly they were at the time. But it's bizarre for me being... I'm 39 now and I remember... God. I know. That's crazy. I'm 39 now and I remember like one of my first sort of memories of anything was David Benioff's 40th birthday party. Yeah. So it feels like a bizarre place talking to you, seeing David recently and knowing I'm kind of now in the place where I came in. Yeah. Meeting you guys. Yeah. And knowing the place you were when that whole journey started. Yeah, I was around your age. Damn. It's also odd because it's that thing of... I don't know how it is for you, but your group, as it were, if we can put them in groups, you, David, Dan, Lina, Hedy, Nikolaj Costa-Walder, you were like the established, older, like... In the thick of it. Not resting on our laurels yet, but like still working actors, yeah. Who'd done ----. Yes, which was such a cool balance with everything going around us, with all you guys. First of all, for you guys, you and Amelia and Richard and Alfie, at that age, dealing with a show like that, fresh out of the gates, none of us had that. We were like scrapping along, doing indie films, theater here in New York. That would have blown my brain off going into straight out of like being new to it all professionally into that. Although at the beginning, we had no idea. No. It felt really like, is anybody gonna watch this show? We knew there was a fan base for the books, but there wasn't like an awareness that I think there is now of this is gonna be a huge show before it even airs. There wasn't a feeling. There was just like a, the trailers were kinda junky and we were in the middle of the woods, and it was a really, really well-written show. That's why we were all there. But there was no feeling that this is gonna be as huge as it was going to be. Maybe more for us because we had already been through all those things. I remember back in the day there was something called pilot season, which you go to L.A. and you read for these TV shows, and then you're going like, I'm a movie actor. I don't wanna be on a TV show because that was always, back in my time, that was like something that was like B-level, but that has all changed because all the great writers are going to television like Dave and Dan, so there's no stigma for it anymore. So that was a weird sort of entry point for people my generation going into a TV show, especially far from home. You were a year out of drama school? Practically, yeah. I'd done one play. I did War Horse for a year straight out of drama school and then got the pilot of Game of Thrones. And my first ever scene on camera was with you. Right. I remember. Sorry about that. No, no, but I remember. Do you know what I remember from that? I remember thinking, I've just gotta be really still. Like that's acting for cameras, to be as still as I possibly can be and then say my lines and then go back to stillness. Still not stiff. Yeah. No, I watched that. I think I watched that straight back. It was very cold, so it was like hard thought. Like in my head, I'm like, why is that guy moving so much? Like he's moving. Overacting. Bad acting. Being a ham. And then I realised, no, you're just so much more experienced, you know, just to be on camera as I was like, right, just freeze. If you freeze, nothing can go wrong. Well in your defence, Jon Snow can be sort of a frozen character. It took me about four years. He's a bit more fun than Mr Killjoy. Exactly. And Mr Do The Right Thing. Brings every scene down just by his mere presence. No, but for me, it was like, I had no idea what huge was. I didn't know what pilot season was. I didn't know what the Emmys were. I didn't know anything. I knew the letters HBO because I knew the Sopranos and I knew I was in a pilot for an American TV show and that was enough. Like that was huge. Like for me at that point, I was like, I've hit gold dust just being employed. It was an alarming realisation when it started to be a success. Looking back, I think it was like this runaway train that was like, oh, okay, this is good but it's getting a bit scary now. Yeah. I think. As soon as we left Belfast, you started to feel it a lot more. Yeah. Like when we go to Spain, Croatia, these sort of exotic locations in the warm weather. I'm sorry, exotic location. I didn't leave Belfast. Oh right, sorry. Well, when the rest of us except for Kit got to go to the south of Spain and Croatia, that got a bit more warm weather crazy with the fans. Well, I experienced that when we went to Spain in the last season. Yeah, the final season when they let you out of the cold cage. Yeah. I was like, wow, this is chaos over here. Yeah, hard to sort of stay close to the material when that is going on around you and the awareness of that and not letting that mess it up. You and that crew of actors and creatives in the slightly more mature bracket of like, right, you're having kids, you're in your 40s. Like, for me, you're always in that bracket. It's like, I still have that teacher scenario of like, it's Peter or it's David. It's like when I see old college friends of mine on the street, they look so old because you compartmentalise them as young forever. Yeah. It's like the musicians who die young. You just always have them be young. I worked with Sophie again. Yeah, I heard. How was that? I've heard you have a love scene with Sophie. Yeah, she sent me the script and was like, do you want to do this? And I read it and I was like, Sophie, there's a lot of us getting it on and she hadn't seen that. She'd just go, yeah, Kit would be good for this part. But for me, obviously, I've known her since being a child, so I'm like, she feels like my younger sister. I'm like, this is weird. But we did it and it was gross but it was fine. It was gross but it was fine. It was gross. Yeah, that's how I summed that up. It was gross but it was fine. She's an amazing actor. I know we all know that but like, she was a child when she came out. She is phenomenal. Maybe I just say this because we had so much stuff together with Tyria and Sansa