When size is irrelevant

If Peter Dinklage had gotten the part of Mini-Me in 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” you can bet he wouldn’t be pictured sitting shirtless on the edge of a bed next to a gorgeous topless model in a Variety magazine spread headlined “The New Sexy.”

And it’s doubtful that this month’s issue of W would predict that Dinklage “may end up the first dwarf movie heartthrob.” Thanks in part to missing out on the Mini-Me role, and what he cheerfully claims is a “lot of luck,” Dinklage is reinventing the concept of the dwarf actor as a human punch line with his breakout role in the new movie “The Station Agent.”

He plays a short, dark and handsome loner who tries to ignore the overtures of the locals when he moves to a small New Jersey town -- but ends up involved with both a troubled painter (Patricia Clarkson) and a nubile young librarian (Michelle Williams.) That role has positioned him as stud material, but he has two new movies in which he also plays against type.

In the independent film “Tiptoes,” which is on the festival circuit but does not have a release date, he rides a motorcycle, sports tattoos and embarks on a steamy romance with Patricia Arquette. The character was written for the late Herve Villechaize and based loosely on his personality. In “Elf,” which stars Will Ferrell and opens Nov. 7, Dinklage has a small role as a powerful and ferocious executive. Because short-statured actors have traditionally played elves, gnomes and similar whimsical creatures, Dinklage’s role in “Elf” carries a trace of irony: He is the only official “little person” in the movie and he does not play one of Santa’s wee helpers.

Dinklage, 34, who stands 4 feet, 5 inches, is not your father’s dwarf. His first movie role was memorable. He played a rebellious actor hired for a dream sequence by a harried director (Steve Buscemi) in 1995’s “Living in Oblivion,” a deft satire of independent filmmaking.

Since then, Dinklage has escaped the cartoonish parts often offered short-statured actors, like the role of Tattoo on the 1970s TV show “Fantasy Island” that required Villechaize to bray “Da plane, da plane!” in every episode.

Against considerable odds, Dinklage’s career is taking flight by virtue of the kind of dignified and nuanced roles that few actors ever get -- let alone those of his size.

He has also been featured in Michael Gondry’s “Human Nature” (2002) and “13 Moons” (2002) with Buscemi, along with cameos in straight-to-video titles like “Bullet” (1996) with Mickey Rourke.

Tom McCarthy, the writer-director of “The Station Agent,” directed Dinklage in a play called “The Killing Act” in which he played Tom Thumb.

McCarthy was inspired to cast Dinklage in “The Station Agent” after walking down the street with him one day and observing how he ignored the taunts and double takes from other people. McCarthy had envisioned the character of Finbar McBride as an isolated, alienated soul but had not thought to cast a dwarf until that moment on the street with Dinklage.

“He’s like a big, legendary movie star who walks out in public not letting anyone in and ignoring all the attention,” McCarthy says.

“Living in Oblivion” director Tom DiCillo said Dinklage changed his perception of short people.

“I was tired of seeing people of short stature being used as icons of weirdness in film,” DiCillo says. “But I still thought that anyone who was short could play this part. I auditioned five or six short actors and was astounded by my stupidity. Just because you’re short doesn’t mean you’re going to do a great job playing a dwarf. Then Peter came in and blew the part apart. He was brilliant.”

During an interview at a restaurant in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan, Dinklage is both amiable and slightly guarded. He says he does not mind talking about his dwarfism but clearly is sensitive on the topic and says he would prefer to talk about his work.

“I’m not interested in being a spokesman for anyone or a role model for anyone. I just like to act,” Dinklage says. “My main focus is on not being pigeonholed, so I can do a variety of parts.”

Dinklage was born and raised in New Jersey, the son of normal-sized parents. His mother is an elementary school music teacher, and his father is a retired salesman. He attended an all-boys prep school and graduated from Bennington College in Vermont. After college, he moved to Brooklyn and attempted to start a small theater in a warehouse with a friend. The theater failed, but Dinklage began to get parts in small, off-off-Broadway productions.

Because of his East Coast bent, Dinklage never was part of the community of short-statured Hollywood actors who make a living in part by filling the industry’s demand for novelty parts.

An actor’s gotta eat, though, and he and many others auditioned for the role of Mini-Me in the second “Austin Powers” movie.

