While speaking on a panel in 2014, Nairn revealed that he had to prove he was strong enough to play Hodor: "I got a 15-minutes notice. . . . I was at a restaurant having a lunch and my agent called me. He said, 'Well, we need to find a child . . . for you to carry' and I had to go to a 40th birthday party where there was a child. And there was a ring of 40-year-old women around me [at the audition] and I was carrying this random child who I didn't know. And they were all calling me in different directions and I was trying to demonstrate different emotions. And then I had to lift a table above my head to prove I was strong enough for the job."
