You may think you know what to expect from Peter Dinklage Hot. And sure, there’s a necessary anecdote about it Charles Dance is super apologetic for all the mean things he said while Tywin Lannister was moving on Game of Thrones. But Dinklage, who is currently promoting the Prime Video movie Brothersis more than his Emmy-winning performance as Tyrion. “Try to define me, man,” the actor jokes when host Sean Evans brings up his ’90s punk-funk-rap group Whizzy.

“I used to think, ‘I’m not going to be an actor. I’m not going to do any crazy commercials or anything like that, I’m going to do plays around town for no money where I’m going to throw up on the audience and I’m going to be in a punk band,” says Dinklage. . “We were Beastie Boys hustlers and yeah, we had fun. It was a lot of fun. And after I did it for a few years, I got a cool scar on my temple. Head wounds bleeding a lot. So I vomit on the audience, and I bleed on the audience. It’s a very profound experience if you want to see me live.”

Of course, Dinklage ended up being convicted become an actorbut not before years of toil and struggle. “I was angry, I think, too angry for a long time. … I just knew what the entertainment industry had to offer people my size and that wasn’t acting for me,” he says. “But I surrounded myself with really brilliant people. Not intentionally, but just friendships. I call it the tribe. And we simply carried that friendship and working environment into the future together as one. Because you can’t do it alone, I couldn’t do it alone. And that’s the beauty of what I do for a living: the collaboration. So I was lucky enough to meet some really great people who inspired me. More every day.”