There were several actors who gained newfound fame playing memorable characters on hit HBO television series Game of Thrones.
One of them is Northern Irish actor Kristian Nairn, 43, who played fan-favourite Hodor.
As the show is notorious for killing off its iconic characters, Hodor met his demise in the Season 6 episode, The Door, in a truly dramatic fashion.
Fans finally found out the real reason why he kept uttering “Hodor” (which became his nickname), and nothing else.
Hodor, as we found out in that fateful episode, was once a stable boy called Wylis who suffered a seizure during one of Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright)’s ‘greenseeing’ trips into the past.
The two timelines clashed during an attack by the White Walkers and their Wights, and an instruction by Meera (Ellie Kendrick) to present-day Hodor to “Hold the door!” and give her and Bran time to escape, is heard by the the mentally-traumatised young Hodor in the past, and interpreted as “Hodor”.
The scene ends in the heart-wrenching sight of Hodor facing certain death at the hands of the Wights, as Meera and Bran run off into the fog.
During a tele-conference interview with Nairn in Singapore where he was deejaying at an HBO party (the actor is also a successful DJ), he explained how he felt when his character was killed off.
Nairn was also unable to confirm if he will appear in a flashback or as one of the Wights in the final season of Game of Thrones, due to air in April 2019.
He added that it was unlikely that he would be featured in the Game of Thrones prquel TV series that is still in planning stages.
The actor did admit that it was strange to watch the rest of season six without his character in the series, as he was connected to it for so long.
“It was a strange feeling, but it was also a nice feeling because I got to enjoy watching the show like you guys.”
Nairn said things changed for him career-wise after being cast in Game of Thrones. He got to travel the world, meet fans, and got more jobs (acting and deejaying).
“It has just opened up many doors for me. Even after seven years, I feel very lucky.”
When asked if he was as surprised as viewers when the truth behind Hodor’s name was revealed, Nairn said: “Yes, I had no idea. I remember over the years I asked the showrunners what ‘Hodor’ meant.
“I even asked George R.R. Martin (the author of the series of books the show was based on) what ‘Hodor’ meant quite a few times, but he would never tell me.
“I was as surprised as everyone else [to find out the truth], but I never expected the kind of reaction it got.”
Like other fans, Nairn cultivated his own theories about his character, and he said he once thought that Hodor could have been a brother to Gregor and Sandor Clegane as, like Hodor, the Cleganes were very big-sized and extremely strong men.
Nairn said that playing a character who only utters one word of dialogue had its own challenges.
“The key to playing Hodor is just being real. You really have to put yourself in those situations. Because you don’t have words to express yourself, you have to really immerse yourself into the scene you are in.”
Nairn said that most of the emotion is conveyed using body language, and that it can be challenging.
Early on, he was told that his character would be one of the fan favourites of the show, and was surprised that it actually happened.
“I grew to love him, and hoped that other people grew to like him too.”
Because of the show’s reputation for killing off so many characters, Nairn, like other members of the cast, would skim though the scripts they received to find out if their characters would die.
“We all [did] that. That was like a standing joke among the actors.
“For my own character’s death, it was Ben Crompton, who plays Eddison Tollett, who got the script the day before me. So when I called and asked him if I would die on the show, there was an awkward silence.”
Nairn said it was especially hard for an actor to be on the set on their last day, because that it is “when it finally hits you emotionally”.
When asked if he took back any momentos from his time on the show, he said he took back a tiny, three-inch-high model of the door he held in the final scene. He did not take home the whole door, as some reports indicated.
“I certainly did not want my costume. It was really very smelly. It has never been washed, not even once. You can smell it from a mile away!”
Nairn, like other fans of the show, is excited about catching the final season when it premieres next year.
As to how he would like the show to ultimately end, Nairn said: “Westeros has been through so much pain and anguish. So it deserves someone on the throne who is kind and generous.
“I would like Brianne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) to be on the throne, because she does not want to be queen. I think she will be fair and strong.”
