In Ridley Scott’s 2012 science fiction film Prometheus, a group of astronauts travel to a distant planet. They are guided by a series of ancient cave paintings discovered on Earth. It seems that large, god-like aliens visited Earth many thousands of years ago and left behind a map that humanity could eventually follow to their homeworld. It may have taken several millennia for us to develop long-distance space travel, but we finally have the means to follow the map.

Of course, when the astronauts arrive, they find strange, brutal things that they cannot understand. The large god-like aliens they call the Engineers are all dead. They were killed by a menagerie of genetically modified creatures of their own creation. Some unusual evidence leads the astronauts to believe that the Engineers were preparing to travel to Earth with a cargo of killer monsters, hoping to populate our planet with them and kill us all. Why would the Engineers take us to a faraway planet while simultaneously planning to wipe us out? Surprisingly, it has something to do with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The Engineers look like statues, with strangely statuesque facial features and alabaster-white skin. They are majestic, inscrutable and menacing, especially because of their enormous size. Engineers are about 3 meters tall.

The actor who played the engineer in Prometheus, Ian Whyte, was not 10 feet tall, but only 7 feet 5 inches. Whyte is a Welsh actor who has specialized in portraying aliens, monsters and other beasts throughout his career. He played the central Predator in 2004’s Alien vs. Predator and was Chewbacca’s stunt double in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. He played various revenants and creatures in Game of Thrones, and Frances de la Tour’s face was digitally implanted into his body for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Whyte was interviewed by GQ in 2021 and gave a brief commentary on each of his famous monster roles.

For the role of the Engineer, Whyte was given full makeup, although the character was clearly digitally retouched and not just to make him three feet taller. (Numerous websites have behind-the-scenes photos of Whyte in his Engineer makeup.) Whyte’s roles often require him to wear masks and makeup, so it’s difficult to find a screenshot of his handsome face. He played the stone-skinned Slieman in the Clash of the Titans remake and the ape monster Oozaru in Dragon Ball: Evolution. The image above shows Whyte as Gregor Clegane, aka the Mountain, in Game of Thrones. He took over the role in Season 2 from Conan Stevens, who played the Mountain in the series’ first season. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson later replaced Whyte as the character in Season 4.

Whyte has only pleasant memories of working on Prometheus, although he was quick to admit that the film is somewhat controversial among fans of Alien. The film is a prequel of sorts, and many viewers rejected its heady ideas and confusing plot developments. As Whyte noted:

“I really enjoyed working with Ridley Scott. I thinkPrometheus’ the impossible achieved in the division ‘Foreigner’ Fans of Ridley Scott fans. It was expected to be more of an ‘Alien’ film than a Ridley Scott film, (but) it was definitely more of a Ridley Scott film than an ‘Alien’ film. It was more intellectual.”

And he’s right. Prometheus doesn’t work well as a traditional science fiction thriller, but many (including the author) were intrigued by the film’s strange imagery, enigmatic monster story and provocative religious undertones.

In Prometheus, the engineers speak their own unusual, alien language, and Whyte actually had to learn a few phrases for the film. It seems that the language, while not a fully written artificial language, still required a historical linguist. Whyte recalled what he had to do in that throat to speak in an otherworldly language:

“We had a linguist from a university in London. She spent months developing a language for the aliens based on a root language about 10,000 years old, just before European and Asian languages ​​started to branch out on their own. So there were a lot of clicks and guttural sounds coming from my throat that I had to find deep down.”

The Engineers, remember, were on Earth thousands of years ago and are said to have influenced human development. In fact, a prologue even suggests that humans are the result of the Engineers’ DNA, planted on Earth millions of years ago. Therefore, the Engineers’ language was not an alien language created out of thin air, but a backwards extrapolation of known ancient Earth languages. Whyte’s voice, like his face, was a little digitally distorted, but the lines were his. There was more reality to the Engineers than meets the eye.

Whyte has continued to play warriors and creatures since then. Most recently he puppeteered the central monster in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” and has returned frequently to “Star Wars,” playing various characters in “Andor,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Whyte, now 52, ​​has a long history of portraying monsters. May he continue until he retires.