Ser Gregor Clegane, or “The Mountain That Rides,” is a monster…in more ways than one, as anyone who’s read George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series or watched HBO’s Game of Thrones can tell you. The character has been played by three different actors over the course of the series, the most recent being Hafthor Bjornsson, a physical specimen out of Iceland. But unlike the character he’s playing, Hafthor is not a monster at all (at least not intentionally—let’s face it, at 6 ft 9 in tall and 421 lbs, you’re gonna be f’n terrifying from time to time whether you mean to or not).

Bjornsson went all out for one three-year-old’s birthday party, getting his entire body painted to make him look like The Incredible Hulk. Despite being a fan of the Marvel superhero, the child was quite frightened (because see above), but Hafthor took photos with whoever was willing to get close enough.

You can see a video of the Incredible Hulk transformation and birthday party appearance below, plus a bonus video of Hafthor deadlifting almost 1,000 lbs, which is why he gets to be The Mountain and Hulk.

While Hafthor Bjornsson is a massive human being to most people, in Iceland it’s rather common to be a giant. He wasn’t always a giant, however. Just a few years back he was playing basketball (apparently this was him, believe it or not) and has only been in strongman mode for the past handful of years. You can watch a short documentary on the strongmen of Iceland by VICE right here, and can see more on Hafthor starting at the 12:33 mark.

You can also read the amusing AMA he did on Reddit.

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[Source: Uproxx via Kotaku]