stuff. I sort of would look around the room going, this is like the greatest actress I think on this ******* show because what she was giving me was so still and she was always so prepared. She was so fun to play across. She was so there. Yeah. But I use that word still because the camera's on you. You don't have to do anything for the camera's attention. The camera's on you. You don't have to move. And she just had that sort of, and that's a difficult part. Yeah. It's such a hard part. Yeah. I mean, to go from like this uptight, prissy, no fun sister to like, yeah, she was incredible. But did you feel more prepared for it? I guess it's impossible to say. like you just said, my daughter was born, my first kid was born like the end of the second season. It was also so much of my life, my life changing at that time. She went to school in Ireland half the year, had an Irish accent. Yeah. So while the young ones were off going around, I was getting up and getting her to school in the morning in Ireland. So it was such a homebody existence for me in Belfast. My daughter is still in touch with her friends from there that she grew up with. So I had a very different reality. I wasn't going back to London on my days off like a lot of you guys were. But I don't regret that at all, obviously, the birth of my child. But that idea of like really immersing in that town Dave and Dan were immersed in it too. And so I got to spend a lot of time with them because they had, their kids were young at the time. So I really, that really changed my experience because I was nervous about going away to Ireland for a long period of time away from my wife and my family and all that stuff. Locations are amazing because you get to compartmentalize the experience of making the movie and not weave it together with your home life. You get to make it separate. Like doing a movie for a month in Budapest or something, you just get to fully embrace your work, the experience, and then you go home. And my kids now are used to it and they're great with it. But combining the two can be tricky because you just want to live in that sort of fantasy of what you're making. But with that show, it wasn't really, it was just so combined with my life that they're hard to extricate each other from one from the other. For me, obviously, in my 20s, we were just tearing up. Yeah. We were tearing up a lot. Everything's so exciting. Everything's electric. And on top of that, you have this added special source of being in this thing, and it just goes nuclear. Yeah. And the reins came off at times. Yeah, for sure, which is understandable. Yeah. In my 20s, and a lot of actors my age, I have a couple actor friends who were famous young like yourself, and we just sort of got into New York City Club and lived with them for free because they were famous and we just were on their coattails. But for a lot of us, we were struggling still, and money was always, living in New York, living in London, always an issue. I can't imagine having that burden lifted because 20s are also about making mistakes, breaking hearts, getting your heart broken, and ******* up. Yeah. I feel like that's the decade you're an adult, but you're still allowed to figure, and I think mistakes are really important in life. Everybody's really focused on success, but with you guys, you were sort of, all your mistakes were public knowledge. And with a bag of cash. And also, we are paying you a lot of money, so kind of make less, a few less mistakes while you're at it. Yeah. To have that going on must be hard at that age because that's not really natural. I think the further I get away from it, the more I realize it was a kind of weird way of life. Because you're still growing up in your 20s. Yeah. Very much so. That's like the most you're growing up, I think. I think we were very protected, and I think we were protected in that place, and I'm thankful I was in Belfast for a lot of it. Yeah. No kidding. Me too. I love that place. What was the first thing you did when the show was over? Because that's an abyss to look into. Not in a negative, like, potential. Now what? The first thing I did while the show was airing was go to rehab. That was my first port of call. It was a very weird experience, Peter. I decided to go to rehab as episode one was airing, and I was there for six weeks, isolated, without my phone. That was a conscious decision. Yeah. I needed to go get sober. I needed to get my head on straight. When it aired, was that just serendipity? It was just serendipity. It just happened that way, that it was airing. And actually, that was a big pull to not go to rehab, was like, well, wait a minute, there's loads of press that needs to be done. You need to be front and center. And it was a good decision to go, do you know what? Actually, I'm checking out. I can't do this. Anything to get out of press. As we say that in front of cameras. I know. But actually, it was a real relief. And I got there, and I was without my phone or anything, so I didn't see the last season. I wasn't there throughout the whole thing. And then I come out, and I decide to take a year out of work to get sorted. It was a very wise decision. And then I'm like, right, I'm going to re-engage with work in a very kind of considered way, in a considered way, and then COVID hit. And so it was like, it was this very strange period after the show ended of like, these kind of strange sort of either massive kind of... ------- COVID. But I think looking back, it's been really, was very good for me because it allowed me the time post that show finishing to figure out in some ways, not to be too wanky, but like, who I was. Yeah, of course. And whether I really wanted to do this anymore. Kind of like, talking bluntly, like, do I love this still? It's important to ask yourself that all the time, especially with what we do. Because a lot of it's like, here's your call sheet, show up. So much work has been done before you get there that I'm producing now. I know you are. Just, I think that is in response to where the last ones to get to those sets. you know. So it is more being in control of actually what you are putting out there. Well, I'm glad you did that, man. