Fantasy WORLD
JAMIE DORNAN AND PETER DINKLAGE star in an absorbing drama about the colourful life of Hervé Villechaize
WHEN THE BRITISH JOURNALIST Sacha Gervasi was sent to interview actor Hervé Villechaize in 1993, he had assumed it would be a routine piece about the star’s previous roles in James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun and TV show Fantasy Island.
Instead, the two men spent an eventful week in LA, talking about Villechaize’s fascinating story.
‘He poured out his life to me over these meetings,’ Gervasi recalls.‘ it was a massive emotional experience.’
PERSONAL PROJECT
The interview took on even greater significance when, a few days later, Villechaize committed suicide. Gervasi immediately made a pledge to make a drama about their meetings to honour the actor’s memory.
Now, 25 years later, he has finally achieved his goal, with the featurelength drama My Dinner with
Hervé, shown on Sky Atlantic this week, starring Game of Thrones’
Peter Dinklage as the diminutive French actor, and The Fall’s Jamie Dornan as Irish journalist and former alcoholic Danny Tate, a character loosely based on Gervasi.
At times, Gervasi thought the project would never see the light of day. ‘I can’t believe how many people told me, “It’s a suicidal dwarf movie. You could not come up with anything less commercial. It’s never getting made,’” he recalls.
Although Dinklage agreed to play the role over a decade ago, it wasn’t until the actor became famous as Tyrion Lannister that US network HBO showed serious interest.
‘It’s turned out well in the end,’ says Dinklage. ‘I was too young to play Hervé when we first started talking about it, but I am now about the age he was when he passed on, so it all worked out.’
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
The story begins with Danny travelling from London to Hollywood to meet his interviewee, before flashing back to Villechaize’s birth with a form of dwarfism in wartime Paris, his father’s obsessive efforts to make him grow, and his early years as a prize-winning artist before he moved to the US.
‘He was such an extraordinary man,’ says Dinklage. ‘First of all, he was a brilliant painter and could have given more to the world in terms of that.’
As the drama moves on to his acting years, Andy Garcia stars as his Fantasy Island co-star Ricardo Montalbán and Wallace Langham plays TV producer Aaron Spelling.
In order to play the role, Dinklage met Villechaize’s family, listened
to audio recordings to perfect his distinctive voice, and used dental prosthetics to plump up his cheeks as well as wearing contact lenses and a wig.
‘I even plucked and threaded my eyebrows,’ Dinklage reveals. ‘Why do people do that? It’s the most horrible thing in the world. But I had to do that because Hervé had these beautiful eyebrows.’
CONFRONTING PREJUDICE
The drama also chronicles the difficulties Villechaize faced, including a scene in which thugs verbally abuse and beat him.
‘People can be cruel. People can be stupid and insecure,’ says Dinklage. ‘They just want to feel better about themselves. When you see somebody literally smaller than you, you want to remind them of that, so you feel bigger. But Hervé was very proud of who he was. He even wore a T-shirt with “Bionic Midget” written on it.’
The 49-year-old star is currently filming the final season of Game
of Thrones, and won his third Emmy in September for playing Tyrion. Like Villechaize, he’s now experiencing the ups and downs of fame.
‘You’ll never hear me moaning about being famous, but there are a lot of strange fans out there,’ he smiles. ‘I’ve even met people with tattoos of me on their face. I must admit, I do find that a little weird.’