Peter Dinklage Will Play Dr. Dillamond in Wicked
The Game of Thrones star will be lending his voice to the character of Dr. Dillamond in the Hollywood adaptation of Wicked. Universal revealed the news at the recently concluded CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Fans settled in for a delightful treat as they surveyed new footage from the Wicked movie which is scheduled for a Thanksgiving 2024 release.
The director of the film, Jon M. Chu, raised fans’ expectations with the statement, “This movie has everything: giant musical numbers, big action pieces. And using a classic story you all know, The Wizard of Oz.”
Apart from the scale of its production, there’s a lot of hype among fans regarding the star-studded cast which will feature the likes of Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, and Jonathan Bailey.
As per Universal, Wicked will be a 2-part film with its second installation scheduled to open over another year-end holiday in 2025. The story will revolve around the two witches of Oz and chart their unlikely friendship as they struggle against the dark forces in Oz. It’s a prequel to The Wizard of Oz and based on the book by Gregory Maguire. There’s also a musical adaptation. Both the book and the musical have been received very well by audiences.
Fans have long speculated that the character of Dr. Dillamond will be cut from the film. This is because there was no sign of him in the first teaser which was released during the Super Bowl. With Universal’s announcement on Wednesday, we can expect the film to follow the original plot of the book.
In the book, the character of Dr. Dillamond is a goat who’s working as a history professor at Shiz University. It’s a small but significant role as the professor is the first to warn Elphaba about the growing threat to its animals. While the scene includes the professor singing a song to describe the ominous signs, we’ve yet to know whether it will be adapted on screen.
Dinklage rose to fame for his Golden Globe and Emmy-winning role as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. He’s also moved on to more challenging characters in films like The Station Agent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Death at a Funeral, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Avengers: Infinity War, and more.
While we’ve seen Dinklage take on roles for the screen and stage, a musical is a new challenge for the actor. However, we did get a glimpse of him in the musicalized version of Cyrano de Bergerac which was simply entitled Cyrano.
Dinklage’s loyal fans believe he’s up for the new challenge. “I tend to like all his roles, albeit I am biased since I loved his work in Game of Thrones. He has quite the range,” commented Austen True on Facebook.
“Shut the front door! Just when I thought I couldn’t get any more excited about this movie!,” exclaimed Crystal Goldwin.
The last we saw of the Game of Thrones star was in the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The actor has had a busy year with multiple projects ready for release. Some of his highly anticipated productions include Unfrosted: The Pop Tart Story, The Thicket, Brothers, and The Toxic Avenger.
