Game of Thrones fave Kit Harington returns this Friday in season two of Modern Love, Amazon Prime’s romantic anthology series based on The New York Times‘ popular column of the same name. To whet your appetite, here are some things you might not know about the super-talented actor best known for playing the heroic (most of the time, anyways) Jon Snow.
1. He’s descended from Royalty.
Yes, really. Harington’s eighth great-grandfather was King Charles II of England, who reigned from 1660 to 1685.
2. He is also a descendant of Robert Catesby, the leader of a group of Catholics who tried to overthrow King James I, England’s Protestant monarch, in the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Harington played Robert Catesby in 2017’s Gunpowder, a BBC/HBO miniseries that he also executive produced. Because Harington is also a descendant of King James I – who was Charles II’s grandfather – he can claim ancestry on both sides of the plot.
3. But his background isn’t, he says, as super-fancy as this makes it sound – and he actually went to an English state school.
“Mum and Dad didn’t have the money to send us to private schools, first and foremost, but second, they wouldn’t have wanted to,” Harington told The Guardian in 2017. “They believe in the state system, they believe in the NHS, they believe in state education, and they’ve instilled that in me.”
“I was very middle class: not loads of money, not no money,” Harington added, saying: “One’s family history is one thing, and I’m very proud of my family history, but it doesn’t directly speak of who I am.”
4. He was named after the famous Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.
His full name is Christopher Catesby Harington, but he rarely uses it. “I was called Kit from day one, really, I only found out my name was Christopher when I was 11,” he told Interview magazine in 2012.
5. He realized he wanted to act after seeing Ben Whishaw in a West End production of Hamlet.
“I think he literally was the reason I wanted to act,” Harington told The Journal in 2015, adding that the two actors had met on two occasions at that point. “I’m not usually bad with meeting actors I admire, but I was tongue-tied both times,” Harington said. “I hope I’d be a bit cooler if I met him again.”
6. He was also inspired by his mum, Deborah Jane Catesby, a playwright.
“I wanted to do what Mum did. She was a real hero of mine. Dad as well. But what Mum did specifically,” Harington told The Sunday Times. “Like with any child, you try and do the thing that will get you approval from your parents. Then suddenly it works out and you’re an actor, and a professional actor at that, and you’ve had some success. You’re, like, ‘Well, who am I trying to impress now?'”
7. He claims he has to do something somewhat unusual – and pretty intimate – whenever he sees an ambulance.
Harington shared his idiosyncratic ritual – one of several he has – during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
8. Becoming a parent has been a baptism of fire for him.
Harington and actress wife Rose Leslie – who played Jon Snow’s first love interest, Ygritte – welcomed their first child, a son whose name they are choosing not to reveal publicly, in February of this year. “Like, honestly, my back is wrecked,” Harington told The Sunday Times. “I go to the gym quite a bit, but there’s something about having a child that is the most physically draining thing. My hat goes off to any single parent. Any single parent, you’re a f***ing genius. I don’t know how you do it. Because it’s more exhausting than everything I did on Thrones.”
9. He has spoken candidly about feeling objectified in the past.
During a 2017 interview with The Guardian, Harington apologized for previously likening this objectification to the endemic sexism experienced by women. “Sexism against men is not something I should have really said. I think what I meant was, being objectified. At that time, I did feel objectified, and now I’ve learned how to control that,” he clarified.
Asked how he controls it, Harington replied: “Just shutting it down. Look, I do think men can get objectified. I do feel I have been objectified in the past, sexually as well, in pieces that have been written about me. Has that made me feel uncomfortable in the past? Yes. Do I think my position is the same as a woman’s in society? No. They’re very different things, and I should have separated them. I was wrong.”
10. Filming in London has, in the past, been kind of difficult for him.
Harington explained why during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, teeing up fellow guest Rebel Wilson for a killer punchline.
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