“Honestly, I just kind of laugh and sort of act just act as humble as possible. I never know how to react with compliments,” Lino Facioli told BuzzFeed News.

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Game of Thrones actor Lino Facioli was surprised to wake up to an overwhelming number of notifications on his phone on Monday morning. The HBO series finale had just aired in the United States and fans were gushing over the grown-up version of his character, Robin Arryn, whose “glow-up” had many viewers comparing him to Harry Potter’s Neville Longbottom. “I gained more followers in a night than I had in my whole time having Instagram. It just kept on going up and up and up, and that still seems to be the case,” Facioli told BuzzFeed News. “Honestly, I just kind of laugh and sort of just act as humble as possible. I never know how to react with compliments. I love them but it’s always like, how do you react? I really don’t know what to do but I’m enjoying it, I really am.” Facioli, 18, said he was about 8 or 9 years old when he first auditioned for the role of Robin, who was originally supposed to be named Ronald Arryn, and just a few weeks after the audition he accepted the part and started filming in Belfast. Robin Arryn was famous for being the whiny, immature cousin to the Stark children (Robin’s mom Lysa was Catelyn Stark’s sister), who was also the Lord of the Eyrie and the head of House Arryn in the wake of his father’s death. When viewers first meet him in Season 1, Robin’s being breastfed by his mother as a boy, something that became defining in the character’s legacy.

Robin Arryn: a glowup #GameOfThrones

“I find the whole thing quite amusing really,” Facioli said. Filming the breastfeeding scene “wasn’t actually as hard or difficult or stressful as people think it was,” he added. “I love the idea that people find my character so amusing and so bizarre,” he said. “I think there were points when I was growing up that I wasn’t sure about that, I didn’t really know how to handle the reaction I was getting. But I’ve sort of learned to love it and learned to have a laugh at it.” When Facioli first got involved with GoT, he too young to realize how massive the show would be. The actor said he didn’t always know how to make sense of being a part of “something that skyrocketed and reached that level of fame,” especially considering the response to him playing “such an interesting and weird character.” “In the process of learning and seeing people’s reactions, I’ve learned a lot about myself and I’ve become a lot more confident in myself from these experiences,” he said.

After appearing in Season 1, Robin shows up again briefly in Seasons 4, 5, and 6. We don’t see him again until Season 8, Episode 6, “The Iron Throne,” when he travels to King’s Landing. After Jon Snow kills Daenerys Targaryen and leaves Westeros without a queen or king, the leaders of the Seven Kingdoms unite and vote Bran the Broken as the new king As the sole ruler of the Vale since his mother died, Robin’s perspective and vote is needed in this moment, reuniting him with his Stark family members and bringing Facioli back to set for the first time in years. He got a call last May to make a grand return on the show one final time, then spent two weeks filming the scene in Seville, Spain. “The whole thing was just a dream. It’s been such a surreal experience,” Facioli said. “I wasn’t expecting to be called to act in the last season, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make it to the last episode because so much stuff gets cut and changed throughout the process. I’m just really happy that it’s all worked out.” Facioli got to spend time filming with a lot of the main actors, since the King’s Landing scene includes Game of Thrones stars Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, and Isaac Hempstead Wright. The reunion was a welcome one for Facioli, who was thrilled to be with the actors who play the Stark children. “I always felt like I was at home there,” he said. “I always felt like I was with a good group of people and these are people that I’ve known for a while.”