Who Is Peter Dinklage's Wife? All About Erica Schmidt

Peter Dinklage is no stranger to the spotlight.

The Game of Thrones actor has starred in a number of films and series since his breakout role in The Station Agent in 2003, including the lead role in Cyrano — the movie musical written by his wife Erica Schmidt.

The actor wed Schmidt in 2005 and the couple have since welcomed two children. And although they prefer to keep their personal life under wraps, professionally, Schmidt boasts an equally impressive résumé to that of her husband.

So, who is Peter Dinklage's wife? Keep reading for everything to know about Erica Schmidt and her relationship her husband.

She's an award-winning playwright and theater director

While Schmidt is mostly known for writing Cyrano, the talented playwright-director has received numerous accolades for her work.

In 2001, she was awarded the Robert and Gloria Hausman Theater Honor from the Princess Grace Foundation, which supports emerging performers in theatre, dance and film.

Her 2019 all-female adaptation of Mac Beth earned Drama Desk Award nominations for outstanding direction and outstanding revival, as well as a nomination for the Lucille Lortel Award.

Schmidt's other directorial credits include The Play Company (for which she received a Callaway Award nomination) and chashama (for which she won the New York International Fringe Festival Award for best direction). She also won a Lucille Lortel Award for the play Humor Abuse, which she co-created, co-wrote and directed.

"Unlike a lot of other people in our profession where film is the ultimate goal, theater is sacred to her. It's not entertainment; it's art," Dinklage told The Guardian in 2015. "She's very inspiring. She's definitely the artist of the family. ... I am just the TV actor who pays the bills."

Dinklage says he begged Schmidt for his role in Cyrano

In a 2021 interview with CBS News, Dinklage admitted to begging his wife for the role of Cyrano.

"Erica told us, that you begged her for the part?" 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked the actor.

" 'Begged'? Yeah. I mean, essentially, yes, that's true," Dinklage responded. "For an actor, you always wanna do something that — for me at least — that scares you … I just never had sung since I was a kid."

And the role was an important one for Dinklage for another reason. The play was originally written by Edmond Rostand in 1897, and the character Cyrano has been played by the likes of Steve Martin, José Ferrer and James Mason, among others.

"Nine times out of 10, Cyrano is played by a handsome actor with a fake nose and you know that he takes it off when they wrap," Dinklage told U.K. outlet The Times. "The idea of a leading actor is changing now. Whether racially or whatever. It's about time. We've been stuck with this stereotype of a leading man and it's healthy to open that up. Love life is not the domain of pretty people — everybody has a love life."

In addition to Cyrano, the couple also worked together in 2015 on Schmidt's stage adaptation of A Month in the Country.

She and Dinklage met in New York City

Dinklage described meeting Schmidt as something out of a "crazy, romantic movie." In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Dinklage said the two met at a mutual friend's house in N.Y.C.

"It was about 18 years ago now. We were all at a friend's house and someone said, 'They're walking the elephants through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.' The circus was in town and it was snowing, and they were walking the elephants through Manhattan, a long line of them. It was like something out of a beautiful, fantastical, end-of-the-world, crazy, romantic movie," Dinklage recalled. "See? I always think about movies. So that's the night we met, the night the elephants walked through Manhattan."

She and Dinklage eloped in Las Vegas

In 2005, Dinklage and Schmidt eloped in Las Vegas.

"I was going there for a charity event," Dinklage said during a 2016 interview with The New York Times. "And then while we were there, we just decided to do it. It was a bit lonely. We got a VHS videocassette of the wedding that no one will ever see, that we've buried in a box deep beneath the earth's core."

She and Dinklage have two children together

Schmidt and Dinklage welcomed a daughter in 2011 and a second child in 2017. Although Schmidt was pregnant at the opening of her 2017 play, All the Fine Boys, the ultra-private couple have yet to share the sex of their second child.

Both of their children's names are still a mystery to the public as well, but Dinklage has had quite a few laughs about the internet's many guesses — including one particular guess that he named his daughter Zelig after the Woody Allen movie of the same name.

"I love that Woody Allen movie," he told The New York Times, referencing Allen's 1983 mockumentary. "But why would you name your child after that character?"

Dinklage thanked her after he won an Emmy

The couple prefer to keep the details of their personal life private. However, that doesn't stop the actor from raving about his wife during interviews and acceptance speeches.

After winning an Emmy Award in 2018 for his role as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, Dinklage made it a point to thank Schmidt during his acceptance speech. After briefly mentioning that he forgot to thank her when he won an Emmy back in 2015, Dinklage made sure to recognize his wife this time around, saying, "Thank you, Erica, for putting up with me. I'm very temperamental and I love you very much."

She supports Dinklage on the red carpet

Schmidt is often found at Dinklage's side on the red carpet, including at a New York screening of The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes in November 2023, just a few months after they attended the premiere of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts together that June.

More recently, she joined him at the premiere of The Jinx: Part 2 in April 2024. Next up, Dinklage is set to star as Dr. Dillamond in the movie adaptation of Wicked.