When Hodor Got His Penis Prosthetic on ‘Game of Thrones’: “Holy God, Look at the Size of It!”

“Okay, Kristian, could you take your robe off now, please?”

Paul says this softly but matter-of-factly. Can I? It’s being presented as a choice, but he knows and I know that it isn’t a choice at all. Can I? I pause. Paul is the head makeup artist in our Raven unit. He looks at me with a sympathetic half smile. I know this is going to hurt, but it’s my job, he’s saying without saying anything. I have agreed to this, after all. David and Dan did run through this with me at the Fitzwilliam Hotel. Why the hell did I say yes? I think. But the nude scene has been signed and sealed: the scene where Hodor emerges from bathing pools completely naked for ten, maybe fifteen, seconds. I will be undressed for less time than it would take me to text a friend, yet it has played on my mind for weeks. Come on, Kristian, I think. Just get this over and done with.

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By now it’s around 10 a.m. and the trailers have been buzzing for hours. Base camp, we call it whenever we are on location. Today’s base camp is a little market town called Carryduff, just south of Belfast. A cluster of trucks are parked up where the Saturday farmer’s market usually runs. How apt, I think. Fresh meat served up to a baying clientele. The proverbial lamb to the slaughter. Last night I even debated whether to have a “tidy up downstairs.” Maybe I should give myself a shave? Make it all look a bit more presentable? Then I remembered it has been explained to me, several times now, that the prosthetic penis I’ve requested for this scene will be attached to my own bits and bobs. Apparently, it will be plaited into my existing pubic hair even though I can’t fathom how it’s going to work. Best not shave, I concluded. It’s Game of Thrones, for God’s sake. We’re in fantasyland 298 AC, whenever that is. Be kind and give the makeup guys something to work with. Let the forest run free!

The crew has been arriving in dribs and drabs. I’m familiar with this because, being among the first on set, I am always here to greet them. Normally a car collects me from home at 4 a.m. I’ve opted for a pickup because I don’t trust myself to wake up and get here under my own steam. Besides, it’s lovely to have someone else drive. I’ve been allocated a maroon Jaguar, which apparently was once the car used by the heroine of the Northern Ireland peace process, UK politician Mo Mowlam. She must have been tiny. The only way I can fit into it is to stretch out on the back seat. On the journey I sleep, or sit half-awake watching the sun rise as we wind through the countryside. When I took on this role, I never factored in an early start. I am not a morning person and I assumed Hodor would have very little makeup—at most a sweep of grease in my hair and a dust over with a powder puff. But, other than the characters like the White Walkers who are imprisoned in makeup from 2 a.m., my preparation takes the longest. Tattoos are the culprit, and I have several.

First are the five blue stars tattooed on my right temple. After lengthy discussion, Hodor has been given a facial scar to cover them. By chance this ties in nicely with my imagined backstory about Hodor being kicked in the head, but the process is uncomfortable. As a former drag queen, I’m used to the makeup, but now I must sit expressionless while red blocker is applied to neutralize the blue. Then, it’s painted over with foundation, spirit gum, and scar wax. A scalpel is used to carefully make the shape of the scar. It pulls like a face mask and often peels off under a bright-light sweat.

More troublesome is the depiction of Thor that covers my shoulder, plus a nuclear sign tattooed onto my inside wrist—a black trefoil on a yellow background and the first tattoo I ever had done—a humorous nod to the person I used to be.

At some point in my past when strangers asked, “How can you be that tall?” I ditched the credible, polite explanation that I’d used for so many years: “Oh, there’s a tall gene in my family.” Instead, I dressed my reply up in double-plated battle armor: “Because I grew up next to a radioactive power plant!” I hoped they got the subtext: I get asked that by everyone, you stupid wee prick, so you’re going to get a stupid wee answer.

Paul has already dabbed on different shades of foundation over Thor for around an hour. Setting spray has also been applied, which thins and wrinkles my skin like an octogenarian’s. Now it’s going to be applied to my nether regions and I shudder at the thought.

By now a few more members of the makeup crew have arrived, along with the actress Esmé Bianco. We’ve never met before but she’s playing the part of Ros, a prostitute working in Winterfell.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I nod politely as she slumps down in the makeup chair next to me with her morning coffee. It feels as though I may be in good company—she has to take her clothes off all the time.

“So, Kristian. Dressing gown off?” Paul is now waiting.

“Yes, sorry . . . ” I stand up and start to untie the cord and slowly peel the toweling robe from my shoulder. I pull a glum face.

“Feeling okay?” he asks. Oh, you do not want to know the answer to that one, Paul. “No. Not really,” I want to say. My insides are knotted like you wouldn’t believe. This is me. Kristian. The guy who never wants to take his clothes off in front of anyone, let alone a trailerful of people, some of whom are strangers. I’ve been body-shamed enough with my clothes on!

Paul wants an answer, but in that split second, I’m transported back to my fourteen-year-old self in the carriage on the Lisburn-to-Belfast train. I can still picture those girls dressed up for a night out. I can still hear them whispering: “Jesus, will you look at him? He’s practically malformed.”

I wonder, would any of them know that I’d be here more than twenty years later—a thirty-five-year-old man on the production set of one of HBO’s biggest series since The Sopranos or The Wire with those words still emblazoned on me like a branding mark? I don’t need to feel this exposed, I think.

