-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-winning actor
you know from "Game of Thrones" and films like "Cyrano."
He stars in "American Dreamer," which is in theaters March 8th.
Let's take a look.
-I was dead for 12 minutes,
and they thought it was my heart, but it wasn't.
-What was it? -Well, they're not certain.
One doctor believes it was a gas bubble,
blocking oxygen to her windpipe.
-Right. I will never eat hummus again.
Who cares?
Because of you, I woke up, I got myself dressed,
and walked out of that God-forbidden
antiseptic hospital and I came here to look at the sunset.
-Please welcome to the show Peter Dinklage, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
Welcome to the show.
[ Cheers and applause ]
You know what?
-I'm a dog person, but you got to wear a cat shirt.
-Yeah.
-My son has a -- My 6-year-old has a matching one.
-Really? You got -- You know, your buddy Josh Brolin was here.
-Yeah.
-And he wore a special shirt, too.
Is this something you guys planned?
-It's not competitive whatsoever.
I didn't YouTube it over and over again today,
taking notes.
Yeah, Josh.
-Do you remember when we ran into each other this summer?
-It was at the vineyard, darling.
-Yes, we saw each other in Martha's Vineyard,
and I was sitting in a chair and you were sitting on a couch.
We were on a friend's porch.
And I asked you a question, and you said,
"Oh, so you're like this all the time?"
-Yeah. It really -- It felt staged and planned.
You guys weren't there, though. -Yeah.
-This is the difference. -Why weren't you there?
It was the vineyard. It was the summer.
-This is a fascinating film, based on a true story...
-Yes.
-...that was a "This American Life" story.
-Yes, NPR, and from Chicago, a fascinating situation
in which -- You know, trying to find a place to live is hard,
especially here in New York City.
And this woman found a dream place, a dream house.
But the thing is, there was an elderly man living there,
and she would inherit the entire house when he died.
And until then, you have to live with this guy in the, like,
the servants quarters and wait for him to die.
-Uh-huh. -Which is ripe for comedy.
-Well, I think what happened for her
is she maybe thought he was going to die any day now.
-Yeah. -And it turned out --
-Years. -Yeah.
-She, like, met her husband. They had children.
He became, like, a godfather to the children.
And a perfectly nice situation, I guess.
But, so, we changed it,
and Shirley MacLaine now plays the older --
-It's really amazing even to watch a clip
with a legend like Shirley MacLaine.
-Shirley.
-How did you get Shirley MacLaine
to do your film?
-Well, she's the only one I could think of.
And there's so many times when you're making --
when you're putting together a movie, which is so hard,
and it's amazing that anything ever gets made,
but you go, "We should get someone like Shirley MacLaine."
And I go, "Or we get Shirley MacLaine."
-Yeah.
-Because we are human beings, and we need to work, as well.
And somebody called Shirley, and she said she would do it.
-That's amazing. -Yeah.
She turns 90 next month. -She looks fantastic.
-She is just so brilliant.
And she's going to be working in Atlantic City
on her birthday, and I'm going to go down there
and throw her a party.
-Oh, my God. -That's wonderful.
-Yeah.
-When was the last time you went down to Atlantic City?
-That's not relevant to the story.
-Because, yeah --
-I was employed in Atlantic City a long time ago.
-Did you really work there? -No, no.
We don't have to talk about those days.
Times are very difficult.
-You mentioned New York,
and I know you've been living here for years.
And I would imagine --
-I don't know why anymore, but...
-Yeah. But as a struggling actor,
I imagine you had some bad early New York apartments
that you maybe would have taken a deal
where you could live in a nicer place.
until a person died.
-You just -- You're not living with somebody
waiting for them to die.
You're wondering if you're going to die.
-Yeah. -Truly.
I had a landlord once pull a knife on us.
-Wow! What the purpose is -- Give me his side of the story.
-I love that. -Yeah.
-Your honor, I don't -- Who's this --
No, we were trying to -- You know,
it was the early '90s, fresh out of college,
thinking we were going to own
New York City and the theater world,
and you need heat to run a theater.
You need publicity to run a theater.
So we never put on any plays. We just drank a lot.
And had a Buddhist roommate, and --
-He pulled a knife on a Buddhist roommate?
-Yeah. Yeah. -That's a bad landlord.
-Yeah. He just had anger issues, I guess, that we weren't, like,
doing Broadway-style shows, apparently, I don't know.
-Oh, so he pulled a knife due to creative differences.
-Yeah, I think he might have worked for TKTS.
-Oh, interesting.
I had always assumed, when a landlord pulls a knife,
it's due to rent, but he was like,
"I thought you'd be better."
-"Why aren't you on the map yet?"
-Yeah. "I told all my friends there was a celebrity
living in my building."
-"You're no Steppenwolf."
Yeah, it was kind of -- It was a prop, too,
which we later found.
No. -He pulled a prop?
-In a perfect world, it would have been
what we're talking about, but it was a real knife,
real reaction, real anger.
-Was that the end?
Did that sever your living condition
or did you sort of, like, go like,
"Hey, let's let bygones be bygones, and --"
-Oh, no, we left. -Okay, yeah.
-Yeah. We -- The theater company folded, and we left.
And then, you know, you always have those apartments
in New York that -- I just heard a new term backstage
where your kitchen is also in your bathroom?
-Yeah. -It's called a bitchen?
-A bitchen, yeah.
-Which is weird, because as men of a --
We all all nickname everything. -Yeah.
-That's, like, our skill set.
Our only skill set as men is, everything needs a nickname.
-Yeah. -But, yeah, a bitchen.
I lived in a bitchen for a while down Ludlow Street.
But it's really practical, because you can take a shower
and stir your spaghetti at the same time.
-I will say, if you maybe have amorous intentions
with someone and you're at a bar and you say like,
"You should come back to my bitchen apartment,"
you might be giving them a false sense
of what they're about to see.
-The face just drops at the doorway.
-I got a lot more to ask you.
We'll be right back with Peter after this.