Kristian Nairn will always be known to Game of Thrones fans as Hodor, but that doesn’t mean you’ll catch him playing the show’s theme song at one of his DJ gigs.
“You’ll never hear me play a remix with a Hodor reference,” Nairn, 48, quipped during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly about his new memoir, Beyond the Throne. “I’m not blind to it all. Maybe I should have done that. Maybe I’d be playing for a few hundred thousand people. But I don’t feel that my soul would have allowed me to do it because I’ve been a musician all my life. That was the part that felt a bit cheesy to me.”
Nairn is best known for playing the lovable Hodor on Game of Thrones from 2011 until his character’s death in 2016, but casual fans will learn in his book that he was a musician long before he ever pursued acting. He did do a series of Rave of Thrones gigs at the height of GoT’s popularity in the mid-2010s, but he’s hesitant to revisit those days now that Hodor is firmly in his rearview.
“I’ll play the Game of Thrones theme on my guitar, it’s using one of my other skills,” Nairn explained. “It’s a way just to put that in there, and I really enjoy doing it, so I’ll do something like that with a little nod to it. Whereas on the Rave of Thrones proper tour, there would have been props and stuff, people dressed up, but now that’s probably not the vibe unless it’s a theme party.”
While Hodor fans may be coming to Beyond the Throne for behind-the-scenes tea from Westeros, the memoir is relatively short on gossip. Every other chapter is about GoT, but Nairn has mostly positive things to say about his time on the HBO drama. The more interesting parts of the book focus on his upbringing in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, his loving relationship with his mom and his journey to publicly owning his sexuality. Those personal stories are actually what inspired the entire project, as his manager had encouraged him to write a book after hearing so many of these tales during their time on the road together.
“I remember the day he turned around to me and just said, ‘Kristian, you have to write this down,’” Nairn recalled. “At first I was like, ‘Why?’ Because you never see your life that way. … But as I started to put it down on paper, it sort of became apparent to me that this is a bit strange. And also, I haven’t had really a conventional path to get where I am right now and become who I am, and I wanted to put it in the world that there’s more ways than one to get to your dreams. There’s so many ways, but only the conventional ways are celebrated and publicized. There’s many ways to get to your end goal, and if one person gets that message, I’ll be very happy.”
Nairn isn’t afraid to share painful stories, either, as the book delves into his battle with substance abuse and the “self-loathing” he felt before coming out. But he wasn’t hesitant to include those memories, in part because he hopes his readers will feel comforted by his experiences.
“I’ve been really learning not to have any walls around myself. I’ve been learning not to have barriers and not to pretend to be someone that I’m not, and only to be acting when I’m being paid on camera,” he explained. “I don’t ever pretend to be anybody that I’m not. I don’t really have any secrets, and if I did have, I don’t have anymore. And I always think that putting your stuff out there is valuable — valuable to me and hopefully valuable to somebody else. Just to know that someone else is going through stuff.”
As mentioned, there are plenty of GoT memories in the book, but they’re generally heartwarming: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) making sure Nairn was getting enough rest during filming, Esmé Bianco (Ros) encouraging him before his nude scene. The sweetest parts, however, are about Nairn’s friendship with Isaac Hempstead Wright, who played Bran Stark. Nairn shared nearly all of his scenes with Wright, now 25, and had to literally carry him on his back for many of those.
“I adore that boy,” Nairn told Us. “He’s the little brother I never had. I still feel that way. I think probably to the day we die we’ll be connected. … It was a wonderful thing.”
Beyond the Throne: Epic Journeys, Enduring Friendships, and Surprising Tales, published by Hachette Books, is out Tuesday, September 24.
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