Ian Whyte
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Ian Stuart Whyte (born September 17, 1971, raised in Brighton, England) is a Welsh actor, puppeteer, and stuntman standing 7 feet 1 inch (216 cm) tall. Before entering the entertainment industry he had a successful career as a professional basketball player, competing across Europe and earning 80 caps for the England national team, including a championship season with FC Porto in 1996 to 1997 and a six-year spell with the Newcastle Eagles. He retired from basketball in 2003 and transitioned into stunt work and acting.
Whyte became well known for physically demanding roles requiring exceptional size and presence. He portrayed various Predator characters in the Alien vs. Predator franchise, the Last Engineer in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012), Sheikh Suleiman in Clash of the Titans (2010), and multiple characters across several seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones, including White Walkers, the giant Wun Wun, and a speaking role as Gregor Clegane in season 2.
In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) Whyte served as the puppeteer for Garraka, the ancient death chill entity who serves as the film's central supernatural threat. In the lore of the film, Garraka is a phantom god who fought alongside the warlord Samudari approximately 4,000 years ago before turning against humanity. His horns, the source of his greatest power, were ripped from his head; he then channeled human fear into a weapon called the Death Chill and was ultimately imprisoned inside a brass orb by a band of mythical spirit catchers known as the Fire Masters. His first act after escaping captivity in the present day is to enter Firemaster Smoke N Vape and kill the shop clerk with a freezing icicle after mistaking the store's name for a reference to the ancient order that imprisoned him. Whyte's physical performance on set provided the foundation for the creature's movements before visual effects completed the character. Garraka subsequently appeared as a playable Overlord entity in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, released as the fifth DLC on March 26, 2024, and is referenced in Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord.