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'Fan favorite' isn't quite strong enough to describe the love audiences have for Kristian Nairn. The Irish DJ and actor, who has portrayed Hodor in Game of Thrones and Wee John Feeney in Our Flag Means Death, is more of a beloved icon, as you well know if you've ever been to one of his brilliantly attended comic con panels. Now, Nairn is getting personal with his many fans, in the form of his upcoming memoir Beyond the Throne, and Popverse had the chance to speak with him about the many stories he tells within. Read on to learn what he had to say.

Popverse: Kristian, why choose now to publish your memoir? What about this moment in your career made you say, "I've got to put this down on paper"?

Kristian Nairn: Well, there's a number of reasons. I have obviously another career as a DJ, and I've been traveling the world with my manager all the time. And we've obviously got to know each other very well, I'm constantly telling him stories about growing up in Belfast and how I got to who I am and where I've got to. And it turns me one day and says, "You've got to write the story from here."

I haven't had a conventional life. Obviously, no one's had a conventional life. I know that we all have our own weird twists and turns, but in my mind, I feel like I've been very lucky to be part of two culturally important shows. Going from not being an actor to that.

I feel very fortunate and very lucky and I think when it comes to your dreams and your aspirations, there's more than one way to frost a cupcake, you know? There's more than one way to get to your end goal. And I certainly didn't follow the conventional path. And I would like people to know that. That you don't have to do things conventionally.

You've said your training to play Hodor in Game of Thrones was, well, "unconventional," as you say. Can you go into that?

I will say that I wasn't given training; I took the training. It wasn't like someone set me aside at a small desk, you know, with a PowerPoint presentation. I had studied some acting in college before, but I very quickly realized that it wasn't enough. But I was surrounded by these greats of British international TV and film, and then there was me. 

And I thought, "This is the time to either sink or swim, so why not become a sponge rather than sinking?" You know, try to soak it all up? I mean, with music, I always find it very easy to pick up things from other people - techniques, styles, that kind of thing. I find it similar with acting; I was watching people like Ron Donachie and Donald Sumpter and Diana Rigg. It's like a dream cast, so it would be absolutely idiotic not to use them as, like, coaches in a way. I'd just watch what they were doing. They're experienced, experienced professionals; and that's what I tried to do.

And not to even imagine for a second that I'm anywhere in the echelons of their Shakespearian talent, but I definitely try to rub a bit off on myself.

I think a lot of people would argue you're absolutely in those echelons. But okay; you're on set and taking all this stuff in. What would really surprise Game of Thrones fans about your experience on the show?

The separation between all of our people. I always imagined that we all act together and we see each other all the time. But the separation, especially with our little group - we never saw anybody. We were always on the side of a mountain like we were in season three. We were always on the run, pretty much.

[Acting is] hard. It's physically hard. It's mentally hard. And I've done regular jobs, too. I'm not - I didn't fall into this from a theater family; I do have a reference here. It is hard and you need to have a passion to do it. I believe it's not just something that you wake up and think, "Yeah, I'm going to be an actor."  But it is a wonderful profession and I feel very, very, very lucky.

When I worked [on Game of Thrones] for the first time, that was actually quite collaborative, how that happened. I wasn't sure how many ideas for that would go down, but they actually ended up becoming part of canon. So yeah, just as I got more confident over the seasons, I definitely put forward more opinion. You know, once I got to know the character better. But also, I learned not to be afraid to ask the director, because you might just be told, "No, no, that's a terrible idea. Shut up." 

But sometimes it works.

Ok, I want to bring up the comic cons you attend, where you're a favorite person for people to meet. Do you ever get tired of all the crowds and the business and the spectacle?

I mean, physically and mentally, yes, but not in the way that I'm, like, "tired of this," if that makes sense. These people are spending their hard-earned money, which is especially tough in today's society and the way things are. I appreciate them being there and I want them to know that. I used to be one of the sweaty masses myself; I used to come to Comic-Con. I was one of those weirdos who actually buys comics at Comic-Con. So it's just a jump across the table for me, which has been a bit of a trip.

Any particular cons that you like really loved?

So many. And sometimes you can go to a con and then you'll go back in and it's not as good as the last time or it's better than the last time. So it's kind of hard to say. I will say that I do enjoy the cons in the northwest of this country. I like the Seattle cons. Maybe I'm just biased because I like the weather up there; that's probably why - it reminds me of home. But those conventions are great. All conventions are great. If anyone has spent their money to see me, I am going to have a good time.

Speaking of home: I know that a lot of this book is going to be you talking about your experiences in Lisburn and Belfast. Do you do you make it back very often? And if so, what do those places mean to you now?

I still live there! I live there for a reason. I never felt like moving. I never felt like moving to Los Angeles like everybody does. Maybe not so much anymore, but people definitely moved away to Los Angeles for some reason. But yes, I just feel connected to my home and I'm happy to commute.