“Every actor under 5 feet tall was trying out for it,” he remembers. “But I knew then that it would pigeonhole me and I wanted very much to play a variety of roles.” Dinklage didn’t get the part, of course. The role went to Verne Troyer, who is 2 feet 8.

“A lot of times you’re not going to get parts right out of Chekhov, but you can still raise the material a little bit,” Dinklage says. “But with a role like Mini-Me, it’s a gimmick, it’s a size thing and you can’t lift the material. I can’t exploit myself like that.”

Of course, the potential for exploitation is there for any actor hustling to get a break. But meaningful work is even harder to land for the small ones.

Meredith Eaton-Gilden, 27, a 4-foot, 1-inch actress, got the part of feisty attorney Emily Resnick on CBS’ “Family Law.” She also plays Kathy Bates’ daughter-in-law in the movie “Unconditional Love,” which began playing on cable in August, and has appeared on “NYPD Blue” and “Dharma & Greg.” But she said she has refused to take parts that might embarrass her.

“I’ve never taken a gimmicky role,” she says. “I just made the decision not to compromise my own dignity. I try to get involved with the script whenever I take a role to be sure the part does not go in a bad direction. I don’t judge short-statured actors who take on stereotypical roles. I understand why they do. But if I get offered something that’s not dignified, I just walk away.”

And there are good roles out there -- for some.

Michael Anderson, 50, plays the tough-minded, philosophical manager of a traveling carnival touring the Depression-era heartland in HBO’s new “Carnivale” series.

The 3-foot, 7-inch Anderson also played the enigmatic dancing dwarf on TV’s “Twin Peaks.”

Being offered sometimes humiliating parts is a dilemma, according to Barbara Spiegel, 29, a spokeswoman for the Little People of America, a broad-based advocacy group.

“Taking certain kinds of parts can be selling your soul in a way, but that’s where the money is,” Spiegel says. “It’s going to put food on the table. It’s a double-edged sword because you might take a role as an elf or a gnome or someone that’s the butt of all jokes just to be seen. I know a lot of actors who thought if they did that someone would see them and give them a really good part.”

‘I didn’t want to do this’

Spiegel quit the business after she was offered a part in the 2001 movie “Zoolander.” “I had a scheduling conflict, so I had to turn it down,” she recalls. “But then I found out they hired another woman who was 150 pounds heavier than I am. So I realized they didn’t care about me as an actress to begin with. They just wanted a short person. I decided I didn’t want to do this anymore.”

Spiegel now lives in Maine, where she is a teacher in addition to working with the organization.

The LPA’s founder was Billy Barty, the 3-foot, 9-inch pioneering actor who spent about 70 years in show business until his death in 2000 at 76. . A force of nature, Barty had a career that spanned vaudeville, silent movies, Busby Berkeley musicals and more contemporary films like “Foul Play” in 1978 and “Under the Rainbow” in 1981.

But nobody ever called him a sex symbol. And with the exception of actors like 3-foot, 10-inch Michael Dunn, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work as the narrator of “Ship of Fools” in 1965 and played Dr. Miguelito Loveless in TV’s “The Wild, Wild West,” many short-statured performers are relegated to playing stereotypical characters.

Not Dinklage. “The most unremarkable thing about this gifted actor is that he is a dwarf,” Times film critic Manohla Dargis observed in January from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where “The Station Agent” first was shown. (The film opened Friday in limited release.)

He will appear next in a Lincoln Center production of the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and also in an off-Broadway production of “A Doll’s House.” And suddenly he has the ultimate actor’s luxury -- the ability to be “very picky” about roles.

“I’ve been spoiled,” Dinklage admits. “I have some friends from college who were actors and couldn’t get a break, and they’ve given up. I guess I’ve just been really lucky.”

More than that, McCarthy and others who have worked with Dinklage report that he is enjoying the benefits of another kind of typecasting: hottie about town.

“We give him [grief] about it all the time,” McCarthy says. “After nearly every screening or interview, women are throwing themselves at him.” Dinklage, who is single, throws his head back and laughs when asked about his status as a sex symbol.

“I love fairy tales, but dwarves are always these asexual, sage-like creatures,” Dinklage says. “I want to play well-rounded, real characters because that’s who I am ... But as far as being sexy, that’s not up to me to decide.”