Curtain Call: Ian Whyte

It might be a bit premature to do a Curtain Call for Ian Whyte. After all, he’s been here before. Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun (Wun Wun for short) may be the latest character he’s played on Game of Thrones, but he’s appeared on the show in several guises. He’s played a White Walker twice, first in the pilot episode, and then in in “Valar Morgulis,” looking down from his dead horse at poor, cowering Sam.

Whyte Walker

He also played the second Gregor Clegane, the tall, kind of skinny-looking one from Season 2.

That’s Whyte, as Gregor Clegane, talking to Tywin in the back.

Then, in Seasons 3 and 4, he played the giant known as Dongo the Doomed.

You may also remember Dongo shooting a big freaking arrow during the Battle of Castle Black.

And then, in Season 5, he played Wun Wun, and made his way into viewers’ hearts. We didn’t know a whole lot about Wun Wun, but we didn’t need to know much to like him. He was funny in “Hardhome,” when he asked Dolorous Edd, in the Old Tongue, just what the f*** he was looking at. And he was clearly useful—if you’re going to fight an army of the undead, it can’t hurt to have a log-swinging giant on your side.

But there was also a certain sweetness to Wun Wun, too. When Jon asked the wildlings to march on Winterfell with him in “The Broken Man,” Wun Wun was the first to step forward. “Snow,” he said, and that pretty much settled it. As the giant goes, so goes anybody who doesn’t want to get squashed to death.

At 7’1”, Ian Whyte cuts an imposing figure. He used to play basketball, and when a casting director came round looking for tall dudes to play Predators in Alien vs. Predator, he decided to make a go of acting and hasn’t looked back since.

Many of Whyte’s roles have been based around the fact that he is very tall. He played the imposing engineer in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, and doubled for Madame Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—no joke. And obviously, the producers of Game of Thrones took his height into consideration when casting the role of a giant. (Whyte confirmed that Wun Wun is around 14 feet tall, by the way.) As Wun Wun, Whyte did most of his acting in front of a green screen.

"It’s quite an intricate process because we have to match everything that’s shot before – all the human action, the big battle – with what I then later do. So they know where the horse is going to be, it’s just a case of overlaying my performance on top of the existing footage."

Even with all that remove, Whyte still managed to convey Wun Wun’s inner humanity and make a connection with audiences, and we were broken up when he finally fell, pierced through the eye by one of Ramsay Bolton’s arrows.

Wun Wun might be gone, and may the Old Gods rest his soul, but Whyte may yet return. Let’s hope the next character he plays meets a happier fate.