I love to be home. I don't go on holidays. My holiday is being at home playing computer games in a dark room. That's very unhealthy, but that's what I do. Ireland's a very special place. And I always bring my friends from America to it, that always hammers home to me how wonderful it is, how beautiful it is. They never want to leave. so I'm very proud to be from that part of the world.

Changing subjects - I know part of this book is about your experience on Our Flag Means Death. What do you think fans of the show will be surprised by in your writing?

We all talk very candidly with our fans from Our Flag Means Death and I think a lot of us have connected with the fandom. I didn't talk about the cancellation or anything, mainly because I had basically finished the book by then. I'm just going to be completely honest - I felt a bit bad about it. I don't enjoy the fact that we got canceled and I wanted the book to be a more positive experience. I didn't want to put that in there, because I know a lot of the fans are cut up about it, too. I mean, I've seen the evidence only yesterday.

But [the fans] know how tight we were as a crew. And how tight we are as people, I'd say, still. So I don't think that's going to come as a surprise. But yeah, there's definitely some behind-the-scenes stuff, just more about the process and how we created the characters and how that changed over time. And also the level of improvisation we did. I think that will become apparent.

Can you go into one of those improvised moments?

A lot of the mythos behind Wee John - and a lot of the mythos behind our characters - was built on just something we might have said flippantly. And then it came into season 2. That happened with a lot of our characters, mainly because Taika is so collaborative. Everything is off-book, really.

So the scene where we're making the flags in the first episode, I believe. It was never scripted that Wee John had made clothes or was any sort of tailor. But I was just surrounded with all this fabric and I was like, you know, "he's a big guy. I don't want to play him like the typical big guy. So he's going to be obsessed with this fabric." That led to me messing around with the fabric. That led to him becoming the ship's tailor. That led to the Calypso thing, you know? It all sort of dominoes after that. It's just so, so important to this collaboration; Wee John would be a completely different character if that hadn't been said.

How so? 

Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, season 2 he was really leaned in to the the whole tailor thing and the sort of the "anti-big guy" thing. So yeah it was wonderful to see that.

Before we move on from Our Flag Means Death; what do you think it would take to get a third season?

It's down to the fans, I think. And they're doing exactly the right thing. Every time I go to a convention or an online thing, it just seems to be still growing. People are still showing the show to other people. It's getting bigger and bigger.

I'm always 100% careful not to give any false hope, because I really don't have any. That's the truth; I don't have any information. As a totally off-record thing, while being on record, (that's the most Irish thing I've ever said), I could see it happening.

I would pack my case tomorrow and then be back to Auckland [EDITOR'S NOTE - Auckland is where OFMD filmed]. You know, I initially didn't enjoy my time in Aukland. I felt very isolated because it was so far away from home, but like by three weeks, I had fallen in love with Auckland and I would go back tomorrow. New Zealand is just, yeah, you need to visit if you haven't been. It's a wonderful place.

Last question - I know you talk about your drag persona, Revvlon, in Beyond the Throne. Can you give people who might not be familiar just a snippet of her history, and how she's going to feature?

There's no way I could write a story without Revvlon being featured. I'm going to talk about her as if she's a different person, I know that's crazy, believe me. It's okay; I know I'm crazy, so it's fine.

She was a fixture in my life that needed to happen. And it's not an imagination construct. Like, I made it real. That was basically like getting the kick out the door, you know? I'd reached an apex in life - was I going to retreat into my shell forever or I was going to, for want of a better word, come bursting out with a bit of an attitude? Because I think that after after my teenage years, I think I deserve to have a bit of an attitude as a character.

Revvlon gave me... I almost see her as, like, one of those like Renaissance dressing screens? You get dressed behind that, but you can still see behind it. I see her as one of those. I went in behind that and got myself into my final form. She provided the safety and the confidence to do that, then I realized then the screen was no longer necessary; I was able to do it for myself.

But I still see the value. I'm not saying that I'll never do it again. That's not true. I think it probably will at some stage, but it's not in the cards at the moment. That was a very important part of my personal and professional evolution, so there's no way I couldn't put it in the book 

Beyond the Throne is available in bookstores across the US. Order it on Amazon now.

House of the Dragon season 2 may be over, but Popverse is still in the Westeros spirit, and we've got more Game of Thrones articles than could fit on a spiky chair. We'll tell you how to watch through the Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon saga in order, or if you're so inclined, read through it. We've dug through and exhumed the biggest differences between the two HBO shows set in Westeros, and gotten an inside look at them from House of the Dragon's prop designers. We've covered the history of Westeros's greatest houses & families, talked you through every single dragon in House of the Dragon so far, and peered into the future regarding A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO's upcoming GoT spinoff, and we've got much, much more on the way.