Did Peter Dinklage die? Whence came the rumour? Known for portraying Tyrion Lannister, and pretending he’s dead while on set, Dinklage isn’t actually dead. But everyone thought he died – or did they? The rumour, if there was one, was short-lived, and may already have died.

Peter Dinklage: ‘I like to pretend I’m dead’

Peter Dinklage is not just an actor. In the Nineties he performed with a “punk-funk-rap” band called Whizzy. While playing at a New York nightclub, someone kneed him in the face and he started bleeding. Perhaps this is where it all started?

Dinklage knows how to have fun. In 2018, while promoting his then upcoming film I Think We’re Alone Now, the actor revealed to Jimmy Kimmel he takes great pleasure in staging his own death. 

“It’s always fun,” Dinklage observed. “Just my legs sprawled out in the trailer.”

What’s his secret? “You’ve got to get really smushed into the floor, in a very awkward position.”

How long will he wait once he’s ‘in position’? “Hours.”

So the rumour is just an extension of that?

Well, no. And it also has nothing to do with a story in The Sun about a dwarf “made famous by Game of Thrones” dying at the hands of a thug in a gruesome act of hooliganism.

That actor was in fact not in Game of Thrones – he portrayed a goblin in the first and final instalments of the Harry Potter film series.

The rumour also, probably, has nothing to do with a satire piece in the Evening Harold, in 2015, which claims Peter Dinklage is, in fact, six feet tall. Such rumours – or such pieces about rumours – start rumours, which lead to pieces about rumours. This is a piece about one of those rumours.

Did Peter Dinklage die? The thing is, there’s no rumour

And yet, on Google Trends, the phrase “Peter Dinklage died” is a top search. Hundreds, thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of people are Googling it. What does this mean? It means there’s a rumour. 

What happens when you Google the rumour? Nothing, because there’s no rumour – only a piece about the rumour.

Peter Dinklage has yet to comment on the rumour, because it doesn’t seem to exist.

Originally published in The Focus.