The Surprising Truth About Peter Dinklage's Punk Band

Peter Dinklage is most well-known for portraying the character of Tyrion Lannister in HBO's "Game of Thrones" and has made a reputation for being an astounding actor, but not a lot of people know that he was part of a band in his young adult days. After graduating from Bennington College in 1991, Dinklage moved to New York City to chase after his dreams of being an actor. While there, he was part of the punk-rap-funk band called Whizzy. Susanna Howe wrote about attending one of Whizzy's gigs in an article on the Columbia Spectator and said: "Whizzy is thematic: the word 'fun' comes to mind in the most immediate sense here."

The band played gigs in different New York venues throughout the early '90s, and Peter Dinklage was a co-frontman who sang their songs and sometimes showed off his skills of playing the cornet, an instrument similar to the trumpet, per Lad Bible. In an interview with The New Yorker, Dinklage talked about his time with the band: "We just drank too much and played the old CBGB's. We had a following, but our following was, like, progressive rock."

Whizzy eventually went their separate ways and Peter Dinklage focused on pursuing his acting dreams. In regard to Whizzy, Dinklage, talking to The New Yorker, described himself as a "dilettante" who was just there to have fun while his bandmates were, as he said, "all real musicians."

Despite disbanding, Peter Dinklage will always have a remembrance of the fun and crazy times he spent with Whizzy. In a Playboy interview, Peter talked about how he got the scar on his eyebrow, which he apparently acquired while rocking out with his band. "I was jumping around onstage and got accidentally kneed in the temple. I was like Sid Vicious, just bleeding all over the stage. Blood was going everywhere." But just like the rock star that he is, Dinklage just used a dirty napkin to wipe off the blood and continued performing.

After his time with Whizzy, Peter Dinklage got a minor film role in 1995, and from there went on to play different roles in theater, TV, and movies (via Biography).