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. It's important to know who you are in order to know who you are as an actor. I spent a lot of Game of Thrones working from a place of pain. Yeah. And it's kind of the character as well, I think. All those characters have nothing but pain. Yeah. Which is the beauty of their humor. You, with Tyrion, like brought so much humor and pain to the thing that it was incredible to watch. I think I'm very proud of the work I did, but I was pulling a lot because of where I was in my life, purely from pain. And actually, one of the things I've realized since finishing is looking at what you were doing so naturally of pulling from joy and pain at the same time and mixing those together and that's a really satisfying place to work. But it was that joy I needed to discover post Game of Thrones. Yeah. The scenes I haven't seen you since it finished, what were the years after like for you? Being a dad, my son was born right before the last season, so he was still a baby when Thrones ended. First thing I did, which was very funny, was summer theater in Connecticut because Erica, my wife, directed a Cyrano production and it was literally like a week after we got home from Belfast, we went to Connecticut to more weird theater housing and did this play. She kept apologizing to me, but I was like, you know what, this is exactly what I need right now, a musical. It was a musical and it later led to a movie version of it, but it was such the opposite, just working with out-of-town New York theater actors putting on a show that was really organic and in a tiny little theater and it just felt like the opposite of what we had just come from. You start to try and re-engineer things to get yourself out of the Tyrion box because that's like the greatest character I've ever played, but you don't want to go right into doing that more and people want more. People wanted probably more of you doing dragon shows and stuff and not to rail against our industry, because I get in trouble sometimes for railing against it, so I've got to choose my words carefully, but I think Tyrion really, for someone my size, opened people's eyes a little bit more to the humanity in that fantasy genre. Most often those characters are not really fully realized human beings, but still once Thrones ended, I was still getting the couple fantasy things that were just not Tyrion, just back to what it was before that show, and I thought we were out to change things around a little bit, and my front row seat didn't really do a heck of a lot, so I just went to, I did a lot of smaller films in terms of finances. I did exactly what you did. You just wonder, do I want to keep going with this? Do I want to take some time? But then you have a family to support, and reality creeps in, and you need to work, and I feel happy when I'm working. But yeah, I just started trying to make my own project that started to find its sea legs, and I haven't done something I didn't want to do since. Before Thrones, I was doing some stuff. I was like... There was a lot of good stuff, but there was a lot of stuff I wasn't too proud of, and since Thrones, so perhaps it's changed some minds in terms of that. I'm pretty proud of everything I've done. Even after Thrones, there were still obstacles there. Yeah, yeah. I didn't become an actor to change the world. I'm not a leader of any sort. People put that on you when you are an actor. As soon as you say anything political or anything that's a bit, even personal, and from your own experience, it can be misconstrued as speaking for everybody, and that's never my intention. It's just from my own personal vantage point. I think looking back, I spent a lot of time during that kind of window of Game of Thrones terrified about saying anything with the kind of social anxiety I had. But like being on camera so much and being asked questions that were complex and difficult and I had feelings about, but not knowing how to, whether what I was going to say was okay. I think as I've got older, I'm like, do you know what, I think what I think and I believe what I believe and I'll say what I want to say. It's also gone tomorrow. It's really, it's gone within an hour now. Right, because everything is being recorded and everything, so it's like you can do anything because there's something else to replace it. There's nothing really, I don't know. In the political culture we're living in now, it's just, so it's like, what can't you do? What can't you get away with that's not going to be forgotten about tomorrow? So tell me about your producing. You're taking the reins and not just being the guy in front of the camera, but being behind the camera and taking control of creative and putting those people together, which is what I love the most. I still don't even know what producing is. It's just putting really smart, creative people together in the same room. My friend Dan West, who's my friend from drama school, and best friend, was the best man at my wedding. He's a writer-producer, I produce with him. We started that while Thrones was still going on with a show called Gunpowder, and then we just produced our second thing something like 10 years on. How long things take. It's not easy. People have no idea. I've been attached to things for 20 years. I've outgrown, I'm too old for the parts now. I know, and people don't want to give their money away. It's like, just give us, it's just a movie, just give us $10 million. It's not, come on, just give, come on. But like I was saying to you before we sat down, we have a terrible addiction to trying to produce period pieces of drama. I don't know why we keep doing it. We've just produced Tale of Two Cities, and we're like, it's impossible. The thing you need the most money for is Margot Robbie. Then you can do it. We couldn't quite get Margot