Dorian Kingi: The Performer Inside the Wendigo Suit in Antlers

In Scott Cooper’s horror film Antlers (2021), the monster at the center of the story is a nine-and-a-half-foot creature with a furnace glowing in its chest. Dorian Kingi was the actor inside it. He comes from a Hollywood family: his mother is actress Lindsay Wagner and his father is the longtime stuntman Henry Kingi. He has built his own career in a corner of film acting that audiences rarely credit, playing monsters, aliens and armored figures.

The Wendigo in Antlers

Antlers is directed by Scott Cooper, produced by Guillermo del Toro and based on Nick Antosca’s short story “The Quiet Boy.” Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas and Graham Greene lead the cast. The film is set in a struggling mining town in Oregon, where a teacher discovers that a young pupil is hiding something terrible at home. Kingi is credited as the Antlered Man, the Wendigo of the title.

The film reached theaters in the fall of 2021 after a pandemic-related delay. Fangoria reported that Legacy Effects, led by Shane Mahan, built the creature. Mahan described it as roughly nine and a half feet tall, with eight-foot arms and a head crowned with huge horns.

How a creature like that gets played

The creature had to look heavy but be light enough to work on a real set. Mahan’s team went back to the “garbage bag test” used on Aliens, building a rough wearable structure to see how the creature would move. The performer’s head sat in the chest, and his arms and legs were left exposed in tracking clothing that was removed digitally afterward.

Mahan told Fangoria that Kingi did great in the suit. He said Kingi visited the studio at several stages and climbed into it before the shoot, and that test footage was shot and reviewed. Kingi also brought ideas of his own, so he arrived on set with a clear sense of how to move the creature.

A monster built from rust and embers

The design drew on the setting. Cooper and del Toro decided the Wendigo should look like old iron ore, tied to a story about a town that exploited its land. The chest became a smoldering furnace with a translucent front, and visual effects artists added CGI embers drifting off it. The face was left without eyes. Some shots were fully digital because the suit could not rise from or drop to the floor quickly, so a physical performance had to blend with animation. Cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister’s camerawork kept the physical creature convincing.

The rest of the creature résumé

Kingi’s other work follows the same pattern. He performed the Cad Bane character in The Book of Boba Fett, with the voice supplied by Corey Burton. He played a Russian prison Demogorgon on Stranger Things. He has been billed as the motion-capture double for Tom Hardy in Venom and as a double for RoboCop in the 2014 reboot. A convention biography also lists suit and creature work in Green Lantern and Westworld.

Where his career stands now

His most recent confirmed screen work is Peacemaker season 2, written by James Gunn, which ran on HBO Max from August 21, 2025 to October 9, 2025. Kingi is credited as the Kyphotic Alien, a hunched creature from another dimension. In the premiere it burns a rat-like animal in an incinerator and ignores Peacemaker’s greeting. The part has little dialogue, and the episode credits list him for four appearances across the season. No later credits could be confirmed as of October 2026.

FAQ

Who are Dorian Kingi’s parents?

His mother is actress Lindsay Wagner, known as TV’s Bionic Woman, and his father is stuntman Henry Kingi. He describes himself as a second-generation stunt performer.

Did Dorian Kingi play the Wendigo in Antlers?

Yes. He wore the practical creature suit on set and is credited as the Antlered Man. Digital effects supplemented the suit in shots it could not physically manage.

What was his latest role?

The most recent one confirmed is the Kyphotic Alien in the second and final season of Peacemaker, which finished in October 2025.