Big Show on Taking Acting Inspiration From Peter Dinklage, Learning From Josh Brolin As Thanos

The Big Show discussed his inspirations and challenges as an actor in a new interview with The Wrap. You can check out some highlights below:

On who he’s taken inspiration from in acting: “As an actor, I look at someone like Peter Dinklage, which you’d think is the opposite end of the spectrum. But no, because Peter Dinklage is such a good actor, he is able to take parts that originally weren’t written for a little person and a smaller person and he’s transcended that so that it doesn’t matter. You see how he interacts with his environment, but at the same time, it adds flavor to the dialogue that’s written. So if I can do that as a big guy and come to change the perception a little bit that it’s OK for big guys to actually have talent and actually be able to tell stories, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

On being limited in acting due to his size: “It’s tough to convince people [otherwise], especially because Hollywood is more of a money business than pro wrestling. If they’re going to invest millions of dollars into a project to put this movie out, they’re going to invest in somebody who can put people in seats or are going to [make them want to] buy it or who people are going to buy the downloads [for]. That’s who they are investing in to pull this part off. And it’s not one of those things like, ‘I have a dream!’ They don’t give two craps about your dream. They want to make sure that the investment is good.”

On taking lessons from Josh Brolin’s work as Thanos: “Thanos I thought was great, because when you’re that big and you’re that powerful, you’re never loud. You don’t growl, you don’t have to because you know how powerful you are. That’s one of the biggest things for a lot of the stuff I’ve done, ‘Oh, can you growl here?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but, I wouldn’t.’ Because when you’re this big, you don’t have to run around. Small guys have to run around and prove how big they are. Big guys don’t have to. Trying to keep that authenticity. But I love Josh Brolin’s performance in that Marvel ‘Infinity War’ stuff because I just thought he nailed it right on the head. Because if you’re Thanos, what do you have to stress about?”