Watch Peter Dinklage Sing With The National’s Bryce & Aaron Dessner On Colbert
Back in 2018, we learned that the National’s Bryce and Aaron Dessner were working on songs from a stage-musical version of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano De Bergerac. That version of Cyrano had an off-Broadway run in 2019, with Peter Dinklage starring. Later this month, we’ll get to see the new Cyrano movie that Joe Wright directed. The Dessners have had a whole lot of major moments lately, but soundtracking a whole movie musical feels like another one.
A while ago, the Dessners shared “Someone To Say,” the first single from the Cyrano soundtrack. Last night, Peter Dinklage was the main guest on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, and he talked about playing the character and figuring out how to sing those songs. Dinklage was also the show’s musical guest. With the Dessner twins backing him up, Dinklage sang “Your Name,” another of the songs from the musical.
For the performance, the two Dessners played droning guitar melodies. “Your Name” isn’t a rock song, and the Dessners had a string quartet backing them up, rather than a rhythm section. And Dinklage, it turns out, has a pretty great voice. His sonorous baritone isn’t too far removed from what Matt Berninger has been bringing to the National all these years. Watch the performance below.
The Cyrano soundtrack is out 12/10 on Decca Records. The movie comes to select theaters 12/31.