Who of us has not been freaked out just a little by the Night King from the game of thrones? When you consider that he is the commander of an army of the dead, you can really agree that it is by design.

If we can just pop that bubble for a moment, however, it’s interesting to remember that underneath all of the fantasy beats the heart of a real man. In other words, the guy playing the role of the Night King is just a regular dude.

In this case, the man behind the mask is Vladimír Furdík, a 48-year-old Slovakian stuntman.

We’ve seen him do some pretty impressive things on the Game of Thrones, including riding on an ice dragon or raising armies of the dead at Hardhome. If you would like to see some of the other impressive things that he’s done, you can watch other movies that he starred in, such as The Huntsman: Winter War and the Thor: The Dark World.

And here’s something that is sure to blow your mind. When Jon Snow killed the White Walker at Hardhome, it was none other than Vladimír. Of course, that is before he landed the big role.

You might also be interested in that in knowing that the Night King was not always portrayed by Furdík. Richard Brake was the first man to hold that honor.

Between seasons four and five, the role of the hard-core ice-dude was portrayed by Brake before the job was eventually handed off to Furdík.

Furdík had the honor of portraying the Night King on his own merit. It isn’t as if he had to destroy Richard Brake to seal the deal.

The actual issue behind the scenes was scheduling problems. Brake apparently had some issues so the baton was handed off to Furdík.

They do a wonderful job with the makeup and CGI but you can still notice some subtle differences if you look at the pictures closely.

It wasn’t always about makeup. Think about when the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest. You will see Furdík in that scene.

The guy without a shirt who gets the dragonglass shoved into his heart, yeah that’s the guy.

He doesn’t have a speaking part in the show per se but Furdík has been quite vocal about what he feels is going happen in the final season.

Speaking to a Hungarian news website, he discusses what will happen when the Army of the dead finally breaks over Winterfell’s walls: “In the third part of the last season, there is a battle that the creators intend to be the biggest in television history.

“Almost the full episode will be about the battle, it will take about an hour.”

He seems pretty sure of himself but will he be there with his character? I guess we’ll just have to be in our seats to watch and see.