Robbie. The actor lists, oh God. I think I have restless legs, I have restless feet, I have restless brain, so it's just another thing for me to be doing. And then recently I went and directed a short film, and now I'm interested in that. I'm going to send it to you actually. I will, I'll do that. But I was really proud of that. So I'm interested in all aspects of it, and Miguel Sapochnik was brilliant, has been brilliant with me. Great, what a mentor. As a mentor. Yeah. He said something interesting. He said that you are, as a director, and I guess this goes for being a producer as well, but he said, as a director, you are a fishing net. You get all the best people around you. Yeah. They throw ideas in, and your job is to catch those ideas as they go through. Yeah. And I thought that was a really humble way of looking at it, and a really accurate way of looking at it. Yeah. Like you're not the boss of anyone, you're the person to catch the good ideas. Yeah. So that was great. And if you have too many notes for an actor, you got the wrong actor. I know there's such a time constraint, and people stress out, but all the great directors that I've worked with they also just love what they do so much. They don't let stress enter into it at all, but the time constraint. Somebody else, your first AD can do that for them. It's also how they are with children. I've been on sets with directors with child actors, children, and when they're over-managing, kids are the best actors. Just let them be a child. Yeah. If you start to manage them, you see them like they're sphincters tighten up, and they're just like, oh, now I'm scared and I can't act anymore. Just roll the camera. Yeah, yeah. It's just symbolic of how a director should be, because we're all children. But maybe edit sphincter out, maybe, that word, especially having said a child. Maybe that's, yeah. Thank you. There's a great quote, Joaquin Creer, the guy who did Sentimental Value, he said, carrying what a critic says about you is like a lamppost carrying about the dog that's peeing on it. The lamppost will just be, I'm not saying it the right way, but I think it's like the greatest quote, and you can look it up, it's a great quote about you just have to be that lamppost, because everybody's going to piss on you. The lamppost, it's going to happen, but you're giving light to the night. One of my problems when it comes to acting and our work is living in the end product. Yeah. Doing a play and living in what the critics are going to say about it. Doing a film and thinking, is this going to get nominated for something? Doing in a, like, constantly... Because it's in your ear too long. It's a constant fight against living in the end product rather than being in the moment. Again, a bit wanky. Because all acting is is being in the moment. Do you have a method? I mean, other than trying not to do it. My only tool seems to be not being on social media and just making an extreme effort to not do it, but it's one of my biggest vices. I can't help but go, what's this going to do? a kind person, and to not care what people think, I think that's not... We're social creatures. That's not true. And if anybody, they pretend they don't care what people think. We have to care what people think because we're also sharing our soul and putting on a show. If you don't care what people think, truly, then maybe you're not the kindest person. So I care what my kids think. Their opinion matters to me. But the joy of getting older is not caring anymore. That every year that passes, you care less. I'm only speaking for myself because you're just settled into like, not complacency, but just like, what are you going to do? I have my friends. I have my family. I can't, if you're pleasing everybody, maybe you're doing something wrong. My favorite pieces of art, movies, are things that some people hate and some people are passionate about. If it's a movie that everybody's like, yeah, okay, then it's like, that middle ground is also like a cesspool of like, meh, entertainment. And there's a lot of that. You're incredible. The people around you know that. So it's like, everybody's going to be a critic and troll and be icky on the social media. Glad you're not on that. Nobody is. Nobody should be. It's the wisest thing I ever did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a draw. Every time I'm on my phone, it's like, I'd be on it for an hour reading an article that I don't need to be reading. Yeah, my kids will start entering my, because I'm doing more, weirdly doing a lot of nudity at the moment in sex scenes. And the more I do it, the more I think, I think I should stop. I'm going to start thinking about my kids. Like, like, why is Daddy always naked on screen? Like, I'm doing a lot of nudity. That's all right. Nudity's good. Kids are always naked in the house. Like, they're, they're, you know, we see enough of them. You know, it's okay. That'll be a conversation for the therapist one day. Conversation for, yeah, they're going to have to watch me and their mum. My kids just watched Thrones this past year. Because I guess they were just like... How was that? Well, my eight-year-old son was really into it. Especially all the, all the Baba. That's his name for, no, that's when he was little. He loved it. Because he, he's, he loves all the dark arts. He loves to, to like read all, like, he writes scary stories. He's like a future Stephen King. But were you diving in and out of the room? you were like, ah, I don't want to... I watch your scenes. I was like, yeah, I couldn't, you know. Although it did bring up a lot of memories, which was that I had totally forgotten about. And to see it through their eyes, they were fans. Yeah, it was wild. They both were. Like, I'm going to go do this new alien TV show in London this fall, and it's my son's favorite show. And that's one of the reasons why I said yes to Noah Hawley, who's a genius writer, creator, showrunner. But it's a really good show. It's my son's favorite show. Yeah. And Noah