Peter Dinklage won his third Emmy for Game of Thronesduring Monday night's Emmy Awards, amid a bittersweet ending for Thronesthat will culminate in 2019.

Backstage at the awards, Dinklage told Variety that saying goodbye to Thrones is like saying goodbye to a whole life and family he built over the past eight years.

“It was very sad," the actor said. "This is not only a great TV show to be a part of, but it was an enormous family to be a part of.”

Dinklage said he was initially hesitant to play Tyrion Lannister due to the lack of substantive roles for actors with dwarfism, particularly in fantasy stories.

"Many times people my size weren’t interesting enough for me to be interested in doing [those parts]," he said.

Dinklage filmed Thrones in Europe, which he said contributed to the sense of community that he'll bid farewell to as the show closes.

“So many times I had to stay there and couldn’t go home on the weekends and really developed deep roots in the community of Ireland and some of the other countries we shot in,” he added. “It was definitely hard to say goodbye to because it wasn’t just saying goodbye to the show, I was saying goodbye to a life over there.”

h/t Variety