LOS ANGELES _ Peter Dinklage arrived backstage to the press room, setting his Emmy down by his feet as he answered journalists' questions.
He was asked about the rumor that he didn't originally want the role of Tyrion in HBO's "Game of Thrones" for which he won his third Emmy.
"Where'd you hear that?" he said. "That's nonsense. How did that rumor get started?"
He admitted that he'd been concerned about the genre, particularly because he hadn't read the books and wasn't yet familiar with the "complexity of Tyrion."
"Many times people my size weren't complicated enough for me to be interested in doing it," he said. "But they relieved my concerns very quickly."
Dinklage revealed that his last day on the "Game of Thrones" set was back in July and that it was "very sad."
"This is not only a great TV show to be a part of, but it was an enormous family to be a part of," he said. "And I'm sure you've heard that before from actors, but in this case, I was far from home. I live in N.Y. and we shot the show over in Europe so many times I had to stay there; I wasn't able to go home on the weekends so I really developed deep roots in the community, deep roots in Ireland and some of the other countries we shot in. It was definitely hard to say goodbye because I wasn't just saying goodbye to the show, I was saying goodbye to a life over there."
"How do you top this?" a journalist asked.
"How do I top 'Game of Thrones'? Or winning an Emmy? Or everything?" Dinklage responded. "You just keep searching, hoping that the next writer you come across is equally as talented as [showrunners] David Benioff and Dan Weiss."
"I absolutely adored this character and the stories we were telling," he added. "It's just so beautiful when other people feel the same way you do."