wanted me to do it, and I was like, oh, yes. My hero dad. I'm going to be such a hero in his eyes. I'm doing, I'm going to be in his favorite show. And he can go and sub, and yeah. I told him, and he was like, what? Like upset with me. Like, kind of like, don't **** up my favorite show, dad. Because it's going to take him out of it, which is like, I didn't think about that. I'm going to be a bit of reality, his reality, in his escape. I was like, ----. I thought it was going to go a different way. That'll last a near moment, though, and then he'll realize he gets to go on set. Yeah, yeah. Come on. How long are you going to be in London? Alien creator, xenomorphs, whatever they're called. I better start learning their terms. About five months. It'll be like a throne shoot. I'm not the only one to say this, though. As an actor, like, maybe we're pampered too much, but the sweet spot is having a job, knowing it, but not starting it yet. I'm in the sweet zone of like the month before I start. Yeah. I don't have to, I have a gig, job security, but I don't have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning just quite yet. laughs Because people do think that sets are glamorous places to be on. Yeah. And people who come visit sets, like my mother or whoever it is, they quickly realize, wow, how boring it can be. It's within 15 minutes they get bored. Within 15. I remember years ago when my grandmother was still alive, I was shooting a scene, she came to the set, I think it was a year in New York, and I heard, like way by the monitors, in the middle of the scene, I'm bored, let's go! laughs Let's go! And it kind of echoed throughout wherever we were. I'm bored, let's go! She didn't realize, I think maybe she had the headphones on so she couldn't hear how loud she was. My kids came to set in Cardiff last year, but I stepped off set and I was like, hello darling, and my boy went, Were you naked? No, no I wasn't, not that day. I was like, and he was like, daddy, daddy, and I went yes, and he went daddy, and I went yes, and he went daddy, daddy, and I went yes, darling, what? Daddy, this woman here, daddy, pointed at the runner, says I can have whatever I like. It was a little moment of going, yeah that's pretty cool actually, there's a box of snacks, and I can have whatever, he didn't give a toss about the product, like me, anything, the box of snacks, I can have whatever I like. Yeah, Swedish Fish, for endless amounts of Swedish Fish, yeah, like anybody, why is this out in the open? Why is this for, what really? It's like, I've also found something weird about parenting, which is that I used to hate being infantilized on set, like treated like a child, I felt like as an actor I was treated like a little child wrapped in cotton wool, I ******* love it now, because you go from looking after the kids at home, and you're like their servant, like just carrying things, is this fine for you sir? And then you get to set and someone goes, would you like a cup of tea? And you almost cry, you're like yes, you're asking me, can I get you dressed now, yes please, thank you, oh you're going to tie my shoelaces for me, thank you, thank you. I told you, we weren't supposed to leave him alone, but you did it anyway, and you're going to hurt Francis the same selfish way. So I watched The Lowdown. You did? Yes, I did. You know, I have not seen the industry. No, don't worry, you don't have to go into it, but I want to, I want to say one thing. Industry, not the industry. I want to talk about industry, I want to talk about The Lowdown, which is one thing that struck me when I watched you on that, and I'll pay you a compliment, so prepare to blush. I realise what it is I love about what you do, which is, you were in that show for one episode, but within that episode, I entirely, from the moment you walked onto camera, to the moment you left, I entirely bought and believed your entire history as that character. I don't know whether you, is to do with a huge amount of preparation on your part, whether it's something you just intrinsically have as an actor, but whenever I've watched you, I buy the entire history of the character, rather than just this being a day in the life of, it's like, I know this person's whole story, and I think that's something that you have in spades, and I think it's just, I'm not sure you can teach, actually, I think it's amazing. Thank you. Um, I definitely don't prepare. I think with that gig, which was really fun, I just went to Tulsa for a week, and came in to a show that was already going for six months, and you come in, and everybody knows each other, but I had a safety net with that one, because Macon Blair, my good friend who I've worked with many times before, was directing that episode. He's on the show as well. I've done several movies with him. I've known him for many years. Sterling Harjo's writing is so good and so real and naturalistic, and he's there every day and allows you the freedom to explore whatever works and whatever isn't working. You know, he's not precious. And Ethan Hawke, who I had known for 35 years, he was one of the people who was famous when we were first in New York. I met him right out of college. Actually, I was still in college. He came up to visit up in Vermont. He'd just done Dead Poets Society. He was the first sort of famous person my age that I knew and became friends with, and he's obviously the lead of that show, and we had never acted on screen together before. How'd you know? Was that the first time? That was the first time, yeah. I think what you're seeing is that history reflected for him and I. And now we're older now, parents, and that whole episode was all about our past, about a mutual friend of ours, and so we already had that, you know, built in. Whether the cameras were rolling or not, we were just continuing what you and I are doing right now. Whether the cameras are rolling, it felt like so natural and easygoing, and the set that Sterling and Macon sets up there is just so not precious and easygoing. It