User blog comment:Brian Linder/Post Your Questions for Hodor Actor Kristian Nairn/@comment-5014364-20140416165649


 * Where were your scenes beyond the Wall filmed this season? Did you need to travel to Iceland, as the Night's Watch characters did when they went beyond the Wall?
 * Now that Hodor is north of the Wall, he will have to fight wights and other monsters. For the first time you might have to "do your own stunts" as they say.  When fighting wights, are you interacting with an actor in heavy makeup, or do you have to pretend and they add the CGI later?
 * Can you confirm that Old Nan died "off screen" between Season 1 and Season 2? She was Hodor's only living relative (his great-grandmother), but actress Margaret John died before Season 1 began airing (though her scenes were all finished).  We sort of assumed that Benioff and Weiss decided to retire the character out of respect, and just assume that she peacefully died...which is probably for the best, because in the books, when Ramsay Snow burned Winterfell he took many of the women captive and took them back to the Dreadfort - where he has been hunting them for sport and making cloaks out of their flayed skins.  Old Nan is still listed as a prisoner at the Dreadfort in the books.   Anyway, I did notice the sadness in Hodor's voice in "The Rains of Castamere" when Bran mentioned Old Nan's stories, which I assumed was a nod to the fact that his last living relative died and he was saddened at the mention of her.
 * You have mentioned in past interviews that despite playing a character who can only say one word, you supplement this with putting a lot of thought into your body language, which you are skilled at reading because you were partially deaf as a child. What was it like being partially deaf?  What are things about body language you notice that other people might normally overlook?  You said you were later "fixed", but how?  If you have a cochlear implant do you need to take it off before playing Hodor on-screen or does it fit under a wig?
 * Have you heard of the popular fan theory that Hodor may be a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall, legendary commander of the Kingsguard? The Season 4 premiere actually made it a point to mention Ser Duncan.  He's one of the two lead characters in the "Tales of Dunk and Egg" prequel novellas - which HBO is considering adapting into a TV project after the main series ends.  Basically, there have been three "Dunk and Egg" prequel novellas, and the delayed fourth one will see Ser Duncan visit Winterfell.  During one of Bran's greensight visions with a weirwood in the books (like in episode 2 of Season 4), he sees a very tall knight, as tall as Hodor, kneeling down to kiss a young maiden in the Winterfell godswood -- the theory is that this might have been Old Nan when she was young, and that Ser Duncan is actually Hodor's great-grandfather.  There are also strong hints that Ser Duncan is also Brienne of Tarth's great-grandfather too -- apart from their large size, there's a line in the books where Brienne makes passing mention of the heraldry on an old shield in the armory at Tarth, and she actually describes the personal heraldry on Ser Duncan's shield.  This would make Hodor and Brienne second cousins.
 * The tattoo on your right temple is stylish, but did the makeup people get annoyed about it when you came into the role (as Hodor doesn't have a tattoo)? Or was it really not an issue, just a shrug of the shoulders, and they said "hey, we'll just put a fake scar over your right temple to cover the tattoo" -- how do you think Hodor got that scar in the TV continuity?
 * You said in a recent interview that you don't really think you'd get married, and you've always chased after unattainable people, and then as soon as the chase ended the novelty wore off. Don't you think you'll ever settle down?  As Bronn would say, if you keep chasing after some idealized perfection you'll only find yourself lonely.  No man is an island.  Do you think relationships need a solid basis from the beginning, or that mutual work will improve them with time?
 * You recently said in an interview with WinterIsComing.net that you identify as homosexual. What do you think of the story's portrayal of gay characters?  I am a medievalist, and while no expert on this specific subject, in the past  30 or so years a major current in historical gender studies has pointed out that gender identities and cultural standards of sexuality were never constant.  People in Western Europe a thousand years ago didn't have our contemporary standards of sexuality or gender.  "Homosexuality" and "Heterosexuality", conceptualized as "identities", didn't actually exist.  Richard the Lionheart was probably homosexual, but he was the greatest warrior of his generation, what they perceived as hyper-masculine:  basically, medieval people had difficulty conceptualizing what we would call a "cis-gendered gay man".  If anything, sexuality was much more fluid then, more like Dorne in the TV show.  There was never one "traditional" marriage:  as we see in the TV series, "marriage" is more often a political contract.