But there’s another voice in my head, too. It’s the voice I’ve been working on for so many years. The voice I am still working on to this day. Yes, I am feeling okay, Paul. Yes, I do want to do this. I need to do it, even. The days of the Hollywood trope are over, bitches. I might not be Brad Pitt, but who the hell is? I have as much right as anyone to be proud of my body! “Erm . . . I’m nervous,” I reply. It seems so much easier to say.

Suddenly, a shout interrupts my thoughts. “Go on! Don’t worry, I’ve seen it all before!”

The roar is Esmé’s, and when I turn to her, she is grinning from ear to ear. She’s a burlesque dancer outside of Game of Thrones, she explains, and she’s already had to give a full-on flash of her bits to Theon Greyjoy, aka Alfie Allen, in episode 6.

“Nothing shocks me. Literally nothing,” she beams. Immediately I can feel my tension soften.

I take my robe off, but I can still sense myself standing as stiff as a sentry guard. All I need now is for Isaac to stampede in with his SpongeBob SquarePants earworm and his “Morning, Kristian!” cheeriness. I would die. Not to mention be reminded of the irritating fact that Isaac gets to turn up to set later than me every single day. Comparatively, he needs little makeup.

Next comes the hard part. Paul turns to fetch the prosthesis. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it twice already, but its size has grown in my imagination in the intervening weeks, like a looming obelisk. The first time it got presented to me was several weeks after Paul asked if he could take a picture for the special effects department. Apparently, they needed some dimensions to work with. It was just me and him in a room with a camera and my pants down. On any other day, that would sound like a come-on, but it really wasn’t. And the thought of my Polaroid penis being passed among people analyzing closely my length and girth to work out how this gargantuan contraption would fit over my real dick made me squirm.

I’d only just gotten over the embarrassment when the props department called me in.

“Kristian, we need to make a decision about which prosthesis to use,” they said.

Jesus, there’s more than one? In fact, there were two: one a slightly lighter shade of burnished oak complete with thick, dark, afro-curl pubes. Is someone having a joke? I thought. Surely they’d know by now that with a surname like Nairn I’d be half Irish, half Scottish with a hue verging on Arctic blue. Thankfully, the one Paul now has in his hand is a closer match—much paler but still not quite pale enough.

The moment I saw its size, though, I’d said to Paul: “I could use it as a fucking draft excluder!” Sixteen inches of hard, weird plastic that looks like a hollowed-out dildo.

“And it doesn’t even match my coloring!” I protested.

“Don’t worry, Kristian. Makeup will sort that. We’ll match it to your skin tone once it’s on,” he explained.

The second time the prosthesis got an outing was not long after we started filming. I turned up at work to find the actor Richard Madden, who plays Robb Stark, dancing around the car park at the Paint Hall studios like a naughty goblin. He was gripping it with both hands and shaking it enthusiastically like a garden hose. Apparently, he’d stolen it from the special effects department.

“Holy God, look at the size of it!” he was shouting to the small assembled crowd of assistant directors and runners, all pissing themselves laughing. “This is yours!” he yelled to me as I walked over.

“Thanks, Richard,” I smiled. I took it in the humor it was intended. And I’ve gotten to know Richard better since then. I like him. He’s a joker who never fails to make me laugh. But that morning when I looked at everyone’s faces, they were laughing with him, not at him. Or that’s how it seemed to me. I don’t know if people will be as kind. I’m dreading finding out. Really dreading it.

The prosthesis is attached with a thin twine—a kind of undignified G-string that secures around my back and bum before it’s plaited in. Sometime down the line some poor sod in postproduction will have to airbrush that out, too. My arse cheeks will probably be in their face for hours. Not a thought I want to dwell on too long either.

Now a pot of glue and a paintbrush appear.

“I thought it just needs plaiting in?” I say to Paul worriedly. In the endless conversations I’ve had about this prosthetic, no one has mentioned anything about glue.

“It’s going to be on for a long time. It needs to be secure,” Paul replies. I can tell by the way he’s softened his voice that he’s treading carefully. Right. Don’t make a fuss, Kristian, I think, but fuck me, it’s painful. The glue gets applied in blobs that stubbornly pull at my pubic hair before it gets worked into the surrounding area. I need more Red Bull, and fast. Thankfully, a can has been delivered. It’s the only thing so far I’ve put my foot down over. I reached my limit with the canteen coffee, and catering have kindly begun stocking energy drinks for me. They’ve nicknamed me “the Red Bull Guy.” I’m alternating sips with shoving a lukewarm bacon sandwich into my mouth.

With my pubic hair plaited and the glue applied it’s now time for the painting of the prosthesis. This seems to take forever. From my vantage point, all I can see is the top of Paul’s head and his brush and powder puff working away below. Periodically, he stands back with his hands on his hips for a good eyeful before rummaging around on the countertop for a different shade of foundation. Down he goes again. This is a day of indignity, get used to it, Kristian, I think.

“Okay, we’re done. Ready to move to set.” Paul finishes off with a dramatic curtsy and hands me back my dressing gown.

“Not so bad, was it?” he says.

“Erm . . . fine,” I reply shakily.

Set. Shit. The time has come.

Excerpted from Beyond the Throne: Epic Journeys, Enduring Friendships, and Surprising Tales by Kristian Nairn. Copyright © 2024 by the author. Reprinted with permission of Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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