feels like my favorite filmmakers at Cassavetes and just friends getting together and making a movie, which has become rare. Did you bring Frances? Yeah. She's the best part about you, man. Yeah. I'm about to do a short film that my wife's gonna direct, and we're just gonna use our house upstate with another actor, and she went, uh-oh, do we need a SAG waiver? Because nobody's getting paid. It's just like a short, it's like a 15-minute film, and I was like, I don't know. So you have to go through all these protocols for things that back in the day you would just get together and make movies with friends like Cassavetes used to do and all these. I don't know if anybody filled out any paperwork for those seminal films back in the day. I don't think so, but now there seems to be like such a real sort of professional, unionized thing to everything that you gotta be careful, which is great because our union is the greatest union there is, and it's important, obviously. I think my point is on that set in Tulsa, it felt like it did back in the old days, like really low budget. Even though it's playing on TV for millions of people, it's like the early days of Thrones. It just doesn't, it didn't feel that way, and I think that reflects in what you're putting on the screen. The environment is bonding. We bonded on Game of Thrones. I think a lot of it had to do with us being out there in the rain together, not in a studio. The longer I get to do this, the more I realize the thing that I love about this work, and it's very much about the ensemble, and it's very much about the green room, and it's being in a tent in the middle of nowhere, and it's chatting ----, and it's taking the piss out of each other, and it's that bonding that I think is so essential that when you get onto set, it's all there. The history is there, just like you and Ethan. It's like the things that I've done that haven't worked are when people separate themselves. Yes. They're not doing that, which doesn't feel like work, and it's the best work there is because it doesn't feel like work. Right. That work offset that's about getting to know each other that is a rehearsal room, essentially. It's the closest you get to a rehearsal room for a film thing. Yeah, especially like on location where all you have is each other. Yeah. Because you don't know, you're in the middle of wherever country you're in, and so you stick together like you're on an artistic sort of iceberg together, just like clinging to each other. I mean, we had the luxury of a decade together. Yeah. So that changes everything. But it was so strong on Thrones. Yeah. It was so crafted, curated, allowed to happen. Yeah. At the time, we were like, this is the cheapest show as far as looking after actors you get. Yeah. A tent with a heater, one heater, and everyone's freezing. But now looking back, it's exactly that that made it what it was, I think. We didn't have like a separate tent for one through ten on the call sheet. We were just all in there with all those extras, like just, hey, how you doing, man? You speak English? Like, what? It's like, there was no pecking order at all. Every set I'm on, if you can smell the pecking order, come on. Yeah. Come on. That is a problem. I don't know. It just feels weird and I don't know. You didn't account for one thing. My place. And what I think of this ******* embarrassment. Industry, did you think you were going to do another TV show after Thrones? How did that come about? I decided I didn't want to do any other TV characters for a while and then I turned around and said, I feel like I'm ready to take on a character arc again. I miss it. Yeah. That's the joy of it. Yeah. And Industry is one that I've been watching and the writers, when I met them, reminded me a lot of David and Dan. It's like breaking up with a girl and your next girlfriend is like, you remind me a lot of my ex. Yeah. How does that feel for them? But they are. I mean, I've said it to them and something about that and again, what we were just discussing, the ensemble nature of it, they wrote me this character which, they write me this character, sorry, I came in and played this character that had the ingredients of like, there's a lot of pain there but there's a lot of humor. It's a very tragic comic character. I was like, oh, this is the kind of thing I've been looking for in the shape I've been looking for it. Yeah. And that was very satisfying and then that led to another season of it and I've enjoyed it. Comedy's a bit addictive, like doing the comedic bent on everything. Yeah. I do it as a defense mechanism in life, you know, you have to, whether it's my insecurity of getting people, warming up to them, them warming up to me, that's been my go-to and I always, I can't relate to a character that I play without a bit of humor to it. Yeah. Which is addictive though because then you rely on it too much. It's something about liking the character. Yeah. Finding the humor in it. Yeah. Finding the bit that you like about the guy you're playing. Yeah. Is the humorous part. Yeah. You know, the trouble I think, I mean, with Jon Snow, he wasn't allowed to be lighter. It was the heavy cloak. Heavy cloak. It was the heaviness of the cloak. Nothing worse than an actor complaining. But Spain was very hot. Yeah. And I often would raise my hand going, if Mike, if Tyrion's so smart, why is he wearing these clothing in this heat, in this 100 degree weather? We're very smart characters. This isn't smart. This is, this is chain mail and we're dying. We had those cold vests. Yeah, the tubes that ran through. And an ice thing and you plug in. We were all plugged in. Yeah. For like a week, I was like, I'm going to suffer. And then at the end I was like, **** that, no way, because everybody else was sort of nodding off. They felt so comfortable. Yeah. Rory especially. Oh, I remember, yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah. He was under a lot of stuff. What you said about that sort of arc in doing TV, really fascinating. When