Rebecca Miller did not play coy when asked how she cast Peter Dinklage as the opera composer who lies on his therapist wife (Anne Hathaway) with a tugboat operator (Marisa Tomei) in her new romantic comedy, She Came to Me.
In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment alongside co-stars Hathaway and Tomei, the writer-director exclaimed, “He’s hot and brilliant.” SAG-AFTRA granted a waiver to the cast of She Came to Me, allowing them to partake in interviews despite the ongoing strike. “He is humorous and transmits apprehension like no one else… He is portraying a role that is uncommon for him. Typically, he portrays incredibly confident characters, but this one lacks such confidence. Nonetheless, his masculinity is so enticing, and I simply find him to be original. He is the genuine article.” Miller is married to Daniel Day-Lewis, who retired in 2017 and is widely regarded as the greatest living actor.
The Emmy-winning Game of Thrones actor portrays Steven Lauddem, whose severe writer’s block is preventing him from completing his latest work. Walking his dog one late morning in Dinklage’s actual Brooklyn neighborhood, he enters a bar and encounters Katrina, a Louisiana tugboat operator on her day off. He accompanies her on a tour of her ship, discovers she’s “addicted to romance,” briefly imagines she’s an axe-wielding serial killer, and nevertheless consummates his relationship with her. Suddenly, he is seized with inspiration for his next opera.
“It was a lot of fun, I feel like we work in a similar manner,” Tomei says, adding that she previously worked with Dinklage on another film prior to She Came to Me, but she doubts that it will ever be released. “I felt this way when I walked onto the set, and it was so simple… It felt very comfortable.”