A real life giant living inside a gigantic fantasy world
Belfast, Northern Ireland born and raised Kristian Nairn has a longstanding love of all video games. Nairn is best known for playing Hodor on HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, and standing at 6’11” tall he is cast perfectly for the part of the half giant.
Gaming has always been a passion for Kristian Nairn and is there any wonder. The political and terrorist tensions of 1970’s and 1980’s Northern Ireland would make most people want to retreat inside a fantasy world, and that is no bad thing. For Nairn, this has led to a world of possibilities.
Nairn is a huge fan of World of Warcraft
He started playing the Atari when he was seven and hasn’t stopped playing video games since. As a multi-format player who is on the road most of the time, these days Nairn focuses on PC gaming. He has been immersed in the Warcraft world since 1994 when Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was released, and has loved the MMO WoW since launch.
Nairn is active on both European and North American servers which can be time consuming and difficult deciding where to spend his time. His American guild is hugely Game of Thrones themed, named Winter is Coming, after the show’s tagline and favourite family of the North.
Nairn is still currently heavily invested in the latest World of Warcraft expansion Legion, which was released in August 2016 and hasn’t stopped yet. There is always new content being released and as a self professed Altaholic, Nairn says that he just can’t get enough of levelling and playing Alts. His main character is an Orc but focuses on questing and PVP.
After Game of Thrones
When he’s not acting, he can be found working as a DJ and voice acting. Nairn is a popular DJ who has been playing clubs for at least 15 years before he was cast as Hodor. He is currently touring the world, using his GoT fame to fuel his club scene career. Some of his sets are Game of Thrones themed which drives his fans wild, though he says that he prefers to spin them without a theme.
Nairn has also been offered a number of voice acting roles. Over the years he has voiced a number of small roles in Warcraft, most notable being a dungeon orc in Warlords of Draenor. He says, “That was like a dream come true, it's so weird going to a dungeon in your favourite game and hearing your own voice. I kind of enjoy killing myself, which is a strange sentence...It's kind of gratifying to loot your own corpse”