you do a movie after you do a long-running show, I always feel like you have to cram too much in in too limited time and you got just the slow burn of what we got to do on that show. Yes, that's what inspires me to do another TV show because I miss that, the character starting from A to going to Z and they're like a completely different character. Yeah. I mean, Dave and Dan and George Martin, to have a character push a little kid out the window and then later on you love him. Mm. It's just fascinating to me. Yeah. The Nicolai's character. Yeah. That's like the epitome of our show. He tries to kill a kid and then you love him, he's a hero later. It's like, that's how complicated narrative can be. With industry, the thing that it afforded me to do was come in for one season and play a really comedic character and then the next season really understand him and play and get deeper and play tragicomic. Right. Which is really interesting but the trouble I had with the other arc on Thrones, not the trouble, it was a glorious thing but I didn't have to push the kid out the window. Yeah. I had the, he's good for more go. Yeah. It's less of a kind of up and down. You wore that burden. The character wore that burden. You wore that burden. It was his burden. Yeah. Goodness was his burden. Yeah. And you wore that really well. Yeah, thank you. And that's not easy to do for whatever 15,000 days of shooting. But also lovely. Yeah. The rest of us got to howl at the moon a bit more than Jon Snow did. laughs The dislocation you feel isn't going anywhere. Normal people don't feel like this. Ignore it, numb it, drown it out. What about theater? Because the London theater scene I've always admired and the risks they take, just New York theater is incredible. I always dreamed of just moving to New York and doing theater. Growing up in New Jersey, I never saw beyond, like movies and TV is what other people do. The greats like Arthur Miller and Chekhov and all these guys, they're like legends. But like when I first got into theater, like Sam Shepard actually, even for a kid from New Jersey, this cowboy was speaking to me. It felt more, you can smell the gasoline on it. You've done Shepard. It's like as a man, it just felt like, it just really was easier to access than some things as a young man. So I just came to New York wanting to blow ---- up on a stage and swear and drink and knock furniture over. And that's all we were doing back in the day in the early 90s after school and in school. When you were in drama school, did you just see theater on the horizon or were you in a different time than us? Because again, there wasn't all of this back when I graduated school. My aim was spear carrier at the RSC. That was it. The RSC is a good place to be. Yeah, that's the best place to be. You're going to carry a spear. You do it at the RSC. That was the aim. And I went straight into the National Theater in the lead role in a show called War Horse. ------- hell. Everything was handed to you. It was. War Horse and Game of Thrones. Yeah. I've never jumped higher. When I got that role in War Horse, it was like all my dreams come true. I'm still chasing that moment in some ways. You hadn't been on Thrones yet. When you do a thing like Thrones, and then you go back to the theater, there's a different perspective on you, which I have found. I was doing theater for a decade here in New York, various productions. Then I got into films and TV. But now if I go and do it, they can't help but go, oh, TV actors trying to do theater. There's a little, a little, even if they like something I do, they can't help themselves. Critics will be critics. We need them, but they can't help. And it's like they didn't do the research. I come from the theaters. I'm not like slumming it here. You know what I mean? This is what I really love to do as well. I made myself a pact early, and it was I don't let three years go by without doing a play. If you're fortunate enough to be in the world of TV and film, even more fortunate to be being offered things, you can easily park the theater bus, and it can go by for years without you doing something unless you commit early, early next year, like I am right now actually. Early next year, I'm doing a play. It doesn't matter what comes along. I'm doing that play, and I'm committing to it before those offers come in. I do that, and I have done that since. Because our lawyers love when we do a play. Hear him silently crying. I have to admit, like the first play I did, War Horse, I was upstaged by a puppet horse for a year. Everybody was who did that play. I'm now very happy to be upstaged by puppets. To not be upstaged by puppets. You did a play, I missed the production, forgive me, but you did a play, speaking of Sam Shepard, that was my real inspiration to become the truest. And I think, and I speak for a lot of guys my age, the John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, I don't know if you saw the televised production of that. I didn't. You can find it somewhere. For my generation of actors, that was holy ----. John Malkovich. Did they switch? No, no, that was John C. Reilly and Phil Hoffman many years later. But the original was Malkovich and Sinise. Did Malkovich play Austin? No, Lee. He played Lee. Malkovich, I mean, he was our god back then. Still. Just the way he talked, the way he, the humor. Getting back to the humor of that piece. That play is so funny. You played Austin, right? I played Austin, so I got to do the toasters. Yeah. But I have to say, true words. That's the reason I'm an actor, that play. Seeing John Malkovich and Gary Sinise do that. And PBS, the video, Channel 13. It was, I mean, it's the most fun I've had on stage. I also did it. I didn't realize you could do that. Directly before going to rehab. So I was playing Austin, the alcoholic, whilst being entirely an alcoholic. So it was one of the few moments in my career where life literally met art. Like I was going insane whilst playing an insane person. Right. And it was very kind