The Resilient Mind - Pursue Your Dreams - Peter Dinklage

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Peter Dinklage is an acclaimed American actor best known for his iconic portrayal of Tyrion Lannister on HBO's Game of Thrones. Dinklage's performance earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times, a testament to his extraordinary talent and dedication.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to, give yourself permission to pursue your dreams with Peter Dinklage. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Now, when I sat where you are, right, sitting right now, I had so many dreams of where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.

theater companies I wanted to start with classmates, movies I wanted to be in, directors I wanted to work with, stories I needed to tell. It might take a little time, I thought, but it would happen. When I sat there, excuse me, 22 years ago, what I didn't want to think about is where I would be tomorrow. what I would have to start to do tomorrow. And I graduated in 1991, a great year, a time of resurgence for independent films in this country,

a time of relatively affordable rents in New York City. See, I assumed that I could make a living writing my plays, acting way off, off, off Broadway. And hopefully, you know, one day, join the actors I loved and respected in those independent films. TV? Oh, what? No. What? Are you kidding me?

No. Didn't even consider that. I had much more class than that. Much more self-respect than that. Soap operas and shit. What I didn't have was cash, a bank account, a credit card, or an apartment.

I just had debt. Hungry, growing larger every moment, debt. So as you will tomorrow, I had to leave beautiful Vermont, pack the life that I knew with socks and a toothbrush into my backpack and I slept on couch after couch, after couch, after couch at friends' apartments in New York until I wore out their rent-paying roommates welcome. I didn't want a day job. I was an actor. I was a writer.

I was a Bennington graduate. I had to get a day job. I dusted pianos at a piano store on Ludlow Street for five months. I worked on the property of a Shakespeare scholar for a year, pulling weeds and removing bees nests. I went on unemployment once, but not for long. I couldn't handle the guilt. Eventually, I was able to pay rent for a spot on the floor of an apartment on the Lower East.

side, but my roommate had a breakdown and disappeared. He later resurfaced in a religious cult. I'm making this sound romantic. It really wasn't. I helped hang paintings at galleries, paintings that inspire you to think, I could do that. And then, finally, after two years of job and couch surfing, I got a job in application processing

as a data enterer at a place called professional examination services. And I stayed for six years. Six years. Longer than my time at Bennington. From the age of 23 to 29. Well, they loved me there. I was funny.

I wore black, no cape, no tights. I smoked in the loading docks with the guys from the mailroom, and we shared how hungover we all were. Everyone called each other Shorty. I don't know. What's up, Shorty? How you doing, shoddy? Oh, so hungover, shorty.

I called in sick almost every Friday because I was out late the night before. I hated that job, and I clung to that job. Because of that job, I could afford my own place. My rent was $400 a month. My dream of running a theater company with my friend and fellow Bennington graduate Ian Bell had died. I won't go into those details, but neither one of us had any business sense, and the theater we lived in, it had no heat or hot water. We didn't smell very good, but we had our youth.

Youth gets old very quickly. You'll see. So Ian moved out to Seattle, and I moved up to the store. street to my loft, and I still didn't have heat. But I did have hot water. Hot water in my bathroom, which a friend of mine using said bathroom once shouted, it smells exactly like a summer camp in here. It was true.

For some reason, in the middle of Brooklyn, there was earth in my shower, actual earth, and then, oh, look, mushrooms growing from the earth. But I was safe, though. The ideal fire control company was right across the street where they make all the chemicals that put out chemical fires. I did not fear a chemical fire. I would be okay. And all those chemicals in the air were okay, too, because up the street we had the spice factory. They made spices.

And that just covered everything up in a nice cumin scent. I had a rat. But that was okay because I got a cat. His name was Brian, no relation. My grandmother had given me a pink pull-out couch. Oddly, no friends or recent graduates wanted to crash on my couch. So I put the couch on its end so Brian could climb it and look out the window. I had only the one window.

I myself could not look out the window. It was quite high. So I had no heat, no girl. My girlfriend, what are you kidding me? No acting agent. But I had a cat named Brian who told me of the world outside. And I stayed for 10 years. No, don't pity me.

There's a happy ending. When I was 29, I told myself, the next acting job I get, no matter what it pays, I will, from now on, for better or worse, be a working actor. So I quit my position at the professional examination services. My friends really weren't happy about that because it was so easy to find me when I worked there. Work was the only place I had the internet. This was at the beginning of the internet. And now I didn't have either the internet or a cell phone or a job.

But something good happened. I got a low-paying theater job and a play called Improred. perfect love, which led to a film called 13 Moons with the same writer, which led to other roles, which led to other roles. And I've worked as an actor ever since. But I didn't know that would happen. At 29, walking away from data processing, I was terrified. Ten years in a place without heat, six years at a job, I felt stuck Maybe I was afraid of change. Are you? My parents didn't have much money,

but they struggled to send me to the best schools. And one of the most important things they did for me, and graduates, maybe you don't want to hear this, is that once I graduated, I was on my own. Financially, it was my turn. Parents are applauding. Graduates are not. But this made me very hungry, literally.

I couldn't be lazy. Now I'm totally lazy, but back then, I couldn't be. And so at 29, and at very long last, I was in the company of the actors and writers and directors I'd sought out that first year, that first day after school. I was, I am, by their sides. Raise the rest of your life to meet you.

Don't search for defining moments because they will never come. Well, the birth of your children, okay, of course. Forget about it. That's just six months. My life is forever changed and that's the most defining moment ever. But I'm talking about in the rest of your life and most importantly in your work. The moments that define you have already happened and they will already happen again. already happen again. But soon something starts to happen. Trust me. A rhythm sets in, just like it did after your first few days here. Just try not to wait until like me, you're 29 before you find it.

And if you are, that's fine too. Some of us never find it. But you will promise you. You are already here. That's such an enormous step, all its own. You'll find your rhythm or continue the one you have already found. I was walking downtown in Manhattan the other day, and I was approached by a group of very sweet young ladies. Easy. Actually, they're sort of running feverishly down the street after me. When they got to me breathless, it was really, you know, it was really, you. It was really, They didn't know what to say or couldn't form the words, but it came out that they were NYU freshmen, and they were majoring in musical theater. Of course, come on.

They were like science majors. They're running after me. What musicals are you doing, I inquired? Well, one of them said, looking down at her shoes, we aren't allowed to be in plays our freshman year. Now, they were paying a very high tuition to not do what they loved doing.

I think I said, well, hang in there. What I should have said was, don't wait until they tell you you are ready. Get in there. sing when I went to school here if a freshman wanted to write direct and star in her own musical

the lights would already be hung for her now I tell this story because the world might say you are not allowed to yet I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail. Please, don't even bother asking. Don't bother telling the world you are ready. Show it. Do it. What did Beckett say?

Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.