of weird. I had a weird experience doing it. Yeah. Because I wasn't sleeping and I was going on stage and then the whole, it was quite trippy. One of the greatest performances, alcoholic drug addict, I had all the performances of all time, was Richard E. Grant in With No Knife. When I heard he had never had a drop of alcohol in his life, and you can do that performance. Yeah. Well, he speaks about his parents were alcoholics. Right, right, right. And that's where he got that performance from. I've never seen anything more realistic. When I first saw the movie, I thought, oh, they're really, With No Knife was the thing that made me want to act. It was one of the things we watched at drama school and I was like, that's, I want to do that. Yeah, I could put that on anytime, anytime of day and I'll just watch the rest of it. No matter if I see it somewhere, I'll just, I can't put it down. Yeah. It's great actors playing actors who are struggling, so it just spoke to us. Unlike you, who were very successful at a very early age, right at the Game of Thrones after drama school. I mean, I would hate me. I went... I loved you. I would hate me. I went National Theatre lead, Game of Thrones. Yeah. And that's, it's a bizarre trajectory, that. I'm happy. We're all happy for you. laughs I've often said like, there's no such thing as overnight success. Oh, wait. laughs Yeah. What's that Steve Soderbergh, I use it all the time. Talent plus perseverance equals luck. Yeah. It's got to be talented. You wouldn't have come out of the gate so strong if you didn't have a ---- ton of talent. Thank you. And it takes a lot of perseverance to see, you can get the gig, but see it through. Be smart about it and do the right thing with it and ask questions and not think you've got it in the bag. And all you guys, all the younger people on that show, you were so self-assured from where I was staring, but you were so collaborative and so sort of learning and open, like wearing it on your sleeve, just how open you were and admiring of these great actors that you got to work with. I'm talking about Charlie Dance and all these people that were just legends in our eyes. We felt we got very lucky with the young'uns. I was trying to define with Rose, I was like, what makes an actor an actor? In some ways, because I do think there are people who are actors, they might be really good actors, they might be not so good actors depending on whether you like what they do, and there are people who are not actors. And I think there is a clearly defined line I call them entertainers. Yes. It's incredible what they can do, but sometimes it's acting, I don't know. But they plucked, Sophie and Maisie were clearly actors. When they were so young, you wouldn't necessarily know, and I think it's something about that tormented thing. I think it's that thing of like there's something tormented in them that needs to get out. It's amazing that they could have just plucked people who weren't actors, but they ended up choosing these wonderful actresses. I can't imagine the process of finding those two. I know Nina and Company had their work cut out for them. With every You Got the Gig, there's like a thousand You Don't Got the Gig. That must be so heartbreaking. You're breaking a lot of hearts. You're making one heart really happy, but whoa. God, I hope all those kids are okay now. Yeah. All my favorite actors just didn't approach it to what was on the page in the traditional sense at all. There's a bit of mischievousness to it. Malkovich, Christopher Walken, all those guys have a common denominator of like, it doesn't say I dance here, but I don't feel like I want to dance here, or without it being gratuitous. Because there's a bit of wink to it as well. All the great actors are just, they just, and they're just so present. They're so, they're listening. And on that show, we had the good fortune of like having great scene partners where it was fun to listen to them, fun to listen to you and Sophie and everybody else. We just make each other better. But I still don't know what acting is. No idea. It's obviously good looks, but it's a lot more than that too. But I'm still figuring out, figure out if I want to even do it or not anymore. But you know, I love movies, so what else am I going to do? I'm really bad at math. I think all actors are just bad at math. That's why we're actors. Done? Been a pleasure. It's been so nice, man. I think we're done. Yeah. Do you get to keep this plant or do I? I think that's yours. That's my plant? Yeah. The table's yours. These chairs are nice. I've been sort of snuggled up in here like a grandma the whole interview. It's been really nice, Peter. Let's not let it be long. Another ten years, another seven years. Yeah. Do you keep in touch? With many of the cast? With many of the cast. With Amelia, yes, because she's just down the road. But I think there's an element of school leavers to it. It's like we finish the thing, the magic was gone and everyone like actually has to separate. We needed to, yeah. I do. I text John and I text Richard and I'm still in touch with them. I should try harder. It's on me because I've been told in the past sometimes by friends like text me more, man. I don't know. Be a better friend a little bit. You know, especially with family and kids and stuff you sort of let time go by. We're all quite desperate because we just had to get on with life. Yeah. And we had so much time together. I know. We still have all those AI photos online of all of us still together at barbecues. There's some weird things out there. Apparently an alternate version of the universe of us are all having barbecues. There's all these photos. It's very upsetting. I'm going to send you AI pictures of fun. Yeah. And I'm engaged to Chabelle I think in one of them. Okay. I didn't know that but okay. It's just because they love the show. Yeah. They want an alternate reality for us to be happy at a barbecue. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. In this natural environment.